Editing Geist: The Sin-Eaters (section)

==The Underworld==
There is a good rule of thumb regarding the Underworld in CoD, and that is that it fucking sucks, but you need to go down there anyway. It sucks getting in, it sucks getting down to it, and it ''really'' sucks once you're there, but the rewards are nearly always worth it. The Bound, and Sin Eaters especially, will at some point or another end up in the Underworld, whether or not they want to. There are mysteries down there that can't be solved in the above world, long-dead spirits that can be interviewed to gain vital intel, and there are special artefacts and weapons you can get down here that you can't get anywhere else. If nothing else, your first trip to the Underworld will give you a real good idea as to how fucked it really is, and why the average Sin-Eater might be inclined to try and make this place somewhat better.

=== The Upper Reaches ===
The Underworld is typically only accessible through the use of Avernian Gates, which are usually in Cenotes or other places that death energies congregate, and the Upper Reaches are mostly just a grim reminder of the world the ghosts or Bound are leaving behind: Gates opened in cities will be in dark and dank subway tunnels, cemetary Gates will open out into massive catacombs, and it will be coated in all manner of shit that was broken and lost, up to and including whole buildings; just like the Ghosts themselves. If you keep following the path (and avoid the roving gangs of ghosts), you'll eventually make your way down to the River Cities, which are where most of these gates lead and for a vast majority of ghosts, where they're probably spending the rest of eternity. These Cities are a series of dilapidated super-favelas all stacked on top of each other, full of grieving spirits of all kinds fishing any sort of thin sustenance out of the waters that they can, and are ruled by ghost-gangs, krewes, cults and of course...the Reapers. There are ferrymen who can put you on your way even lower into the Underworld, but those places are even scarier than the ghetto full of ghosts.

=== The Dead Dominions ===
If you pay the ferrymen that sit at the banks of most of the Underworld's Rivers, you can go down to the ''really'' weird places in the Underworld; the Dead Dominions. Each Dominion is the personal little kingdom of ghosts who've gathered enough Plasm and individual power to actively influence the Underworld itself, all watched over by the enigmatic and terrifying Kerberoi, who watch over these bizarre regions of the Underworld and violently enforce it's laws; specifically it's Old Laws.

Outside of every Dead Domain is a big sign that denotes it's Old Law, and you '''must follow said Old Law to the letter'''. Seriously. The Kerberoi do not fuck around and will chase your ass straight to the mouth of the Underworld and you do not want to get caught by them. You'd think "okay, that seems easy enough, just do what the sign says", and sometimes that's true: the Old Laws often start simple, but then quickly become nonsensical or extremely restrictive, to the point you wonder who exactly wrote them. The Kerberoi don't care, so you'll have to make do with whatever domain you have on-hand. As to what they look like, it's a constantly changing swirl of places that look somewhat modern, to kingdoms of the oldest ghosts who still have Smilodon PTSD. But even here, the kind of information or gear you can discover or reclaim is so valuable that it's worth it to brave these insane depths.

Just don't get caught breaking an Old Law. Seriously.

=== The Ocean of Fragments ===
''The'' last stop in the Underworld.

All of the myriad Rivers of the lead to the Ocean of Fragments, which is...complicated to explain. It acts like a Dead Domain in theory, and does have a Kerberos, but it seemingly has no Old Law, and unlike the Dead Domains and the River Cities, nobody seems to really live here save a few disparate souls, those too forlorn to have a place anywhere, and an enigmatic figure known only as The Hermit, who has a campfire that he sits at most of the time made from the last fragments of identity that wash ashore from Dead Dominions that couldn't last. On the shores of this endless ocean of ink-black water, those other souls are mostly just working up the courage to end it all, because walking into The Ocean of Fragments is the final death; those who wade into the Ocean slowly begin to have pieces of their identity slowly stripped away from them; their little accomplishments, then their big accomplishments, then base facts about their lives, base facts about them as human beings, and finally just...the fact they exist.

Once that's gone...that's it. They're gone. Some do use it to get rid of some pesky part of their identity, but who knows where that fact is in comparison to the rest of you.

Those who do brave it's waters stick to the shallows, because the alternative is the deep water, where only The Freighter, a ghost ship of unnamed ghostly crewmembers, and the most powerful Kerberos of all; the Leviathan, happen to exist, and are the only ones allowed to live on or in it's waters. As for what else is out there? What could be on the other side or what could be at the bottom? Who knows.