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Ivellius
2015-08-16, 12:46 AM
To define, psychopomps are the creatures that escort souls to the afterlife / final rest. In trying to do a bit of research, I found that D&D doesn't seem to have too many of these sorts of creatures defined: while a lot of deities have death in their portfolios, there don't seem to be too many analogues to Charon,* for instance, or

I was wondering if anyone knows of any specific entities that would fit this description in general D&D or perhaps other fantasy sources. I know Pathfinder has some named ones (ushers) in one of the Bestiaries, though I didn't find much information about them. Are there any heralds or other divine servants in particular that have these roles?

* Yes, some might not consider him a psychopomp because Hermes brings him the souls from the mortal realms. But he's probably the most iconic image people have of this kind of creature.

BWR
2015-08-16, 01:42 AM
Well, there are these (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary4/psychopomp.html).

Fri
2015-08-16, 01:56 AM
I thought the iconic one is valkyrie.

Ninjadeadbeard
2015-08-16, 02:59 AM
http://41.media.tumblr.com/2a9387b4b80e5bc0c63382e3bb1bb300/tumblr_mqn3iwizwh1qggudjo1_1280.jpg

LudicSavant
2015-08-16, 05:36 AM
I redid Wee Jas as a psychopomp in one of my own settings.


Wee Jas, The Stern Lady
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/121/c/f/cfba71234c7f33505ff167e7c7a3d7e5.jpg
"Your body feeds the earth, as it once fed you."
- Wee Jas, from the epic poem "Estherian Odyssey"

Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Expanded Domains: Charm, Death, Deathbound, Decay, Domination, Inquisition, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Mind, Necromancer, Repose, Time, Transformation, Spell, Undeath
Portfolio: Butterflies, Bureaucracy, Decay, Efficiency, Intuition, Organization, Makeovers, Metamorphosis, Moths, Psychopomps, Rebirth, Repurposing / Reinvention, Sorcery, Syncretism, Transitions, Transmutation, Vanity / Fabulousness
Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfqnulWWxbM

Knowledge (Religion) 10:
Wee Jas is the First Lich, who hid her heart away to foil Nerull, so that he could not bring an end to the cycle of life during the Winter Age.

Originally, she was a sort of "business efficiency manager" of the gods, making sure the cosmos ran smoothly through its transitions (especially arcane transitions such as Transmutation or the spark of sorcerous power). When Nerull went off the rails, she was called in to make sure the cycle of life kept running smoothly. It is Nerull that brings death, but Wee Jas is the psychopomp, responsible for the transit of souls and the transmutation of all things through decay and repurposing.

When flowers grow from the remains of the dead, it is said to be Wee Jas tending her garden. Her symbol is the butterfly, symbolizing transmutation and transitions. The perpetually youthful Obad-Hai sometimes serves as her consort.

http://img00.deviantart.net/f33b/i/2015/072/e/6/dia_de_los_muertos_by_nadiezda-d5jv979.jpg
Wee Jas in her role as psychopomp, dancing with the deceased.

Knowledge (Religion) 15:
When something stops working, like your body, you have to change it. Change your skin, like a snake. Leave it behind, to feed new life. Go beyond your old self and become a new part of the universe. The Ruby Sorceress will be there to show you how.

For Jasites, death is not a sorrowful ending, but a new beginning. They believe in a wheel of reincarnation, both for flesh and spirit. With each life, there is a lesson to be learned, both by the soul itself and by those it leaves behind. Each turning of the cycle is an opportunity for us to grow. Learn from those who passed before you, and remain attentive to life's lessons. With each death, the flesh decays, and becomes a part of something new. Nothing is to be lost. That would just be sloppy, and the Stern Lady won't have that!

As such, Jasites disdain sealed casket burials or embalming methods which prevent a body from doing anything, and instead tend to bury the dead in the open earth. Jasite funerals traditionally sprinkle seeds over corpses and bury them in soil marked by cairns or memorial decorations, or in catacomb mazes with earthen walls that wind beneath farms and fields. Jasites often see poetry in the dead watching over their descendants even in death by giving them things such as food or beauty (such as the stunning bone gardens of some Jasite sects). Many Jasites even encourage the use of necromancy to create unintelligent undead so that a body can labor to help or defend its loved ones even after death. Even intelligent undeath is unusually widely accepted by Jasites, for they see it as just another transition into a new form of being. After all, Wee Jas herself is the First Lich.

