Lets determine together what the soul is, and what are its game mechanics

[Turanil]

Hey, these last points make sense. I will use them when i write my short article (when I have time this week-end hopefully). Thanks.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Summarized.. for Turanil's convenience

D20 Rules effects of Mind, Life-Force, soul, and Body….

Beings are made up of 4 parts, this is to show what happens when one or more of these parts are removed and or destroyed.

First, to define the parts.

Body: The physical portion in which the other portions reside while on the material plane. Consists of STR and DEX. Loss of the Body means both these stats are reduced to zero. In some cases, such as Astral travel or becoming a manifested spirit, these stats are considered to be the same score as the characters WIS and INT (respectively)

Life Force: The supernatural force that holds the Mind and the Soul inside the body. Natural Life force consists of CON. Loss of this Life Force means that this stat is reduced to zero. Unnatural Life Force can be created that magically animates and binds any Mind and Soul. This Unnatural Life Force is reflected in a lack of CON score. The Unnatural Life force usually includes a set of ‘behaviors’ which the being will act out, regardless of any lack of Mind. The most common ways to lose Life Force include having it cut while travelling Astrally or by powerful Death magic.

Mind: The storing house for intelligence and memory, consists of INT. Loss of the Mind results in a score of zero. This mind remains with the area after death and can be contacted via a speak with dead spell and other means.

Soul: This is the supernatural portion of the being that consists of WIS, XP, and retains an alignment. The Soul cannot be destroyed, rather it returns to the outer planes. Souls continue to move into, and out of, the Prime material until they gain enough experience and alignment to transform into a planar outsider. Loss of a soul reduces the characters WIS to a score of ‘1’, changes the characters alignment to True Neutral, and makes it impossible for the character to gain any experience.

The one remaining STAT… CHARISMA….
CHR is a combination of the Mind and Soul. Loss of the Mind makes CHR rather pointless, but a character can still interact without a Soul. One additional penalty to the loss of a soul is that your CHR is considered to be a ‘10’ for the purposes of interaction with others.

Legend:
Body {B} = STR & DEX
Life Force {L} = CON
Spirit {M for mind} = INT
Soul {S} = WIS & XP & Alignment

In this manner, the various beings can be ascribed to have:
===========================================
character = B + L + M + S
Construct = B + L (neutral)
Mindless Undead = B + L (**)
Intelligent Undead = B +L (**) + M + S (*#)

(**either positive or negative dependant on how it is created. The magical alteration corrupts the Body, meaning that Raise Dead and similar spells will not work. As long as the Mind and Soul are not transformed, Resurrection or Reincarnation still work, but only after the unnatural Life Force has been destroyed.This also stops the soul from transforming into a higher being or returning to the Prime Material as another character.)
(*# Due to the corruption of the Life Force, the Soul transforms, becoming aligned {sub-typed} and single natured similar to an Outsider. The Mind also is transformed in such a way that it cannot be recovered, not even by True Reincarnation.)

What happens to ‘Trapped’ Souls? When a soul is removed from its binding Life-Force and not in its natural plane, it tends to waste away, losing XP as time goes on. What power of forces are trapping it will determine how rapid or slowly this occurs. It could be as rapid as 1 level per hour, or as slow as 1 level per decade. A Lich’s Phylactery fits the latter circumstance, along with the ability to continue gaining XP.. so the loss is not too much of a sacrifice. The rate of loss will depend as well on GM preference, as accidentally activating a ‘Trap the Soul’ should not be a auto-kill of a character. Generally speaking, the unnatural transition is hard on the soul, much as being raised or reincarnated, and should include the permanent loss of one level.

How about ‘selling your soul’? The eventual goal of a soul is to Transform and serve on an outer plane as either a demon or angel, eventually working its way up the ranks to possibly become more. Normally this occurs as the Soul gains experience and eventually makes aligns one way or the other. Demons like to short circuit this natural course of events by convincing a mortal to make this choice early. This adds a being of lesser power in their service, much preferable to waiting for the soul to make its own choice at a much later.. and more powerful, stage.

