Thoughts on the body, death, and the soul:

I'm currently chatting to a couple of people where Dinn's role as the arbiter of passage of souls to the afterlife has been made relevant, and I've basically had to make up how mortal death in this universe works. Clearly this will depend on the GM (whose blessing I'd like before I make up any more nonsense) and the RPer who finally makes a permanent god of the underworld, but the model I'm working with atm is:

The body and the soul are bound to one another physically and metaphysically. Both are fundamental aspects of a person's personality, appearance, and general character. When a person dies, the metaphysical bonds between soul and body are severed, but the soul is still physically tied to the body, where it erodes and disintegrates, until it finds its own way to the underworld. The body itself rots, and does not experience any afterlife. Note that the body and the soul need not be physically bound for a mortal to be alive (see the Exempt for more details), and the release of the physical bonds does not damage the soul in any way.

Degradation of the soul is not ideal for the mortal or the underworld, because the underworld likes to take in whole souls in the proper 'format', and damaged souls suffer immeasurably (beyond whatever karma owes them). Dinn's role is to administer the physical divorce of body and soul, such that the soul can safely pass into the afterlife via the gateways in the mortal world (of which there may be several; Dinn presides over the primary one). 

Should a person's soul be metaphysically divorced from them, they, to all intents and purposes, 'have no soul', and therefore lose much of their personality, will-power, and general character, and generally act as a lifeless zombie. Should a person traverse through one of the gateways to the underworld physically, they are considered to be in the worst possible format, and will suffer an eternal fate that is worse than a fate worse than death (though perhaps the blessing of a god or gods may facilitate this practise in extreme circumstances, because what civilisation does not have a to-death-and-back adventure epic?).

Thoughts? Queries? Criticisms?