Just as the flesh of the dead should be put to use, knowledge from those who passed before is to be preserved so that it can take root in new minds. Jasites are often keepers of relics and archives, or adventurers who seek to recover lost knowledge and culture.

After every harvest season, Nerull slays Obad-Hai and hangs his body from the Summer Tree, ushering in the winter. At every winter solstice, Wee Jas sneaks off with Obad-Hai's body to use it to plant a new Green Man somewhere, which blooms into the new Obad-Hai to usher in the Spring.

The first time Nerull killed Obad-Hai, it brought about the Age of Winter, a cruel ice age which brought ruin to the First Civilizations. The gods scrambled to find a solution, eventually empowering Wee Jas as psychopomp. It was she who grew a new Obad-Hai, ending the Age of Winter. When Nerull turned his scythe upon Wee Jas in retribution, he found that she could not be killed, for she had hidden her heart away in a place even the gods could not find, and would be reborn again and again. Nerull searches for the phylactery of the First Lich to this very day.

Knowledge (Religion) 20:
The philosophy of Wee Jas is all about change, rebirth, and reinvention. Some might find the concept of a Lawful goddess of change unintuitive, but to a Jasite change is anything but chaotic. The butterfly, her symbol, illustrates that change is not random or disorganized, but the effort of a careful and deliberate metamorphosis, each enticing feature of the future building upon the labors of the past in an orderly fashion. A caterpillar always goes in, and a butterfly always comes out. Nothing is random about that. To a Jasite, there is a plan, and it is beautiful.

Jasite priests often preside over cultural rituals having to deal with important transitions in life, including birth, coming of age ceremonies, marriage, and also more unusual cases such as celebrating the discovery of sorcerous talent, a criminal's return to society as a new man after repenting for his crimes, welcoming an immigrant into a small town's society, or initiating a new recruit as a member of a team. Of course, the most important transition of all for the Jasite clergy is death, where a soul leaves its mortal flesh behind to meet with Wee Jas, the psychopomp who will guide their soul to its next destination, whatever that may be.

Almost all Jasite sects celebrate a holy day honoring the dead, a joyous occasion filled with music, painted faces, dancing, and merriment. Here followers are reminded of what the lives of their loved ones contributed for them, and celebrate their transformation, returning from this life to the beauty of nature, in order to become something new and wonderful.

Wee Jas is often seen as arrogant and vain, but really, her priests would point out, she just has a plan for everything... and no patience for lazy layabouts. Everything has to run smoothly. Everything has to keep getting better through iteration. Those who aren't a part of that, well, the world will keep turning without them, and she's there to make sure that it does... or, in her role as the Stern Lady, whip people into shape so as to be more efficient, responsible, creative, vibrant, beautiful and glorious with every life cycle. To Jasites, apathy, sloth, and negligence are intolerable sins, and maintaining one's personal appearance is just another manifestation of mindfulness.

Wee Jas values syncretism, and her followers emphasize that there is something to be learned from every culture. They say that we should derive strength from our differences, combining the ways of others with our own in order to create something vibrant and new, stronger than either could have been individually. Many Jasite historians frame the history of the world as an orderly metamorphosis caused by the contact, interaction, and merging of cultures.

The spark of sorcerous power is also held sacred by Jasites, as such a metamorphosis is said to represent the fruit of the cycles of the rebirth and transformation. Bloodlines combine, and spirits meld with the world's magic. Jasites sometimes hold a rite of passage ceremony to inaugurate a newly discovered Sorcerer, and some Jasite churches even sponsor special schools that help young sorcerers come into their own and foster their newfound talents.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 25:
Some academics argue that the pantheon wasn't recognized across the entirety of the world at all, but instead that what seems to be the recognition of the same gods over most of the known world is due to syncretism encouraged by enthusiastic Jasite movements, who claimed that the gods of cultures they encountered were just incarnations of their own by another name -- or vice versa, incorporating foreign gods into their own cultures as it suited them. Recovered records of the lost drow House Velanthe, for instance, appear to refer to Araushnee and Megwandir (typically both identified as aliases for Lolth) as separate entities.

