Welcome to Gaia! ::

Raktearan, The Afterlife

The Artruvians hold a much more interesting of the afterlife than most I've seen..
Though that's what you'd expect, seeing as their planet is plagued with undeath..
Despit this there is an afterlife, they call it the Tower of Naktearan.
When the Gateway was closed in ancient times it separated the Artruvians from most of their gods.
Naktearan, the guardian of the like-named tower, was one of them.
Saya, the God of Death, escorted dead souls to the Tower, where Naktearan then took them.
From there Naktearan weighed their sins, and separated them.

The Blessed, those with almost no sin, were above ground, near the tower, in a world of neverending paradise.
The Above, who had many sins, but not enough to be put Below, were also above ground, a little further from the tower, in a world much like the living one.
The Below, those with many sins, were on the underside of the tower (which seems to be floating in space) near the edge. They must wait out their sentence in unmoving consciousness until the End Times.
And the Wretched, who were drenched in sin, were put on the underside, closer to the tower, where they waited in eternal pain for the End Times.

When the End Times come the two sides will be weighed against one another, and the Ancient-Artruvian race will be weighed as a whole.
What happens from there, and which gods support sin, or no, vary by accounts..

Meanwhile undeath is Shara, the God of Life's, alternative.
In undeath you become alive again, and after you die a second time you're reincarnated.
Should you have few sins you may even keep your sanity, upon becoming undead.

Songs of the Ice Children
I've heard of many types of gods.
I've studied several religions.
Most of the time I don't find anything..
No proof this divine being, or beings, exists.
But the Ice Children..

The Children of the Ice are a small tribe located in the Artruvian tundras.
They worship an entity known only as the Ice.
(no doubt due to their homeland)
Their way of praying does not involve any daily tasks.
Nor worship, even. Just respect.

Every prayer is a song.
Sung to the wind in hopes the Ice will hear them.
These songs.. Actually hold power.
They have a song for burial, and the results..
I can't explain it with anything but magic.

Vocal magic is.. Difficult to create.
But the Ice Children.. Have hundreds of these songs.
They say it is not their own magic; no without song one could do little more than summon a blade of ice.
But the magic of the Ice.. To prove it, they taught me a song.
I sung it.. Nothing.
They sung it.. A warm breeze pierced through the cold winds.

I went to some other Artruvians..
Nowhere on Shara, except the tribes of Ice Children could even conceive of the notion of vocal magic.
..It makes me wonder if this Ice really exists..
Or if they have some other secret..

The Nine Gatekeepers
The Gateway was never meant for free passage.
Neither Shara nor Saya allowed people through.
Only a select few were allowed to and fro between the two realms.
On Shara's side the god, according to popular religion, enlisted nine guardians to protect it.
Eight were named after the phases of Shara's moon.
The last was named Blood, to represent the core of Artruvian lifeform.
Most consider them to be blessed Artruvians.
Others consider them to be something else entirely.

How much respect, and worship they deserves has a more varied account than their countless descriptions.
Some say they were noble guardians enlisted by Shara to protect the Gateway from those who would abuse it.
Some say they were demons trying to abuse it themselves.
Others say they were the ones that created the Gateway.

But no matter what they are, or how much respect they deserve, they are definitely a large part of Shara's history.