The Crossroads of the Dead

Surrounding the City of Judgement like spectral arteries lie the Crossroads of the Dead, a vast, ethereal network of planar byways that link the Material Planes to the realm of final judgment. These shifting roads, spanning 15 to 20 feet across, serve as the primary means by which Reapers ferry departed souls to the City of Judgment, unable as they are to traverse the planes freely without aid.   Unlike constructed roads of the living world, the Crossroads are mutable and surreal. Each soul perceives them differently: a pilgrim might walk a moss-covered path through autumn woods; a warrior, a blood-streaked battlefield trail; a child, a silver thread through stars. This illusion is deeply personal, yet beneath the vision lies the same soul-bound conduit, suspended within a void of impenetrable mist. Those who step beyond the edges are not merely lost but are forcefully drawn back to the Boneyard, or worse, scattered into dissolution.   Along these mist-laden routes stand Waystations, strange, often contradictory structures that anchor the path and shape the traveler's journey. A baroque manor here, a crumbling temple there, or a floating citadel of obsidian bureaucracy, each is governed by psychopomp bureaucrats who maintain order along the liminal lanes. For the Psychopomps, passage is effortless. But for others, especially mortal-bound or errant spirits, transit requires a Stamp of Passage, a metaphysical seal granting access or continued journey, lest they be turned away or devoured by the mists.   The Crossroads are as old as death itself, and while they are governed by ritual and structure, they remain ultimately under the silent sovereignty of the Raven Queen, whose will, spoken or not, guides the traffic of fate.