What happens to your character when it faces defeat from a superior foe? Saints and scholars have been plagued with this type of question since time began. In the World of Hyerune, it is well known that mortals pass on to one of the nine Outer Planes of Alignment. But just how does this journey occur?

The major player that begins this sequence of events is the greater god Kharon, the Doomlord. Although a deity of death and dying, Kharon is also a lawful divinity who is charged with collecting the souls and spirits of the recently departed and bringing them to face their final test. Many mythological tales are told that describe Kharon riding his horrific devil steed wearing dark armor and wielding a mighty lance. Although he does not bother himself with the living, it is the dead that he is particularly interested.

Aiding Kharon in this unending task are his immortal servants, the creatures known as the Necronauts. These beings are fearsome warriors and hunters that prowl the vast realms of Hyerune in search of their prey. Kharon and his necronaut servants have the power to see into the Ethereal Plane and can therefore detect the presence of ghosts and spirits. Once such an entity is located and captured, it is brought to the Halls of Judgement on the plane of neutrality known as the Eternal Crossroads.

Within these unadorned halls, Cabel, the god of the afterlife, judges each soul or spirit against their actions in their past life. It is Cabel's responsibility to pass judgement upon all spirits and souls and select the plane to which the entity will spend the rest of eternity. The essence of the soul or spirit is weighed on the Balance of Judgement against the Feather of Truth. Sometimes, Cabel is aided in this task by Jingdu, the god of judges and the final ruling is always recorded by Thune, the god of Knowledge. Naturally, Kharon would like nothing better than for all entities to be sent to his plane of the Gloomrealm but even he does not have the power to influence the impartial rulings within the Halls of Judgement. Once the ruling is made, the spirit or soul becomes known as a petitioner and either remains within the Eternal Crossroads if the petitioner was of neutral alignment or to any one of eight other Outer Planes.

Petitioners often undertake this final journey with the aid of either a celestial or fiendish emissary of a patron power. They can be taken aloft along the massive ethereal trunk and infinite branches of the Tree of Life that stretches to the Upper Planes of Light or else journey down the stagnant River of Death that slowly flows through the Lower Planes of Darkness. In any case, all memory of the petitioner's mortal life is completely erased from it's memory and it undergoes an indoctrination process in order to be acclimated to its new planar existance. Some might say it is at this time that the true story begins.