It is said that the Phylactery of Wee Jas is hidden somewhere on the material plane, but that it would be a fool's errand to find it. After all, if it was ever unearthed, what would stop Nerull from beginning the Winter Age anew, effectively destroying the world as we know it? As such, it is regarded by many theologians as one of the most dangerous artifacts in the multiverse, which must never be found.

Organization: The Immortals
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/202/2/5/dark_knight_by_danielmchavez-d581gp5.jpg
"They say we are what we are, but we don't have to be. We could be Immortals, just not for long. I am the second half of the hourglass."
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOiVZNSrY-U

Some heroes are too good to die, like Obad-Hai taking the bullet for us every year. As the world is reborn again and again, ever progressing closer and closer towards unattainable Perfection, sometimes a person of great import is born. Their contributions cannot be permitted to be fleeting, and so their memory must be preserved.

The order of the Immortals takes this a step further, not merely preserving heroes in memory, but also preserving their roles in life. This monastic order, formed of monks of Wee Jas and Obad-Hai, finds and trains promising young warriors as the living reincarnations of legendary heroes. Donning ritual masks of great heroes of history, trained by re-enacting ancient ancestor quests, and equipped with sacred ancestral relics, the Immortals are a team of heroes that can never truly die. If a warrior should fall in battle, a new pupil called into the service of the order will don the mask, and the legend of that hero will continue. This leads to epic poems of heroes whose attributed deeds span centuries, through in truth the hero died and was replaced by a member of the Immortals expected to follow their example and charged with fulfilling their role.

If a great enough hero emerges and falls, sometimes the order will craft a new mask, inducting a new hero into the roster of the Immortals. The order is greatly respected in the societies where they are based, and those familiar with the heroic ancestors make certain allowances for those bearing the ritual mask of a hero. After all, certain behavior is expected from, and therefore acceptable for, any given iconic personality... and this sometimes allows the Immortals to fulfill certain useful cultural roles which would otherwise face all kinds of red tape or other social complications. In short, the order decides that a unique person's role to society becomes so important that it must be immortalized... and implements the resources to make it happen.

Essentially, a Justice League that knows not the limits of generations. If you want to truly honor your ancestors, the Immortals say, then be the second half of the hourglass.

mephnick
2015-08-16, 06:45 AM
I just use ravens. They've been psychopomps for many real world religions and legends.

Eldan
2015-08-16, 07:07 AM
Since souls go through the astral plane when on the way to their reward, I'd suggest the Astral Deva.

JoshuaZ
2015-08-16, 09:30 AM
I redid Wee Jas as a psychopomp in one of my own settings.


Wee Jas, The Stern Lady
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/121/c/f/cfba71234c7f33505ff167e7c7a3d7e5.jpg
"Your body feeds the earth, as it once fed you."
- Wee Jas, from the epic poem "Estherian Odyssey"

Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Expanded Domains: Charm, Death, Deathbound, Decay, Domination, Inquisition, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Mind, Necromancer, Repose, Time, Transformation, Spell, Undeath
Portfolio: Butterflies, Bureaucracy, Decay, Efficiency, Intuition, Organization, Makeovers, Metamorphosis, Moths, Psychopomps, Rebirth, Repurposing / Reinvention, Sorcery, Syncretism, Transitions, Transmutation, Vanity / Fabulousness
Theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfqnulWWxbM

Knowledge (Religion) 10:
Wee Jas is the First Lich, who hid her heart away to foil Nerull, so that he could not bring an end to the cycle of life during the Winter Age.

Originally, she was a sort of "business efficiency manager" of the gods, making sure the cosmos ran smoothly through its transitions (especially arcane transitions such as Transmutation or the spark of sorcerous power). When Nerull went off the rails, she was called in to make sure the cycle of life kept running smoothly. It is Nerull that brings death, but Wee Jas is the psychopomp, responsible for the transit of souls and the transmutation of all things through decay and repurposing.

