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What exactly happens to souls in the mortal realms?


ZealousJ

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I got to thinking after reading time and again about how miffed nagash is about Stormcast being reforged rather than giving their souls up to him, as is the norm.

My question is: is it? Is it normal and expected for mortal souls to be shipped off to nagash once theyve left their bodies? Does everyone in the mortal realm expect this? 

Also,what does nagash do with these souls? He and his mortarchs have abilities that suggest they 'eat' souls. Do they populate his realm? Nagash has never ever been a nice chap, so it seems to me that this is a pretty horrific status quo.

It also begs the question: what is sigmar thinking? I mean, no wonder there are so many mad ****** trying desperately to court the chaos gods to gain immortality if the most likely alternative is to spend eternity in nagashes back pocket.

I'm sure there's something I'm missing here and id love to know what it is.

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Think Hades and essentially that's how I imagine people view him going by the few novels we have on death. 

Nagash is the god of death and essentially runs the afterlife and no it's not that bad of a place either Josh reynolds has explained that the gods have various aspects that most likely a more "nicer" aspect of nagash usher's people into stygx. Also I recall reading that following/worshiping nagash lands you an easier ticket to stygx as well. 

They make even in the point in pantheon after a certain amount of time dead souls pass from underworld into the unknown places most likely reincarnation considering how the realms expand. Honestly considering the ****** going on stygx is a lot nicer compared to being in the realm of chaos were daemons can have fun with you. 

Going to pull from Josh's ask fm. 

User: Referring to Sigmar/Nagash and one of their aspects being ascendant, how exactly does an aspect ascend? Can more than one ascend at a time? Can you elaborate on what exactly ascendancy entails? Also, thank you for being the best.

I imagine it works on something like divine instinct. Whose prayers are they answering? What situation are they interceding in? Does Nagash, the Undying King, ten foot tall skeleton pope, show up to collect the soul of a child, or does some smaller, gentler aspect of him handle that task - and if it's the latter, is he even aware of it, or is just reflex, like breathing or blinking?

In my opinion, the gods are simultaneously multifarious and singular, thus all aspects co-exist to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the state of their realm and their power. Some of them are aware of these other aspects, others may well not be.

And ascendancy is just my fancy way of saying whose turn at bat it is. It's the aspect that's driving most of the decisions, for better or worse. It would be situational, I expect. The right aspect for the job, that sort of thing.

I hope that answers your questions!

Now, if you been keeping up with death fluff nagash is honestly not that bad of a dude, in whfb during times of legends sigmar it's revealed that nagash honestly thinks if people followed his will(living) or become undead it would be able to hold off chaos and there would be order and peace.  By large in AOS it's revealed nagash is quite hands on compared to sigmar or the everqueen in a sense that he would protect what is his(Mannfred states that nagash views his servants and the dead as his property) and speaks and whispers to his servants long after his defeat by Archaon.  

In a sense you see this in Shyish, as Josh said not all nagash worshipers are the same case example some view vampires like some holy being some view them as being cursed by nagash it depends. Also Josh brings up the context of being the god of the dead trying to hold your realm together and another god is disrupting the life cycle diminishing your power.

Also the souls that make it into the underworld(considering the age of chaos many dead are going to the realm of chaos due to sacrifices etc) screaming how sigmar has abandoned them(He did in a sense depending on your view point), why did they have to die? etc. Imagine how many people died during the age of chaos? Screaming those words?

This does not help nagash's mood or mindset either since being gods people's faith affects them on some level. 

I kinda got the feeling I drifted off point. :<

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Another question an answer from Josh reynolds. As always it's his "opinion" but I feel it's relevant to the topic 

User:What attracts people to cause them to follow nagash? The normal joe's, not the evil necromancer in a tower? Reading novels it seems the normal people have a huge amount of faith in nagash. Does nagash handle his faithful differently compared to sigmar? Shyish is a constant warzone yet they hang on.

Josh:Well, the most obvious answer might be that Nagash never really abandoned the field, the way Alarielle or Sigmar did. He was beaten, and retreated, but was still a very tangible presence in his realm, in a way that the other gods weren't. Too, there's a sort of grim inevitability to Nagash that the other gods lack - he's death, and you can't kill death. You can delay it, but it will eventually catch up to you.
 

