The Heaven system I designed for an RP I'm leading

Wow, I also have recently developed a realm-based death system, although it's based on the Underworld instead of Heaven.

1st Realm: Limbo. Here go the souls of the dead to rest. For a while. If all goes well, after the soul has rested enough it wakes already in the Second Realm. If a soul is pulled too early (voodoo and other necromantic practices) the unrested soul becomes an undead (a zombie), with no memories and no thought capabilities.

2nd Realm: here a soul wakes as a skeleton. It has the memories of all its previous lifes and deaths (more on that later). The first time they're given a new name composed of the Families they belong to (which depend on the physical characteristics of the soul's manifestation as a skeleton), which they use subsequent times.

Approximately each year the Hellfire Rites take place, but nobody calls them that: they're better known as the Skeleton Wars. It's a free-for-all where each skeleton must subjugate or kill any and all opposing skeletons, until they're unanimously voted as the Skeleton King, after which they gain certain powers and status above all remaining skeletons, and get access to the Crown Purification.

3rd Realm: Shadow. This is the business Realm, where contact with the Terrenal Plane takes place. Here lies the Embassy of Living Creatures. Vampires (who are actually pretty much alive, just fatally cursed) come here to hire their undead and/or skeleton armies, and this is where necromantic cultists' requests are processed, among others.

4th Realm: Phantom Pain (actual name yet to be decided). When a skeleton is Purified, their soul gets transported here. The fastest way is to wear the Skeleton Crown for a year, but there are other ways, like fulfilling Contracts from Shadow, although it's way slower and tedious. Souls here manifest as phantoms (ghosts, plotergeists and the like). There are no competitions to get to the next Realm; instead, the power and influence of each phantom is proportional to their fame (or infamy) in the Terrenal Plane. This can be done by fulfilling more Contracts or by working autonomously. The first is more secure but tedious, and the second one is riskier (with way more variance in the expected time of Mystification). When a phantom gets enough fame to have a name of their own (given by the Terrenal Dwellers themselves), they are said to be Mystified and become a Myth, with access to the 5th Realm.

5th Realm: the Myth Realm (no name yet). Here dwell Nightmares and Legends. Nightmares are the ones that got a name through infamy and the latter are the ones that worked hard for good fame. For some reason, there are way more Nightmares than Legends.

Having many names in different mythical stories is a thing of status, and makes you more powerful. When you reach a certain point of power, and can't be called part of the Myths anymore, you become a Daemon.

6th Realm: the Daemon Realm (no name yet). Here lie Demons (Daemonic Nightmares), Angels (specially good-natured Legends) and Guardians (good-natured-but-not-as-much Legends - think daemonions from The Northern Lights, Guardian Angels, and Familiar Guardian Spirits of Japanese folklore).

7th Realm: the Shinigami Realm (no name yet). This is the final stage. Almost all-powerful spirits, tasked with the job of taking and guiding the souls of the dead to the Underworld. Some decide to stay as a Shinigami and act as a Demigod to the Terrenal Dwellers. Others work as Death itself and after a millennium, they get the so desired right to Rest In Peace. The become one with the Universe, disappear in the Void, mix with the Magic Plane, whatever you want to call it.

Death is any and all shinigami working as such. Satan is the most powerful Demon. Freddy Krueger is one of the most recent additions to the Nightmares.

Any soul that dies as a spirit (anything from skeleton to shinigami, either during the Skeleton Wars, an incursion to the Terrenal Plane, or by a jealous or fearful peer spirit who doesn't want to compete with you) or undead gets reincarnated, lose all memories of previous lifes (and previous deaths), and must start the whole process again after dying again. The time spent in Limbo is to recover all past memories and making your soul complete, and you're given a new name as a skeleton because after a few death you lose track of your "real name" since all your names during lifes are "real", and your skeleton manifestation stays constant through all deaths.


Sorry for hijacking your thread like this, but this seemed an appropriate place to post this.

/r/worldbuilding Thread