Soul

The **Soul** is a piece of a living being, lair, or Monster. A living being is made up of three parts: a soul, a mind, and a body. A soul is made of Essence. The System also has constructs integrated with the soul.

## Public Knowledge

The general public is largely ignorant about the details of what a soul is. Even relatively high level awakened may have no real knowledge of the soul. For example, Ameliah stated that there are various theories on the soul, ranging from "a gift from the gods" to questioning its very existence.

Officers, Sentinels and Guardians from the Watch are trained in the skill of *Reading*, which is determining whether someone is telling the truth based on observing their soul and paling. Each person in the Watch may have slightly different perceptions when *Reading*. Soul manipulation is esoteric knowledge, and highly restricted in the Watch.

## The Domain

The **domain** is the physical and/or metaphysical space controlled by an entity's soul. For many it extends a few centimeters beyond the surface of the skin. Within this *soul bubble*, people draw mana, and may interface with their equipment.

## Structure and Functionality

Souls naturally have only limited organization. When a person becomes Awakened, the system enhances that structure using soul from the Essence Monster.

The image one uses to structure the soul is an individual choice. Rain structures most of the functional pieces of his soul as machines. Vatreece's initial model for her soul was a body. Ameliah structures her soul as a collection of islands floating in the sky.

### The Paling

**Paling** is the Common word for a layer around the soul.

*The word seems to be Rain's translation from the Common, not the literal word in Common. It may be interpreted as a form of "paling" (*diminish the brightness of *[the soul?]) or possibly the more obscure "paling" (*encircle [the soul?] with wooden stakes*).*
Followers of the Goddess Dystees call the paling the ‘Divine Envelope,’ and in Ter’karmark, it is called ‘Me’ke-Tar Tek,’ directly translated: ‘the barrier which divides.’ Just like the soul itself, people who are capable of perceiving the Paling experience it in different ways.

Unawakened souls have a paling that is more "porous" and much weaker. Awakened have a more solid paling, normally "calm and opaque", like frosted glass or a sheet of ice.

Rain also deemed the paling as his interface towards the soul.

In Vatreece's initial model, it is the skin. In Ameliah's soul, it is the sun.

### Link to the Mind

In Rain's image, it is performed by computer cores. In Vatreece's initial model, it is the brain.

### Generation and Link to the Body

In Rain's image, it is performed by reactor cores. In Vatreece's initial model, it is the heart.

### Intake

In Rain's image, it is performed by ramscoops. In Vatreece's initial model, it is the lungs.

### Purification and Refinement

Refinement represents two different processes, converting chaos into potential and converting potential into higher ranked potential. Refining chaos into potential is also sometimes know as purification

In Rain's image, converting chaos into potential is done via purification cores and refining potential into higher ranks is done via refinement cores. In Vatreece's initial model, it is done via the stomach and liver respectively.

### Avatar

An avatar is the manifestation of a person's physical body in the soul. The person piloting the avatar is the manifestation of a person's mind in the soul, projected from the mental realm.

## Attributes in the Soul

Each of the primary six Attributes have different effects within the soul. Strength increases force of will and Recovery helps restore that will. Endurance makes things tougher and Vigor increases fine control. Focus enhances visualization and concentration, which helps you make your ideas reality. Finally, Clarity governs temporal acceleration within the soul. All the stats also have other more esoteric effects that are harder to train.

Within the soul, chaos is the fuel by which stats work. Only clarity consumes that chaos automatically. The other stats require training to do so.

## Soul Guide

A guide within ones soul provided by the system.

## Oversoul

Powerful awakened have a stronger soul and paling, but may also be capable of controlling it. When such a person lowers their paling around the soul, the effect has been described as Oversoul, which is overwhelming for lesser-souled bystanders. Bartum explained this feeling as standing next to a mountain and feeling like an ant, albeit his point of reference was Warden Vatreece who is platinum-level.

Vanna once experienced what she assumed was Burrik's oversoul.

## Liminal Void

The Liminal Void is a term introduced by the Majistraal. The Common word "liminal" has been defined by Tallheart as the "in-between", when talking about biomes. Rain later found the term also being used in the System-script that admonished him for manifesting an "Unauthorized Liminal Void Projection - This action has been logged".

The Liminal Void appears as a smoky nothing, a seemingly endless space, while Rain only had his own Soul-world (his bastion inside his paling) to anchor himself to. Rain's attempts of projecting himself into Soulspace were unsuccessful before he connected his bastion and paling. Afterwards he could project himself into the Liminal Void effortlessly, and as easily return back into his own soul.

With Linksight, it is possible to rapidly connect to other souls. That connection is however not fully determined by topological nearness in the material world, but by soul-based connections like being in the same party. Finding other souls without a party-link is extremely challenging: The domains of unaligned souls fight for dominance and repel each other like common magnetic poles. Each soul-world in soulspace correlates in size to the total experience of the person holding it (total as in the addition of level experience and the one expended on skill trees).

It is possible to envelop other souls with the own soul, which begins a fight for dominance. This was used by Rain to defeat an Incarn who was powerful in essence, but had little integrity and lost the sustained battle of will.

## Appearances of souls

Different people's souls have different appearances. The color of a soul cannot be relied on to judge personality.

Unawakened souls are like wisps, without clearly defined boundaries. Bronze-souls were so far described as smoky, Silver-souls as metallic-like, and Gold-level souls as gemlike.

* Rain: medium blue Rain-shaped hologram
* Ameliah: brilliant gold, metallic
* Tallheart: deep green, metallic
* Mahria: smoky pale blue
* Val: smoky white
* Jamus: smoky orange (matching the wardrobe)
* Carten: smoky grey
* Sana: fierce intense pink
* Halgrave: sapphire gem-like
* Meloni: Yellow
* Cloud: mixture of yellow, blue and orange, puffy-like wisp
* Dust and Stint: tinted pale green/mint; with some differences between the two
* Romer and Nibs: dark purple, like ink
* Alderman Juren: gold colored
* Everiss: Metallic-red
* Luna Olentu: Orange
* Bluewash: Deep ruby red, metallic
* Unawakened: colorless and like wisps, also without clearly defined boundaries
* Animal souls: Faint and wispy. Most are colorless.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 253
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Chapter 222
3. ↑ Chapter 37
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Chapter 97
5. ↑ Chapter 109
6. ↑ Chapter 209
7. ↑ Chapter 63
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Chapter 248
9. ↑ Chapter 101
10. ↑ Chapter 113
11. ↑ Chapter 95
12. ↑ Chapter 142
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 189
14. ↑ Chapter 201
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Chapter 221
16. ↑ Chapter 243
17. ↑ Chapter 253