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Of course it does. Where do people learn what a "soul" is? In Sunday School, or whatever other form of religious education the person might have experienced. Not every D&D player knows anything about Christian teachings on the topic. Unless the rules define it, it will mean different things to different people. Can I cast Raise Dead on my animal companion? Can a horse become a ghost?
I suspect the issues some people have with CoS are because what Chris Perkins understands a soul to mean is different to what some readers understand it to mean.
Religion, specifically Christianity, plays an important part in Gothic Horror. Frankenstein is playing God, Dracula is repelled by crucifixes. But when it comes to D&D, it's no longer reasonable to assume that all players are coming from a Christian background, and thus will not understand the word "soul" in the same way. It means something quite different to a Buddhist, a Hindu, an Atheist, etc.
Even within Christianity, there are significant theological differences with regard to souls, some of which could have mechanical implications for D&D. Most obviously, do animals have souls?
I think it's telling that Ravenloft's Christianity Expy, The Church of Ezra, is itself "soulless". Priests can have widely differing beliefs and still cast magic and there are doubts the "goddess" is real at all and not a manifestation of the Dark Powers/Mists.
To be honest, the "soulless" argument has confused me since people began arguing it in CoS. Ravenloft has clearly always created domains out of thin air to hold their darklords in, the fact that many of the common NPCs are likewise creations of the Mists shouldn't be surprising. The grain grown is a creation of the Mists, as is the soil it grew in, but both can be used to sustain life.
All being soulless does is prompt those NPCs not to question the status quo or thier lot in life. They live in a world where monsters rule over them and do not seek to overcome this. They accept it is thier lot in life and while they are appreciative for the time their suffering is lessened, they lack the initiative to do that for themselves. It's important to remember though that while soulless, they aren't automations. They laugh, cry, love, and hate. They fall in love, marry, have children, etc. They just do so in a certain dull manner that never goes beyond their purpose. Saving one of thier lives is just as important as saving a souled one, it's just the former was neverr capable of going on to do great things while the latter has that inherent potential.
And that is very weird. It is contrary to a lot of normal understanding of souls and people. It is a very idiosyncratic view of souls as not integral to being an actual person or their identity, just a specific aspect that allows them more initiative and curiosity and potential.
It also conceptually seems incoherent and ill-defined.
Of course it does. Where do people learn what a "soul" is? In Sunday School, or whatever other form of religious education the person might have experienced.
A lot of people just get it from movies and books or seeing other people talk about it. Tons of people with no religious education understand what a soul is in a Dracula movie or films like Bedazzled
Not every D&D player knows anything about Christian teachings on the topic. Unless the rules define it, it will mean different things to different people. Can I cast Raise Dead on my animal companion? Can a horse become a ghost?
The D&D souks aren’t explicitly Christian. Ravenloft simply draws on stories using Christian lore. But you don’t need to be versed in the catechism of attended Sunday school through childhood to grasp that Strahd’s soul is corrupted. I don’t particularly care if ghost horses are allowed or not (personally I think they are cool so I would go with it if the rules don’t clearly state if it’s the case)
I suspect the issues some people have with CoS are because what Chris Perkins understands a soul to mean is different to what some readers understand it to mean.
I don’t personal care what he understands it to mean. Like I said I am married to a Buddhist, I was raised Christian but celebrated Jewish holidays growing up, and have experimented with and learned about a number of religions. I am not wedded to a particular notion of what the soul is personally. But I do think treating the inhabitants of Barovia as soulless doesn’t work. It just makes it feel so off
I don't normally think of the nature of souls as relevant or explicit in a Dracula movie. He's a vampire, he feeds on the blood of the living and can turn people into vampires by draining enough of their blood.
Spirits of no-sentient creatures are possible, for example ghost hounds, but it shouldn't be too different from the weapons and clothing used by wraiths or other inc.orporeal undeads.
Ghost Brute template from Libris Mortis
The demiplane of the dread seems more a prison and an ant-farm than a purgatory. If it was this then lots of characters wouldn't be cursed with being forced to kill more people.
In my tabletop the 2nd and the 5e are the same, but (radically) altered by fault of Azalin and Vecna's machinations.
* Teorically the vampires lack soul and this is the reason because folklore tells they can't be seen in mirrors, because these shows the souls.
And this could go worse if we add the elements from "Magic of Incarnum".
* In my game the true souls can't be destroyed, consumed or eaten, the ultimate fate only can be the True Heaven or the Ultimate Hell, domains what can't be visited or explored, only watched by visions of mystics. The reason is I don't want menaces by evil characters to destroy souls of innocent people if these don't obey their orders. It is too grimm for my own taste. Maybe other players could feel inconfortable.
And I don't mind the canon, but the souls of saints and martyrs should be automatically rewared in the afterlife, instead being used as "mana source" or reincarnated again in an infernal life. The fact is where a martyr is killed, that zone becomes sacred and taboo for unholy creatures.
We shouldn't forget one of the tropes of the gothic horror, "the punishment for your sins".
*
AO obeys orders by a higher power
Lord of the Ring and Chronicles of Narnia are fantasy but.. closer to monotheism than pagan polytheism.
I don't normally think of the nature of souls as relevant or explicit in a Dracula movie. He's a vampire, he feeds on the blood of the living and can turn people into vampires by draining enough of their blood.
And to be fair it varies a lot by writer and property. Also the bigger issue here isn’t the theology of souls in vampire movies, lord or books, but the oddness of having the people specifically not have souls. That said Ravenloft clearly has souls as an assumption and it is based on classic vampire works where the soul matters s great deal: the stakes of stories like Dracula and many Dracula movies center not just on loss of life but the loss of your immortal soul. They are trying to save Lucy’s soul when they stake her. I forget how explicit it was in the novel but I believe it was implied Dracula gets his powers from the devil and many movie versions are explicit about that. Again I think this is less the issue here though. You can have a vampire story where they simply feed on Human blood and the writer rejects the soul as an explanation for anything going on. The issue is just specifically having the inhabitants not have soul (which seems to have been done more for game reasons than lore reasons)
I think it's dope that most things in the Demiplanes of Dread are soulless. These are basically empty flesh robots programmed by the Dark Powers, arcane AI that exists only to make you question yourself, your reality, everything. It's very grim and sometimes sad; I've always toyed with the idea of enlightening these people in a campaign just to see where that would lead.
I think it's dope that most things in the Demiplanes of Dread are soulless. These are basically empty flesh robots programmed by the Dark Powers, arcane AI that exists only to make you question yourself, your reality, everything. It's very grim and sometimes sad; I've always toyed with the idea of enlightening these people in a campaign just to see where that would lead.
The issue is for me it isn't a grim dark setting. I do think there is a place in horror and horror RPGs for this kind of horrific revelation (suddenly realizing all the people around you aren't what you thought, can be very effective horror). It just doesn't fit how I see and use Ravenloft
