Death's doggy door
Thread Topic: Death's doggy door
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I can't tell if my naming skills are getting better or worse :D
This is basically a side thread for the Death roleplay
I'm gonna post information about the Nethwerworld here because I really be extra like that, making unnecessary details and hashing out stuff that will probably never even come up in the roleplay.
I might even draw a map later if I feel up to it -
f--- yes
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You can ask any questions here too!!
About the souls
They look humanoid, they're dressed in whatever clothes they were wearing when they died. The only difference from a human's soul and their human self is that the souls are very glowy and translucent. The souls feel like slime and they are slightly malleable.
When a soul is "killed" they actually revert into a simpler form, a little glowy ball (think soul eater because I'm too lazy to really describe it) and the soul stays in this ball form until they are transferred to an object (done by mortems, usually)
There's a certain spell you have to recite (usually done by whispering, it's not a big ceremonial deal or anything) to transfer the soul-ball into an object. Mortems know this spell by heart; they are taught it at the earliest age possible, it's sometimes said as a bedtime story from mortem parents to mortem children.
Souls can't be tranferred to an object in their regular forms, they have to be tranferred while in their soul-ball forms, so that's why mortems regularly team up with tenebris and perderents in hunting parties (hunting parties are small groups that go after souls or ghouls, I'll describe ghouls in another post)
Mortems can also work alone, though this is rare.
Souls in objects
The process of a soul turning into a ghoul ceases while the soul is in an object, in fact, the process freezes entirely. The soul doesn't ever remember being in the object, so it's not like it causes any mental harm to the soul. The soul is "asleep" or.. like, in a coma, while in an object.
The soul can only come out of the object when, again, a spell in recited. Either that, or they're dropped off at the ignis trials (there's a special place where almost as soon as you walk into it souls come out of your object, it's at the entrance of the trials. You regularly see mortems there, dropping off souls)
Soul collecting objects
Normally there is a limit of one soul per item, but some special items can hold unlimited amounts of souls. Some select few mortems like to "collect souls" and boast about how many souls they have in one object. This is looked down upon in mortem society and mortem objects holding too many souls are hunted down and eventually brought to the ignis trial entrance so they can be freed. A special unlimited soul holding items is often referred to as a "comedenti"
The comedentis uses to be a huge problem, but I'll get into those when I post about the history of the Netherworld -
Ghouls (Part 1)
It is a slow process for souls to become ghouls. Depending on the mental state of the soul and depending on how they died, the time it takes to become a ghoul varies greatly. It may only take a few days for a soul to become a ghoul if the soul had depression, anxiety, another mental illness, or trauma when they were alive. Likewise, it may only take a few days for a soul to become a ghoul if they died in a traumatic way (like being kidnapped, being tortured) or if they died and they desperately want to be alive again for unfinished business (like souls who have been murdered who want to seek revenge, or for souls who died extremely unexpectedly)
It usually takes around 2 weeks for your average soul to become a ghoul. A very old soul (someone who might've died peacefully of old age and expected+accepted death) might last as long as a month or more before becoming a ghoul.
How can you tell?
This is something mortem, tenebris, and perderent specialize in, the things they study as children before going into the field. Souls usually have telltale signs before becoming a ghoul.
-A day before a soul becomes a ghoul, it's body will become a bit more solid rather than slimy, and it will become a little more opaque. The difference is barely noticed by the untrained eye
-Right before turning into a ghoul, some hours beforehand, a soul's eyes will start to turn black (starting around the edges of the eyeball, sometimes in the center. It spreads slowly, and the whole eyes turn black when the soul is a ghoul)
-The stage where a soul has almost completely become a ghoul is when the hands and legs of the soul turns black. The blackness creeps into the rest of the soul's body until it eats them up entirely.
When the eyes and body of the soul is pitch black, that's when you've got yourself a ghoul.
What is it? How is it killed? Can it become a soul again?
A ghoul is a corrupted soul, basically. Souls aren't meant to stay in the Netherworld permanently. The best way I can explain it is like fog. There's a fog in the Netherworld that is poisonous to human souls, and if they stay in it for too long they get affected by it. Infernum can stay in the fog for eternity because they're fueled by it and they adapted to it millennia ago. Of course that's just an analogy, the Netherworld isn't actually foggy (unless it's a foggy day I guess).