Living Constructs. In Eberron, House Cannith discovered the means to Reincarnate into a Construct, creating a ‘natural’ housing for Mind and Soul. The magical means of doing this are restricted to the Creation Forges, all of which are known to be destroyed. House Cannith has confessed to not ever learning how these artifacts worked and they do not have the ability to recreate them. Some mages surmise that there is magics semi-related to a Lich's Phylactery involved.

Alignment Sub-Types and Undead. All unnatural means for animating a body are accompanied by a Sub-type of either {Good} or {Evil}. This is based on the reason and circumstances of the animation. Generally speaking, if the creature chooses to be slain and raised in order to defend for someone else, then they become {Good}. On the other hand, if their is no choice, or the being chooses for personal power, then they become {Evil}.

============
Side note.. as to the reincarnation of Undead, the SRD I was refering too while typing this had conflicting information. Under the Undead Type it refers to Resurection working while under the spell description it specifically states that the spell does not work on undead. I settled for an in-between solution.

Other Side Note... Alignment. This is not meant to restart the whole 'why are undead Evil' thread that *finally* tapered off. Its just that, in a system where the soul is considered to be attempting to gain a sub-typed alignment, it makes sense for any final stage to be sub-typed. Ignore this part if you don't like it.

Remember, milage may vary based on your campaign and players

 

[Dakkareth]

I have some comments on your summary, Screwhead, but I'll leave that for tomorrow - it's just too late right now. I'll edit it right into this post, when I get the chance.

 

[Truth Seeker]

Where it Began....

A question that got the mind thinking...(From the Original Thread:If the Soul is Removed, what happens next?)

A slight problem here, in a current game, a player's character, a berserker had his soul ripped from him. Still alive, and still himself, conscious wise, still knowing who he is.

Two questions.

1.Can a person function normally without it.
2.Can the berserker rage be tapped, if the essence(the soul) is gone?

On both points, I am saying no in either case.
Reason: 1-The soul is the spark for the entire body, giving the drive for self indentity, and recognition.
2-Without the soul/spirit/essence/chi/kai;, the ability to rage is cut off, the 'mystic' fuel is no longer there.

But then again, everyone has a difference of opinion on this matter, but state your view, please.

And also, the DM of the game, did say, if the character did die...he cannot be brought back to life...in lieu, there is no soul to called back.

Partial question...right now, what does that make the character currently?

Edit:Okay, for game mechanics purposes, how it would be dealt in the game?

I seem to recall that some cultures picture a person as having TWO souls - one is more animalistic, merely for animating the body and dealing with the body's baser instincts, while the other is more like the person's conscience, sense of right/wrong, seat of high aspirations, etc.

It's kind of like when I'm at war with myself over whether I will eat that donut or not -- it's not my body vs my mind, it's my anima vs. my (whatever the more noble spirit is called).

Usually, some wandering spirit comes by and holes up in the body.

Well, there are no actual rules regarding this kind of situation, so we're on our own as far as interpretation goes. That being said, here's this cube's two bits.


1: Yes and no. There would be a distinct feeling of incompleteness - a gnawing hole at the center of your being that you can't do anything about. Just like your stomach grows hungry for food when denied too long, your whole being aches to fill the emptyness that was once occupied by your soul. This would understandably have some impact on the person in question, though they not necessarily need be translated into game mechanics. Things I would do to the soulless character - he can't sleep well. What little sleep he does get is fleeting and utterly dreamless. (Possible mechanic: maybe a will save to benefit from a night's rest?). He would have a hard time relating to other people - he feels alienated from everyone and everything; animals treat him like they would an abberation or undead, with fear or hostility. People just sense something inherrantly wrong about him (Possible mechanic: a penality to any charisma related checks?). And this ties in a bit with #2, he has no moral compass - any intrinsic sense of right and wrong is frustratingly absent, and he keeps inadvertantly slipping to more animalistic reactions to things. Fight or flight. Establish dominance and pecking order. Territory. The little voice of his "higher self" has fallen silent, and now the only thing offering advise is his darker, more bestial self.

