In the moments after death, people are given a choice: do they stay on Earth to roam as wandering ghost, or do they move on to heaven, hell, or wherever their faith and karma sentences them to? Despite the relatively clear cut choice, still many spirits are indecisive. Such spirits end up in the strange dimension known as Limbo/Purgatory, a subterranean world where a murky, endless ocean divides continents and islands, each with their own twisted and horrific biota.
Here, the sun and moon do not rise nor set but stay along the horizon, casting an eternal twilight, circling around and around. When their sun’s feeble rays shine through the thin mist that permeates the plane, that is the island’s day. When a gloomy shadow falls upon the sea and the moonlight barely illuminates the land, the faint glimmer of cold crystals shining far away on the the cave’s ceiling, the inhabitants know it is nighttime. The world is neither joyous nor painful, only dreary; nevertheless, danger lurks around almost every corner, not just due to the varied and unforgiving landscape but also due the spirits that make up the majority of its inhabitants.
Upon arrival, the indecisive spirits of Limbo are classified generally into two major groups- peaceful and hostile. Many just wake up in a random location with no idea of where they are. Unable to truly interact with the world due to their ethereal bodies, spirits are thus left to wander the world until they find a way to remove the obstacle that keeps them from moving on. However, some spirits do possess living and inanimate objects that allows them to interact with the material world.
Peaceful spirits are often trapped due to lingering desire to stay in the material world despite meeting all other requirements of moving on. By satisfying their wishes or letting go of what binds them to the material world, they can move on. Hostile spirits on the other hand are far more dangerous, going out of their way to harm other spirits and humans. Their reason for being in Limbo is more often than not due to being a good person at heart but committing many bad deeds in life. By either letting them realize their innate goodness and then serving penance, or by letting them accept the damage their actions have wrought, they can move on.
They have a strange tendency to imitate certain forms based on their Vices. For example, a spirit of Ignorance will take on the appearance of form of light, an angel, or something of the desert as the desert-living Light Tribe is prone to ignorance. In other words, hostile spirits take on the forms based on the Vice most common to the area.
Among the numerous landmasses that dot the Ocean of Purgatory lies the Island of Alto Pyrenis, a name given to it by the Islanders’ ancestors. The island is rather large, approximately the size of France. Due to the supernatural nature of the island, its landscapes are extremely diverse, almost like a patchwork quilt.
The island can be divided largely into ten main regions. The first is the tundra region, cold and unforgiving with a few taiga located along the slopes of some southern mountains. To its southeast is the barren crags and canyons region, with mountains riddled with large underground cavern systems. East of the crags lies the mech region, metal structures like gears and pipes rising from the ground like a city stood there. The eastern coast of the island is dominated by the Cloud Mountains which reach high above the seas. An jungle archipelago lies off the southeastern coast, with reefs hidden beneath the dark waters of Limbo. A humid swamp lies to the islands south amidst a giant river delta, gloomy and teeming with giant mushrooms. Past some high mountains, the swamp gives way to the arid desert area, bordered to the north by a highly active volcanic zone. Tucked in between fire and ice strangely enough is a vivid forest, teeming with wildlife.
In the center of it all (and taking up the majority of the island) lies the rolling hills and plains region through which most of the regions are connected, the Asphode River winding lazily across the prairie. The ancient Capital, a city that had originally fallen into Limbo due to a disaster on Earth, too lies in the center of the plains, a region of its own. Due to the divergent cultures of its inhabitants, it has two districts: the above ground is futuristic, filled with technology that could not exist without the presence of magic. The other half is the underground ruins, the actual ancient city that serves as a foundation to the one above, preserved by its inhabitants.
The Islanders were the descendants of humans who had fallen into Limbo by accident, mostly from the original inhabitants of the Capital; people who simply disappeared on Earth with no sign of them having died. The circumstances around such an occurrence are rare; the human must, in a single moment of facing a life or death situation, choose to do neither. Spirit and body are not torn asunder and are both thrown together into this unforgiving dimension, where the killing is more likely to occur due to hostile spirits and harsh landscape and thus solving the problem of a person neither dead nor alive.
Nevertheless, societies such as that of the Islanders have thrived in Limbo thanks to the knowledge of magic, taught to them by the peaceful spirits. As the spirits have found out, the Virtues that they once held in life manifest themselves in the form of magic in Limbo, which makes sense when you think about Limbo as a place where your fate is decided based on your innate goodness.