Ghouls are much more harder to "kill" than souls. Ghouls are shadowy and their form can shapeshift, but even though they look soft if you try to cut it the skin is too thick and hard to cut through unless you saw at it (which you probably won't have time to do, they're vicious and battle towards all those that come near)
There are 3 ways to kill a ghoul: The first is to find it's heart and cut, burn, squash, or electrocute it. Much harder than it sounds because the heart is underneath the tough skin of the ghoul. Second way is to pour holy water onto any part of the ghoul (which is extremely hard to come by, because of course there aren't really any churches in the Netherworld. The only way to get holy water is to travel to the human world, which very few get the permission to do). The third and probably the most common way to kill a ghoul is to simply say an incantation, which all infernum know by heart. Sounds simple, but even that is difficult because once you get to like the third word of the incantation the ghoul recognizes the threat and goes into frenzy mode, focusing all of it's attention on the person saying the incantaion. That's why when hunting parties encounter a ghoul they usually pick someone out to say the incantation (the one who probably has the least amount of fighting skills) while the other/s holds back the ghoul by battling it or trapping it. The incantation takes a little over a minute to say.
The ghoul doesn't really die, but rather it too becomes a tiny ball (the only difference between a soul ball and a ghoul ball is that the ghoul ball is black ) and then the ball travels to the human world and gets reborn as a reincarnated human. Sounds great, right? It's not. The corruption from the Netherworld carries on into the human and the little baby is born evil. The human is destined to grow up with trauma, or causing trauma to others. When they die, there is no soul, and they don't go to the Netherworld. The ghoul just goes into a different baby. The more ghouls there are, the more corrupt human society becomes.
Ghouls can't become a soul again. This is why it's important to the infernum race as a whole to keep the souls in line and the system in order, because once a soul becomes a ghoul, they stay a ghoul and keep causing corruption. Various attempts have been made by the infernum to make ghouls good again but so far nothing has worked.
(I'm making this into a part one and I'll do part 2 later because I'm tired) -
I'm so invested, this is really interesting and makes the world so much more cool!!
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Thanks dark :D I'll be sure to make part 2 for ghouls later today, I'll be describing how they look and what makes them all look the way they do
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Before we get to ghouls part 2: HERE'S THE NAMES OF COUNCIL MEMBERS + THEIR DESIGNATED TARGETS
Tenebris representative: Enna
He and his secretly recruited little brother is going after Ethelyn. Both are wearing crow masks
Sanguinem representative: Adelaide
She is targeting Luwanna and intends to not really fight, but rather to change Luwanna's mood and quickly end the battle. She is wearing a jellyfish mask (don't have a picture for it, so I'll describe it) it's more like a veil, the tentacles cover her face and even if they are moved or swayed you can see that she has on a white mask underneath
Mortem representative: Fir
He's gonna murder Azariah. He knows that even he, a council member, is no match for a sanguinem, so he has a magic item to help him out that will hinder both of their powers. Even with his power hindered though he'd beat Azariah because he's the mortem council member and he has more fighting experience. He has a spiderweb mask that doesn't really cover his face at all, but the sanguinem will be blind since their powers will be hindered and sanguinem rarely open their eyes.
Perderent representative: Hornet
He's about to kill Joti, he's wearing a cat mask.
Ignis representative: Mishel
She is going after Eldgrimr and her elemental is fire. Easily the most powerful ignis, more often than not when an ignis is born with fire powers they are destined to be on the council and they are pampered from birth (ignis are "bringers of fire" after all). She is wearing a butterfly mask
I'm giving everyone the liberty of controlling the council member that is attacking all of your individual characters; have fun with the member and give them a wild personality if you wish!
-The reason Mishel isn't going after Joti, or why Adelaide isn't going after Azariah is because the council members are often involved in their kingdoms, and if I'd sent the mortem council member after Eldgrimr then Eldgrimr would recognize Fir immediately, same for everyone else and their kingdom's council member.
There's a history behind the masks too, but I'll get to that whenever I get around to posting the history of the infernum haha -
Ghouls (Part 2)
I really should sleep, but I got the new semester of school in a few hours and I'm not ready to go back smh. I'll type to ease my nerves then I'll sleep, promise!
Ghouls vary in how they look. Some grow to be huge, black monsters rampaging through cities while others shrink to be black rabbit-sized creatures that are hard to find and to catch.
There are animals in the Netherworld, but they have a gray tint to them, they're slightly more desaturated in color compared to animals from the human world. Ghouls that resemble animals though are fully and completely black, so it's easy to tell the difference between the two.
