Hel

Hel is the daughter of Loki and the ruler of Helheim, sovereign over every soul that does not fall worthily enough to be gathered to Valhalla — which is to say, the vast majority of all who die. Odin himself gave her the realm and the dominion, a gift that was also a sentence: power beyond any other god's, spent in cold exile at the bottom of the realms.

She is described as half one thing and half another — radiant and ruined, living and dead, depending on which side of her you face. She governs the ever-growing archive of the dead with patience and absolute authority, and the Aesir are slowly realizing the danger of having banished so much power somewhere it has every reason to resent them. When Ragnarök comes, the dead will march, and they will march for her.

Queen of the Dead

TODO: the gift of Helheim, the logistics of the soul-deeps, and Hel's price for returning anyone the gods cannot bear to lose.