Dead Realm

Origin

The Dead Realm seems to be an anomaly. Not a true realm, but merely another layer to reality, the Dead Realm was most likely originated by a malfunction in the flow of living souls after their death. The emergence of ghosts and the decay of life formed a spectral ecosystem with its own material laws and its own mechanics, partially separate from the living world while coexisting. The Dead Realm grows with death and calamity, its existence becoming denser and more diverse over the ages.

Structure

The Dead Realm is a layer of reality superimposed on the physical framework of Ransera. This layer is composed by all the residual spiritual particles existing all over Ransera, forming an extensive, unique ecosystem. Spiritual particles are a form of aether intangible and invisible to most living beings, which conceals the Dead Realm from the physical world. They are the form of aether that constitutes the soul of living beings, and also the totality of lesser spirits. While alive, souls are made cohesive and bound to a body by a force commonly called Life, or traditionally named the Spark of Raella; this keeps the soul as an aggregate and fused to the body it's part of. Upon proper death when the body ceases to support the fusion with its soul, this force tethers the soul as a whole and pulls it beyond Ransera. However, if the person disturbs this process upon death, Life ruptures and the soul remains on Ransera, disembodied: it becomes a ghost. Given that Life (which functions as a binding agent) is gone, ghosts slowly decay. Their forms leak spiritual particles that dissipate through the dead realm, forming miasma. Because of this, most ghosts end up eventually dissolving completely into the miasma that coats the Dead Realm.

The word miasma refers to the whole of free spiritual particles that shape the Dead Realm, formed by the decay of ghosts and the scattering souls of non-sentient living beings. It's formed light enough to become airborne, forming fogs of varying density. However, unbound spiritual particles lack the necessary strength to remain generally intangible. Because of this miasma also tends to stick to stationary physical matter such as rocks, trees or buildings, and forms thick rugs over the ground that puff when stepped on. Different parts of the world (and thus different areas of the Dead Realm) have different miasma densities; this is indicative of the amount of death or calamity the area has endured. Miasma also faces a type of deterioration of its own. Given that it's a form of aether, it ends up becoming pure aether after hundreds of years, vanishing from the death realm. However, this is barely noticeable even among spectral entities.