Ice Justice, righteousness, honor, respect, morality; opposes Malice (the desire to do wrong)
Earth Kindness, selflessness, cooperation, charity, compassion; opposes Greed (hoarding time and resources)
Thunder Diligence, efficacy, ambition, competence, success; opposes Sloth (laziness, inaction)
Air Integrity, creativity, honesty, freedom, individuality; opposes Deceit (lying, being a hypocrite, not being true to yourself)
Water Understanding, curiosity, wisdom, reason, acuity; opposes Ignorance (denial of truth, avoiding the facts)
Dark Loyalty, trust, responsibility, caution, prudence; opposes Apathy (lack of attachment, not caring about anyone or consequences)
Light Gratitude, joy, enthusiasm, wonder, purity; opposes Envy (jealousy, desire for someone else’s things)
Fire Courage, confidence, fortitude, discipline, valor; opposes Fear (cowardice, shyness, anxiety)
Nature Peace, acceptance, equality, harmony, mercy; opposes Wrath (anger, violence, brutality)
Spirit Humility, detachment, faith, simplicity, idealism; opposes Pride (vanity, narcissism, selfishness)
Metal Temperance, frugality, moderation, survival, balance; opposes Gluttony (excess of resources or ideology, luxury, waste)
Chaos Hope, optimism, perseverance, resilience, flexibility; opposes Despair (depression, futility, lack of anything worth living for)
Order Patience, remembrance, chastity, tact, restraint; opposes Lust (uninhibited passion for anything not just sex, impatience)
By following these thirteen sets of Virtues, the Islanders are able to wield magic to protect themselves from the hostile spirits of the Island, and even mold the land around them so that it was more hospitable. Virtue magic also had the benefit of raising virtues within spirits and people, allowing them to realize their mistakes and do penance.
Over time, the Capital simply grew too overcrowded for everyone to stay; and so the people migrated to each region of the island in masses, settling in villages and towns. Due to the various terrains of Alto Pyrenis, the people soon found it to their advantage to know a certain magic, and therefore certain Virtues. Soon, they developed distinct cultures of their own, relatively isolated from one another. An atmosphere of xenophobia and mistrust grew due to the different emphasis on Virtues, with tribes often looking down on one another and claiming superiority. Each tribe was independent of one another with no centralized form of government, resulting in many conflicts between tribes. This disunity set the Islanders up for one of the worst disasters to befall them: the arrival of the Founders.
The Islanders are not the only people to have fallen into Limbo and survived; indeed, on many a far off continent, many societies have risen and fallen, having discovered magic and technology for themselves. As later arrivals from a circa 1950s Americana town, the Founders have a leg up in technology though not as advanced as some of the magitech developed in Limbo. However, the Founders stand out in that their magic is unique; rather than learning Virtue from peaceful spirits, they instead learned Vices from hostile spirits. Vice magic, similar to Virtue, manifests itself as forces of nature but corrupted in a way.
With their twisted magic, they conquered and enslaved many other societies around them, letting hostile spirits thrive while forcing peaceful spirits to find sanctuary elsewhere. Soon, the Founders’ Empire grew to span multiple continents. Upon arrival at Alto Pyrenis, the conquerors found the Islander tribes to be fragmented and mistrustful of one another- perfect for conquest. In no time at all the entire island was subjugated, with colonial authorities set in place to keep the natives enslaved and Founders sending people to settle on the island. Some of the tribes, however, they saw as long-term threats to their empire, bringing a risk of rebellion. The three offending tribes were swiftly dealt with: the Chaos and Order Tribes, keepers of hope and the Islanders’ traditions respectively, were deported and scattered amongst the Empire’s holdings. Faced with harsher living conditions, the Metal Tribe buckled into the pressure and assisted in the Spirit Tribe’s genocide, dangerous due to their ability to manipulate minds and emotions. The Metal Tribe were then assimilated into the Founders with a few holdouts.
Faced with these tragedies, the nine remaining tribes stayed subjugated, watching as their children slowly became assimilated into the Founders’ wicked culture and losing their own. Though once relatively uncommon, hostile spirits flocked to the island, making life even more dangerous. Though the most isolated villages managed to cling on to their culture, it truly felt impossible to escape the grasp of the Founders.