2: Yes, I would say that Rage could indeed be tapped. Actually, more than that I would say that Rage would be easier to tap than it would normally be. And much, much harder to stop. In my interpretation, with the soul gone, his darker, base self is the only thing waiting in the wings, and when he rages... lets that base self rise to the surface and take control, now there's no voice of reason to tell it when to stop. Granted, the body can only be pushed so far before it can no longer keep pace with the demands put on it, but until that limit is reached, I'd say there is no stopping his Rage from running its course. And when he's raging, he'd be alot more bloodthirsty and savage. No mercy, no quarter, no compromise.



As for the partial question - he's still alive, still humanoid. He's not undead or anything like. Infact, he couldn't become undead - no soul to bind, after all. He may even, at DMs discretion, represent something of a blind spot TO most undead, particularly the lower intelligence ones. He has no soul, he's not living, not dead, not undead... dumber undead may not know what he is and just think of him like an object and ignore him unless he took action against them. Or, like animals, becomed spooked by what they don't understand and seek to avoid him at all costs, attacking if pressed or if they feel threatened.

I played a soulless (no pun intended!) character once and it was pretty rewarding. It all depends on the interpretation. The DM gave me a lot of leevay on how to interpret it and it sure was fun to think about. Basically, he lost his soul when it was mistakenly harvested by demons on a battlefield (he was hovering on death's door and the demons took him for dead...). Nonetheless, he survived, and having been a powerful spellcaster of the arcane he undestood what had happened and tried to return to his homeland (ruled by his dictatorial father) to seek help. I decided that what sustained him alive was 'echoes of his soul'. The 'echoes', however, were getting weaker and he was clearly dieing. Having lost his spellcasting ability and perceived as an abomination he was exciled from his homeland. Time was running short - he was now very weak and very depressed (I decided that as the echoes of his soul fade so his mood gets ever more gloomy and his complexion ever paler). Eventually, he discovered a monastery and seized on the opportunity to make his body into a better containment vessel for the last echoes of his soul. There he was trained as a monk (back to level 1) and his perfected body could contain the echoes longer. Thus his life was prolonged (he was still dieing, but slower).... and so on and so on.

One interesting RP effect that I decided upon and my DM approved was that whenever the character touched somebody, he partially drained them of their life since his body was an essentially empty vessel, so small parts of souls he touched automatically flowed inside. This would always return some colour to his cheeks, and cheer him up a little, but the effect on the person he was touching was exactly the opposite - he/she became paler, more gloomy and felt her life energy leaving her and flowing to him. There was no mechanical effect to this - it was purely an RP effect.

The character lost all spellcasting abilities, which in this game were tied to the soul.

In my worldview a person is made up of Body, Soul, Spirit. The Soul is the anima as described by EricNoah (may his named be praised) Himself, it is the battery that makes us 'Who we really are'. Spirit is the higher self that connects to the Divine

Anyway:
Body + Soul + Spirit = Living being
Body + Spirit = Ghoul (not Undead imc)
Body + Soul = Undead
Soul + Spirit = Ghost (incorporeal undead)

So IMC at least the character becomes a ghoul (which are not undead just soulless (and depraved) I'd have the character start a slow decline towards true ghoulish depravity as his hunger grows. The Hunger goes deep for without a soul he must find someway to fill the void within. He has lost his rage but perhaps he will find some other means of power - the flesh of the living to fuel his frenzy!

So only by consuming the flesh of the living can he maintain his identity, yet with each act of depravity he begins to lose a litlle of who he once was - the spiral continues forever downwards into oblivion....

As far as the rules go, the closest thing for a situation like this is probably the Magic Jar spell. That spell seems to indicate that once the body and soul are separated, only the power of the magic prevents actual death.

In your situation penalties to Int, Wis, and Cha wouldn't seem unreasonable after having ones soul ripped away if they are left alive somehow. I really don't see how he could still be himself after that. As far as rage goes, perhaps it would be better to ask whether or not he could still feel emotion without a soul. If yes, then he can still rage. I'm rather doubtful about this myself, though to me it's really more of a philosophical question about the campaign cosmology than rules.

The Bastion of Broken Souls module (WotC) has a similar type thing in its background and I made an entire campaign out of it.

