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And then there’s the most dangerous trip of all: the one we make when we die. The journey to the Lower Umbra, the realm

of death, is not one I would recommend. Certain willworkers – notably the Euthanatos death-mages, some Dreamspeaker shamans, and other fearless and potentially corrupt mystics – have the skill and daring to cross over into this realm and then return. It’s a difficult trip, though, and one that carries a bit of death back with you if and when you make it home alive.

Supposedly, a freshly-dead soul crosses over into this realm when she dies. In most cases, she moves on to whatever Afterworld awaits her – a heaven, a hell, an afterlife, or metaphysical recycling toward another incarnation. Occasionally, though, dead souls get stuck in this realm as ghosts, trapped in the bitter Shadowlands of our living world.

Living travelers who want to take this trip must endure a death ritual in which the soul remains tethered to the body through complicated magic. Certain psychoactive drugs can supposedly keep a person hovering between death and life as well, although this is – shall we say – not a method for the faint of heart. Like stepping sideways, these methods allow a person to cross over into the death realm. The chance of coming back across the threshold, though, is a lot lower here than what other methods offer. For certain tasks, of course, only death will do. And so, though it’s incredibly perilous, this so-called agama sojourn suits several mystic practices.

For a while, this trip was impossible for anyone except the dead. A vast ghost-storm swept away all familiar aspects of the Shadowlands, rendering them impassible. These days, agama journeys are possible once again. I don’t recommend that trip, though. Now more than ever, the effects of “temporary” death have proven rather permanent.

Beyond the risks posed by spectral creatures of this realm, a Shadowlands traveler also picks up a bit of Jhor, the Death Resonance. Essentially, death becomes part of a person who enters its realm, and although that Resonance fades a bit with time, I’m told it never completely goes away.