How would a Society Develop in the Underworld?

Question

I am writing a story about a period of time in my world where the God of Death has been arrested for being too merciful, and is thus unable to move any souls to their afterlives. The court that arrested him has rerouted all dying souls to Limbo, a forested area far removed from the land of the living, where they wait until the God of Death resumes his duties or is replaced. I am wondering what the social landscape would be in Limbo based on the following:

• The land of the living is much smaller than earth, is not currently experiencing war, and is quite prosperous; all this has led to no more than 100 sentient souls arriving in Limbo each day.
• The inhabitable area of Limbo is a circle roughly 1,000 miles in diameter, surrounded by multiple barriers that make escape nearly impossible. It is primarily forested terrain with some low mountains.
• All the souls in Limbo are acutely aware that this is not the afterlife, and that they are in some sort of wrong place.
• The souls in Limbo can die a second death, a complete vanishing of their souls into nothingness, from severe physical trauma in Limbo or from nobody in the Land of the Living remembering that they exist.
• The souls of plants and animals are funneled into Limbo just the same as those of sentient creatures.
• Eating is possible but not necessary,with sentient creatures eating as luxury and nonsentient creatures hunting as normal due to instincts.
• Byproducts of previously-living things (such as lumber, carcasses, or dead plants) quickly rot away when they remain unused for more than a few days. Log cabins can be built, for example, but not lumber stockpiles.

I am mostly interested in what pressures might be faced in everyday (un)life by the souls trapped in Limbo, and what effects the constant stream of new arrivals might have. This system of every dying thing going to Limbo has been in effect for a little less than 100 years at the start of the story.

Thank you all so much in advance for your ideas and inputs!

Answer 1

The court that arrested him

Who are they? They are visibly some entities more powerful than the God of Death. Maybe this job, moving souls to their afterlives, is considered an inferior job and they have more interesting subjects. That said, the souls won't find any help from them.

The inhabitable area of Limbo is a circle roughly 1,000 miles in diameter

If there's no limit of the Limbo's population, any fixed size will become overcrowded. Maybe, somehow, the 2nd death rate is in balance with the 1st death rate.

The souls in Limbo can die a second death, a complete vanishing of their souls into nothingness, from severe physical trauma in Limbo or from nobody in the Land of the Living remembering that they exist.

Each soul must be spiritually linked to the living ones that remember them and it must give them some "life energy" that's able to keep them. Maybe in the afterlife a better kind of energy, an "afterlife energy" does a better job in keeping their soul, and that's what gives them the awareness...

that this is not the afterlife, and that they are in some sort of wrong place.

So, we are talking about a place, the Limbo, that is forgotten by the Greater Gods and where there's a constant flux of new souls from the living and lost souls to the nothingness. Some of the new ones may try to (un)live like in their life but will find out that the (un)life is somehow more difficult because some efforts just vanish away:

Byproducts of previously-living things (such as lumber, carcasses, or dead plants) quickly rot away when they remain unused for more than a few days. Log cabins can be built, for example, but not lumber stockpiles.

Some behaviours like violence and stealing would come as sympthoms from the ones in frustration for this trapped way of (un)life.

The older ones and the wise ones know that eating, sleeping, (un)living in a house and having objects aren't necessary and they try spending their time trying to figure out a way to transcend to afterlife - unfortunately those are the ones closest to vanish from not being remebered amoung the living.

The mean resident of the Limbo (un)lives a simple (un)life, with a simple house, simple meals, and simple activities. It's an anesthetized state where nothing else matters, nothing can be done, so let's just way for the unavoidable vanishing.

Some try praying to the Gods, some pray to the God of Death (not knowing about the arresting).

Some suspect that something happened to the God of Death and some believe that this God is just a myth.

There are a lot of anarchist vandals, another portion of the population lives in isolation meditating and others just seek an empty and anesthetized existence. Society, in Limbo, is something that has developed for only a portion of the population: those who still want to act as if they were alive, with dreams and achievements and interactions, and MEMORY.

Somehow, the key to escaping the Limbo is the memory, if the one that dies the second death is remembered by his peers in Limbo, this memory is able to give this one some "unlife energy" that can keep it (un-un)alive for enough time to find afterlife.

But 3 things are necessary:

• Being remembered in the living world
• Being remembered in the Limbo
• Harmonize with the Afterlife frequency (one cannot enter an Afterlife that doesn't fit one's energy)

All of these were originally provided by the Death God depending on the merit of each person that died. One of the reasons that made the Death God being arrested is that he saved the souls that should be vanished or delivered in "bad" Afterlifes

I hope these informations can help you somehow!