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Existential Plane of Decay: the Shadowlands
The Shadowlands is Azeroth's afterlife, and like many of the extra-planar locations, its existence is a prison. In this case, instead of incarcerating elementals or world-consuming parasites, it is a prison for the spirits of the dead. The Titans feared that the Shath'Yar's madness would last beyond the end of a victim's life, and thus could be compelled to flee the world and warn the Black Empire's allies, or worse, break the compulsion on Azeroth's Seed Races to never do harm to the Titan-forged prisons beneath Azeroth's surface. Those who died would need to stay somewhere until their spiritual energy dispersed, allowing them to be reborn as new beings entirely free of the Shath'Yar's malign influence.
The Titan Charonas , a keeper of the rolls of the dead for the Army of the Light, charged the Dragon Aspect Koirala with the task of overseeing the dead, warning her that she, her prime consort, and their children may never see Azeroth's light again, and the silver dragon agreed. The Titan tapped into the Conceptual Plane of Death, and mixed with it fragments of the Elemental Planes of Water and Earth to create the Existential Plane of Decay, noting its importance as an extant form of life. Charonas then imbued Koirala, her prime consort Pluotal, and the first clutch of her eggs with necromantic energy, which served both to bind the Silver Dragonflight to the Shadowlands, and allow them to survive there, as no living being could survive such a place for long.
Then, Charonas, with the help of her kin, wove in a compulsion to the very fabric of the Shadowlands: any soul that departed its body on Azeroth would be drawn into the Shadowlands, until a stronger spiritual compulsion drew it elsewhere. In their countless journeys, the Titans knew that there were other races, and had recruited or earmarked many of them. They respected their right to a peaceful end, and so would not force them to remain on Azeroth. Those native to Azeroth, however, could not be allowed to roam free, lest the madness of the Shath'Yar spread to the dead as well as the living. As with all else, containing that threat dominated every decision the Titans made regarding Azeroth and its people, no matter when they would come into being. Satisfied that this would be enough, the Titans departed, leaving Koirala to her unending task.
Geography
At first, the Shadowlands were an endless, empty plane, occupied solely by the First Nest of Koirala and her family. Her seat of power was the Sundered Shell, a gigantic, broken eggshell meant to be the First Egg, from which all dragons and their kin had spawned in the early ages of the Titan terraforming. It was here, dragons believed, they would return when they eventually died, and that belief created Koirala's throne. As the Titans left, the Shadowlands took its first shape, that of the fallen Black Empire of the Aqir, including its old temples, roads, and residences. The souls of the defeated Aqir pressed their will into the Existential Plane, demonstrating its first quality, which was to gather the souls of not just deceased people, animals, or other living things, but that of dead empires. In time, other empire fragments appeared: Zin-Azshari, sundered and broken; the Twin Empires of the Gurubashi and the Amani, fallen to decay; ancient Mulgore, before the sundering of the tribes; the tribes of Arathor, having given way to Stromgarde, Lordaeron, and other places; pre-First War Azeroth, its innocence violated; Alterac, brought low by betrayal. Any kingdom that had a people who were born, lived, died, and remembered was memorialized in the Shadowlands, and the shades of the dead can still flicker in and out of the sundered buildings. With the coming of the Scourge, other kingdoms have joined those of the fallen: Lordaeron, Quel'thalas, and Dalaran.
The Shadowlands is based on the size of the world as it was, even more so than the Emerald Dream. Its landmass is approximately the size of the ancient Black Empire of the Aqir, and does not possess any wide-open spaces between locations, and few bodies of water. As such, it could be possible to travel between points on Azeroth through the Shadowlands, assuming one can survive the experience. Since the Shadowlands rarely intersect with the Physical Realm, one would have to be exceptionally skilled at several esoteric forms of magic, including Void magic and necromancy to accomplish this. Living persons who can accomplish this are vanishingly rare, so it should be noted that Garona Halforcen is one of them. In the years since the Shadowlands was violated by Kil'Jaedan and the Scourge, Death Knights can open gates which use the Shadowlands to travel. It is a costly, uncomfortable experience, living or undead. There is no weather in the Shadowlands, and for those who can feel temperature, it is bitterly cold, since heat is something only the living require.