SPOILER ALERT
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In that module you have a big bad devouring souls before they are born. So some kids are being born without souls. I played such children as listless, longing and lifeless. They were still able to learn and grow, but they didn;t asct like everyone else - no energy you might say. Played right it was quite freaky, or so a couple of my players told me.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tonguez

Anyway:
Body + Soul + Spirit = Living being
Body + Spirit = Ghoul (not Undead imc)
Body + Soul = Undead
Soul + Spirit = Ghost (incorporeal undead)



This is pretty good.

Nonetheless, we could make a thread in the houserule forum, to determine what the soul is (in the game), and what game mechanics effects it has. Just hope it isn't a religious subject though...

Really, before determining what happens when the soul is stolen, we should determine what it is. Then, it would be a useful thing because many fantasy/horror tales are about sorcerers who either sell their soul or hide it in some container.

Do undead have souls? Intelligent undead?

Quasqueton

You need to pick your theory of the soul. The American (Iroquois, Aztec, etc.) imagines two souls, a soul that contains consciousness and another that animates the body. In Eurasian thought, things are a good deal messier. Some traditions that arise out of Gnosticism such as the medieval Jewish golem legends have a similar division but most do not.

However, there are functioning models that do not split the soul, the most obvious being Joss Whedon's Buffy universe in which soul is one thing and animate things deprived of their souls that walk around have a different soul -- that of a demon.

I think you actually need to take a position on your world's metaphysics or you'll end up with the "concept" of soul that operated in Chronicles of Riddick (ie. completely incoherent).

I would suggest that to straighten out your thinking, you attempt to slot several classes of creature in your D&D world into a model and see how they look:
(a) Vermin
(b) Corporeal Undead
(c) Incorporeal Undead
(d) Constructs

Once you're able to locate/describe these creatures, you're good to go.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darren
penalties to Int, Wis, and Cha wouldn't seem unreasonable after having ones soul ripped away if they are left alive somehow.


Good point - my character described above automatically failed every Will Save he was required to make - that was part of not having one's soul.

Well, you say still alive and knowing himself. This, to me, means that he obviously did not have his soul ripped out, as anything that leaves a person still alive isn't the soul as I define it.

That being said, something happened... and I imagine there wasn't enough description of what that something is. There can be several potential interpretations, however, if the person is left still alive and knowing, well, the rage clearly comes from the animal and not the spiritual part of the "person", and so that would still be there. Personally, I imagine in such a situation the person simply looses all sense of right and wrong, all empathy, and becomes an animal, alibeit a smart animal. Essentially I would say that the character becomes evil.

ALthough it wouldn't *have* to. You could look at star trek's Data, clearly a being meant to be without a soul.

Many philosophies say that a soul is earned, and I can easily imagine a being that's lost it's soul growing a new one, if it did somehow maintain enough of itself to function in the manner you've described.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Truth Seeker
1.Can a person function normally without it.


Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Quote:
Do undead have souls? Intelligent undead?
The way I see it, and using an example I posted in another thread a while back, is that yes undead do have souls. In the process of creating the undead creature, the soul of the original person is bound back to the now dead shell of their former body. With unintelligent undead the process is only very basic and rudimentary, enough to give the body motive force, but not enough to retain any intelligence or memory. With lower-power intelligent undead, like ghouls, the bindings are a step up in complexity, but still imperfect - the undead is intelligent, but doesn't retain any of the skills or abilities they had in their former life. Compare it to a clay pot: if you make the pot poorly, it'll look basically like a pot, but it'll be weak in spots, and have holes in others. While it looks more or less like a pot, it can't hold water very well. With intelligent undead that fully recall their former selves - vampires, liches, etc - the binding force, the pot, is fully formed and well made. It can hold water just fine.

By my assertion, undead do have souls. Their original souls, even. The process of making them undead binds that soul inexorably to their body, similar to how an outsider is a single body-soul package. Destroying the body also destroys the soul, and unless powerful magics that can reconstruct a being from a fragment of their former selves is used, such as Resurrect, True Resurrect, Wish, or Miracle, they can't be brought back again. This is also part of why you can't Resurrect or True Resurrect the soul of an undead creature who is still currently active. The soul is still around, it's just currently occupied by being undead.

