There is a hierarchy among deathly spirits. The myriad entities that personify death have different roles and responsibilities. Normally, such beings are both feared and reviled in equal measure. As such, their lore is esoteric at the very least. Today we will talk about who the death entities are and how they function within the context of eternity.
As a rule of thumb, all deathly spirits find death amusing in a way that is commensurate with scale and circumstance. At the very bottom of the totem pole are the wraiths. A wraith is a deathly spirit that simply observes death. They do not kill and thus seek to avoid confrontation by hiding inside death itself. The notion of death in the celestial plane is such that it is a force of nature that death entities can enter and exit in a way that is similar to the concept of pocket dimensions in comic books.
The iconic grim reaper is actually inspired by a pair of twin wraiths who look just like that, scythe and all. Ironically, they were the subordinates of another wraith and thus were not capable of killing at all. Their master even subjected them to routine beatings in order to keep them in line. Such was the case until the archangel of death killed the three of them for stepping out of line.
Just one rung above the wraiths are the specters of death. They are phantoms that go around killing indiscriminately because deathly spirits in general are sustained by the death of others. Hypothetically speaking, if all death were to cease, so too would the deathly beings’ existence. As they have a quota to fulfill, encountering a specter of death is bad luck under normal circumstances.
Next up are the omega specters. They are significantly stronger and thus have authority over the rank and file specters. Like their subordinates, omega specters can kill the undying. One thing that differentiates them from their inferiors is that they can negate life in entire areas so as to prevent spirits from being born in the first place.
The lord specters are just about at the top of the hierarchy. They are parallel in rank and power to the death lords, the only difference being their powers and abilities. Lord specters have the authority to command the omega specters and everyone beneath them. They serve the same purpose as their subordinates but on a much larger scale. As such, their ability to negate life can affect an entire reality. Remember, a reality is that which infinite dimensions can exist in.
The only reason that a lord specter would not negate life everywhere is that people have to be born in order for death to occur at some point for one reason or another. Without the occurrence of death on a large enough scale, all of the death entities would perish. They cannot kill the death lords and vice versa. Observationally, two one hundred foot tall skeletal figures that where black cloaks would look and behave identically even if they where of different classes. Some wield a scythe, and others do not.
There were at least two rungs above even the death lords and lord specters. The entities that are recognized by the designation death’s constant are essentially giant death lords that embody the notion of the finality of death more than any of the other death spirit. Each of them had two minions. A harbinger of death and a void of death. The harbinger of death is supposed to herald the death of individuals or groups at the hands of his master. The void of death is supposed to herald the death of entire dimensions full of people again, at the hands of his master.
They operated with impunity until one of them challenged the archangel of death and was promptly brought low. He was subsequently challenged by the rest of them and now the presumptive kings of death are all trapped inside of the fell blade Endbringer in a state of perpetual disembodied mindlessness. Now all of the harbingers of death appear as a host of countless death-mongering crows whenever the archangel of death approaches a challenger. One such challenger was Igsilzor the death serpent.
He existed at the highest level of the supernatural plane and thus was at the very top of the deathly hierarchy. That universe-sized snake was one target that the archangel of death had to kill in order to establish supremacy among the death entities. That was after having established the highest body count of all eternity by an unfathomably wide margin. Needless to say, if the archangel of death wants you to die, you are as good as dead.