When flowers grow from the remains of the dead, it is said to be Wee Jas tending her garden. Her symbol is the butterfly, symbolizing transmutation and transitions. The perpetually youthful Obad-Hai sometimes serves as her consort.

http://img00.deviantart.net/f33b/i/2015/072/e/6/dia_de_los_muertos_by_nadiezda-d5jv979.jpg
Wee Jas in her role as psychopomp, dancing with the deceased.

Knowledge (Religion) 15:
When something stops working, like your body, you have to change it. Change your skin, like a snake. Leave it behind, to feed new life. Go beyond your old self and become a new part of the universe. The Ruby Sorceress will be there to show you how.

For Jasites, death is not a sorrowful ending, but a new beginning. They believe in a wheel of reincarnation, both for flesh and spirit. With each life, there is a lesson to be learned, both by the soul itself and by those it leaves behind. Each turning of the cycle is an opportunity for us to grow. Learn from those who passed before you, and remain attentive to life's lessons. With each death, the flesh decays, and becomes a part of something new. Nothing is to be lost. That would just be sloppy, and the Stern Lady won't have that!

As such, Jasites disdain sealed casket burials or embalming methods which prevent a body from doing anything, and instead tend to bury the dead in the open earth. Jasite funerals traditionally sprinkle seeds over corpses and bury them in soil marked by cairns or memorial decorations, or in catacomb mazes with earthen walls that wind beneath farms and fields. Jasites often see poetry in the dead watching over their descendants even in death by giving them things such as food or beauty (such as the stunning bone gardens of some Jasite sects). Many Jasites even encourage the use of necromancy to create unintelligent undead so that a body can labor to help or defend its loved ones even after death. Even intelligent undeath is unusually widely accepted by Jasites, for they see it as just another transition into a new form of being. After all, Wee Jas herself is the First Lich.

Just as the flesh of the dead should be put to use, knowledge from those who passed before is to be preserved so that it can take root in new minds. Jasites are often keepers of relics and archives, or adventurers who seek to recover lost knowledge and culture.

After every harvest season, Nerull slays Obad-Hai and hangs his body from the Summer Tree, ushering in the winter. At every winter solstice, Wee Jas sneaks off with Obad-Hai's body to use it to plant a new Green Man somewhere, which blooms into the new Obad-Hai to usher in the Spring.

The first time Nerull killed Obad-Hai, it brought about the Age of Winter, a cruel ice age which brought ruin to the First Civilizations. The gods scrambled to find a solution, eventually empowering Wee Jas as psychopomp. It was she who grew a new Obad-Hai, ending the Age of Winter. When Nerull turned his scythe upon Wee Jas in retribution, he found that she could not be killed, for she had hidden her heart away in a place even the gods could not find, and would be reborn again and again. Nerull searches for the phylactery of the First Lich to this very day.

Knowledge (Religion) 20:
The philosophy of Wee Jas is all about change, rebirth, and reinvention. Some might find the concept of a Lawful goddess of change unintuitive, but to a Jasite change is anything but chaotic. The butterfly, her symbol, illustrates that change is not random or disorganized, but the effort of a careful and deliberate metamorphosis, each enticing feature of the future building upon the labors of the past in an orderly fashion. A caterpillar always goes in, and a butterfly always comes out. Nothing is random about that. To a Jasite, there is a plan, and it is beautiful.

Jasite priests often preside over cultural rituals having to deal with important transitions in life, including birth, coming of age ceremonies, marriage, and also more unusual cases such as celebrating the discovery of sorcerous talent, a criminal's return to society as a new man after repenting for his crimes, welcoming an immigrant into a small town's society, or initiating a new recruit as a member of a team. Of course, the most important transition of all for the Jasite clergy is death, where a soul leaves its mortal flesh behind to meet with Wee Jas, the psychopomp who will guide their soul to its next destination, whatever that may be.

Almost all Jasite sects celebrate a holy day honoring the dead, a joyous occasion filled with music, painted faces, dancing, and merriment. Here followers are reminded of what the lives of their loved ones contributed for them, and celebrate their transformation, returning from this life to the beauty of nature, in order to become something new and wonderful.

