The Star Fields
The Star Fields go by many names in many cultures. It's where most the honored dead go the afterlife, and it is believed to exist somewhere in the sky above.
It's not an everyday occurrence for the honored dead to talk to the living, but it happens often enough that most Scarterrans don't question it when it happens. "What's the afterlife like?" is a common question the living ask, and most of the honored dead give similar answers, so the basics of the Star Fields are actually common knowledge in Scarterra, mostly.
THe Honored Dead can spend many centuries in the Star Fields, but no one stays there forever. The majority of the dead don't make it past 1000 years and as far as any one knows, zero souls spend more than three millenia in the afterlife.
What happens to the Honored Dead after they leave is not known. The Honored Dead either can't or won't tell the living what they know if anything. This has led to mass speculation.
The top theories are:
The Honored Dead pass on to an even better afterlife realm
The Honored Dead merge with the Nine.
The Honored Dead go on to nothingness (whether this is peaceful or terrifying is up for debate)
The Honored Dead are reincarnated into new living bodies.
It has been noted that Honored Dead that used to belong to cultures that believe in reincarnation seem to have shorter afterlives than Honored Dead who come from cultures that do not believe in reincarnation.
Geography
The Star Fields superficially resembles Scarterra. It has trees, rivers, houses, castles, farms, birds, dogs, cats, and most of the things the material realm of Scarterra has.
The Nine have tried to make the places and things in the Star Fields to be an idealized version of Scarterra and attempt to make things as pleasant as possible. Things are cleaner, shinier, and safer. Some of the Honored Dead actually say they find it boring and sterile, but most seem to like it.
The Nine keep adding and removing new provinces so the realm vaguely resembles a patchwork quilt. Because the Argent Pathways distort spatial awareness, mapping the Star Fields is effectively pointless and impossible.
The Star Fields have many waterways or maybe one giant body of water with many forms. Very few Scarterrans are aware of this, but if one of the Scarterran honored Dead went swimming and dove very deep, she would find the Scaraquan afterlife, which is reachable from any body of water in the Star Fields.
Ecosystem
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went. -Will Rogers, American humorist
The Star Fields does not have an ecosystem in the conventional sense, but it mimics an ecosystem.
All the plants and animals are simulacra fashioned to resemble their living counterparts created by the Nine because most Scarterran mortals find the presence of plants and animals to be comforting. The animals are usually unnaturally friendly and helpful compared to their real world counterparts except in areas designating as hunting preserves and the like.
by me with Midjourney
Localized Phenomena
The most unusual trait in the Star Fields that certainly doesn't exist in the material world are the Argent Pathways.
Most places have silver roads and/or silver boats on rivers and coastlines. If one of the Honored Dead steps on road or gets in a rowboat, and they think about where they want to go, they will always get there in less than an hour of travel.
The Honored Dead can take the Argent Pathways to specific locations in the afterlife, but if they don't know someplace specific, they could imagine somewhere vague and this only adds about ten minutes to their travel time and they will show up in a place for whatever they want to do.
Examples of such vague locations include: "I want to ride a horse", "I want to play with puppies", "I want to listen to music", or "I want to talk to Grandma" In the case of talking to Grandma, the road will take you where ever she happens to be.
If for whatever reason, it is impossible for a person to go to the location they want to go to, the Grand Celestial Vestibule (see sidebar for details).
Climate
Mostly temperate, but there are pockets of different climates in case the Honored Dead want to play in the snow or enjoy something autumnal.
Natural Resources
According to the Dead themselves, the Honored Dead do not have to eat, but they enjoy the taste of food. Food that is manufactured in the Star Fields is tasteless. Food from the material plane that is ritually offered to the death appears in the Star Realms, and the food is multiplied in quantity when it appears in the afterlife. How much food is multiplied depends on how much emotional good will is behind the offering.
Food of this sort perpetually remains in its ideal form until eaten. Stale bread in the living realm offered to the dead manifests as freshly baked bread in the Starry Fields.
If the living want their offering to go to someone specific or a broad group such "my ancestors and not some random person's ancestors.", the food will usually arrive to the intended recipients though once they get it, they don't have to eat it. Some give away or barter away their food. In the Starry Fields, food is currency.
History
The Nine are wise and powerful beyond mortal ken, but they are not all-knowing, and they sometimes make mistakes though they rarely admit this to mortalkind.
In the Age Before Ages, Turoch consumed each and every soul of deceased mortals shortly after they died.
During the the Divine Rebellion, the Nine were so fixated on "How do we defeat Turoch?" that they didn't put thought "What do we with the souls of the dead after Turoch is defeated?"
Without prior knowlege or a prior plan, the Nine had to improvise and build the afterlife by trial and error.
by me with Midjourney
by me with Midjourney
Second, a lot of souls that made it to the afterlife got bored and wandered off. Some of them haunted the living and caused problems there, some got pulled into the Void, but a majority ended up in the Astral Plane. Souls of the dead can potentially have a lot of fun in the astral plane where they can think anything they can imagine into existence, but madness always followed eventually, and going mad in the Astral Plane always means losing one's original identity and becoming a new creature.
Since the first honored dead in Scarterra were all dragons, these souls were very powerful.
Tourism
Under unusual circumstances, it is possible for a living person to visiting the Star Fields and come back to tell the story with either powerful magic and/or a near-death experience. That is very rare though.
The norm is for the Honored Dead to visit the lands of the living. Primarily manifesting near memorial or ancestor shrines or visiting on holidays meant to honor the dead.
Generally speaking, the more a dead person is still remembered by the living (whether they are loved or hated), the easier it is for them to interact with the living, though the Nine can give dead persons a boost if they so choose.
The Nine Hells and the Celestial Castles
Composite Display of the Nine's portraits by Zeta Gardner
Type
Dimensional plane
Location under
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