The Defeater of Empires, the Swallower of Oceans, the Thief of Years, the Ultimate Reality, the Harvester of Mankind, the Assassin against whom No Lock Will Hold, the only friend of the poor and the best doctor for the mortally wounded. An anthropomorphic personification. Almost the oldest creature in the universe (obviously something had to die first...) [Terry Pratchet]
In the beginning, there were no Realm of Death. The first races lived for ever; and if they did die from wounds or accidents, their souls remained in the world of the living.
Slowly, the number of souls increased, and as the old races vanished and new races was created, the need for the souls to leave the world of the living became clear to all the gods.
So, the first god of Death emerged. With devoted brutalism he hunted down souls all over the world of the living and because of the resistence the souls made, he grew hostile and punished them for being disobedient.
Eons went by and the growing cries of the souls in the Realm of Death reached to the realms of the other gods. Their cries reached Kelemvor, who was a mere mortal at the time and the gods elevated him to godhood and gave him the Lordship of Death. But not without a battle between the gods, as the old Lord did not give up volunteerly.
Kelemvor, the Lord of Death, is the one who binds life to afterlife. He is the one who ensures that the souls of those who died leaves the world of living and enter the world of the dead.
He is also the judge. But by no means an ordinary judge. The are no accusations and no judgement that the soul of the dead does not make itself. The Lord of Death provides the realm for this, and nothing else. But the accusations and the judgement are true; because noone can lie for The Lord Of Death.
The Lord of Death is no enemy of Life. Kelemvor is no more eager to see things die than most people are themselves. He simply administers it's natural succession, which must be because any alternative is horrid. Because of this, The Lord of Death does not object to magic healing, resurrection or any other form of saving lives. The Lord of Death is perhaps the most patient of all the gods; he can wait. Eventually the soul becomes old, Life will leave and The Bringer will bring the soul to his realm.
In fact, The Lord of Death are more opposed to suicide and foolishly throwing life away than he is to saving lives.
But The Lord of Death are strongly opposed to any efford to prolong life beyond it's natural span. For the world of the living to work, each soul must eventually leave it. And death is a new beginning, then any soul who cheats death, cheats itself of it's afterlife. The Lord of Death is determined to not let this happen; to help the soul itself.
Though patient when waiting for a life to end, he has no patience when it comes to dealing with his enemies. No concequence is worse than the concequence of a growing number of undead or immortals; and if this is the case, there is no need for thinking about the concequneces of what must be done. So he seldom does.
The dogme of The Lord of Death is as follows:
The Lord of Death has the Death domain. However, this domain deals normally in creating undeads, which is unfit work for the clerics of Kelemvor.
I propose instead a change of spells for Kelemvorians only: Reverse the spells to "Destroy Undead".
When death occurs, most souls are eager to leave for the afterlife. But to find the way, to guide them, they need to be brought. Some needs persuation. The Bringer does this.
When the soul enter the realm of The Lord of Death - and all souls do - some souls are claimed by the other gods. If the soul has followed the dogme of the god making the claim, no other valid claim are made and the soul are willing, the god is allowed to bring the soul to his or her realm.
Those who are not claimed by other gods, and this is the vast majority, are judged in accordence to their own personality. There are no cheating. In fact, Kelemvor does not do the judging as such, since what happens is that the souls are simply sent to the afterlife where they must meet with their own reflection - they exist in the world they themselves create. They get to exist in a reality that mirrors their own perception of the world. The faith of the soul are the judging factor; if the dead expects to be burned in hell for it's bad deeds, so it will be. After a while (which might be a small eternaty) the souls understand that the hell is of their own making and they can free themselves - eventually. This leaves them still in a world of their own making, where the essense of the souls make up the reality. It follows that good people gets a good afterlife with playing harp while bad people spend their eternaty being afraid that another bad person might backstab them. A true change of personality is needed for the soul to enter another reality in the afterlife. Occationally a god might claim a soul in the realm of Death, if such a change has taken place.
Kelemvor may claim souls as other gods may. His devoted followers and clerics are normally sent to the afterlife with the task to continue their work. When a cleric of Kelemvor dies, his time of apprenticeship is over and he or she is brought to the Realm of the Dead to start his true work. Occationally Kelemvor har use for his people to do other tasks. Such an example is The Bringer, who is the one who actually brings the souls to Kelemvor
Some souls does not leave the world of the living.
A few because returns to the body, having had a near-death experience, or reincarnate. These are the ones who have been cheated out of their fate. Not by an early death, but sometime reality does not make a fate come trough and in these cases, the Bringer does not bring the soul to the Realm of Death, but either back to the body or to the next life to be had. The Lord of Death supports this, as he is the god of Fate as well.
Another few escapes The Bringer and becomes ghosts, spirits and other forms of undead. Carefull planning and magic are needed to escape The Bringer, and Kelemvor strongly opposes these cheaters.
Thousands of years ago, a mage created a bone golem. And when the mage died, the golem continued existence in the realm of the living. Milliniums went by, and the golem became aware. Then he suffered. And the Lord of Death took pity on the golem and brought him to his realm. Havning never been alive, the golem could not allowed to enter the afterlife. So Kelemvor took him as a servant. He is known as The Bringer.
The Bringer is a humanoid, but very large, skeleton, that does the handywork of Kelemvor. He separates the souls from the bodies and brings the dead to the afterlife. He serves the Lord of Death with a passionless and flawless loyality. And at the end of times, when the world dies, he will do for Kelemvor what he have done for so many others.
The church of Kelemvor has different tasks:
So, in essence, while all Kelemvor priests are lawful, some are loved as good, other are shunned as evil but most are simly somewhere in between. The good priests heals, helps, comforts and saves lives as they can. They figure that all lives should be lived fully and that only old age counts as a natural death. They believe that those who kills for their own gain has deserved to loose their life.
Evil clerics would instead see their mission as "helping" people to the afterlife. They will not do this as the clerics of destruction, they are not nessesary fond of mass murder. But they might stand back and let nature take it's cause and they might even help push the unfortunate into death. But first, they would ask him if he has a last word or will. They would consider good their main enemy since good are mostly around with the purpose of saving lives. They also consider pain to be a part of life and this is often the reason they like death. Evil kelememvorian priests are rare and tend not to be a member of the church, which favors good clerics.
Neutral clerics is somewhere in between this. They figure that everything from old age to disease to accidents to battle that might kill people are actually natural death, like their evil counterpart. It is all part of life. They also figure that if something speaks in favor of saving life (or heal), they is allowed to do it, since another natural death will eventually come along. They will heal and save lives, if it serves the cause, if the unfortunate has a unfullfilled destiny or if they believe they can benefit from it. They will not heal as easily as good priest, but not as rarely as evil priests either.
Bolin is a devoted follower of Kelemvor, and he does his best to live up to the dogme's of the god and the church.
When confronted with dying people, he will try to ease the fear and comfort them. But he will not try to save them, unless thinks it serves the cause of his Lord.
He has never had a close friend, and he does not know if he would save a friends life. He think he might, but he considers it to be a weakness; Bolin thinks he should be willing to set free those he loves.
Bolin does not fear death. On the other hand, he will propably return from the Realm of Death if ressurected. Not because he thinks he is better than anyone, but because he has a task to fullfill in this life. A fate to follow. However; Bolin would never return if his Lord did not wish him to.