I find this article (thanks normalhumanlibrarian of Tumblr) very fascinating, because it touches one of core aspects of Slavic paganism, and basically points out that we do not have a reliable info on whether Slavs paganism had special ruler of the Underworld. And this can be interesting question.
What if Veles is not so creepy as some authors (especially Chistianized ones) depict him? What if Slavs did not had such figure as ruler of world of dead, Underworld? What if Slavs paganism did not had such concept of Underworld as creepy kingdom of dead, but what if instead Slavs assumed that world of dead (Nav’, Навь) was something that was not a completely separated from world of alive (Yav, Явь), that explain the intense worship of ancestors as someone who can help and protect, and the name of home spirit (“domovoy”, домовой) is not from home word (hut, изба) but from coffin word (domovina, домовина).
Sounds like ancient Slavs considered Ancestors not as someone who live in a special kingdom for dead but here and now with us, and seen them as someone who can help us and protect us, those who are alive, living here in Yav.
And this worldview does not have some creepy place like hell, and creepy or super-evil god-like figure who would be ruler of that creepy place, like Christian devil, or even Hades ruler Pluto.
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