Greek underworld are the unburied which can't be taken across from bank to bank until they receive a proper burial. Across the river, guarding the gates of the underworld is Cerberus. There is also an area where the Judges of the underworld decide where to send the souls of the person — to Elysium, the Fields of Asphodel, or Tartarus. While Tartarus is not considered to be directly a part of the underworld, it is described as being as far beneath the underworld as the earth is beneath the sky. It is so dark that the "night is poured around it in
The Gates of Thorbardin are of a different race than I am, very much to life to make them as much as possible three-dimensional people and show them as being the best of what they are, and not necessarily the best of what they would be if they were human." Parkinson says that the book is essentially "the story of Chane, a Thorbardin dwarf, and his quest to find the Helm of Grallen and to seal the secret entrance of Thorbardin against incursion by magic". The major plotline of The Gates of Thorbardin is that there once existed a hidden entrance to the Dwarven