The Shadowlands has a sky, and initially it was the opposite of Azeroth's: instead of a bright sun and a day-night cycle, its sun is black as pitch, located directly overhead at all times, and the sky is milky-white, and no representation of neither Azeroth's natural moon nor the Elemental Plane of Light and Shadow that accompanies it. When Kil'Jaedan pierced the Shadowlands, he did so via the sun, and since that time, the Black Sun has been replaced by a huge, swirling vortex of black and white. This does not seem to have any direct effect on the Shadowlands or its remaining denizens, and is merely a reminder that their realm has been violated and their champion stolen along with their seat of power, the Shadow Throne. The soil of the Shadowlands serves to bolster and sustain the dead, including undead and necromantically-imbued beings, and functions identically to Scourge blight. For this reason, until the coming of the Legion, those who existed in the Shadowlands rarely left, preferring the comfort of their own home.
Bodies and Souls
While the existence of souls has been debated over time, usually in a moral sense, those who dwell in the Shadowlands know that souls are extremely real. All living beings have a soul, as it is the essential spark of life that separates out a Seed Race from a construct, such as an arcane sentinel. A soul is shaped by the form that grows around it, commonly referred to as their body. As a body experiences more things, and gathers more memories, so too does a soul grow. The soul of an infant is tiny, pure, but empty. The soul of an aged person is vast, holding many experiences both remembered and forgotten, and brimming with a completed experience. A body can also be shaped by a soul, changing it in subtle ways. On some occasions, a body and soul are incompatible in some ways. Since none can change their souls, it is the body that needs to be changed to better suit the soul. In such cases, alterations to the body can be made with magic, surgery, or other methods, and preventing this from being done is considered unconscionably cruel by every organization with moral standing. All souls resemble how they wish to be in the Shadowlands, just as their bodies should exist in life.
When a being's body dies, the tether between body and soul is severed within minutes, and while the body is drawn to the Physical Plane (ie, decomposition), the soul is drawn towards the Shadowlands. This is true of natural beings born on Azeroth and Seed Races assigned to Azeroth by the Titans. Orc souls, given that they are shaped by a Seed Race not of Azeroth, are drawn to Oshu'gun, which orcs have traditionally held as a resting place for their ancestors. This is even technically true. Demi-orc souls have a weaker tether to Oshu'gun and do not travel there automatically, but will if they feel a strong desire to return there. If they do not, the souls will rest in the Shadowlands. Other races who happen to be on Azeroth when they die will be drawn to the place their soul feels to be the most appropriate for their rest, though this theory has rarely been tested, as there are few non-Azerothian and non-Orc living persons on Azeroth. Those with no preference or no concept of the afterlife are always drawn to the Shadowlands.
Denizens of the Shadowlands
As one might expect of an afterlife, there are various and ephemeral inhabitants of the Shadowlands, who are as follows:
Shades: Souls of the freshly dead that still retain most of their memories and identity from being alive, especially if they died in traumatic ways, are shades of the formerly living. Shades linger in the Shadowlands for a time and they are managed by Koirala and her champions. Eventually, they dissipate and move on, reincarnating into new souls.
Ghosts: A ghost in the soul of a dead person who in life had such a strong grasp of their identity that they do not move on, instead remaining in the Shadowlands until they choose to move on or are destroyed by some other means. These ghosts are candidates to become champions of Koirala, but she only has a few champions at a time.
Champions: The Champions of Koirala are agents of the White Monarch, superficially resemble Scourge death knights and serve a very different purpose. These beings are undead, their bodies inaccessible in the Physical Plane. Instead, their forms are shaped by necromancy and their souls. These bodies tend to reflect how they were in the prime of their life rather than when they were killed, though some do have death wounds. These champions serve as assistants and help manage the souls of the dead.
