Corpse Worlds

It is often the case that a Night Road connects a dead realm to a living one. These ruined worlds fall for many reasons: tremen- dous wars, cataclysmic weapons, monstrous plagues, or a cata- strophic lapse in natural law created by damage to the celestial engines that were to support it. Some lack even sunlight and air, while others are gray tomb-worlds with rotting cities and charnel fields of the fallen. Fabulous treasures can be found in these corpse worlds, but so too can the horrors that destroyed it in the first place. Undead are a common threat, to say nothing of the Uncreated that creep in through the realm’s thinning skin. Other worlds still retain a thin skimming of inhabitants who survive by cannibalizing the last scraps of sustenance, if not each other. The natural laws can prove treacherous as well, when sounds suddenly turn to jagged blades that fill the air, or gravity turns as sadistic as a cat. A few realms are actually physically collapsing as the celestial engines that supported their existence are spinning down into decay. A dead world has no reasonable hope. Whatever efforts its inhabitants made to escape their doom failed, and all that is left is to wait for the inevitable final silence. For a Godbound hero, however, things might be different. Perhaps they can reach the sundered hall of Heaven where the realm’s celestial engines are located and repair the faltering devices, or drive out the forces that are interfering with their operation. Efforts in the world itself might revive a decaying ecosystem or reignite a sun that has guttered and died. Such feats of resurrection would be a tremendous labor even for a divinity, but with a Godbound’s aid all hope is not yet lost.

Type

Dimensional plane