History Main / GodOfTheDead

* ''VideoGame/MasterDetectivesArchivesRainCode'': The deuteragonist Shinigami is a [[DontFearTheReaper cheerful and mischievous]] {{Shinigami}} who possesses the protagonist, Yuma, and [[spoiler:personally reaps the souls of the game's culprits after every Mystery Labyrinth sequence]]. Due to her status as a death god, [[BlueAndOrangeMorality she has an odd view on mortality and doesn't understand humans]], which causes her to act unpredictably towards other people.

* ''WesternAnimation/The LegendOfVoxMachina'' has the Matron of Ravens, Tal'dorei's goddess of death. While an imposing figure among the realm's pantheon, she exemplifies the idea that DarkIsNotEvil, as she believes the sanctity of life -- and with it, the transition of the soul from life to death -- are sacred and to be protected.

*** Cyric eventually lost most of his power during the Spellplague and the Time of Troubles, a disaster of his own making, and was unseated by Kelemvor, a mortal human who died and, in overthrowing Cyric, gained his divine power and portfolio over the dead. The LawfulNeutral Kelemvor decided to clear the courts of the dead from his predecessors' corruption, and eventually remade the courts of the dead into a grey, neutral place where souls unclaimed by deities are judged by Kelemvor and sent to areas of his realm alongside others of similar ethical and philosophical beliefs and left to arrange things for themselves. Unlike his predecessors, Kelemvor deeply detests the undead, seeing them as perversions of the natural order.

* ComicBook/LadyDeath is the Queen of Hell and Goddess of All That Is Dead and Dying. In one story, it is stated that her army of the undead is loyal to her because she mostly lets them rest in peace save for when she needs their aid unlike the forces of Heaven who use their souls as fuel.
* ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': ''ComicBook/{{Black Cat|MarvelComics}}'': Issue #5 introduces the Gilded Saint, a god of wealth and death from another dimension. He is the patron god of the New York Thieves Guild. In return for ten percent of what they steal, the Gilded Saint grants them immortality.

* ''Literature/{{Silverwing}}'': In the third book, Cama Zotz--the patron god of the Vampyrum Spectrum--is revealed to be not only the ruler but the creator of the Underworld.

* ''VideoGame/{{Majesty}}'': Krypta is the goddess of the dead and the overseer of the afterlife. She is charged with watching over the souls of the deceased, which she does with absolute impartiality and fairness.

* ''VideoGame/CultOfTheLamb'': Late in the game it is revealed that The One Who Waits is the god of death, which is how he grants the Lamb immortality. [[spoiler:He was originally a Bishop of the Old Faith until he tried to seize more power and the others sealed him]].

* ''Fanfic/{{Everqueen}}'': While the Emperor will insist that AGodIAmNot, he eventually reveals to Isha that he was originally created to be this by the shamans of Earth: a divine guardian of humanity's souls, thus making Death and the Afterlife his primary Dominions, with War as an obvious secondary one. He chose not to act on it, though (as Isha points out, humanity ''has'' no afterlife in this setting), as he didn't think he was worthy of being the judge of every human soul, but with Chaos on the rise he has less and less of a choice in the matter, as the alternative is to let their souls be devoured by Daemons.

** ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'': After being freed by Sigmar, Nagash claimed Shyish, the Realm of Death, as his rightful domain, sending his undead minions to conquer the realm's many [[OverlySpecificAfterlife many underworlds]] and personally consumed the death gods that ruled them until he became the undisputed God of the Dead. Nagash takes this role very seriously and considers all souls to be rightfully his. As a consequence, he hates everything he perceives as a robbery of his property, including both resurrection and SoulEating. He's also a deity of undeath, and rules over immense legions of walking dead, necromancers and restless spirits.

* ''Fanfic/{{Everqueen}}'': While the Emperor will insist that AGodIAmNot, he eventually reveals to Isha that he was originally created to be this by the shamans of Earth: a divine guardian of humanity's souls, thus making Death and the Afterlife his primary Dominions, with War as an obvious secondary one. He chose not to act on it, though, as he didn't think he was worthy of being the judge of every human soul, but with Chaos on the rise he has less and less of a choice in the matter, as the alternative is to let their souls be devoured by Daemons.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGhostAndMollyMcGee'' has The Chairman, the leader of the Ghost Council and ruler of the ghost world, and the one who is responsible for assigning ghosts to create misery across the Human Realm, if a ghost fails to met his expectations, he will punish them by sentencing them to an eternity in the [[FateWorseThanDeath Flow of Failed Phantoms]].

* ''WesternAnimation/{{TheGhostAndMollyMcGee}}'' has The Chairman, the leader of the Ghost Council and ruler of the ghost world, and the one who is responsible for assigning ghosts to create misery across the Human Realm, if a ghost fails to met his expectations, he will punish them by sentencing them to an eternity in the [[FateWorseThanDeath Flow of Failed Phantoms]].

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'': Nito, the First of the Dead, has dominion over death, decay, and necromancy, and was one of the original Lords that fought against the Eternal Dragons. Lacking an actual afterlife to preside over, Nito prefers to lay at the bottom of a gigantic catacomb underneath Lordran. Ironically, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu he himself is not immune to getting killed]].

* Myth/AztecMythology: Mictecacihuatl and Mictlantecuhtli were the queen and king of Mictlan, the underworld. They were typically depicted as a flayed corpse and a bloody skeleton, respectively.

