The Court of the Underworld
When the Creator died, it was at the top of a remote plateau in the Himalayas - he had chosen to die there because it offered the best view of his Creation he could find. In those days the mountains were green and fertile, covered with verdant jungle, but after the Creator died, the gathered Old Gods dug a deep hole to place his body in, and as they dug their very sorrow made the mountains cold and barren, and all the beasts and monsters and mortals and spirits in Creation became solemn and silent as an eerie calm settled over the world. The digging of the Gods was only interrupted by a blasphemous rot, which wanted to consume the Creator's body - it was swiftly defeated and given a useful job, consuming all other flesh except the Creator's.
After a long while, one by one, the Gods came to their senses and ceased digging. "Bury me as deep as you can, when my wound takes me," the Creator had said often, "and you'll find my last secret" - but as the first wild pangs of grief died down to become an aching sorrow, the Old Gods lost their stomach for digging, or indeed anything to do with the body, and left. Eventually, only five Gods remained digging.
A week and a day later, they sent a message to the rest of the Gods on the low winds, and the message said this:
"We, the five Last Mourners of the Creator, hereby declare ourselves Lords of the Underworld. The death of the Creator means that in time all living things will die, and yet even then there will be no end. In digging we discovered the last masterpiece of the Creator, the Underworld - and to the Underworld will go the spirits of all dead things, that they need not know the final death. The Tomb of the Creator we have erected at the bottom of the Pit is the entrance to the Underworld, and its Five Lords shall live in the Tomb."
Each Old God was invited, one by one, by the new Court of the Underworld to visit the body of the Creator before it was placed in the Tomb. Then the five Lords placed the body in the Tomb, and erected an Outer Tomb at the entrance to the Pit to serve as a watchtower and a gate, and since then the Lords of the Underworld have been a mystery.
They have never knowingly allowed anything which still lives to even descend the long stairwell to the Inner Tomb, let alone pass through the Inner Tomb and into the Underworld, and they guard their secrets closely, and therefore little is known about what they get up to. The following is what they have seen fit to reveal, and what has been noticed over the years:
- There is an eternal, flameless pyre in the Tomb of the Creator, which certain corrupted souls are consigned to, lest they contaminate the Underworld. It is not known whether this not-burning inferno purifies or destroys.
- Certain souls are too corrupt even for the Pyre - it has been hinted by some Lords of the Underworld that this includes the souls of the Unreal. These are consigned to the Never-Eye, generally assumed to be some sort of prison.
- The Underworld employs demons, which (as mortal tales of them imply) are an unwholesome variety of servitor-spirit. Their provenance is a mystery - presumably one of the first Lords of the Underworld created them, but the logic behind their makeup is unclear.
They are mercenary beings, dislike showing themselves, are masterful shapeshifters (no match for divine Mimics, however) and have a sadistic sense of humour. They can be summoned and bound to tasks by mortals through the use of complicated magics, all of which require the surrender of a human soul. This isn't necessarily the demonologist's soul, though selling one's own soul to a demon gives one access to much more demonic power and aid. Demons love to trick, cajole, or coerce mortals into giving in to their baser instincts.
It isn't clear what the demons actually do in the Underworld. Their main duty seems to be to guard the entrance to the Outer Tomb, and the stairwell leading down to the Inner Tomb, and the entrance to the Inner Tomb.
The demons are led in war by the Sentinel of the Tomb. This has only happened once, during the Unreal War.
- The Underworld holds a yearly celebration on the anniversary of the death of the Creator. No outsider has ever been permitted to join this celebration, so what it involves is unclear. What is known is that every Lord of the Underworld must attend, and that they all seem somewhat perturbed afterwards.
- When a god dies, every Lord of the Underworld comes to collect the god's soul. Not because god's souls are more powerful than any other - for dead souls have no power over the living world - but to act as an honour guard, as a mark of respect.
During the War of the Gods the Court of the Underworld refused to become involved, and indeed issued cold, dispassionate condemnations of those who became involved, and refused to give honour guards to those who were killed as a result of the fighting.
When the Iron Rule came down, the Gods of the Iron Laws sealed the entrance to the Outer Tomb, trapping the High Lord and the surviving Lords of the Underworld inside. In the Iron Reign the souls of the dead were trapped in the ground at the places where they fell - occasionally escaping, leading to mortal tales of haunted places.
During the year-and-a-day in which the Iron Rule fell, the souls of the dead were all released from this imprisonment, and now the world is plagued by wandering ghosts, waiting for the Shepherd to take them to their final rest.
The Lords of the Underworld tend to wear full-face masks, preferably expressionless ones, when they come to social events.