D&D General Souls and Spirits - are they necessary in order to exist?

[Lanefan]

Edition-agnostic question here, and answers based on different editions might be of interest.

First, the background:

Some years ago in my current campaign one of the PCs - a Human Fighter - suffered a mishap where pulling a card from a modified Deck of Many Things stripped away his soul but otherwise left him hale and hearty. He ran for a few in-game years like this (and, somewhat incredibly for both the player and the game, stayed alive the whole time) while slowly coming to realize his odd condition, then eventually - with some very high-powered help - he got a soul stuffed into him that nobody else was using (it was extracted from the soul gem found in Ghost Tower of Inverness).

The ramifications of this were both good and bad. The good: he became completely invisible to most undead, who see only the soul or spirit of the living. He also became immune to a few (quite rare) effects that specifically target the spirit. The bad: if he died he was done. No revival in any manner, no speak with dead, nothing.

And so, my question to you all:

Would you allow a PC to lose its soul or spirit like this and yet still remain alive and playable?

If no, why?

If yes, what would you have as the ramifications of having no soul?

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

In my lore, if someone lost their soul but was otherwise alive and healthy they'd completely lose their personality. They'd still have their memories, their intelligence, but the attachments and motivations wouldn't be there anymore. They'd become a husk, just going with the motions, relying on muscle memory. Perhaps eventually they'd begin to grow a new soul, but they would become a new individual, not the person their companions grew to care for.

 

[Celebrim]

And so, my question to you all:

Would you allow a PC to lose its soul or spirit like this and yet still remain alive and playable?

If no, why?

If yes, what would you have as the ramifications of having no soul?

No.

Because as I conceive the idea of a spirit or a soul, it is the anima of a thing. My game as is implied by the setting is heavily animistic, and as such if you take the soul or spirit from anything it ceases to be a living thing and indeed can cease to have the properties that make it distinctly itself. A person losing their soul loses all power of motion and all the qualities that made them distinctly that person. They no longer have their experiences, their levels, their classes, or their life - all of those things are attached to the soul and exist only as the soul exists. Some vague memory of the impression of those things may exist in the body the way a gun barrel scratches a bullet, but it is the soul where they reside.

A soulless body is just dead until reinhabited. If animated without the former soul, it has none of the abilities of the individual.

 

[Rikka66]

Typically I have it run on the soul being necessary for the body to function. Certainly special circumstances could result in the body carrying on as normal, and of course there's the questions that come up when ownership of the soul is divided between multiple parties. But my default answer is that a body lacking a soul is Weekend at Bernie's material.

In one campaign I did have it set up so that, while living, you functioned and body, soul and spirit. Body and soul were the normal, and spirit was the link. So if you died, body stays behind and soul and spirit head off to the Shadowfell or whatever. But revival only brought back the soul and created a new spirit. So as a side-effect the spirit could end up running around as a wraith-type creature. I had some fun with that idea. Namely in the form of a hobgoblin necromancer who died, came back, and captured is old spirit to use as a lab servant.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

In my setting, if you lose your spirit or soul, you're brain dead. Your body can be kept alive, but your body can't wake up until the missing piece is returned. "Selling your soul"-type contracts take effect after you die. If your soul is wounded somehow you can lose the part that allows for empathy and other useful parts of being human.

(Souls in my setting are the divine spark that allows for life to exist and contains your entire personality. Your spirit is just the ethereal echo of your body, which is where your soul is stored when you astrally project or die.)

 

[ichabod]

No. Once the soul is gone, the body would be more like a zombie, although not undead. I don't have a mechanism for that in my world, but I could see having one for one of the future ages I have imagined.

 

[O-Castitatis-Lilium]

The soul is what it's called inside of a person and usually what it's called once dead and it moves on peacefully. A Spirit is what it's called when it hasn't moved on and is left behind because of something that wasn't done, anger, vengeance-seeking, or even because they died so quick they don't realize they are dead. You kind of need a soul in order to be, well you as a person. Sure the brain runs things, the mind thinks things, the soul is what you are as a person; at least that's how I view it. To me, you are effectively gone if any of those stops working, but we are getting in very sensitive territory with that statement, so I'm just going to end that there lol.

Personally in a game like DnD, I would say that considering that the Gods exist and take a somewhat active role in the world and people, then it's safe to assume that the soul goes to who they worship when they die and therefore it's needed to stay alive. I would have honestly ruled that he was gone and they needed to either use a wish to get him back, or in worst case scenario, go and find where his soul is to retrieve it and return it to his body.

 

[Lanefan]

In my lore, if someone lost their soul but was otherwise alive and healthy they'd completely lose their personality. They'd still have their memories, their intelligence, but the attachments and motivations wouldn't be there anymore. They'd become a husk, just going with the motions, relying on muscle memory. Perhaps eventually they'd begin to grow a new soul, but they would become a new individual, not the person their companions grew to care for.

This is interesting, in that (to me anyway) it raises the question of how much the physical firing of neurons etc., and their generating of thoughts and storing of memories, lends to one's personality. Physical neurons don't need a soul or spirit; which makes this perhaps a three-headed equation: physical body, physical "mind", and metaphysical spirit.

This was my rationale for letting the soul-less character survive: his physical mind - i.e. his brain - kept his memories and personality going to the point where an observer couldn't tell the difference between his previous and new versions.

 

[Celebrim]

This is interesting, in that (to me anyway) it raises the question of how much the physical firing of neurons etc., and their generating of thoughts and storing of memories, lends to one's personality. Physical neurons don't need a soul or spirit; which makes this perhaps a three-headed equation: physical body, physical "mind", and metaphysical spirit.

This was my rationale for letting the soul-less character survive: his physical mind - i.e. his brain - kept his memories and personality going to the point where an observer couldn't tell the difference between his previous and new versions.

I make no assumptions about the science of my fantasy world. I wouldn't even assume neurons necessarily exist. Or if they exist, perhaps their role in the body is to establish a magical connection to the ethereal plane or the astral plane, thereby connecting the spirit to the body. The brain might not be the seat of intelligence, but akin to the mouse or keyboard by which the soul controls the body. Applying real world science to a fantasy world invariably leads to major contradictions.

 

[Tonguez]

Spirit = Immortal but incorporeal
Spirit + Body + Soul = living being
Body + Spirit =:Living Dead (Vampire, Mummy Lord, Lich)
Body + Soul = Undead
Spirit+Soul = Ghost (incorporeal)
Soul = Haunt (it has Passion and Drive but no memory, identity or personality)

On that basis your person without a Soul is a Revenant, it has memory but no passion or drive, except it's last compulsion