What happens when you die while in afterlife?

[Precure]

Would you truly cease to exist? Or reborn in some other plane of existence?

[brian 333]

Used to be, when you are an outsider, as dead folk on their home planes are, and you are slain on your home plane, you return to the stuff your home plane is made of. You cannot be recalled, reanimated, or revived in any fashion. Outsiders killed on planes other than their home planes sometimes were forcibly returned to their home plane, then unable to manifest anywhere else for a varying amount of time, depending on the creature's type.

[Tzardok]

Is the question "What happens to a mortal if slain while on the Outer Planes?" or is it "What happens to a dead soul if slain?"

The answer to the first one is: The same thing as if you were slaim elsewhere. Your soul is drawn to the correct Outer Plane (in 2e there was for a time the rule that your soul instead had to walk to where it belongs, but we'll ignore that).

The answer to the second one is, as brian said, that your essence dissolves into the plane. Essentially the same thing as what happens to souls that transcend and become pure alignment, but quicker, dirtier and less effective than the normal way.

[Peelee]

I imagine thr question is more like "What if, for example, the evil adventuring party was successful here (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0497.html)?"

[Riftwolf]

From memory, souls in the afterlife are technically in outsider bodies so if they get destroyed there they just return to the ambient plane-stuff.
This method is highly inefficient for Gods to extract that sweet sweet soul energy which is why they all do their best to stretch it out. Except the battleworld afterlives but I can't remember which afterlives those are anymore.

[brian 333]

From memory, souls in the afterlife are technically in outsider bodies so if they get destroyed there they just return to the ambient plane-stuff.
This method is highly inefficient for Gods to extract that sweet sweet soul energy which is why they all do their best to stretch it out. Except the battleworld afterlives but I can't remember which afterlives those are anymore.

Even in the battle afterlives they stretch it out as long as possible with rules like Valhalla where they get up at sunset and brag all night while drinking and whatnot before dawn when they draw up sides and go at it again.

[WanderingMist]

From memory, souls in the afterlife are technically in outsider bodies so if they get destroyed there they just return to the ambient plane-stuff.
This method is highly inefficient for Gods to extract that sweet sweet soul energy which is why they all do their best to stretch it out. Except the battleworld afterlives but I can't remember which afterlives those are anymore.

Battleworld afterlives like Valhalla probably just give them non-outsider bodies for temporary use.

[brian 333]

Battleworld afterlives like Valhalla probably just give them non-outsider bodies for temporary use.

I think it may be a case of identity. If you are killed by another member of the club you aren't really killed. You do get to enjoy the horrid wounding; we don't want to take all of the fun out of it, but you aren't really really dead. But when the jerks from the Material Plane show up and kill you with weapons not forged in Valhalla, it's game over, man!



Gunnar's head was wedged under Vangild's buttock, so he missed the end of the battle. As the sun set and the Valkyries selected those most worthy of honors to drink at the Upstairs Bar his body got up and started to feel around for him. Vangild got up, said a bad word, and kicked Gunnar's head away from the questing hands of the body.

"I can't believe I spent half the battle with your head up my bum!" Vangild shouted. "I'd have been selected by one of the Twelve if I hadn't tripped over your clumsy corpse!"

"Me?" Gunnar shouted, "You're the klutz who cut my head off instead of the enemy's!"

Vangild and most of the rest were gone by the time Bothildr grabbed his head and stuck it on his body. It took a moment to reorient, then he realized that she had been mortally wounded as well.

"Come on, before Halfgart pisses in the beer bucket again."

"Your face!" Gunnar said. "It's..."

"Pretty?" She smirked through the ruin a battle-axe could create. "I didn't become a shieldmaiden because I was good with a shield, you know."

"I, ahh..."

She laughed at his discomfort and started running to catch up with the crowd. He trotted behind her.

Inside the great hall his place was determined by his performance. He was at the splintered bench nearest to the door, where those farther up by the big round table sat drinking with the Valkyries. And when they had too much they staggered down the stairs, ran down the aisle toward the door, and vomited before the huge pine slabs could open.

Somehow, that part of Valhalla never made it to the sermons.

Bothildr was laughing with Jaan, and he wondered why that made him jealous. Normally he liked the huge idiot. He didn't say much, or rather, he didn't say much that meant anything, but he tried. Tonight he only wondered how the oaf had even gotten into a battle. He certainly wouldn't have volunteered. Bothildr must like losers.

The doors swung open and crashed into the walls on either side.

"A thousand souls for Gilgeam!" screamed a human warrior. "Attack!"

Partly concealed by the door, Gunnar saw eight figures surge into the hall. The only weapon he had was the spike atop his helm.

A halfling in dark grey armor stabbed Sigurt, then Brody. Using his helmet in both hands, he swung down, and the eight-inch spike drove through the halfling's skull.