Ghouls grow bigger whenever they have ample amounts of negative energy. Souls that turn into ghouls quickly usually turn into large ghouls. In contrast, souls that turn into ghouls slowly will end up being a small ghoul.
(There's a bedtime story infernum tell to their children about large ghouls and small ghouls, but I'll tell that in a later post because I refuse to type that much.)
Sometimes ghouls resemble certain animals, while other times a ghoul can shape to be a globby monster, or a creature that doesn't exist. Ghouls that turns into animals are ghouls who had clarity while being a soul; they may be filled with trauma or negative emotions but they were smart enough to know what was going on and they knew what position they were in.
In contrast, ghouls who turned into globby monsters or nonexistent creatures had no clue what was going on. They are the most heartbreaking ghouls, for they were more than likely children when they died, specifically children who suffered while alive. They were confused, they had no sense of what was going on or why bad things were happening to them. Either that, or the ghoul was an adult who didn't know how they died (maybe they were murdered with a bag over their head, or maybe it happened too fast for them to know)
A good mortem, tenebris, and perderent can tell you a little bit about a person just by looking at the ghoul and by knowing how long it was a soul beforehand.
▪Example: A ghoul with no distinct shape, it's huge and it's just recently turned, but it's been a soul for only a day or two. Probably a child who suffered terrible trauma during their short lifetime
▪Example: A ghoul is about the size of a rat, but it's in the exact shape of a beetle, it doesn't look like it can do much harm, and it was a soul for over a month. Probably someone old who died predictably and without much bad in their life -
I have a question. You said Mortem's have an oath to always cover their face, so what happens if someone sees their face, whether accidentally or on purpose?
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will respond to the rp tomorrow
bumping in case Kat didn't catch your question -
I caught it :D and typed it out, about to copy and paste it here ::
Good question @Roboticlus!
When a mortem's mask is removed or if someone sees their face it will cause a number of things to happen.
1. They attract the attention of every ghoul and soul in the Netherworld. It's instant, and it's unavoidable. Every soul just suddenly knows where the mortem is. It's like a huge spotlight.
-This happens because upon becoming an official mortem the souls will start to feel their presence like a beacon, because there's an energy that the mortems give off alerting the soul that the mortem has captured souls before. The mortem masks are enchanted and it disperses this energy; so the souls are unaware of the mortem's presence.
2. The above option is just when it's removed, if the mask were to become invisible or something then the person who sees the mortem's face would feel awful pain, like their soul is being torn in half. The face of a mortem messes a person's very soul up; you're basically staring into death. If they keep staring for too long they soon begin to get illusions (visual, sensory, and auditory. It seems very real) of their worst fears
Of course if you remove the mask AND someone sees the mortem, both of these things happen! Few people come out of the second scenario with their sanity intact.
And we all know about the thing with mortem eyes; long story short, just don't look into them :D
Mortem are probably the most "evil" or atleast the most evil-powered of all the infernum, but most of these frightening powers form because of the soul collecting. Mortem children who come of age (14) all go through a ritual (more like a trial) Where they go with a professional mortem and they collect 9 souls. Once they have 9 they kind of "graduate" and at the graduation the high class mortems give them their 10th soul and a mortem mask of their choosing (specially crafted just for them!) When a mortem collects 10 souls they kind of become "official mortems" and that's when they get the scary powers and the beacon energy.
This is probably important to note: Not everyone who goes through the mortem trial pass. Just cause you're born a mortem doesn't mean you'll be collecting souls, same goes for the other kingdoms. When people fail they often give up upon realizing how hard it is and they pursue another career. The only exception is the sanguinem, and some ignis.
It's a whole society- There are people with other jobs, people who sell things, people who craft, artists, musicians, clothing lines, shoemakers, blacksmiths, etc.
Important to note: Most mortem don't actually know what happens if they remove their mask. It's just tradition for them, passed down through centuries and deeply ingrained in their ancestry. If a mortem removes the mask, and thereby breaking the code of honor, they can get "banished" (more on that later)
The only exception to all of this is when a mortem sleeps. The beacon energy of a mortem desperses on it's own when a mortem gets really tired, so right before going to sleep they can remove their mask. In the past mortems have been experimented on and drugged to see if just keeping them in a tired or relaxed state can keep the energy dispersed without the use of the mask (more about that later too, whenever I talk about history because oohhhh boy it's quite a bit) -
Okay but wtf happens when my character actually dies katqueen
Once your character dies they will immediately go into soul-ball form (skip the regular-looking soul form entirely because the weapons the counsel members use are special like that) then the counsel members collects the soul and go to the ignis trials (Ignis trials is a building, it's called the ignis trials because that's were humans souls go to get to the Upper)
Once there they take a take a secret passage down and go to the counsel room and wait for the other members to show with their respective souls. The counsel room is just what it sounds like, a big business room with a table for meetings and whatnot.
