The Afterlife

Although Iskloft is home to many cultures and customs vary from city to city, almost all of them have some form of funeral rite to lay their dead to rest. Belief in the paranormal is not universal, but a for a combination of adherence to tradition and the avoidance of doubt, these rites are almost ubiquitous. The basis of the rite is usually to summon Ulfr, Vaetr of death to take the spirit of the person on to the next plane of being and prevent them from becoming lost in the world of the living.

Wight
Wights are wandering ghosts who have become lost and not been taken to the next plane by Ulfr. It is often believed that a person may refuse to go with Ulfr, either out of fear or so that they can attend to matters left unfinished in life. For this reason, the people of Iskloft often fear vengeful ghosts, known as hevn, who seek out those who have wronged them in life to exact their revenge. It is believed that those have died in traumatic or violent circumstances are also prone to become wights, as they will reject Ulfr our of fear and shock. As wights are only partially present in the material world, it takes a tremendous amount of will for them to move objects or affect their surroundings, so signs of a haunting may range from subtle to dramatic depending on the wight's sense of purpose. Those who claim that they have encountered a wight of a loved one often say that the spirit was no longer the person they were in life, twisted to embody a single emotion or cause, and this effect increases as time passes.

Draugr
Draugr are deceased people whose life force is drawn back into their body, thus reanimating them. This is often believed to be the work of Algiz, vaetr of life, although his motivations for this are unknown. Draugr no longer need bodily functions such as a heartbeat or breath to survive, but they do need an intact and structurally sound body to inhabit. Cremation or dismemberment of bodies is therefore a common although not universal funeral practice in various parts of Iskloft to prevent draugr from being created. There are many tales of deceased people who have become draugr returning to their unsuspecting families, becoming discovered when their lack of life signs is noticed. Eventually the body will decay and fall apart, causing the draugr to "die" a second time.

Lich
Liches are a type of artificially created draugr, who replicate being drawn back into their bodies by binding their spirit to a vial of their blood called a phylactery. This is an elaborate magical process and thus can only be performed by a powerful sorcerer on themself or another person. Unlike draugr, for whom their body acts as a phylactery, additional spells can be performed so that the lich's body will be held together by the spirit inhabiting it, no matter how much it decomposes. A lich's spirit is bound in the phylactery so destroying it will release the spirit, causing it to become a wight until Ulfr sends it to the next plane.

It is rumoured that arcane magic can create an imprint of a human body, which a lich can inhabit in place of their own corpse. This is dismissed as wishful thinking by most magical authorities, on the basis that while spirits may live on, the energy required for them to touch the material world without a vessel, let alone become a permanent apparition, would be tremendous.