Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-24267938-20130808174809/@comment-10056803-20130815162151

I think it's on a soul-by-soul basis. Sovngarde/the-afterlife-shared-between-Zenithar/Tsun-and-Shor/Lorkhan is just popular because the getting in criteria is dying by battle and either beating up Tsun to the point he doesn't feel like stopping you and/or getting a permit from Shor, but since Nords are the only people who want to go there except the Ebony Warrior (who as a redguard would prove that it's not racially discriminating as redguards are as divorced from the nordic and nord-descendants on some level according to some lore), nobody has any intention to go there.

Souls may be able to split and be in multiple places at once in full like busy shinto deities or something, judging by the fact you can soultrap Ulfric when you kill him, go to Sovngarde, and throw the filled black soul gem in his face while laughing. And that just complicates things.

Orcs probably go to Malacath (Ashpit, your backbone is now a city), khajiti and dunmer go to Azura because it's her that made those two different from bosmer and alt/ald mer respectively, with the dunmer being split between Boethiah and Mephala and possibly other daedra depending on whatever whims and whoever's turn it is. Altmer probably have a more definite planar heaven, but since Altmer usually don't like dying (judging by how the Thalmor popped up) in a normal fashion, we never get told this because it's not on Summerset Isles. Malacath may run the altmer heaven, being at least partially Trinimac run through Boethiah's digestive system.

Considering the Ebony Warrior had every reason to believe he could make it to Sovngarde, not to mention the dragonborn gets in no matter what race barring preexisting daedric commitments (Hircine, Nocturnal, Molag Bal, everybody who picks dovahkiins for champions during 4E 201), so they're likely not unfriendly to redguards and dragons, so why would they kick out the races that are related to nords?

Since every dead nord you slaughtered personally as you rampaged through the holds of Skyrim doesn't get sent to Sovngarde, we can presume there are other afterlives or the Dreamsleeve really likes recycling non-memorable people fast. As the large planets in the sky are supposedly seeing into oblivion, aetherius, and void, we can assume that among the daedric planes offscreen that the planets named for the divines are fully sized afterlives. Since Lorkhan split into Masser and Secunda, we can assume Sovngarde is on one of those, on an invisible connection split between them, the third moon of Nirn that only appears during Masser and Secunda eclipsing each other, or on planetplane Zenithar.

Kyne/Kynareth is clearly capable of doing things judging by the guardian beasts roaming Skyrim and her shrines working well, so planetplane Kynareth may be an afterlife for animals, especially the ones the sky likes.

Dibella orbits Mara, and while Mara makes an appearance at random to the Nerevarine (I think?), Dibella doesn't appear to the dovahkiin even as you defile her temple (though the angry priestess might have sufficed as Dibella still gives you a free bonus for picking up her Sybil), we can assume any love-based afterlife is either stuck between planes as is Sovngarde (or what we see of it) or based on Mara because Mara appears to be larger in the sky (thus more powerful).

Julianos is the patron of magic and knowledge as of Magnus and the Magne Ge going NOPE at complete investment of self into the Mundus and walking out (except Meridia, possibly), which is why Mundus has a sun and stars, so it's possible those without daedric commitment and heavy magical practice will ascend to here. Presumably if someone manages to eject the Augur of Dunlain from Mundus without soul destruction or soultrapping (I can see the ideal masters going "Ball of light, wat r u doin, ball of light, stahp!" at it), it will likely end up on Julianos-plane unless it apparently has a commitment to somebody else. Meridia or Hermaeus Mora, possibly. Or both.

Arkay is the Divine of life and death, so the entire planetplane of Arkay is possibly an afterlife. Judging by the funerary rites and the fact that many of the people undergoing them seem to have passed peacefully and likely are not bound to Nirn for all eternity, everyone not bound may just end up there. Florentius Baenius is likely going there for having Arkay in his head alone, unless it's really Sheogorath and he's headed to the Shivering Isles. If the Dreamsleeve is a more-or-less-physical location as opposed to being a natural cyclic process of Arkay-afterlife, a daedric artifact shaped like a sleeve, or somewhere in Oblivion and/or the Void, etc., it may be somewhere on Planetplane Arkay.

If people are completely insane, they may end up on the Shivering Isles. I could see it serving as an afterlife for the mad, even if in life they had no commitment to the madgod beyond being batshit insane.

Talos might not be running an afterlife because he hit the apotheosis mark from mortality and thus doesn't have a planetplane of much size at the second.

Akatosh wouldn't be much of an afterlife, though if dragonsouls do much post absorption and/or post whatever-process-indicates-used-dragonsoul, they might end up here if their physical vessel is damaged beyond even raisability by Alduin SLEN TIID VO -ing. Akatosh is currently being time anyways, so he might not have to do much at all.

Stendarr is merciful, so he MIGHT run an afterlife for rulers who die nonviolently. If the Vigil of Stendarr qualifies under criteria, they might dedicate their afterlife there.

I'm not sure how aspected-off deities, descendant deities, transformed deities, etc. are supposed to work, presumably they file with the closest approximation of what represents the whole. Things like Alduin. Malacath doesn't count because he's a daedric prince now and is therefore trusted to be slightly more uniform and regular, with all due irony of many daedra being padomaic and many aedra supposedly being anuic.