Mysteries of Death

It’s now widely accepted that when we die, our sprits part with our bodies and become unbound, then return to the material world to be bound to a body again — a process named as reincarnation. People regaining memory of their past lives are rare, but the body of evidence collected over the centuries leaves no doubt that reincarnation exists.

The most spectatular case that put an end to the reincarnation debate was that of a village boy who at the age of thirteen remembered that he once was a monk who went on a quest to find a lost shrine of Vianna. The village priest took the words of the boy seriously because the boy gave him the name of the monk and a precise directions to the lost shrine. Temple officials confirmed that a monk by that name indeed disappeared about fifteen years ago before those events, and a party of crusaders found the shrine and the deceased monk’s remains.

It’s less certain whether humans can reincarnate as animals. Some claim humans are only reincarnated as humans and animals may have different kind of spirits, but others claim that because animal bodies and the way they see the world are so different from those of humans, even if people regain such memories, they cannot properly recognize and articulate them.

Some people also claimed to regain memories of lives in worlds radically different from our own. Whether those are just figments of their imagination or it’s a proof that there are other worlds beyond ours isn’t clear.

However, sometimes the separation of the spirit from the body doesn’t occur as it should.

Ghosts

In some cases the spirit parts with the body but remains bound to the material world somehow. Such spirits are known as ghosts or wraiths. Most of them are incapable of seriously harming the living and merely scare them, but some are unusually powerful and can kill. It’s believed that spirits of people who had strong unresolved passions in life are especially likely to become ghosts. The most common such passion is a desire for vengeance. Most ghosts are aggressive and mindless and will attack all living people indiscriminately, but some were reported to go after those whom they had a conflict in life.

Some ghosts, however, remain lucid enough to communicate with the living. On some occasions, ghosts told living people about the circumstances of their death and pointed to their murderers. Whether a tesimony of a ghost is admissible in court is not certain, but sometimes they pointed to evidence such as hidden weapons of murder or their own remains that allowed to bring their murderers to justice.

Since ghosts are ethereal rather than corporeal beings, they cannot be killed with weapons. Only spells or weapons enchanted to cast spells are effective against them.

Revenants

In other cases, dead bodies rise to unlife and become revenants. It is not certain how that happens, whether the original spirit fails to completely part with the body or an unbound spirit possesses a dead body. Only bodies of recently dead people were observed to become revenants. A body coming back to unlife more than a few months after death is almost unheard of.

Unlike ghosts, revenants are never lucid. They are also more likely to be completely indifferent towards the living rather than aggressive. However, aggressive revenants can be especially dangerous because they often possess superhuman strength and some may also cast powerful spells, although the source of their magical abilities is unknown.

Luckily, revenants are corporeal and destroying their bodies puts them to rest. Some argue that cremation should be the only permissible type of burial because it prevents dead bodies turning into revenants. However, naturally-occuring revenants are rare enough that it doesn’t become a pressing concern.

Cultists of dark gods are known to be capable of creating revenants intentionally and they steal bodies from graves and tombs for that purpose. It isn’t certain whether all revenants are in fact creations of dark gods, or sporadic cases are of different nature than intentionally raised undead minions.

Vampires

The most mysterious type of undead creatures are vampires. Very little is known about them with certainty. Some even doubt that they are true undead. Their existence should definitely be considered a form of unlife: they don’t age, don’t need to eat normal food and drink water, and don’t die from wounds that would be fatal for a living person. However, no one ever observed a living person or a dead body turn into a vampire, so their origin remains mysterious.

Folk tales say that vampires attack sleeping people to drink their blood and that everyone bitten by a vampire will turn into one. In reality, vampires are very secretive and don’t ever go near settlements at all. They make their lairs in secluded places and abduct travellers to feed on them. That makes the job of a vampire hunter especially difficult since any disappearance may be a vampire attack, but most of them aren’t.

Ever since the Flood, there were no confirmed vampire attacks, so it’s difficult to say if they still exist. In case any vampires turn up, everyone should remember that they are quickly killed by sunlight and that fire spells are as effective against them as against all kinds of undead.

Legendary undead

Legends say that with proper preparation and rituals, it’s possible to become a lich — a revenant who retains the mind of the person it was in life and has an immense magical power. However, no one has ever seen a lich or any kind of a lucid revenant, so it may be merely a legend.