Life on earth, sadly, is not eternal. At least not in our dimension. Humans have debated what happens after death for as long as we have existed.
But what about in your world? Do the people of your world have afterlives? Tell us about the afterlives of your world in a geography, building, tradition, or ethnicity article.
In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.
― J.R.R. Tolkien
Do the people of your world know with certainty what will happen to them when they die? And what DOES happen? What is the afterlife like? Does the living have a shrine where they can talk to the dead? Or do they come back on a specific day? Will the dead be able to watch after their descendants, or is there no connection between the living and the dead? Is it only the sapient creatures of your world that have afterlives, or do all of your creatures meet again in the afterlife?
Pick an ethnicity in your world and write about their afterlives. Either in their ethnicity article, in a building article with a building that is important for their afterlives, in a tradition article for the specific rituals that they have, or a geographical article for the place where they actually go to live out their afterlife. For inspiration, you can check out World Of Warcrafts four videos about the five levels of the afterlife in Azeroth. There is also an article on Wikipedia about several versions of our afterlives.
RULES
Endings are not always bad. Most times they’re just beginnings in disguise.
― Kim Harrison, Something Deadly This Way Comes
– First, you need a World Anvil account.
– Write about your afterlife in a geography, tradition, building, or ethnicity template article.
– Minimum of 300 words and a maximum of 1500 words.
– One article per account, one person per account.
– The article needs to be public.
– Submit the article before the 7th of November, at 11:59PM GMT (the site time, look at the bottom of almost all pages of WorldAnvil.)
– Post a link to your article in a comment to this blog post. Do not fret if your post isn’t visible right away. I will have to approve of it before it shows and I will be doing that around twice a day.
PRIZES
I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
― Isaac Asimov
-The pride of having finished an article.
-Fun with friends, if you haven’t joined the discord do so and join in on the fun on the #challenge-discussion channel. (#sync-your-roles to see it)
-Janet and Dimitris will show off a couple of the entries on a stream over at the WorldAnvil Twitch channel when there is time. If you aren’t already following it jump on over there and give it a follow, that way you won’t miss out on any of the WorldAnvil streams.
-Some articles might even be featured on the site over on the community tab.
OTHER CHALLENGES
The dead are merely the countrymen of my future.
― Dean Koontz, Fear Nothing
WorldAnvil have challenges going all throughout the year! You can check them out over here; Worldbuilding challenges on WorldAnvil in 2020.
Want more prompts? You can check out our other flash challenges! You can find our Pollinators challenge over here and why not look at the flash challenge we posted during October; Cheers!
Spoilers ahead: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/manifold-sky-bcgrwurth/a/the-waiting-room-landmark
Lyraine Alei and my Tormian Reincarnation tradition (starting out and submitting before I forget) https://www.worldanvil.com/w/corive-lyraine-alei/a/tormian-reincarnation-ritual
My entry. Inspired by Wyandot mythology: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/world-behind-the-veil-soullink/a/village-of-souls-settlement
Here is my entry: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/kyrn-erikbloodaxe/a/the-afterlife-ritual
I don’t see anything in the rules about submitting existing articles, but if that’s not allowed this one is ineligible (I think it was actually the first thing I wrote for this world).
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/city-of-ten-thousand-daggers-kingyak/a/the-necropolis-article
Yeah, it’s implied that the challenge is to write a new article…since there is no other tangible reward than a new article. (all other challenges by WA also needs to be new articles) I suppose I should be more clear with that in later challenges. ^_^
Here’s my entry https://www.worldanvil.com/w/ma-rune-sunlancexiii/a/hael2C-realm-of-the-dead-location
My entry: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/estya-old-newtonx3x/a/gehenna-ritual
Here is my entry. I wish everyone luck !https://www.worldanvil.com/w/vhosparus-sols-26-duun/a/the-tribes-of-gentrov2C-the-brish-ethnicity
Haven’t written for Endaman in a hot minute, but here’s where all good dawr go when they die: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-magic-multiverse-emperorcharlesii/a/pegharC3A2k-article?preview=true
I couldn’t believe I didn’t have anything about the afterlife of my world written down anywhere! Rectifying that: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/elendor-midgeman/a/the-halls-of-transcendence-landmark-1
Here’s my entry, I prioritized making sure I had some art to go with this one. Thankfully it was withing my skill level: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/adventures-of-zack-the-great-zackthegreat/a/limbo-location
Spectral Ascendance
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/octisafell-mergandore/a/spectral-ascendance-ritual
I have created one for the setting i’m working on, Numenera: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/laria-s-ninth-world-laria/a/rest-of-the-worthy-ritual
Death after life, and life after death, a never ending cycle as Souls move to create a balance.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/seireitei/a/second-incarnation-ritual
When an earthly ruler is the one to condemn you: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/cold-crown-hughpierre/a/gates-to-hell-landmark
Meet the Blackspear Nation, a tribe of orcs that I started working on in 2015. They started with the inspiration of the Polynesian people, and have since grown and developed. This challenge actually presented the demand for their funerary and memorial customs to be expanded from “we throw people into the volcano to keep it happy.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/solia-jkoster/a/blackspear-nation-oroka-article
The link is leading me to your world’s home page. Have you renamed the article or something?