To illustrate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyILB1cVS7g

As to whether he handles faith differently? Possibly. In my opinion, it's a quality Vs. quantity thing. Sigmar - at least at the moment - cares *how* he's worshipped. Nagash doesn't, he only cares that worship of some sort is taking place.

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Nagash isn't a nice dude. He wants everyone to be dead so only his will exists. All are one in Nagash...

 

What I've gotten from the book is that souls, by default, go to Styggyx. Which the "underworld" beneath the Realm of Death. This is a deathier death realm, effectively Hell. Though it is much more like the greco-roman underworld than christian eternal damnation.

 

If you are bound to the chaos gods, your soul goes to them. Sigmar can take your soul as well. Nagash considers Sigmar's activites as a "theft" of his right as the god of death.

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People dying faith in sigmar definitely adds fuel to the fire of their tension. 

The mortals of the realms wish for salvation in their dying breath, thus they plea for sigmar. Failing that, those sacrificed or devoted to the dark gods take away from nagash's pull of souls. The people in the realm of death have a cooperative relatonship with nagash if he is their patron god, so they view their mortality willingly, and happily giving their soul to nagash like a disney movie ending. I feel like this is because they know what to expect. They can interact with their ancestors they know that death isnt an end.

Elsewhere, people are not so lucky to be comfortable with death. Thus their souls may fall pray to chaos.

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10 hours ago, Darth Alec said:

Nagash isn't a nice dude. He wants everyone to be dead so only his will exists. All are one in Nagash...

 

What I've gotten from the book is that souls, by default, go to Styggyx. Which the "underworld" beneath the Realm of Death. This is a deathier death realm, effectively Hell. Though it is much more like the greco-roman underworld than christian eternal damnation.

 

If you are bound to the chaos gods, your soul goes to them. Sigmar can take your soul as well. Nagash considers Sigmar's activites as a "theft" of his right as the god of death.

Nagash does not want everyone to be undead he wants everyone to follow his will living or dead if you do so the skeleton pope will stick out for you as stated by Josh compared to sigmar. As said many still follow nagash since he fought for everyone in shyish to the bitter end.

Nagash has tons of human worshipers he largely let's them worship him as they wish case example via ancestor worship like the dunmer in elder scrolls or the evil necromancer route. Nagash alignment wise in my opinion from all of josh's explanations seems more like hades to me in AOS as a god. Largely misunderstood feared and perhaps hated. 

When nagash says all are one in nagash he means those who follow him are now forever connected to him body and soul in the audio drama series each time nagash is doing his awesome speeches he is most likely talking to his priests and followers. Hence mannfred knew of the stormcast before even meeting them and the people from Morrsend most likely heard him too considering how they reacted to the stormcast somewhat. 

3 hours ago, hellalugosi said:

People dying faith in sigmar definitely adds fuel to the fire of their tension. 

The mortals of the realms wish for salvation in their dying breath, thus they plea for sigmar. Failing that, those sacrificed or devoted to the dark gods take away from nagash's pull of souls. The people in the realm of death have a cooperative relatonship with nagash if he is their patron god, so they view their mortality willingly, and happily giving their soul to nagash like a disney movie ending. I feel like this is because they know what to expect. They can interact with their ancestors they know that death isnt an end.

Elsewhere, people are not so lucky to be comfortable with death. Thus their souls may fall pray to chaos.

Yeah I like this post Josh said something similar that most in the realm of death largely don't fear to Die in a sense since in a lot of places they are entombed and when their city of threatened they rise or are risen again as wights to defend their descendants. Some in Shyish view vampires as blessed by nagash and some view them as people cursed by him or the mortarch's. 

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33 minutes ago, Rhivan said:

I'm sorry for not contributing to the topic but @shinros you have made Nagash my favorite Warhammer God xD What books exactly have Nagash acting like this (I'm brand new to AoS so I'm unfamiliar with it's books/lore)

Search for nagash audio drama, I do recommend the audio drama version.(If you have the money)

11-06-RGW-HuntforNagash-cover.jpg

Book version mortarch of night. 

