life-sentience-souls-and-death

Essence of Life

Definition A soul is the metaphysical capacity for suffering and well being a creature can experience. The larger the capacity, the wider the emotional / moral spectrum that being can feel, the greater the soul. Soul Mass Tiny insects are a grain of soul mass; typical humanoid: a stone; titans: boulders. Sentience Threshold Below a certain soul-mass, beings act purely on instinct; above it, self awareness emerges.

Imprint & Memory

Psychic Echo A soul retains memories of their bodied life. Mutable Depth Traumatic or euphoric events cut deepest grooves and are hardest to erase. Mundane memories are shallow and the first to slough off if the soul is weakened.

Life to Death Transfer

When a person dies, their soul is tugged toward the patron deity stamped on it by belief, creed, or pact. Necromancy, soul binding gems, certain fiends, or powerful emotions can sever or redirect the cord.

Afterlives & Alteration

• God Realms Each deity offers a housing shell that can either:
  • Cleanse (strip memories so the soul can be recycled without bias)
  • Cultivate (allow memories to persist for worship, counsel, or exaltation)
  • Consume (convert soul mass into raw divinity to fuel miracles)
• Mortal Made Destinations Necromancy, warlock soul pacts, devil contracts.
• Entropy Unclaimed souls left adrift slowly erode into ether silt.

Cosmos

The Farfield Cosmos was inconsequential while time was looped because the total soul-mass that it accumulated, would be destroyed and collapse during The Fall. Now that time is untethered, the mass can grow, making it more important within the overall framework of cosmos.

Sentience is what leads to souls, which is what makes a cosmos interesting within the framework.

Undead

Undead is a term that is a collection of related states a being could be in.

Husks - Zombies and skeletons. Their body is animated but their soul is absent. They may be powered by soul silt, but because that source is deconstructed souls, there usually no memories. It’s possible a larger granule persists and is used to raise the body. In these situations, there’s good chance the memories and personality of the soul wouldn’t be related to the body it was bound to through necromancy.

Souls - Ghosts and wraiths. They are souls with no body. They may manifest in the form of their old body because their soul remembers and is expressing itself.

Revenants - Soul remains tethered to it’s body after death.