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/eldris-hiturarael/a/agalish-ethnicity
The Agalish people believe in burial and quick funerals, with Cremation being taboo. (Whole ethnicity is a WIP I need to go back and finish.)
Erwān gardens of remembrance, tended by the College of Necromancers: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/Aro-pakalsha/a/gardens-of-remembrance-landmark
A place to remember the dead, to seek guidance and wisdom, and to ask grandpa where great-uncle Åsmund’s coin collection is because aunt Hilde swears she never saw it again after Synnøve and Laila’s wedding…
Realized that my link isn’t working: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/vhosparus-sols-26-duun/a/the-tribes-of-gentrov2C-the-brish-ethnicity?preview=true? Sorry about that :>
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/altan-ruhl-brandedtales/a/inducement-ritual?preview=true
Came up with this from a random what-if generator and got super-intrigued with how it could fit with one of the religions in my world. Had a lot of fun writing it up!
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/quilela-bhillibii-bandit/a/descent-to-ascension–ritual-1
Almayot, or the Great Devourer, is one of the two afterlives in the Saohri cosmology. A great beast that seeks to consume all, and traps the souls of those who have sinned in the maze within its body.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/interarcanum-thechangeling/a/almayot-location
Had fun with art this challenge 🙂
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/etrea-serukis/a/the-nightlands-location?preview=true
Introducing an emulants version of an afterlife:
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-daily-nebula-shford/a/recall-of-archived-emulants-ritual?preview=true?
Was fun to write— the thought of death!
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/qet-timepool/a/thought-of-death-location
One of many views of life and afterlives in myworld. https://www.worldanvil.com/w/charron-mutterwolf/a/the-followers-of-the-book-of-raervan2C-traditions-of-the-dreaming-tree-ritual
Still figuring it out, but here it is! an ordinary sky with meaning of death and balance.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/terraloga-adcheryl/a/the-sky-location
Wohoo, there we are with a basic article:
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/mirror3A-fangfinder-davinastreams/a/nexus-of-souls-location
I ended up talking more about the funeral customs needed to get into this afterlife, but I had fun regardless.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/kyre-cuttlesquish/a/brazen-souls-ritual?preview=true?
Funeral ceremony in the main religion of my world:
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/atamor-kajetan/a/susannite-funeral-ritual?preview=true?
Nice continuation from the last flash challenge, and it also really helped me to get a clearer picture of the religious tensions in my setting!
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/salan-tuisku/a/afterlife-on-the-west-island-ritual
My entry for this flash challenge!
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/nys2C-the-old-kanva-damparo/a/undead-people-ethnicity
Well, the word count max means I can’t include everything I want to, but here’s mine: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/dC3A1lnaes-kaari13/a/the-otherworld-location?preview=true
You could make it into two articles and call this article part 1
I have finished my flash challenge, here is the link https://www.worldanvil.com/w/carethian-farris-temaire/a/the-cycle-of-life-and-death-ritual
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-chronicles-jester25/a/flames-of-rebirth-ritual?preview=true
Hi ! My entry : https://www.worldanvil.com/w/troupe-de-l-horizon-drayker/a/samsaat-hava2C-les-etres-vie-vents-ritual
It’s in French. For the record, “êtres vie-vent” translates as “lifewind beings”, but “vie-vent” is also a wordplay with “vivant”, “living”, highlighting the fact that Samsâat-have are NOT really dead.
My world is filled with such portmanteau and that makes it quite hard to read by google translate, I’m sorry 😛
Hi there, thanks for the challenge! It was fun.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/valeria-qui-ball/a/valleywood-s-afterlives-ritual
This world is X-hundred years in the future. Humans relocated to a new planet after Earth’s expiration date came around.Certain elements of magic exist here and spirits are able to walk among people. This particular article is about the location of one region’s gates to the afterlife. The region is heavily populated by people from the Caribbean, African Americans, and West Africans. They brought their beliefs and traditions from the Earth–combined with newfound beliefs on this planet–to create a little sycrentism. This particular article builds off the New Orleans’ voodoo belief of the Seven Gates of Guinee/afterlife.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/phasmatum-cassandrastacy/a/guinee-location
I think my original link to this broke after I updated my username:
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/phasmatum-cassandrasojourn/a/guinee-location?preview=1
Here are the Nimýric funeral rites and the mythology behind them: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-kaleidoscope-system-kaleidechse/a/voyage-to-the-flaming-garden-ritual
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/the-known-world-vyron/a/the-great-barrow-location?preview=true
I am very new here so I’m not too good at formatting. I am slowly building up my world in a chronological way. Right now I am working on a very very early age. This is how the dead were dealt with before the underworld was created.
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/malify-laraleepn/a/the-after-location
I hope I made it! https://www.worldanvil.com/w/thaiterra-lady-grayish/a/storm-call-ritual
I’m squeezing this out at the last moment: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/eskAvaEIs-amelianite/a/jugan-eum-ui-naloen-ritual
My entry for the flash challenge. Hpoe I made it in time ^_^:
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/cenorad-sloqush/a/the-labyrinth-location?preview=true
Coming in at the end!
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/world-of-wizard-s-peak-kitoypoy/a/ancestral-atheneum-landmark