Why are you special?

True to the being’s word, the books work for me. If I want something specific, it opens straight to it. If I want to check a particular subject, it opens to an index that lists things related to that, and when I settle on one, flipping the page gets me there. It’s like DuckDuckGo, but paper. Each “Fractal” as my host calls them is a different book... but I have access to all the items from Final Fantasy d20, D&D 3.5, D&D 3.0, Pathfinder, Starfinder, and quite a few supplements. At worst I need to check about ten books, if it happens to be in the last place I’d think to look, and checking a book takes all of a few seconds if it’s not there.

One thing that occurs to me though… “Why can’t I ask your name?”

“Ah. That. It’s a mix of things. It’s forbidden by Dad for mortals to know the True Names of the deities. Which in turn means it’s how this world works - part of the physics, you might say. And I’m going to answer you honestly, as I’m trying to follow Dad’s word. And you’ll remember, thanks to Dad, so that’s part of this world as well. Which means if you ask, I will tell you, and you’ll remember, but you can’t know it. The world solves this by preventing you from asking in the first place. Most people never notice that sort of interaction.”

“I don’t actually need your true name, just something to call you. So if that’s the only problem… what do your worshipers call you?”

My host takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, “Translated, the various names I am called are ‘The Scourge of Life’, ‘Lord of Darkness’, ‘Keeper of the Abyss’, ‘Harvester of Souls’, ‘The Devourer’, and ‘RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!’ - it depends mostly on where you are.”

“... am I working for the right side?”

“They don’t exactly sound nice, do they? This is a complicated one. Well…” he sighs, and I get that itch again, “... OK, so you have a concept of a personification of death, named Death, even… feel free to use that for me, it’s appropriate enough. Suppose, for a minute, that nobody ever died.”

“Seems like that would be awesome.”

“At first glance, yes. However… ‘not dying’ is not the same thing as ‘living’. Suppose a man gets caught in a house fire, and severely burned. His skin is gone, so he’s in constant pain. His muscles are gone, so he can’t move. His eyes are gone, so he can’t see anymore. Should he live in absolute agony forever?”

Having just gone through some absolute agony myself … “That would be bad.”

“Indeed. When a body is damaged past a point, I collect the soul, and the body is left behind as a corpse. That is my Aspect, my duty, and my privilege. When there is a claim on the soul, I confirm the claim, and deliver the essence of the person to the appropriate party. Which… yes, sometimes IS a Devil, Demon, or Daemon. READ YOUR CONTRACTS. Most of the time it’s some deity or other, based on worship. In the event that there’s no claim, I deliver the soul to … I’ll go with ‘Judgment’, keeping in mind that’s his function, not his name, because…”

“Because I can’t know his real name, so you’re still being honest by not calling him that.”

“Exactly. ‘Judgment’ goes through the person’s memories in detail, and decides the soul’s fate according to the rules laid out by Dad for this Fractal. In general, they’re sent where they will fit in. Kind souls are placed in a world with other kind souls, violent souls placed in a world with violent souls, and so on. It’s not a ‘reward’ or ‘punishment’ per se, unclaimed souls are simply grouped by how they acted in life, and souls of the same type are sent to the same place to … well, this language doesn’t handle it well… ‘live’ until such time as they’re pulled in for reincarnation and scrubbed of their memories.”

“So… anyone who doesn’t worship a deity or sign a contract ends up surrounded by other people who act nearly exactly the same way for however long of a time.”

“Yes. Which is great for nice people, and sucks for mean people. And people can avoid it entirely by worshiping a deity - because that grants the deity a claim, and the soul will go to that deity’s realm to await reincarnation. Which means, ultimately, people choose where they go … in this Fractal, anyway.”

I’m working as I’m talking, “Why do you keep saying ‘fractal’?”

“It’s ‘Fractal’, not ‘fractal’,” I feel that itch again, and he answers, “You’ve got the concept of parallel universes which is… close enough for now, but also insufficient. If you think of a Fractal as a group of parallel universes that have certain things in common, then you’re … close enough for a mortal. Going from one universe to another within a Fractal takes work, but is doable for mortal spellcasters, and safe enough if certain precautions are taken. Going from one Fractal to another… well, the underlying rules are different, so if you managed to do it on your own - keep in mind, this hasn’t happened to the best of my knowledge - your body wouldn’t be compatible unless it was a very close Fractal, and even then you’d be on a clock. So you’d soon be collected by my counterpart in whatever Fractal you ended up in… who’d take you to Dad for sorting, as it’d be obvious to anyone in my position. I or my family could transport you from one Fractal to another with enough work… but we’d need to change you to fit wherever you go.”