BLPROCESSED-mortarch-of-night-ltd-ed-1.j

Also lord of undeath(Most people from what I have seen it was the overall best one but it was the last of the realm gate series)

BLPROCESSED-lord-of-undeath-ltd-ed-1.jpg

 

From the search of nagash audio drama series where nagash makes a speech at the start of each audiobook which breaks down to him telling his servants about his supremacy, that he is coming back and he is coming back to slap chaos and sigmar take their stuff and teach them what it means to mess with death. Josh has stated nagash has been doing this for centuries. 

Nagash: Seek out my foes and make them yours! Seek out these thieves! Take from them as they have taken from me!

Mannfred tells the story of helstone that became a economic power house and of course nagash appeared at the gates, the city pledged fealty and he simply left them to their own devices. Josh also added in Askfm that many of the nobles did transition to vampires considering mannfred hanged around there it was most likely him.

Going by the lord of undeath and pantheon novels he is a rather chill dude and seems to have respect for good wizards. Still if you betray his trust he goes into shall I say the "old nagash?" Case example a tribe/city of people rebelled against him and then afterwards felt it was a bad idea and surrendered and gave him if I recall correctly 8 of their most beautiful women to be his wives. He proceeded to kill them turn them into banshee's and then killed the people of the city and most likely enslaved them as undead. 

Nagash overall is the extreme end of order in a sense. This is a line from one of his speeches. 

Nagash: When Nagash reaches out to crush his enemies, it is with a million hands. When Nagash seeks out his prey, it is with a million eyes.....

What I have been liking about death lore so far is that it's not completely good or completely evil either. 

More Josh Reynolds stuff from the general lore thread in relation to your question. 

User:How do the mortal's of shyish worship nagash? Would they be more than happy to become undead? Viewing it as something greater than their mortal coils? 

In different ways, in different places, I imagine. Some might yearn to be undead, others don't. Some might co-exist with the dead, in a form of ancestor worship, while others might seal their dead away, to be forever undisturbed ('render unto Nagash'). 


Think of it this way - even monotheistic religions tend to have a lot of variability in ritual, if not dogma. And Nagash probably doesn't care about *how* he's worshipped, so long as he's worshipped.

User:In the world that was vampires were considered the "blood of nagash". Considering Nagash is now a god are vampires viewed differently to the mortals of shyish compared to the other realms? In this case would Neferata and Mannfred appearing in a town they would be viewed as some form of holy figure

Pretty much, yes, depending on the place and context. In some places, vampires are possibly seen as the equivalent to messengers from god - prophets and holy men. In others, as those who have been blessed - or cursed - by a god. Immortality might not be seen as a good thing by those who worship death

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Of course Nagash is not evil, how can Death be evil? Death is death - all die sooner or later, even if not from age. As Shyish is the Realm of Death and the Underworld of the Mortal Realms, it's more like Helheimr from the Norse mythology I'd imagine (or Hades from the Greeks, why not). Of course, not all go to Nagash, but even Chaos worshippers can discover they can be turned to wights in eternal service to the God of Death. No one is safe from after all.

And, concerning vampires, in the "Sands of blood" drama people of Morrsend venerated the vampire monks in the Temple of Final Rest and gave them their blood as the vampires gave theirs in defense of the city. Why not.

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 2017-5-6 at 7:14 PM, Menkeroth said:

As Shyish is the Realm of Death and the Underworld of the Mortal Realms,

This is something I've seen people say a few times but in the first AoS book (Mighty Battles) Shyish is described as having entrances to all the Underworlds. 

shyish.PNG.5412ac6f5c2577276f0066dd8cb7df6c.PNG

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27 minutes ago, WarbossKurgan said:

This is something I've seen people say a few times but in the first AoS book (Mighty Battles) Shyish is described as having entrances to all the Underworlds. 

shyish.PNG.5412ac6f5c2577276f0066dd8cb7df6c.PNG

This is backed up in Undying King too and one of the games is the objective of the Nurgle forces attacking Shyish.  I got the impression that the location of the gates changes over the centuries too (but that may have just been me)

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