In order of increasing power:

--Animals: Well they're not really animals. Not even dead animals. They're twisted. Bulls with stone skin and deadly breath. Giant roosters that can paralyze you. Who knows what they are or how they got here? Only the gods, if even they do.

--Locals: The locals are twisted too. They're souls who have given up on their ambitions to be reborn. They jump into the forms of defeated foes (usually someone else's victories) like hermit crabs. Some are friendly... many aren't.

--Dreams and Nightmares: They're not really dreams and nightmares. They're probably just very low-level versions of Ideas (see below). But "Dreams and Nightmares" are what the locals call them. Beautiful women who're rotting from the back. Horses that scream like murder victims. Shadows that chase you and claw at you. Clouds that rain diamonds... but what good are diamonds, here?

--Ideas: Things from the world of the living. Blood-drinking scissors. Nooses that crawl like snakes. Buildings that slowly move around like snails.

--Order and Chaos Creatures: Automata made of wires and pulleys. Masquers and Mummers.

--Concepts: Holidays and festival days and seasons given forms that mimic living things. Cities that are alive, that float around like huge manta rays. Stick figures and stained-glass men.

--Feelings: Emotions that can wander around and attack you. Nostalgia ghouls. Ennui fiends. Loneliness gnomes. Heartbreak imps. Awe hounds. Disgust pixies. Scorn goblins.

--Horrors: Crawling hands. Man-eating catfish. The Bone Trees.

--Demigods: including certain medium-level nature spirits

--Legends: Includes locations like magical mountains and floating rivers (or are those just a special type of dragon?) and certain types of dragons.

--Deities: self-explanatory.


Meeting a deity in the deathlands is always awkward, for one of three reasons:

1. Reason #1 is that the deathlands is the actual home of almost no deities. Most of them you might encounter there are just passing through or just visiting to work on something else briefly. So usually, seeing one is like if you went to a cafe and recognized a big celebrity. You're in awe of them, but they surely have no idea who you are. Dare you say hello and ask for an autograph? Awkward.

2. Reason #2 is that you're in the deathlands because you're dead, so you've forgotten almost all of your memories from your time as a living person. What if the deity actually recognizes you? "Oh hey, you used to be my cleric/paladin" or "oh hey, you're the chosen one, how'd that whole prophecy thing work out?" It's like if you went to a cafe and a big celebrity recognized you and told you "oh hey it's you, we went to school together a long time ago, remember?" and you're thinking "oh wow I don't remember that at all, awkward" Also, what if you prayed to the deity in question not to let you die? Oops, here you are, dead anyway, so that'd be super awkward for them, too.

3. Reason #3 is that the one exception to the first rule is Death Gods, the only deities who actually might live and/or work in the deathlands. So then it's like you've gotten lost and you knock on a door to ask directions and it turns out you've called Daigath the god of Death out of the shower or interrupted him at the office or whatever, just because you don't know what the heck you're doing. Super awkward.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:06, Thu 25 Aug 2022.