I am a believer that, in order to be consistently surprising and interesting, a setting needs rules. It needs rules not necessarily like 'rules for combat' or 'rules for spellcasting'. Those are game rules, not setting rules. A setting needs rules that are more like immutable axioms. Laws. Ones that can be used and interacted with and that have consequences for transgression or attempts thereat. General laws that function like mathematical axioms (although it's fine if you're fairly sparse with the numbers. I'm certainly not going to spout any algebra) can help to bring a kind of reliability and structure to a more free-form campaign, or spark inspiration for a deep and involved storyline and meaningful character motivations and revelations.
Amidst the intricacies of world building, there comes a point where you have to grapple with the cosmology of the world. A point where you have to consider what actually happens to a person when they die, and why. Whether it is a simple as going to sleep forever and being subsumed by the soil, or whether it is more complicated than that, is open to different interpretations. This is not a description of the beliefs of people or their convictions or belief in any specific eschatology, but a literal account of the metaphysical (or purely physical) structure of the universe itself, including how living creatures figure into that construction.
For example, a child out for a walk with a parent (I may be recalling from life here) might see a dead bird and make some kind of comment about it, maybe ask what the bird is doing, whether it's okay, and the kid might be a bit sad because I think on a fundamental level, all children understand death in a way, unmolded by growing up. The parent might try and explain death, saying it is dead and leave it at that, or they might try to assuage the child's sadness by suggesting that its spirit is in heaven and is generally having an okay time despite its crumpled body being face down in a puddle (or indeed, that seemingly popular thing that adults say to children, 'bird heaven'. A kind of vanilla version of the Christian argument that only humans really have souls and nothing else is destined for the kingdom of eternal bliss and happiness). Does this then mean that every species on the planet has a specific heaven that they go to? Does this extend to plants? What happens when it gets all crowded? Where actually is it- is it up in the sky? Can I see it? All those innocent and practical things a child might think when first confronted with the idea of 'heaven' have an amusingly apt and appropriate place in fictional world-building.
Anyway, I digress. There are a few key questions that need to be answered in order to address the issue with the hope of coming to any meaningful conclusion. And these questions, although contentions is reality, are so easy to think about in a fictional context. Things that are tragic and immutable in the real world can function differently in fiction. They can be powerfully symbolic and catalysts for profound interpretations of our own lives. That is, after all, I feel what roleplay is for. Getting inside something or someone else in order to allow for reflection on one's own actions and life. These things can be crafted and informed by intent and the desire to convey a particular feeling, metaphor, or, you know, just because they allow for some cool stuff like magic and demons and undead and so on.
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| A prime example of belief informing practice- Allegedly, The Greeks and Romans were sent on their passage with gold placed upon or in their mouth to pay the ferryman to the afterlife- no one wants to be caught short in that kind of situation. |
Some necessary questions (necessary for myself, anyway- take from them what you will, dear reader):
1) What is real?
Detailed in reams and reams of religious doctrine are accounts of the reality of souls, how we are animated by a divine spark or a kind of spirit, energy, identity, or consciousness separate (or not separate) from our material bodies which endures in some way after that body ceases to live in a way that is more than just memory. Scores of different belief systems around the world ascribe to the persistence of a person after they die, in some way or another. They attest to there being something more to being alive than just being able to think. Something that cannot be immediately apprehended and can be accessed through spiritual or otherwise non-physical means.
If the answer is, in actual physical real terms, anything like a 'no', then the sole existence of life after death relies upon human belief and cultural tradition. There is no reality after death that we can definitely verify, there is no afterlife except what people imagine in their minds, and people persist in no other way than the memories of the deceased that reside with the living. This system is not unlike the one we find ourselves in here on earth (that is of course if one isn't particularly religious or spiritual but let's not get into talking about things that are real. It's just D&D here, you understand).
If, however, due to the luxury of fantasy and fiction, we can imagine the answer to this question resembles a rather more concrete form of 'yes', the second question must be addressed.
2) If souls are real, what are they?
This question is not really quite as straightforward as the last one. In fact it's a bit misleading because it could more accurately be described as lots of smaller questions that can or cannot be answered definitively all masquerading as one larger question that is full of holes and confusion...
These questions might be something like-
- Is the living creature's consciousness directly tied to the soul and does it persist with the soul after death?
- Following from that, does the soul have any kind of agency or is it simply an impartial piece of matter or energy, pulled around by the universe to whatever end?
- Do souls have any kind of physical reality or is it impossible to interact with on a physical level? I.e. can a living person actually see or otherwise apprehend it and likewise can it do anything to interact with the physical world?
- If they can exist without bodies, are there souls that have always existed without bodies? Like angels, devils, what have you.
- Where do souls come from? Are they eternal? Without beginning or end? Are they created or do they come into being when something is born? Do they cease to exist as an individual entity at any point?