Now he had two shortswords, and he threw one to Bothildr. There was a wizard at the rear of the group who made a storm of magic arrows fly up the aisle, and a dozen figures fell. Like the two that had fallen near him, they became pools of blood staining the floor.

He didn't count the twelve strides he took at a run, never considered the distance of his final leap. He saw the point his sword would hit, and he drove it with all his momentum and strength into the space left of the ninth vertebra with a downward tilt.

The dwarf nearby saw him holding the blade as the wizard slid off of it. Bothildr saw him too, and slid on the blood-slick boards, hacking at the dwarf's booted ankle. The dwarf's morningstar crashed down, impaling her leg and crushing her ankle. For his distraction he got Gunnar's sword in his eye.

It stuck.

He couldn't get it loose.

Bothildr's good eye tracked something moving fast behind him.

He grabbed the morningstar, Bothildr screamed as he yanked it out, and in a flat spin he flung it at the target he had seen in Bothildr's eye.

Like a hammer at summer games, the morningstar flew. It struck the head of the half-orc so hard that the helmet flew off. Now Gunnar had another sword as Bothilde gave the target a finishing stroke.

An armored human screamed at him, and Gunnar couldn't resist. He grabbed his own head by the hair and, lifting it, he made a motion as a gentleman would when tipping his hat to a lady he admired. The human's face was priceless.

They were engaged, then, sword to sword. Gunnar was struck twice: flesh wounds. They hurt far worse than wounds in the daily battles.

He found a spot, where the gauntlet slid beneath the armored sleeve, where he could strike and remain out of his opponent's reach. Once, twice. Now blood flowed, and the human tried to protect his wrist. That left his jaw just above his gorget open. The man was dead before Ulfbrite hit him with a beer bucket.

Now Ulfbrite had a sword and Bothildr managed to stand on her broken ankle by his other side.

One of the leaders went down and the other three turned to run as the Valkyries formed a battle line. They stopped when they saw the three bloody warriors. A horn-blast shook the rafters of the Great Hall, and the Valkyries let out their war-cries.

The three tried to fight, but dinner knives, improvised weapons, and angry bare hands beat them down.

In the silence which followed, the steaming of the mortal remains boiling away was loud. And Gunnar's sword boiled away as well.

Radgridr dropped into the empty space and furled her wings. "You have been chosen for the High Table as reward for your courage."

Gunnar looked right and left, then right again at Bothilde.

"What about my friends?"

"Their courage was seen, but only you have been selected."

"If they can't come with me, I'd rather stay with them."

"If that is your decision."

"Yeah."

The gathering grew loud in disbelief around him. The word idiot figured prominently.

As Radgridr turned and unfurled her wings, Gunnar said, "If it's not too much trouble, would you mind sending a bucket or two of the good stuff down here?"

The Valkyrie looked back over her shoulder and said, "If that is your wish."

The party resumed as she flew back up toward the big table, leaving him with the people he had fought with and against every day since he had died.

[Coppercloud]

Well-written short story of a battle in Valhalla.
On the contrary everyone, it should totally be viewed by you all. That was an amazing read, thank you Brian!

[Darth Paul]

Even in the battle afterlives they stretch it out as long as possible with rules like Valhalla where they get up at sunset and brag all night while drinking and whatnot before dawn when they draw up sides and go at it again.

Can I go there for the drinking and the shield-maidens, but sit out the all-day fighting? I'm sort of at that age...

[Gift Jeraff]

Where was I gonna go? Greysky?

[Precure]

Then, if Eugene is killed while waiting on clouds, would he turn into Celestia?

[Tzardok]

The problem here is that Eugene isn't actually in the Afterlife, but in some kind of attached demiplane. Because of that we have a lot of different possibilities:


Eugene is treated as a ghost and respawns after being destroyed within a few days.
Killing Eugene sends his essence to whatever plane he's supposed to go (not necessarily Celestia, as his judging wasn't finished). I don't really believe this to be the answer; if soul essence would automatically go to the proper plane, souls would do so too (like they'd do in Planescape) and there would be no need for judging.
Eugene is treated as a petitioner (manifested soul) that dies outside their proper plane in 2e: he's erased. Completely destroyed. Gone from the Multiverse.
Alternatively, the closest example of a counterpart to such a "pre-afterlife" in D&D is the Fugue Plane in Forgotten Realms, and that one has the Immutable trait, which a.o. makes it impossible to actually hurt and kill beings there. So assuming the cloudy realm has the same or a similiar trait, Eugene just can't be destroyed.

[brian 333]

Can I go there for the drinking and the shield-maidens, but sit out the all-day fighting? I'm sort of at that age...

Okay, but your score in the fight determines the quality of the booze and shieldmaidens. Bothildr thought a battle-axe to the face improved her looks, and she was drinking urine-laced ale with the guys who were killed in the first round of battle. Score a 0 in battle and you can imagine your 'reward for yourself, because I can't describe it.

[No good @ names]

Dude, if you die in Canada Celestia, you die in real life!
Oh wait, wrong comic