* ''Series/LegendOfTheSeeker'': The Keeper of the Underworld doesn't just rule over death, he created it (as the Creator orginally made humans immortal). Unlike in [[DontFearTheReaper some examples]], he's unambiguously evil.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Creator/ManOnTheInternet "You like what I've done with the place? I find redecoration helps bring out the very best in the god of the damned!"]]]]

*** [[https://scryfall.com/card/ths/85/erebos-god-of-the-dead Erebos, God of the Dead]], serves as a Hades analogue and rules over the shades of the departed in the Underworld. A bleak and forbidding figure, Erebos permits nobody to avoid or escape from his realm and uses his impossibly long whip Mastix to snare reluctant souls and pull them into death.
*** [[https://scryfall.com/card/jou/146/athreos-god-of-passage Athreos, God of Passage]], is derived from Charon and serves as the primary ferryman of Theros's dead, carrying them across the Five Rivers that Ring the World and into the Underworld that lies beyond.
** [[https://scryfall.com/card/khm/92/egon-god-of-death-throne-of-death Egon, God of Death]], is Kaldheim's ruler of the dead. He rules Istfell, the realm of the unworthy dead, although his power over the local spirits is limited by their eternal apathy.

* ''Film/ThorRagnarok'': Hela is the Goddess of Death, and is seen reanimating her dead followers. She shrugs off any damage on her, survives impalements and worse, as if saying she's beyond the icy touch of death itself. In the end, it takes something bigger than death, [[spoiler: something that's supposed to bring DeathOfTheOldGods itself - i.e. Ragnarok - to finally kill her and make it stick.]]

* ''Literature/AmericanGods'': Anubis and Thoth run a funeral home in Cairo, Illinois. [[spoiler: When Shadow dies he catches a ride from Thoth and is judged by Anubis.]]

* ''Franchise/DragonAge'': Falon'Din is called "the Friend of the Dead" in ancient elven mythology. The elves themselves were said to be immortal then, so Falon'Din didn't take on that role until he and his brother, Dirthamen, encountered a dying deer, and Falon'Din carried her across the Veil to her resting place and decided to take on that role officially. [[spoiler: According to Fen'Harel, one of Falon'Din's contemporaries, Falon'Din was a mortal, though extremely powerful, ruler whose vanity led him to massacre countless people in his search for more worshippers.]]

** In the episode "Cronus Vanquished", the BigBad Cronus [[spoiler: takes over the underworld for himself by tricking Hades, becoming king of the underworld]] until the heroes defeat him.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls': Nito, the First of the Dead, has dominion over death, decay, and necromancy, and was one of the original Lords that fought against the Eternal Dragons. Lacking an actual afterlife to preside over, Nito prefers to lay at the bottom of a gigantic catacomb underneath Lordran. Ironically, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu he himself is not immune to getting killed]].

* ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': The Valar have Mandos, the grim keeper of fate and lord of the dead, in whose halls the shades of deceased Elves linger until they are reambodied or the end of the world.

* ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': The Valar have Mandos, the grim keeper of fate and lord of the dead, in whose halls the shades of deceased Elves linger until the end of the world.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' has Nito, the First of the Dead, who has dominion over death, decay, and necromancy, and one of the original Lords that fought against the Eternal Dragons. Lacking an actual afterlife to preside over, Nito prefers to lay at the bottom of a gigantic catacomb underneath Lordran. Ironically, [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu he himself is not immune to getting killed]].
* In ''Franchise/DragonAge'', Falon'Din is called "the Friend of the Dead" in ancient elven mythology. The elves themselves were said to be immortal then, so Falon'Din didn't take on that role until he and his brother, Dirthamen, encountered a dying deer, and Falon'Din carried her across the Veil to her resting place and decided to take on that role officially. [[spoiler: According to Fen'Harel, one of Falon'Din's contemporaries, Falon'Din was a mortal, though extremely powerful, ruler whose vanity led him to massacre countless people in his search for more worshippers.]]

** Shor, who rules over [[WarriorHeaven Sovngarde]], though he doesn't appear when you visit there in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''.

* In ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', Ereshkigal is the goddess of the Babylonian underworld, Kur. As its master, its her duty alone to manage all of the souls that drift down there, protecting them in cages until they're ready to move onto their next life. When it's time to fight, she possesses a serious HomeFieldAdvantage in her domain, becoming unbeatable even to goddesses as powerful as Quetzalcoatl.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', Nald'thal the Traders is the [[TwoBeingsOneBody singlular manifestation of the twins]] Nald and Thal. Thal is the god of the dead, who [[JudgementOfTheDead judges men's souls]] to determine their place in the afterlife. Nald is [[TheAlmightyDollar god of commerce]] who rules over the wealth of the living world. Together, Nald'thal is the patron god of [[MerchantCity Ul'dah]], who pray to the Traders for prosperity in life and fair judgement in death.

* Hades, Lord of the Underworld, is the BigBad of ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising''. He uses the population of the Underworld as part of his plan to conquer the world.

** Prior to ''Shadowlands'', players would sometimes encounter minor gods of death, not confined to the Shadowlands, like the troll loa Bwonsamdi or the titan keeper Helya. Later lore revealed that they are essentially [[{{Psychopomp}} Psychopomps]], responsible for transferring souls to the Eternal Ones and sometimes answering to them.
** The Lich King was sometimes referred to as a god of death in his expansion, ''Wrath of the Lich King''. It's unclear how divine he actually was, but given that he only existed for a few decades at best, it'd be unlikely for him to have had any actual role in the Shadowlands. He was later revealed to have been using the Jailer's power, though.