I'm a "Savage Sword of Conan" and "Conan Saga" reader, and this subject came up when a sorcerer stole Conan's soul. The story arc went like this:

Conan and Ajundar sneak into Hissar Zul's mansion looking to steal the Eye of Erlik, a sword-shaped amulet. While they are sneaking, they run into two theives with the same heist in mind, including a female thief named Isparana. She gets her hands on the amulet and is off to the Khan of Zambula, for whom she is working.

Ajundar falls prey to cobras, and Hissar Zul traps Conan's soul in something like a Mirror of Life Trapping. Zul commands Conan to steal the Eye of Erlik back and return within 30 days, or he will destroy the mirror, and Conan will become a souless thing forever under control of Hissar Zul.

Conan manages to steal the Eye back, and in the process learns how to thwart Hissar Zul should he have trechary on his mind. It turns out that Hissar Zul had no intention of letting Conan live, but Conan manages to kill the wizard, and escape with the mirror.

If the mirror is broken, Conan becomes a soulless thing forever. If, however, it is broken by a ruler of men, a king, queen, or the like, then the soul should return to his body.

Cool series of magazines, lemmie tell you.

It didn't seem to me that there were any "mechanical" effects of Conan being bereft of a soul, but the narrator did say "He felt an emptyness he did not understand the depths of filled when the mirror was broken," or something like that.

So I think you could have the character carry on as normal mechanically, but the person who stole the soul would have a helluva lot of leverage over people whose souls he has. And as soon as a person lost their usefulness, he could turn them into a truly soulless creatre and control them as he would control undead zombies or somesuch.

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This was the last response on that thread.

 

[Truth Seeker]

Souls & Related Matters *Created by Roman*

The question has continued to inflamed the thought...thus it spreads, awaiting the eager and if possible...answer.

THREAD1:A thread about a soulless (no pun intended) character has reminded me of a similar character I once played and inspired me to ask about souls and related matters. So... how do you deal with souls and related matters in your campaign? THREAD 2: No takers? How to define souls in your campaign world? Do animals have them? How about constructs or other 'creatures'?

The Scarred Land campaign setting I use has fairly good details on how to deal with souls, if you can read between the lines abit and have a good head for details. It isn't all spelled out in big letters or in a single place, but this is how it goes:

While the titans were still ruling the world there was this thing called the Wheel of Life, or something like it. Don't recall the exact name right now. Anyway, everything and everyone had their own special place on this Wheel and every now and then they would leave this place to join the Mortal Coil. Once they died they went back to their designated place in the great Wheel of Life and the Wheel kept turning until it was time for that particular something or someone to leave the Wheel again and join the Mortal Coil.

However, since the Divine War the Wheel has stopped and things aren't going so great anymore. The gods are happy with those who worship them and they take their followers souls and bring them to the god's personal Outer Plane after the follower dies. The trip is made in the company of a specifically designated Soul Guardian, which is basically an Outsider designated to see to it that every soul that leaves the Mortal Coil gets to its designated afterlife. So, what about all the other living things that don't worship the gods? Good question. The great Wheel of Life isn't turning anymore, so souls going that way are basically stuck in oblivion for all eternity (or until the gods decide to restart the great Wheel, which isn't going to happening anytime soon, since it was an artifact of the titans: the gods enemies). It really sucks not to be worshipping gods right now in the Scarred Lands, and that's the way the gods want it .

I've always considered the soul to be a person's consciousness. A body without a soul is a corpse, and a soul without a body is a ghost. I found the aforementioned thread an interesting take on the nature of a soul. I never considered the possibility that someone could live without a soul; I never really took into consideration the idea that animals are soulless creatures, either.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aeric
I've always considered the soul to be a person's consciousness. A body without a soul is a corpse, and a soul without a body is a ghost. I found the aforementioned thread an interesting take on the nature of a soul. I never considered the possibility that someone could live without a soul; I never really took into consideration the idea that animals are soulless creatures, either.


This is pretty much how I view things as well. If you want a little more typing and theorizing by me about potentials, and not my own view, see the thread I first responded to here:{Link to the Original starting thread, that began this question}:

Hmm, so if animals are not soulless creatures in your campaign are their souls the same as human (humanoid souls)? Are all souls equally valuable for cosmic purposes (for demons, Gods, etc.) or do their values differ?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roman
Hmm, so if animals are not soulless creatures in your campaign are their souls the same as human (humanoid souls)? Are all souls equally valuable for cosmic purposes (for demons, Gods, etc.) or do their values differ?