Obsidian Champion: This being is Koirala's greatest champion, and usually her Chosen as well. The Obsidian Champion is functionally a death knight and, until the coming of Kil'Jaedan, bore the great blade Shadowmourne, and wore the Dusk Panoply and the Helm of Control . The previous Obsidian Champion was fused with Ner'zhul to create the Lich King, and the incumbent does not possess the previous champion's panoply.
Silver Dragons: Koirala, the White Monarch, is a dragon and her Silver Dragonflight is quite small. She has only one Prime Mate, Pluotal. Silver dragons are all undead like their Aspect, and after eggs are laid, Koirala spends years bathing her eggs with the same necrotic energies that transformed her. Any silver dragon eggs that somehow leave the Shadowlands are incapable of hatching unless returned there, and stealing eggs from the Silver Dragonflight will invoke their swift and decisive ire. Silver dragonkin are non-existent, and Koirala tends to her eggs personally. Her Prime Mate is the template for Scourge frostwyrms, and has been take captive elsewhere. Therefore, no new silver dragons have come to maturity since Kil'Jaedan invaded the Shadowlands.
Undead: Corporeal undead, as they are called, are bodies that have been severed from their souls and reanimated. Until the coming of the Scourge, there were almost no such beings on Azeroth, though it was possible to make a study of necromancy, a branch of arcane magic devoted to tapping the Demi-Plane of Decay, and attain lichdom, as well as animating corpses or skeletons. Now, there are many undead on Azeroth, and their presence spreads the environment of the Shadowlands to places where there are high concentrations of undead, like the Plaguelands and Northrend.
Spirits: Spirits are not undead, and in fact are semi-divine beings such as the Wild Gods and the Loa. This is confusing because of the Orcish belief in speaking to spirits, which are in actuality fragments of Wild Gods or elementals, Tauren ancestor worship, and Night Elven nature spirits, which are not in fact Night Elf shades but instead fragments from the Demi-Plane of Spirit (the Emerald Dream).
Breaking the Cycle
One of the struggles of existence is grappling with one's own mortality. All beings are born, live, and then die. Animals and sentients, plants and fish. Whole civilizations, whole worlds, can cease to exist. Few ever willingly wish to meet their fate, and so mortals have always sought to break the cycle. Is it possible to do so, under the following circumstances:
When someone dies, their soul does not immediately depart their body. If it lingers, it may be possible to revive them. This can be done using a manual process that people understand as Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), and can be assisted by magical means, though a purely physical process also works. There is a strict window as to when this can be accomplished, and some injuries necessarily prevent any kind of revival, such as decapitation, extreme blood loss, or death due to most illnesses.
When an individual has died, their soul can remain attached to a physical location so strongly that it can resist its return to the Shadowlands. This is what living people typically refer to as a haunting by a ghost. Poltergeists are particularly violent or destructive ghosts. If the ghost is strong enough, they can linger in one place indefinitely. Note that if a ghost is tied to an object, typically called a tether, they can be moved to other locations. Those who attempt to steal a ghost's tether without their consent are asking for their own violent death.
When someone has made an advanced study of necromancy, they can choose to embrace lichdom. In such a scenario, an individual's soul is detached from their natural body and placed in an object. The body's form becomes static, and the soul is now shaped and ages based on the object said soul is attached to. Those seeking lichdom will create special warded jars, called phylacteries, which contain both a physical part of the lich-to-be (usually their heart) and their soul. Warding a jar to become unbreakable and protecting it from chipping, fading, or becoming altered in some other way is considered a fundamental step to becoming a lich. Lich phylacteries can only be broken using special tools that are meant to destroy otherwise warded objects and cannot be acquired casually. The destruction of a phylactery does not immediately kill a lich, but it does make them vulnerable to attack. Attacking a lich's body does not kill them even when they are incinerated wholly so long as their phylactery is not first broken. Once all preparation is made, the lich-to-be must die. Most choose a painless end, easing them into their new form of existence, though this is not always possible. A lich is immortal so long as their phylactery and its contents remain intact, but they are not guaranteed to always remain sane.