Tenebral Reaches

The Tenebral Reaches, also known simply as the Underworld, is the realm of the dead, where the spirits of mortals in Aramán would go after death. Originally this realm was called Obsidia, and was seen as a veil and place of transition between life and afterlife, that has expanded since the Shapers' War.

The Old Path

Main article: Old Path

The Old Path refers to both the process of reincarnation and a metaphysical location adjacent to the Tenebral Reaches. It is described as a dark wood, past the edge of death, which souls of creatures journey through to become reincarnated. The druids have named it, and lit the way for souls to follow.

History

Up to the end of the Shapers' War

“

Prior to the Shapers' War, the realm of death was as a shifting veil of shadow, a momentary darkness passed through on the way to the realms of final rest, the halls of the gods.

”

– 

Brennan Lee Mulligan's explanation of the lore

[!h]

In this era, Death existed as a "metaphysical clearinghouse", a place for newly deceased souls to gather and wait before being guided by a psychopomp to their respective afterlives. The Tenebral Reaches were described by some as "ghastly", and a "brief" night before dawn, although for most souls it was neither brief nor comfortable. Only the elves, thanks to Sylandri's celestials and the Stone of Nightsong, had a truly swift journey to their own afterlife, the Garden of the Spirit.

Aftermath of the Shapers' War

After the destruction of the seven deities of the pantheon and their psychopomps, what became the final resting places the gods had ordained is unknown. Death, which had been but a curtain, expanded as souls with no way to pass on steadily accumulated in the Tenebral Reaches. This phenomenon was a boon for House Tachonis who, having a castle in "Death", gained power through these dark energies.

Ten years before the beginning of Campaign Four, this energy burst into Aramán, almost fatally striking the heart of the connected realm of Tír Cruthú. This led to the closing of the doors between the mortal world and Tír Cruthú.

Campaign Four

As of the beginning of Campaign Four, one of the great mysteries mortalkind faced was what happens to souls after someone dies. The followers of the Old Path defended the idea of reincarnation, with souls being part of the song of the world; a new religion known as the Candescent Creed assured that every death led to a soul returning to the Light of the universe, making it a little bit brighter; if the Stone of Nightsong still worked, it could presumably grant an afterlife to elves even without Sylandri the Green Mother. Clerics and other experts on metaphysics and theology theorized about whether the "realms of final rest" the gods used to manage were destroyed (along with their owners and all the souls they contained) or whether they were still active, albeit untethered from Aramán. Clerics of the Totality and some of the druids of the Old Path (as well as those who would simply prey off the survivors) sometimes offer their services to reach a soul and sent them either towards oblivion or to a new place of rest beyond the Underworld.

During House Tachonis's attack on House Royce and its vassals at the Palazzo Davinos, Primus Tachonis used black candles as the material component of a powerful necromantic spell that, in the immediate vicinity, shredded the barrier between the realm of Death and Aramán. Undead creatures summoned to this vicinity were unwilling to pass outside of the immediate area.

Trivia

• The Tenebral Reaches are Aramán's Shadowfell, and Brennan Lee Mulligan has even used this last term as a synonym for the Underworld.
  • Outside of Critical Role canon the Shadowfell, just like the Feywild, is considered a nexus between multiple worlds of the Material Plane. According to the updated rules of 2024 the reason behind that is that neither of those planes was fragmented like the Material Plane at the dawn of time.

References

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