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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dakkareth" data-source="post: 1871985" data-attributes="member: 9928">(Recap: I'm trying to look *only* at what is said in the core rules and make sense of it. So far I have outlined the matters to consider, gathered some quotes and pointed out interesting or contradictory elements. Please bear with me, while I attempt an interpretation - you're free to disagree and draw your own conclusions of course.)I'm not sure, whether I'm being serious, but I'm going to propose not two, not three, not nine, but four parts, that make up a normal (intelligent, living Prime Material) individual.First there's the body, which is rather straight-forward. A physical thing, associated with the attributes of physicality: strength, mobility, hardiness. Most beings have one and use it to interact with the physical world.Then there's the life-force. Together with the physical body it makes up, what most people simply call 'the (living) body'. Without life-force you're dead or a construct. Even undead are possessed of a certain kind of life-force, but one that consists of negative energy instead of positive.The spirit is that elusive part of you, that makes rational decisions and maintains memories. It's almost inseparable from the soul, except for unusual circumstances (like death). With growing experience comes greater flexibility and control; the spirit focuses the power of the soul into reality, through magic or more directly as psionics.Finally there's the soul, which is the most important of all. It is the sum of all emotions, decisions, morals. No matter how depraved you are, you still possess a soul, even if it's twisted and 'evil'. But the soul is more than just that: It binds together all parts that make up an individual and makes it more than just their sum. It is the spark of primal magic, the touch of divinity, the one thing that makes sentient life possible and probably much more. The soul makes it possible to act, affect other things, is power. Experience, wisdom, learning and decisions all strengthen the soul, allow it to grow and with it the power of the individual. Like a tree this growth can be straight, twisted or somewhere in between - it matters not in regards to the power inherent in it. Evil tendencies grow stronger with every choice for evil, the soul becomes more extreme in its alignment and strength. And of course the choice is easier each time, which explains, why goodness is so hard to attain and evil so rewarding ...Directly connected to the strength of the soul is the strength of the other parts. A strong soul binding the four aspects together lends health to the body, vitality to the life-force and will as well as dedication to the spirit. Also in colloquial language, most people and even learned sages treat body and life-force as the same, calling it the body, while calling soul and spirit together 'the soul'. Naturally this leads to all kinds of confusion ...Strength of the soul, raw and unformed power, can take many different forms depending on the individual's morals and inclinations - for some it's the tapping of vast magic within the self, for others it's titanic feats of combat and leadership and  for yet others it's the doing of the nearly impossible, vanishing from plain sight through sheer ability or convincing lesser souls of obvious falsehoods.When a magic user casts an especially powerful spell, it takes a toll on his soul. In most cases it's tolerable and only imposes a limit on the magic a caster can invoke within a certain time, but sometimes the sorcery shaped by a wizard is simply too great and to control it the caster draws strength directly from his soul, weakening it until he can recoup the loss (though most of the time the difference is barely noticeable by others).Certain undead with their touch (and spells emulating them) take life-force and soul energy from their victim (con & level loss). The consequences are dire as target's power is much reduced, no matter the nature of its display (magic, martial ability, etc). Even harsher is the transition from live to death and back: Only the greatest of magics can prevent permanent damage to the soul. As with draining attacks, the victim doesn't *forget* his spells, or *unlearn* his techniques, he is simply unable to use them as long as he lacks the power to do so.When a wizard traps the soul of another being, he keeps the different parts together (body, soul, life-force and spirit are all trapped within the gem). A demi-lich's attack however consumes all aspects of the individual *except* the body, which without animating life-force and a soul to give it meaning is just a mess of material elements.Using astral projection is dangerous, because it separates that, which shouldn't be separated. Or rather it *almost* separates. The body is left behind, the spirit cast forth into the astral; life-force and soul remain as link between them, allowing them to remain a living individual - when this link is severed, the different aspects are separated and cannot continue to exist, the wizard dies. Using magic jar however the much lesser distance between the parts (a few miles as opposed to several planes) makes the link strong enough, so silver swords can't sever the tie. If the caster is careless, it may still kill him, though ...-------------Sooo ... it's late and my thoughts run in circles. Maybe I oversaw some vital detail, maybe I put too much of my own thoughts into what's supposed to be a conclusion from the evidence of the books, maybe I'm just not getting it. Whatever, I hope my efforts have some use to you - I have tried. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />-Dakkareth, I spent way too much time on this <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /></blockquote>

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