On the Great Wheel everything was equal, since the titans didn't really care one way or another about intelligent or non-intelligent beings. Intelligent beings were toys to be played with and then discarded when the titans grew bored with them. Common animals, magical beasts and even unique creatures were another type of toys, and treated pretty much the same way as those with intelligence.

The gods however give separate value to such things, since intelligent beings are more likely to worship them and therefore make them more powerful . However some non-intelligent creatures are considered to worship certain deities by "default" and therefore considered that deity's favorites, blessed or something like that.

I would have to browse a few books and think about it if you want more specific examples.

Depends on the campaign setting. In the desert world I did, I used a variant on the Egyptian idea of the soul being multiple parts - people could lose parts of their soul and those parts sometimes corresponded to either mental function or emotional function. Someone could lose the part of their soul that governed compassion and become a heartless monster. Aother might lose the part that governed rational thought and become insane. Undead were created by taking at least the 'spark of life part' and sometimes others; more sophisticated spells took less and left more 'person' there, which is why the higher ranked undead (vampires, ghouls, etc) had more intelligence and personality than say, zombies.

Animals had some parts but not others; it's why they were not self-aware. Awakening an animal was done by creating that part of the soul and putting it in the animal. Animated objects and such were done the same way. Mages and priests could make entire souls if they needed to and were willing to risk it, so they could create life.

There were no 'real' gods in the setting; the gods were just very, very powerful beings that had once lived much the same lives as the PCs, but had managed to instill an 'extra part' of the soul in themselves, making them immensely powerful and able to work directly with soul material. Worship basically was a gifting of part of a persons soul to the gods (it was a part that regenerated itself normally). That was also the part that demons, devils, crazy cultists, etc wanted since it was the 'magic part' that let people work magic. (Wizards did magic by hoarding that part. Clerics did magic by emptying it totally and being filled with much more power by the being they served).

In the Greatwood game, pretty much everything has a soul. Some have small souls barely even there (most individual rocks) while some have very powerful souls that burn with power (dragons).

When it comes to soles, I'm sure I could cobble something together...

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a heel, or string anyone along, but, if the shoe fits...

Man, I'm liable to get booted if I keep going, all this sneakering around. Hope I didn't step on anyone's toes.

Man, this socks. Let's talk about feets instead.

In my games, animals do not have souls but spirits. Spirits get reincarnated on death (fits in with druidic faith a little), where as souls go to the relevant afterlife.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DragonLancer
In my games, animals do not have souls but spirits. Spirits get reincarnated on death (fits in with druidic faith a little), where as souls go to the relevant afterlife.

Ditto.

Elves, likewise, have spirits, not souls. This is, essentially, because they are celestials that originally came to the prime for a purpose, but have since devolved to the point that they are little better than any other race. Even if they remembered their original purpose, they are in no position to accomplish it. It does explain why elves have a non-religious society and their insufferable arrogance, though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fredramsey

Man, this socks. Let's talk about feets instead.



Excellent!

In my games the way I handle things is pretty straightforward. There are 3 components, the Body, the Spirit, and the Soul.

The Body is pretty self-explainitory. It's the physical you. It eats, breathes, sweats, poops, gets hurt, grows old, dies - the whole ball of wax. The body manages itself - the brain (or whatever is equivalent for critters with strange anatomies like oozes) regulates breathing, hunger, and any of the other basic, natural processes that are required for a living body to perpetuate itself. The Body, and by extention, the brain, keeps house as it were.

The Spirit is half of what makes up the non-physical you. The Spirit represents (and in truth is) your animalistic self. Hunting prey, fighting aggressors, establishing territory, mating - things that an animal does without any need to be sentient, these are the realm of the Spirit. All living creatures have a Spirit, and while the Spirit is no more inseperable from the other components than the rest, the loss of the Spirit would prove fatal. Without the Spirit, your Body would know that it is hungry, for example, but it would not know to eat, or how to acquire food. Important to note also that the Spirit is selfish, in the purist sense of the word. Higher ideals and abstractions such as mercy, faith, honor, morality and the like are all beyond the remit of the Spirit. It simply doesn't understand those things, nor thinks about them. The Spirit instead understands things like anger, love, joy, sorrow, contentment, fear, etc. Base emotions. For sentient beings, the Spirit would seem like your darker self to most, because it is so base. The Spirit forms the foundation for the Soul. Without the Spirit, there is no Soul; you cannot have a river with no bed, but you can have a riverbed with no water.