Wee Jas is often seen as arrogant and vain, but really, her priests would point out, she just has a plan for everything... and no patience for lazy layabouts. Everything has to run smoothly. Everything has to keep getting better through iteration. Those who aren't a part of that, well, the world will keep turning without them, and she's there to make sure that it does... or, in her role as the Stern Lady, whip people into shape so as to be more efficient, responsible, creative, vibrant, beautiful and glorious with every life cycle. To Jasites, apathy, sloth, and negligence are intolerable sins, and maintaining one's personal appearance is just another manifestation of mindfulness.

Wee Jas values syncretism, and her followers emphasize that there is something to be learned from every culture. They say that we should derive strength from our differences, combining the ways of others with our own in order to create something vibrant and new, stronger than either could have been individually. Many Jasite historians frame the history of the world as an orderly metamorphosis caused by the contact, interaction, and merging of cultures.

The spark of sorcerous power is also held sacred by Jasites, as such a metamorphosis is said to represent the fruit of the cycles of the rebirth and transformation. Bloodlines combine, and spirits meld with the world's magic. Jasites sometimes hold a rite of passage ceremony to inaugurate a newly discovered Sorcerer, and some Jasite churches even sponsor special schools that help young sorcerers come into their own and foster their newfound talents.

Knowledge (Religion) DC 25:
Some academics argue that the pantheon wasn't recognized across the entirety of the world at all, but instead that what seems to be the recognition of the same gods over most of the known world is due to syncretism encouraged by enthusiastic Jasite movements, who claimed that the gods of cultures they encountered were just incarnations of their own by another name -- or vice versa, incorporating foreign gods into their own cultures as it suited them. Recovered records of the lost drow House Velanthe, for instance, appear to refer to Araushnee and Megwandir (typically both identified as aliases for Lolth) as separate entities.

It is said that the Phylactery of Wee Jas is hidden somewhere on the material plane, but that it would be a fool's errand to find it. After all, if it was ever unearthed, what would stop Nerull from beginning the Winter Age anew, effectively destroying the world as we know it? As such, it is regarded by many theologians as one of the most dangerous artifacts in the multiverse, which must never be found.

Organization: The Immortals
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/202/2/5/dark_knight_by_danielmchavez-d581gp5.jpg
"They say we are what we are, but we don't have to be. We could be Immortals, just not for long. I am the second half of the hourglass."
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOiVZNSrY-U

Some heroes are too good to die, like Obad-Hai taking the bullet for us every year. As the world is reborn again and again, ever progressing closer and closer towards unattainable Perfection, sometimes a person of great import is born. Their contributions cannot be permitted to be fleeting, and so their memory must be preserved.

The order of the Immortals takes this a step further, not merely preserving heroes in memory, but also preserving their roles in life. This monastic order, formed of monks of Wee Jas and Obad-Hai, finds and trains promising young warriors as the living reincarnations of legendary heroes. Donning ritual masks of great heroes of history, trained by re-enacting ancient ancestor quests, and equipped with sacred ancestral relics, the Immortals are a team of heroes that can never truly die. If a warrior should fall in battle, a new pupil called into the service of the order will don the mask, and the legend of that hero will continue. This leads to epic poems of heroes whose attributed deeds span centuries, through in truth the hero died and was replaced by a member of the Immortals expected to follow their example and charged with fulfilling their role.

If a great enough hero emerges and falls, sometimes the order will craft a new mask, inducting a new hero into the roster of the Immortals. The order is greatly respected in the societies where they are based, and those familiar with the heroic ancestors make certain allowances for those bearing the ritual mask of a hero. After all, certain behavior is expected from, and therefore acceptable for, any given iconic personality... and this sometimes allows the Immortals to fulfill certain useful cultural roles which would otherwise face all kinds of red tape or other social complications. In short, the order decides that a unique person's role to society becomes so important that it must be immortalized... and implements the resources to make it happen.

Essentially, a Justice League that knows not the limits of generations. If you want to truly honor your ancestors, the Immortals say, then be the second half of the hourglass.


This is excellent. I ran a campaign for a few years ago where Wee Jas was one of the main deities, and I really wish I had seen this when I had been doing that so I could have stolen this.

