AFTERLIFE IN ROTC

All animals when they die become a spirit in the afterlife. Their species, beliefs, and choices in life, will determine their outcome and afterlife residence. Next to the living in the waking world, spirits and ghosts also traverse the land, in a different realm of existence. The Spirit world is all-encompassing, thought to exist in the same reality. Some afterlives are located within the stars, others are in dark regions that only malevolent, malignant beings seeking to harm will find themselves.

Some creatures are born with a special ability to connect with the Spirit World. Some have only limited connections to specific afterlives, such as with Clan healer and leaders with a connection to StarClan. Others are able to access all of the Spirit World, such as Minerva the Oracle, or Ether.

The Clans of the Lake believe that when a warrior dies after living their life as authentically as possible following the Warrior Code, their spirit will live on forever with StarClan. Their territory can be found watching the Clans from above, in the starry night that covers the lake, known as Silverpelt.

All good Clan cats will find themselves as part of StarClan, regardless of their prior Clan in life. Here, the season is always greenleaf, and it is a mixture of the lushest, most vibrant nature. Streams and ponds are filled with crystal clear water, crisp and clean in taste, stock full of fish and other prey. The grass underpaw is soft, plush, and always seems to shine golden when the light hits it just right. Foliage and underbrush provide the perfect shade, fun to climb and hunt throughout the mixed forest. Sometimes these forests give away to rolling hills, bursting in color from wildflowers that seem to be in every color imaginable. The temperature is perfect, comfortable, not too hot, with the occasional pleasant breeze.

StarClan warriors are vibrant in their appearance, sometimes having stars become tangled into their pelts. If they were sick in life or heavily injured, their body is healthy and rejuvenated in StarClan. Scars can be filled with stars, or even completely healed, varying heavily upon the warrior's spirit. They are able to commune with the living if they so wish, through dreams, via contact through the Moonpool, or even in very, very rare instances, within the living realm.

StarClan warriors watch over their living counterparts, and can provide guidance for what is to come. Paradoxically, however, StarClan in general is incredibly unwilling to interfere with the lives of the living, and what help they do provide is cryptic, and hard to understand. They believe it is not their position to provide guidance, as it takes away the free will of the living. It is not uncommon to feel frustration and resentment towards StarClan: the times they provide help may contradict times they refused. That is due to the medley of independent minds that make of the collective of this paradise. A StarClan warrior may deflect from their Clan to aid an individual living cat, an act which is heavily frowned upon by their deceased Clanmates. In fact, weighing whether or not to interfere with the lives of the living can lead to huge disputes throughout the spiritual ancestors.

All Clan healers and leaders are approved by StarClan directly, through ceremonies held at the Moonpool. Here, a healer is granted their direct connection to StarClan, and leaders are bestowed nine lives. Through this authority, healers may discern prophecies from StarClan, and Clan leaders may choose deputies, new warriors, and apprentices for their Clan.

Warriors who repeatedly, intentionally, break the warrior code and bring harm to others, will find themselves in The Place of No Stars, also colloquially known as the Dark Forest, after dying. It is a large, dim, wretched place of existence, with only a ghostly pale gray light in the far, far distance serving as the only source of light. The Dark Forest is said to be once ruled and led by its first ever resident, The Shade. Even cats who have left Clan life behind may find themselves here in death.

Gnarled branches, thorned tendrils, prickly bracken and briar, and large, twisted roots underpaw make traversing the Dark Forest hard to navigate. Any water found is black, thick, with no reflection of anything upon its surface. The trees stretch out of eye's view overhead, branches tangled into one another to obscure any sight of the sky.

There is no prey to be caught, and the forest is filled with silence. Brief, but harsh, cold winds will sometimes pull at one's pelt. The air is cold, musty, and carries a scent of dead and rotting foliage. It is impossible to tell how much time passes, as there no difference in day or night. The forest seems to go on forever, no matter how far one walks. It is easy to get lost, and very rare to encounter another spirit.

Dark Forest spirits carry the wounds they had into death as a festering, rotting addition to their appearance. Over long periods of time, spirits of the Dark Forest begin to fade away, as well as begin to decay in appearance. Sometimes, bits of their pelts fall off, grow desaturated in color, and eventually, their skin will rot enough to expose their bones. It's as if one day, they will wither away from existence itself.

Following the actions of Minerva the Oracle in the Great Battle, once a spirit is in the Dark Forest, they are sealed there permanently, for the rest of eternity. No living cat's spirit may enter the Dark Forest even temporarily, like one's spirit can visit StarClan in dreams. In addition, spirits of the Dark Forest cannot ever have contact with the living, or other realms of the afterlife, as long as time still exists. Only through a summoning ritual may a Dark Forest spirit enter the realm of the living once more...

Fjell'Byr felines find themselves in Stjar'Keld after death. They reside in the skies above the mountains, so that they may watch over their living counterparts. Stjar'Keld's territory is a bit more of a mystery to Fjell'Byr, as living spirits do not visit the territory like a Clan warrior might visit StarClan's territory in their dreams. As a result, their realm is thought to be a bit more ethereal in interpretation, with emphasis on the bright midday sky. Only the residents of Stjar'Keld truly know what their territory looks like.

Instead, Stjar'Keld will come down to speak with the living, either in the waking world or in a cat's dreams, most normally the La'Kuum or the Disciples. Prophecies and contact with Stjar'Keld, however, is considered rare. The rare instances are more often a deceased relative communing with their living family, rather than guidance or a prophecy for the future. Regardless, Stjar'Keld is respected as the ancestors who came before them, and built Fjell'Byr to be what it is today.

The Empty is a vast expanse of open, blank rolling fields and open sky in between the realms of the afterlife. The time of day is always dusk, just after sunset, with the stars in the vast distance that define the other realms of the afterlife, such as StarClan, twinkling overhead. There is no prey, water, nor shelter, but none of that is needed: hunger, thirst, and fatigue are not experienced by the spirits that wander the Empty.

Wandering aimlessly somehow always leads to nowhere, no matter how far a spirit walks: after a certain point of time, one can forget what direction they initially started from, since everything they pass is the same. Occasionally, a spirit will run into another inhabitant of the Empty, but this is a rare occurrence. The other spirit one encounters is most likely to be one from long ago, before any living being could remember their existence.

Morality of an individual has no bearing of spending their afterlife in the Empty. Spirits who end up here typically have no beliefs regarding the afterlife, nor do they live following a certain code or set of laws. They are often rogues, loners, and kittypets in their past lives. The actions of one's past life do not necessarily have bearing on entry into this realm: rogues who have committed terrible atrocities will end up in the Empty the same as a newborn kitten who departs from their mother in the land of the living just after a few weeks. 

Occasionally, a former Clan cat can end up here if they completely abandon their beliefs and ways of living following the warrior code. Some find themselves here right after death, whereas a very rare few will be given a choice to re-join their ancestors within StarClan, depending on their actions in life.

Ghosts are active spirits that haunt the living both in the waking world, and in a cat's dreams. They are selected by Ether to become a ghost, and it is completely indiscernable as to why, or when. It does not seem to be based on morality or prior choices in life: only Ether himself knows why he chooses the spirits he does to return to the living once more as a ghost.

By rejoining the land of the living, ghosts will lose memories of their previous life. The memories, and the amount, vary, but there is no ghost that can recollect their entire past.

Learn more about ghost characters, and how to create them, here!