The Soul is the other component of the non-physical you. The Soul is the seat of higher ideals, abstractions and the like. The mirror image of the Spirit. All sentient beings are possessed of a Soul, though not at birth. Infants are born with no Soul, and over the course of their growth as an individual, develop one. Of course, how it develops varies from individual to individual. Spells like Awaken germinate a soul where there wasn't one before, fueled by spark of their own energy that the caster provides in the form of xp.



... at this point my mind is starting to wander, and I'm losing focus. So uh yeah. Pretty much, heh. I'll post more later if it springs to mind.

Interesting... so some people separate a 'being' into body, soul and spirit, where the unitary conception of soul is divided into two: soul and spirit. Does anybody else do this to a greater degree and separate it into even more parts?

heh, for me there is body and soul. The body is the physical body that does all the biological functions a body is wont to do. The Soul could be considered to be located in the brain, but it manifests itself in other parts of the body as well. The Sould is what the characters true most feelings and thoughts, and beliefs are. It is essentialy just an incorporeal body. Upon death the character will kepp all their memories and evverything they knew in life with them in their soul, even if the physical body dies. However, if the brain is preserved, and the sould chooses to stay in it, then mayhaps they could be ressurected in some way(brain in a jar).

I am not even sure what I typed really.

A person is comprised of body, soul, and spirit, as are most beings (vermin, animals, and undead being exceptions; animals & vermin have no souls, lower undead have none, either, and the higher undead have warped or replaced ones).

For most other beings, removal of any one of the three results in some form of death or disability. Disintegrate removes the body, causing death. Removing the soul results in a coma.

Souls are invulnerable to damage, in a physical sense, immortal, and cannot be harmed. They are the quintessence of who and what a person/being is, as opposed to what they do (which is spirit). Chaotic people may often have their soul and spirit in conflict...

Moorcock aside, souls cannot be destroyed. When Stormbringer/Mournblade/the brothers of the blacksword "eat" a soul, it is simply held, not destroyed, and can be freed (as happened in the last Elric book, IIRC). This varies from the modern view of fantasy, somewhat.

Also, you cannot "lose" your soul, as it is what makes you you... although the powers of evil will do their very best to convince you that you can, so that you will not take steps to secure it!

In my Barsoom Tales Story Hour, Blood Sister Yasami Kagarasa defines the soul in the following way: Quote:
Originally Posted by Yasami Kagarasa
"At the moment of your conception, imagine that a chord was played. A set of notes, unique to you, never before played, began then and has been sustained until now. And will sustain until your death. That is your soul. The soul is a real thing, Arrafin, that can be identified and seen. And operated upon.

"It is the normal extrusion of Shadow into the Living World. Every sentient being contains a soul, a thin twisted strand of possibility like smoke from a stick of incense. It is what gives us our sense of identity. It is that within us that carries on from moment to moment. It is the origin of memory and it is the one irreducible atom of the self.

"That is Shadow's nature. It is unchanging. Constant. As we grow, everything about us changes. Our appearance, our opinions, our abilities. And yet we retain a sense that we do not change, that we remain the same individual throughout our life. Why is this so? Because within us, each of us, we carry a vestige of Shadow that never transforms.

"Upon our death, it is that vestige that makes the final voyage about which we can know nothing until our time comes. But while we live, we can draw upon the nature of our soul to work our will upon the power of Shadow."

Note that "Shadow" is a sort of plane of existence from which all sorcery draws its power.

People on Barsoom also have a "spirit" which is what connects them to the OTHER plane of existence, the Dream Worlds, which are all roiling chaos. Your spirit is your driving force, what gives you the creative urge, where your "new ideas" come from, while your soul is what makes you you -- it is your memory, your identity, it is that which never changes about you.

There are creatures that only have souls, and creatures that only have spirits. They are strange and horrible...

