Mortality, Death, and the Afterlife

> You're Dead. D-E-Double A-D. DEAD.
>
> Marietta Spring to Big-hat Orog

## The Concepts of Life and Death within Dresilan

**Life** is the default state living things find themselves in within the world of Dresilan. To be officially classified as "alive" is to have a Souls that controls one's physical body. Everything in the world of Dresilan has a Soul, from the largest creatures to the smallest blade of grass. Things that are animate but do not possess souls are not considered alive. The designation of what counts as, "alive" is rather lenient due to these rules. Lokken and Varukken do not have living tissue, yet are still bound with souls in their bodies and thus are classified as living beings, despite not having needs like hunger, thirst, or rest from fatigue. Even inanimate objects made animate by binding souls to them directly such as a Cursed Item are still classified as alive due to their nature of containing a soul.

**Death** is the default state for dead things that find themselves finding eternal piece within the world of Dresilan. To be officially classified as "dead" is to lack a soul or a physical body. Typically souls without bodies cannot act upon the world of the living any further as they await a Psychopomp to guide them into The Spirit Realm. Occasionally, however, a soul with a powerful enough will to continue acting and carrying out it's will within the living world can manifest. These are often referred to as a Ghosts or Wraiths and are commonly misconstrued to be Demons (Divine Beings). A body without a soul is simply a corpse.

Beings made animate by Necromancy find themselves inbetween the two states of life and death. They are corpses animated through a mixture of Corrupting Arcana and Summoning. They do not count as truly alive as, through necromancy, the caster breaks off a tiny fragment of their own soul which enters the dead body. Though the reanimated corpse may act on it's own and as it's own being, their master has full control over the limits of their ability to act for themselves.

## Immortality

**Immortals** are beings which no longer find themselves capable of separation of their body and soul. An immortal's soul has somehow been physically bound to the vessel they have chosen as their body, and as such, they lose their ability to both truly die and to pass on into The Spirit Realm. An immortal's soul will pull on their body to keep it as it's original shape, so any physical or arcanic damage dealt to an immortal will almost immediately be reverted; however this does not prevent the immortal from feeling the sensation of pain. Also due to the binding process, the immortal's body also constantly pulls back on it's soul to prevent it from leaving, so nothing except Death itself is capable of truly ripping it's soul from it's body.

Methods of which one can use to become immortal is almost exclusively kept secret among Gods and the God-Lords. Almost exclusively...

If you find yourself up against an immortal, it'd be best to try and solve things through words rather than violence. Immortals tend to win physical conflicts by default.

### The Welkan Curse

**The Welkan Curse** is different to immortality in two major ways. For one, Immortality cannot spread from one being to another the way the Welkan Curse can. Immortality is limited to one being, body and soul. The Welkan Curse is like a malicious parasite. The other stark difference between the two is that the Welkan Curse only pulls the soul to the body, but the soul does not pull back on the body. This means, in short, that one can be severed in two but still have their soul connected to their body and controlling both halves, and they can never heal.