The bit about stealing Oba-Hai's body each year is also excellent: it has a very folklorish feel to it which D&D deities often lack.

Zale
2015-08-16, 01:43 PM
That's probably because if you gave psychopomps names or stats, someone would probably try to fight them.

Thisguy_
2015-08-16, 04:32 PM
As an alternative to a tradition with the psychopomp being a special entity or group of entities, you could say that for each soul a family brings into the world, shepherds it to the next. You could focus on mothers and grandmothers doing this, as an option, or say that the closest deceased relative does this (which would make disconnected family members especially tragic, or even ghosts if their family refused them).

Be funny to see it happen to a Goblin. "I AM GRANDMA SCRATCHTHROAT." "YOU GROSS." "SHUT UP AND COME TO DEATH-PLACE."

LudicSavant
2015-08-16, 04:37 PM
As an alternative to a tradition with the psychopomp being a special entity or group of entities, you could say that each soul a family brings into the world, shepherds it to the next. You could focus on mothers and grandmothers doing this, as an option, or say that the closest deceased relative does this (which would make disconnected family members especially tragic, or even ghosts if their family refused them).

Be funny to see it happen to a Goblin. "I AM GRANDMA SCRATCHTHROAT." "YOU GROSS." "SHUT UP AND COME TO DEATH-PLACE."

That's a fun one :)

woodlandkammao
2015-08-16, 09:29 PM
Watch Supernatural for ideas. They've got about as many ways to travel to the afterlife as there have been deaths on the show.

goto124
2015-08-17, 09:21 AM
That's probably because if you gave psychopomps names or stats, someone would probably try to fight them.

That's how you beat death. You beat up the guy trying to send you to death.

Maybe another psychopomp goes for you after a while, and you may be treated as a 'criminal' who escaped death. But at least you're alive for a bit longer.

Eldan
2015-08-17, 09:43 AM
We have Inevitables for just that eventuality. That said, if a sufficiently high-level character actually tried beating up a psychopomp, I'd probably let them hang around as a ghost for a while. It would make the game interesting.

Kantaki
2015-08-17, 09:46 AM
That's how you beat death. You beat up the guy trying to send you to death.

Maybe another psychopomp goes for you after a while, and you may be treated as a 'criminal' who escaped death. But at least you're alive for a bit longer.

I don't think it works that way. That you are dead is the whole reason you get a visit from a psychopomp. The only thing you get for beating up the guy who escorts you to the afterlife is that you don't move on to the afterlife and turn into some kind of ghost.

Depending on your destination that might be a improvement.

goto124
2015-08-17, 09:52 AM
Depends on setting. Could you not re-enter your body, for example?

Or can you hang around as a ghost and talk to the living people? 'Hey cool, I can still roll Diplomancy!'

Milo v3
2015-08-17, 07:58 PM
New personal headcanon: Ghosts are souls who escaped from their psychopomp, wights are souls who killed their psychopomp.

GungHo
2015-08-18, 10:48 AM
We have Inevitables for just that eventuality. That said, if a sufficiently high-level character actually tried beating up a psychopomp, I'd probably let them hang around as a ghost for a while. It would make the game interesting.

I really like the idea behind the Inevitables. They're essentially the Terminator sans the implied malice around Skynet. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They're simply executing programming written by an Order that is so ingrained into the cosmic tapestry that it is unknowable as to purpose and design.

Telonius
2015-08-18, 11:13 AM
I think they'd vary by plane. Unless you're dealing with something specific like Ghostwalk, I get the general idea that a person's soul just kind of shows up on whatever planar destination they're supposed to get in the afterlife. For a Lawful Good plane you might get a bunch of Lantern Archons (like Roy got). Fiendish Codex 2 probably has a description of whatever Devil does that for Baator.

Eldan
2015-08-18, 11:40 AM
I really like the idea behind the Inevitables. They're essentially the Terminator sans the implied malice around Skynet. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They're simply executing programming written by an Order that is so ingrained into the cosmic tapestry that it is unknowable as to purpose and design.

One problem, of course, is that by mid-levels, they can rather easily be blown up.