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Endless caverns stretch throughout Dolurrh, bleak passages of gray stone. Wherever you go, shadowy figures reach toward you, imploring, but you feel only the faintest chill as their insubstantial fingers pass through you. Mist pools around your feet, and as you press forward, you realize this swirling mist is moaning. This is no natural phenomenon; these are the remnants of souls who have forgotten themselves. This is Dolurrh. It’s not the embodiment of the idea of death or dying, both of which are reflected in Mabar. Rather, Dolurrh is where mortal souls go after their bodies die, where memories fade and lives are forgotten.

Mortal spirits are drawn to Dolurrh within moments of death, and their memories begin to decay immediately. Within days, most spirits no longer have any desire to leave Dolurrh, and within weeks, most only have the faintest memories of their previous lives. The faiths of Aerenal and the Blood of Vol assert that Dolurrh is the absolute end of existence, the last echoes of a life before it’s completely gone. But when Dorius Alyre ir’Korran drew his classic planar map (seen at the beginning of this book), he used the Octogram symbol of the Sovereign Host to represent Dolurrh, because he declared it to be the door through which all mortals must pass to join with the Sovereigns. This has come to be a common view: what appears to be memory fading is actually the soul slowly ascending to a higher form of existence, rising to a level of reality no mortal can experience. The Vassals of the Sovereign Host say the faithful finally join the Sovereigns; followers of the Silver Flame say that noble souls strengthen the Flame. What is left is only a husk—the cast-off remnants, like an abandoned snakeskin or the traces of memory that can be read using speak with dead. Thus, while Dolurrh has long been known as the Realm of the Dead, many call it the Gateway. Ultimately, this is a matter of faith—whether the other side of Dolurrh is oblivion or paradise, no one ever returns from it.

The sage Annolysse of Arcanix declared that Dolurrh must be the thirteenth plane, for it has no opposite. It doesn’t embody an idea so much as it serves a purpose—that of gathering, collecting, and (perhaps) transitioning souls. Mortal actions are judged in Daanvi; by contrast, Dolurrh doesn’t judge and it doesn’t punish. It’s simply the end of the journey—or depending how you look at it, the beginning of a new one. All living creatures come to Dolurrh, sooner or later. Those that come here before death are almost always looking for something—a lost soul, a forgotten memory. But living or dead, any who come to Dolurrh can be trapped by its power.