Interesting responses! As a sidenote, do you have any way to judge the value/worth of a soul for demons/devils/Gods or are all souls considered equally valuable? Would they consider a draconic soul, for example, a greater prize than a human soul?

*This question now, takes it away from the original content*...{sigh} .

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roman
Interesting responses! As a sidenote, do you have any way to judge the value/worth of a soul for demons/devils/Gods or are all souls considered equally valuable? Would they consider a draconic soul, for example, a greater prize than a human soul?



All Souls are what could be considered priceless. IMC though a Soul can never be destroyed, nor eaten, or sold.

To answer a previous question, no, Constructs do not have souls (although I suppose one could be made especially to house one).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roman
Interesting responses! As a sidenote, do you have any way to judge the value/worth of a soul for demons/devils/Gods or are all souls considered equally valuable? Would they consider a draconic soul, for example, a greater prize than a human soul?


A Priori assumption - that they value souls, at all...

No, there is no way to "value" souls. IMC, souls are not valued. The big bads just want to separate them from god because they know that He values them!

But what a being values is up to it...

I tend to avoid the question entirely, unless and until the question becomes relevant to the campaign action.

The game rules don't include anything particularly relevant. The magics that PCs wield don't interact with souls much. So there's no real reasons for the PCs to know anything about souls. Since htey don't need to know, I don't need to tell them. If I dont' need to tell them, I leave it undetermined. That way I don't paint myself into a corner or anything

True, I did make an a priori assumption and it is also true that ignoring the matter may not impact most campaigns very much. But assuming Souls are valued in your campaign world, are they valued differently or do all have equal worth?

*Last Input by Roman*

I have to say, that this subject has taken on a life of its' own, and honestly, I am glad, because it means, it is time to revaluate and make corrections, to a theme, longed ignored, or misunderstood. Even with all the possible conjuctures to be given, to bring a suitable mechanical use to the problem, it will not satisfy everyone, but if a consensus can be reached...it will be a start.

 

[Ferret]

I was directed here after trying to start a similiar thred, but after read mostly all of what has been said here I don't see the point anymore. However I don't know whether what I might say now will add to the discussion or point of the thread or just alow me to talk about what I think the soul should be.

My intrest in this topic comes from my discussions with Cheiromancer, after I created a spell that sent the soul to a 'bad place' (I haven't been able to think of a suitable plane for the soul to sent to, that would deal it damage), the body is then sent into a catatonic state, awaiting the souls return.

I think that the four-part idea works very well, until ideas like mine come into play, which assume that the being needs the soul to stay 'active' (for a lack of a better word). This would then rely that souless creatures such as zombies or elementals have something else in the place of a soul, or that they have no souls but a fifth part that is the 'action' bit, like the life-force but solely (ha ha) to do with the soul rather then the body. As I see it, the spirit is the Sum knowlege of the creature (Wisdom and intelligece), the soul the individuality (charisma), the body (strength and dexterity), the life force (con) and the active bit described above (the Ignition)

So:

Body+Life-Force+Spirit+Soul+Soul-force = a living being (human, dwarf rabbit etc)

Without the spirit the creature is a blank slate, I don't know/can't think of anything like this.

Without the soul they aren't human anymore they are 'empty', but not undead, still able to walk or talk, by WoD (white wolf) standards they are loosing humanity.

With a negetive energy powered soul you get Angelus-like undead with minds. Which can be turned from unlife to life by ressurection spells [MM pg317] Essentialy purging the negetive energy from the soul). Perhaps the soul-force is also negetive powered?

Without a spirit and a soul powered by negetive energy you get mindless undead creature, which can be turned from unlife to life by ressurection spells [MM pg317]) No soul-force, needs necromatic magic to tell it what to do otherwise it is inanimate. Actually Zombies are catatonic but have instructions.

Any combination without life-force is dead. Except tihngs with a substitution life-force/soul-force.

Any combination without a soul force is catatonic, just stands there living, breathing, withthe potential or individuality and thought but nothing to Start it up.

Does any of that make sense? Does it justify what I want (able to remove something and have the creature lie dormant)?

Problem is I want the Souless evil creature as well as the souless catatonic creature.