Union Lore

The League of Reapers was founded something like 2-3000 years ago after ancient reapers banded together after the incident with the Thanotian Cult. Since, it has evolved from a support group to professionals club to a laborers guild to, in modern times, a labor Union.

The Union has become very large with a lot of sway in the business of reaping. Most Pantheons and other entities that manage the souls after they have shuffled off the mortal coil (hereafter referred to as ‘management’) have contracts with the Union to ensure the safety and fair treatment of Reapers, regardless of their membership.

Membership in the League is not compulsory. Death is not a Union shop. There are benefits to Union membership, such as the collective bargaining, more direct protection from the union, as well as a wealth of resources and support from fellow reapers. Still, many of the basic contracts with management cover even non union members. Those basic contracts to which all management must adhere are as follows:

1) No Reaper may be pulled to the work of reaping alone, they must be met by a senior reaper to explain the transition.

2) No reaper may be sent to a dangerous charge (ie, physical or psychological danger, interaction with unknown management, etc) without appropriate notice, training, protection, and post charge counseling (where applicable).

3) Compensation for reaper services is (your eyes glaze over at this portion, utterly bored. Suffice it to, you get paid please do not ask me about wages.)

4) Failure to provide orientation and basic safety measures will result in actions against management, including and not limited to: fines, publication of violations, work stoppage, and strikes.

Whistleblower policy:

No management may take punitive action against any reaper reporting abuse, fraud, or waste, in regards to reaper service, soul handling, or other related fields.

Upper Management

(NOT A PART OF LEAGUE but the reason there is a League)

The Powers That Be, PTB, ‘Upper Management’, are not entities as such but rather facts of existence, like gravity and heat and pressure. They are not Gods, nor are they entirely conscious in the way we understand consciousness. They have an effect on literally everything. They are physics.

They can be thought of simplistically as the Science Pantheon, or the Secular Pantheon. Many of the dead are dealt with by the PTB, as soul energy is like any other and is dealt with similarly.

They are entirely without compassion or malice. It doesn’t matter what’s falling, gravity acts on it regardless. They maintain the order of the universe and will take action to prevent things that threaten that order.

They don’t have a definite physical form, because they are physics, but when they want to talk to someone in person, they appear as an infinite chorus of hooded figures in a towers full of balconies, stretching into the unseeable distance. This isn’t their body of anything. It’s a metaphor.

All reapers are under some kind of Upper Management. Be it their Pantheon or the overarching management, The Powers That Be (PTB).

The PTB or your overseeing Pantheon is in charge of your charges and who you get as a reaper.

The Cleaners

The Post Life Compliance Department, colloquially known as Cleaners, are the enforcement arm of the PTB. Most often, Cleaners are recruited from the ranks of the reapers. Once they join the Cleaners, they are no longer reapers nor members of the Union.

Cleaners are responsible for recording and stopping infractions by reapers related to their work. Often they are dealing with paperwork and interviews, but occasionally they are called upon to apprehend reapers whose infractions have become very disruptive or dangerous. Their methods can be as simple as removing a reaper from their situation or environment, or as extreme as ‘Death of Personality’; the total erasure of one’s memories and replacement with another. On very rare occasions they have been called upon to outright destroy a reaper that has gone fully rogue.

Cleaners are seen by many as something of a boogeyman that makes them toe the line, and they’re not adverse to this perception. Hunting is hard, people will keep themselves in line if they’re afraid of what will happen if they don’t. Cleaners tend to be of a Machiavellian disposition.