Every once in a while, I get so excited about a scene I’m working on that I can’t help but tell someone about it. Usually, this person is my mother, but every once in a while, I’ll tell one of my students. Not during English class, of course–my job is to teach, not promote my own works–but during home ec, when the students are working on sewing and have permission to chat with each other. The scene I was excited about last week involved a dwarvish ghost.
And I’ve realized that the dwarvish ghosts need a bit of explaining. And for that, I need to give you the history of a fictional universe.
When Teos (the current name of the deity in my fantasy book) created the world, it was perfect. The races were immortal and lived in harmony with nature and each other. However, this perfection did not last long. Deloth, a powerful spirit who served Teos, decided to revolt. There was a war in the Overworld, Teos won, and Deloth was mad about it.
(As a side note, Teos gave the minor spirits who sided with Deloth a chance to repent. About half of them did, and those who repented were given mortal bodies and became the first humans. The ones who did not repent became the fae–or at least, the dwarves call them the fae. At the moment my humans are calling them the biestavac.)
Eventually, Deloth decided to corrupt the beings that Teos created. He started with the elves, whose alliance with him cost them their immortality. There was war in the earth, and the two races who were still immortal–the dwarves and the nymphs–grew weary of seeing evil proliferate. They dealt with this in two different ways. The nymphs intermarried with humans, producing the race of the Elysians, before going into the forest to hide from the darkness. The dwarves simply asked Teos to make them mortal.
Teos was pleased with the dwarves for asking him instead of taking matters into their own hands, so he granted their request. Moreover, he gave their spirits the ability to come back as ghosts to visit living loved ones. The dwarves were happy, Teos was happy, and eventually the world became what it is in the actual book. Dwarves believe in ghosts becaues, for them, they exist. The elves think that the dwarves are insane, and while the humans don’t necessarily believe in ghosts, they have their own superstitions, so they don’t judge the dwarves too harshly.
There is one more point, though, that I have to include. The Overworld is full of the ghosts of departed dwarves, and sometimes, Teos gets tired of all of them. So once a year, for one week, all of the dwarvish ghosts are kicked out of the Overworld and required to socialize with their living loved ones. This is known as Ghost Week and is a time of great celebration and merrymaking amongst the dwarves.
I’m still working on the finer points of the creation mythology, but what do you think of this so far? Let me know in the comments below! God bless you, dear readers, and don’t forget to review us on Amazon!