“Which is kind of what we’re doing with the character sheet, isn’t it?”

“Indeed. You aren’t from this Fractal. Speaking of… how far along are you?”

“Oh, first level isn’t so bad. There’s a bit of math, but it’s fast enough, and I’ve done the start of this build before. I’m pushing things a little farther than I would be with a flesh and blood game master, but that’s because… well, your sister sounds very scary.”

Death chuckles, “To a mortal, yes, she’s very scary.”

“I’m guessing I can’t know her name either - what do her worshipers call her?”

“Correct, same rule. Again, it’s regional, mostly. Translations work out to ‘Blessed Mother’, ‘Font of Life’, ‘Mother of All’, ‘The Progenitor’, ‘First Mother’, and several similar things.”

“That sounds… she’s a fertility goddess?”

“Essentially, yes. She’s responsible for quickening folks - placing scrubbed souls into flesh once the bodies are far enough along to be capable of holding them.”

“So why is she so… ?”

He cringes… and yes, I’ve gotten familiar enough that I can look him in his distinct lack of eye, now. “Well… you’d have to ask her. I can speculate, but that’s all. She may see her job as more of a burden than a privilege or an honor. With her line of work, she sees everyone who is… well, making a baby… but she can’t participate; perhaps she’s jealous. She also has more than her share of deep-seated pain... which she blames me for. You would need to ask her, but… well, I’m honest with you because that’s Dad’s recommendation. I’m kind because that’s who I choose to be. Getting to my sister to ask her would put you firmly in her realm, and then she could do basically whatever she wanted to you. As my champion, that wouldn’t end well for you. Even if you got far enough to ask the question, there’s no telling if she would answer honestly or not… especially when you’re basically going to have to insult her to her face in her own home, where she rules very nearly absolutely, to ask the question.”

Hmm… yeah, let’s not go that route. “So… QUICKLY changing the subject, am I keeping you from doing your job?”

“Not at all. In the plane you’ll land in, there’s approximately three hundred million creatures complex enough to have souls, and there’s several trillion planes of various population densities within this Fractal. Needless to say, quite a few are dying every moment. I collect … almost all of them. The portion of my attention you’re taking up is not significant.”

“Almost all?”

“You tell me: How many different ways are there in Golarion to prevent a soul from moving on ‘properly’ when dead?”

“Oh… the spells Soul Bind or Create Soul Gem, the monsters of a Soul Eater, a Cacodaemon, a Soul Reaper, a Devourer, and others… and that’s not counting the various ways to prevent someone from properly dying forever… never mind. So many ways.”

“Indeed. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.”

“That’s… depressing, now that I think about it. Is there anything you can do about it?”

“We’re forbidden from interfering directly outside of our realms. Indirectly, we can give our worshipers nudges, send dreams to our various flavors of priests, answer when contacted by spell, and… well…”

“I’m guessing something along the lines of ‘speak directly with your champions’?”

“Yes. Of which we can only have one at a time. And I’m under instruction to not give you any orders.”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in me.”

“I am putting a lot of faith in Dad. I’m following his instructions. How much faith I have in you is… not relevant.”

Ouch. “Setting that aside… what’s my starting wealth?”

“Zero. It’s not considered part of the ‘build’, and everyone is ‘born’ with nothing: Their parents give them their start in life. You won’t have parents, and will be ‘born’ fully grown, basically appearing off a divine workbench and landing at the edge of a forest on a major road, about a day’s walk from a small town.”

Ugh. “Well, in that case I’m done. Would you like to review?”

“Sure… huh. You do remember the ‘magic oven’ result from a prior champion, yes? When your immortality is only indirectly from your Boon like this is, I won’t be able to shut it off for you if you end up in a situation like that. Are you SURE?”

I take a breath, “Does … I will call her Life, I guess… get to know my build, or just the things up to when she applied the curse?”

“Just up to the curse… she’s not going to know about your specific choices until after they’re revealed by use, and that only if it’s within range of something related to her portfolio.”

I take another breath, “Well… I’m gambling on having a solution to the oven problem before it rolls around… and my fallback plan is to fill it with the ash of my own corpses so I appear just outside due to space constraints.  So yes, I’m sure.”

Death closes the voids that he has in place of eyes, “Then so be it.”

As everything goes black, the last thing I hear in Death's office is, "Huh, not done with the questions I can't answer, yet..."