Kindred

The Kindred are the spirits of death. They are not death itself, but psychopomps, leading the deceased to their final resting place in the Upper or Lower Planes. Nor are they gods or divine or wicked creatures, but more accurately a force of nature personified.

The Kindred appear as two beings: Lamb and Wolf. Lamb is a white-fleeced satyr-like creature who wears a dark wooden mask in the shape of a wolf's face. Wolf is an ethereal quadripidal canine creature who wears a white wooden mask in the shape of a lamb's head. They always appear together.

When a creature dies, they appear in the Ethereal Plane with the newly dead. They offer a choice: follow Lamb peacefully, or run and be chased by Wolf, although Wolf always wins the chase. Philosophically, this is understood to be a way of allowing the dead to express a preference if more than one god would have claim to the creature's soul.

If a creature is raised from the dead, their encounter with the Kindred is usually not remembered. Exceptions to this rule exist, as Mino attests. When he talked about his encounter with them, Astrid surmised that perhaps it was Winnehild's intervention that allowed him to keep the memory.