Soul

Every living being has a soul, a fragment of life essence that designates them as a “living” being. When someone becomes undead, their physical body has been resurrected but the soul is still missing.

Souls can be stored in physical vessels known as soul jars, from which point they can be transported or potentially transported to a new host. When someone attempts to transfer a soul from a soul jar to someone with their own soul, a battle of wills commences. In the end, the stronger soul wins and controls the body. Experimental methods also hint to the possibility of transferring a soul to a mechanical body; the Kuwagari already perfected this process.

The strength of a soul is determined by the person’s sense of self (ego) and willpower. Being secure in who a person is and living their life accordingly leads to a “strong” soul. Living in denial of some aspect of themselves or not actualizing their identity weakens the soul. A soul’s strength can fluctuate over time.

It is possible for a person to be afflicted with a sickness of the soul, where their soul is either weakened or actively damaged. Soul afflictions affect the physical health of the person in addition to their grasp on their physical form. If the soul is weakened enough, the person will no longer have the strength to exist as a physical entity and the soul will leave the body. This appears as if the person has died, although the body is still biologically functional, a husk of its former self. The soul drifts freely throughout the material plane as a ghost or faint spirit depending on the strength of the person in life. This wandering continues until the soul is either destroyed, consumed by another entity, or found and ushered into the realm of the dead by a psychopomp or other entity.

The soul contains the person’s sense of self, their personality, goals, motivations, and emotions. A person without a soul is a mindless shell that only reacts to external stimuli. They have no thoughts of their own, no ambitions, no personality. They are basically a machine. A husk is able to feed itself and prevent the physical body from dying, but they are incapable of further thought beyond pure instinct. Ghouls are husks who have consumed human flesh in their mindless drive for survival. Zombies are reanimated corpses without a soul, rendering them a husk with nothing but the will for the physical body to survive. Husks retain muscle memory and the skills they knew in life, but lack the thought or intent behind their actions to take full advantage of these abilities.

Some spells or magical effects are able to affect a soul directly. They can damage a soul or even try to pull it from the host body. Souls cannot be altered by normal means. The only entities known to be capable of altering a soul are the spiritual beings who facilitate reincarnations, and even their power has limits. Associating with certain entities can have a reflection on the soul, such as making deals with demons or another entity claiming it. While this alters the soul’s appearance, the influence itself does not change the soul.

No one knows where the first souls are from or how new souls are created. Different cultures have different beliefs, such as the Sivedge myth of the forge of life at the end of the River of Stars in the Astral Desert. No empirical evidence of the origin of souls exists in Soleras.

If a soul is destroyed by any means, the person is extinguished forever. They are unable to enter the realm of the dead or be resurrected. The soul is gone. This is generally considered a Very Evil Thing to do.