You can of course kind of riff of anything here until you get to a point you like, or until you feel you've gone far enough to cope with anything that might crop up during the course of play (of course, this is no guarantee, no matter how much you plan).
All these can of course lead into many larger questions about the nature of the universe, its structure, processes of change, its beginning and end.
3) Is the world multidimensional?
In basic terms, this is asking 'does heaven exist?'. Are there any places in the world that cannot be directly seen or interacted with by people living in the material world except by means of magic or symbolic ritual or something, and what are they? There are again many questions one can imagine when trying to puzzle out the nature of these extra-dimensional places. Such as-
-Do they have an inherent nature or meaning or are they just 'other' kind of places?
-How did they get there? Did they exist since the beginning of the universe, if indeed there was such a thing, or did some fluke or the universal mechanics cause them to be, or did some will create them?
-Do they overlap with they world in which humans live or are the two places completely separate? For example, in D&D cosmology the plane of shadow or the ethereal plane could be said to 'overlap' whereas outer planes like the abyss are, although in certain ways connected to the material plane, more or less separately located.
-Do they provide a kind of function to the universe? Like organs within a body, are they necessary to keep the structure of the universe ticking over or are they inherently meaningless? For example, Purgatory serves a purpose in that is a place that souls go if they were kind of okay but not great, or Jewish, or Pagan, or something else deemed by ye olde Catholics to be 'not really cool'.
-What are the contents of a given alternate dimension? Does it look like an alternate version or our world or is it something entirely different?
-Are there a finite number of extra dimensions?
-Are they easily accessed (and if so, how) or are they completely hidden?
Again, like, go mad with the ideas until you feel like you're at an acceptable level of cool, or weird, or intricate, or profound. I don't have to tell you, I'm sure.
This question then feeds directly into the last question
4) As a result of interaction between the answers to questions 2 & 3, what generally happens when someone or something dies, and what can happen?
Once all the things in the world pertaining to the cosmology are in place, I find it becomes quite interesting to think about what might happen to a soul after it leaves the body, or perhaps doesn't leave the body. I dunno. This then helps you answer things like-
Can the dead come back to life?
Did they ever even leave?
Does the experience of death stay with one as a concrete memory that carries on into the afterlife, or are all memories and impressions of individual personality erased upon death?
Can one influence or communicate with the dead in any meaningful way? If so, how?
How do the living interact with souls that are devoid of body (whether dead, having left the body, or other-dimensional, having never had one in the first place)?
This section of questioning is interesting in that it opens the way for some really interesting interactions and ideas, but that it also potentially suggests that no matter the structure of the universe, there are some things that are just not possible (but then that just incites a greater challenge in the minds of players upon discovery, no doubt allowing for even more story potential and DM contortion).
Conclusion
Either way, by using the framework you have previously conceived of, you can create logically consistent and interesting interactions that follow the rules that you have set down. Even better, it allows the players to do the same. If the bones of the world are eventually laid bare (in a story-appropriate kind of way, naturally) and the players see that all is not subject only to the fickle will of their DM, a fallible human, but that in many ways the DM is subject to those rules as well, it can act as an empowering experience that helps players feel invested in their story and their character.
Contrary to precluding cultural beliefs and faiths, questions like these can be used as a starting point for imagining ways in which people interpret what they can see of these processes into their own belief and faith systems. Religions and cultural practices can be informed by these things and the ways in which they impact upon the lives of people in the setting. If souls are real, and there are multiple dimensions to the world, and there is significant and meaningful interaction between all of these things, they can perhaps manifest as spirits, demons, angels, inexplicable beings, ghosts, travel to the afterlife (and back?) and they can be present in people's mythology not just as metaphor or folklore, but as tangible things about which to learn, about to wonder, about which to be afraid, and about which to whisper prayers in the dead of night. It all goes together to form a kind of mindset which people in the world have, and upon which they base their actions, beliefs, and knowledge (epistemology- sorry, I said it again).
All these questions of course do not need to be made and answered explicitly to players in a D&D campaign (in fact it is more interesting and exciting for them to figure these things out by themselves as long as, of course, these rules they discover remain the same- enough so they know what to expect next time) but, in my opinion, it really helps a DM to have a fair idea of what happens in definite terms in their cosmology when the players do things like kill stuff, get killed, travel to different planes, mess with magic and the fabric of reality. Converse to limiting player's decisions, I feel it actually allows them to interact with the campaign world in a more meaningful way. If they come to understand the structure of the world they play in, they can inhabit it and use it, they can manipulate it, protect it, destroy it, whatever really.
In any case, the jury is out when it comes to the metaphysical structure of fictional worlds, and you can have as much fun as your imagination can cope with. The key point I'm making here is that laws like this help DMs and players to create consistently interesting worlds and meaningful experiences with logically consistent cause and effect relationships that actually matter. Good things, in my opinion.
