Realm of The After

The End.

New souls are said to originate from The Realm of Yore, but they are all ultimately called to The After. The parallels between the two do not stop there, of course; where Yore is unpredictable and formless, The After is a realm of certainty, quiet, and emptiness. Most who venture here do not do so by choice, and less enter alive, let alone leave.

Traits

• Gravity: 'Down' is fairly clear, as The After is flat in most places.
• Greater Realm: When using the Planar Travel rules, The After uses 10th level summoning ability difficulties rather than 5th.
• Dead: Magic acts as it does in a Sealed Area when in The After; that is, spells cast require 10 additional Zeon, maintenance costs are doubled, and Zeon regeneration is halved. Ki ability costs are similarly increased by one, while Summoning abilities take a -40 penalty, and Psychic Powers have their effects reduced by one level. Spells of the Path of Destruction do not suffer these effects.
• Stagnant World: Physical matter in The After has strange properties that cause it to resist being influenced. Mechanically, this means that any preexisting objects in this realm have Damage Barriers that ignore the ability to Damage Energy - the full damage is required to bypass them regardless of this capacity. Any collisions or falls into them are treated as being able to Damage Energy as well. Finally, moving any unattended object in this realm requires a Strength check against a difficulty of 10 (this may be higher depending on the weight of the object at GM discretion).

Geography

For the most part, The After is a foggy, bleak, featureless landscape. The ground seems like a flat grey formality to hold everything that ends up there before it is lost to the mists. This endless wandering, not unlike through a snowbank or desert, is only occasionally broken up by the ruins and remains of anything from cities to forests and mountains. These relics of ages past hold little that makes them identifiable, seemingly eroded by the realm as they are forgotten.
Notably, the majority of these structures do not match styles familiar to The Eye at all, and many are not even easily identified as coming from a specific plane. The architecture is strange and unrecognizable, and much of it seems to bear little apparent purpose in its dilapidated state. Parts of the ruins even float in the air, due to a combination of the stagnant nature of the realm and either the erosion of the structure or some forgotten supernatural design. A few scattered houses or towers stand alone, but just as often they are arranged in sprawling abandoned cities.
Beyond this, however, the realm spirals deeper, and the deeper one goes, the more hostile it becomes. The first true layer of The After is marked by the dissolving of physical matter, including flesh, leaving only souls and the objects with the greatest of Presence. The second layer drains supernatural energies, removing the last lingering effects upon the souls of the dead. In the third, marked by mist and the blurring of senses, only the barest of ruins remain, and souls wander until they have lost their lingering mortal memories and desires. Beyond this layer, nothing remains but a primal void at the apparent end of the multiverse.

Fauna & Flora

Unsurprisingly, there is little in The After that is actually alive. Drifting spirits haunt some of the ruins, however briefly, but most denizens of the realm are the reapers and ferrymen of the dead. Normally only seen outside The After (by those who can see them, at least) hunting undead and those who tamper with mortality, these spirits reside in the ruined cities of the realm, preparing and carrying out their work. Apart from destruction of undead, these beings guide souls along their way down through the layers of the realm, seemingly protected from its effects.
Of course, some souls and ideas do not fade so willingly, even here. Souls can even end up trying to prey on the energies of other wandering spirits to sustain themselves like otherworldly predators. These beings can take on a variety of forms, depending on the forms they had in life and the existential remnants they pick up. On the other hand, those with more existential power to start with may retain much the same form they had in life, and these too can be a threat in their denial. This tends to occur in the outer ruins and upper two layers for the most part, however.
There are less of such inhabitants as one goes further down, but the threats of the realm itself easily compensate for this. Few reapers will try to stop those brave enough to venture down into the depths. Few other beings can remain there for long themselves.

Natural Resources

The main prize to be gained from the land of the dead is the very souls it houses. Stories of trying to retrieve a loved one from this realm often end in tragedy, of course, but it is said that some heroes have retrieved their souls before their memories were lost. It is claimed that some have even staved off Death to get a second chance to claim their destinies, though it is unclear how literal this was. While most epic tales of The After revolve around such things, however, it possesses other resources of note.
Perhaps more important to some than souls is the knowledge contained therein. Speaking to the souls of the dead that have yet to lose their memories and finding long-forgotten records in the ruins can yield information that would otherwise be lost to the multiverse entirely. Ironically, as those items with the highest Presence will fade the slowest, it is often only the most important and valuable relics of the past that remain. Without a specific target to search for, however, there is little guarantee of finding anything of personal interest.

Type

Dimensional plane

Owner/Ruler

Death