In the counsel room would also be Androni, who is the oldest Infernum. She is often called the "elder", and she's not the head of the counsel (there is no true head, the counsel is there to work together equally) but she's very well-respected and listened to. Even though infernum don't really age, she looks to be in her late 40s or early 50s. -
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Thank god this got bumped and not locked! I'll respond right away.
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Infernum
Infernum are basically immortal, it's extremely hard for them to get killed. However, ghouls have the ability to easily kill an infernum, which is one of the reasons why they're so dangerous.
Infernum children are rarely born. Even if you have a romantic/sexual partner, the chances of becoming pregnant are slim.
If you do become pregnant though, it's a huge celebration of new life (there's usually a "baby shower"- but think a baby shower 10 times bigger and more festive, the whole neighborhood, sometimes the whole kingdom, gets involved)
On average an infernum child is born once a year.
The aging for the infernum usually stops whenever they're in their 20s, because an infernum's body stays at their maximum potential (roaring 20s haha) and 20s are when people are fully developed adults, but not breaking down of old age.
Infernum don't have to technically eat, but if they do they don't really get "overweight". There are definitely different body sizes and whatnot, some infernums have a solid zaftig body shape, but they can't get obese to the point that it's unhealthy. An infernum's body is designed to stay at it's maximum potential, and obesity would hinder that so the body begins to shut down foods if infernums eat excessively (like, they throw up immediately. The body just shuts down anything that's making them gain weight)
Infernum only really use the restroom if they choose to eat or drink. If an infernum chooses not to eat they will feel slight hunger, but not enough to hinder or pain them.
Infernum do sleep though, it's a requirement, a recharge period. Infernum can also dream, but it's kinda rare. Unlike human dreams, which are mostly nonsense, Infernum dreams can more often than not be prophecies and visions of the past, present, or future. Just like human dreams though, the Infernum individual can hardly remember what it was about, or the exact words that were said.
As for daily and average life, the Netherworld is like 5 or 6 large human cities. There are skyscrapers and suburbs, but also a lot of space and empty fields and forests.
Here's the name of a few places:
The Red Zone, a common hangout spot for Perderent. It's like a town square, but there's always blood on the ground and it has been converted into a hangout, with a few shops on its sides and music playing. They say a ghost battle rages there every night, because no matter how much they clean the grounds, the blood always appears fresh again the next morning.
The Temple, also, a hangout place, but this one for sanguinem. The sanguinem are rare, but you can go into this temple and find atleast 10 in there. Other infernum are welcome there, and they often go to get their fortunes told. This temple is withered and old, but somehow still standing.
Nyx City, the largest city and the main living area for most infernum. The Ignis Trials is on the edge of this city.
The Gate, this is a few ways away from the Ignis Trials, but this is where humans who have just died come through and into the Netherworld. The Gate is watched over by a few sanguinem and the souls are guided to the Ignis Trials by mortem and tenebris.
The Underground, this is an underground network of black markets and illegal activity. It's less of a single place, but more so many places and dark alleyways and unlit taverns. Infernum sometimes travel here to trade or fight in order to earn money or souls (using souls as currency is definitely illegal, but some infernum do it anyway)
The Silver Forest, this forest takes up about 1/5 of the Netherworld, it's huge, but infernum try to avoid traveling in it as much as possible. The legend goes that the forest is riddled with beasts and monsters. Some have claimed that the ghouls that reside there are unkillable, because the ghouls are old, ancient, and powerful.
The Whispering Mountain, this mountain is where most banished infernum end up living (not a lot get banished, it's very rare). The legend goes that the banished infernum of the past have died and that their souls cried out desperately to be accepted back into society. These screams happen so often that the mountain has grown to copy them and whisper the desperate shouts into those who are close enough. Some infernum have returned from the mountain, but by then they have gone insane due to the incessant whispers.
There are definitely more places, but I've conclusively decided that I'll eventually draw a map for the Netherworld, so I'll get into them whenever I get around to posting it :3
I'll probably make a post about infernum history next, how they came to be, what their purpose is, etc. I might also talk about the rest of the world. Like, are angels a thing here? Demons? Ghosts, up in the human world? No, kinda, and definitely yes!
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