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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vrecknidj" data-source="post: 3191185" data-attributes="member: 7301">In my own campaign, I use a somewhat Platonic soul; it is a three-part, immaterial "substance."  One part represents the person's desires, one part represents the person's willfulness, the other part represents the person's reason.  The person himself might not recognize himself as having these three aspects, instead viewing them all as just himself.The soul itself, as immaterial, maintains a connection with the body while the body is alive, but can be disconnected from it without killing the body (magic, dreams, etc.).  The enterprising individual can eventually discover that it's possible to be disembodied and still be able to think, reason, feel, etc.  Sensing, however, becomes a problem.  Without eyes one cannot see, without ears one cannot hear, etc.  Magic can overcome this, giving the soul sight and hearing and perhaps other senses.  But, the soul itself, as an immaterial substance, does not occupy space or time.  So, motion becomes a problem without a body (that too can be overcome by magic).  In effect, magic can create another temporary house for the soul (whether an astral body, a gem, another item, another individual, etc.).  The soul itself, however, as an immaterial thing, has all the limits of an immaterial thing.  (Compare it to a number, the number 4 is both anywhere and nowhere; as it isn't physical, it can't go anywhere or have any point of view, but, as it isn't physical, it cannot die or be affected.)The soul, in my campaign, cannot truly be sold or destroyed.  The part of the soul that would correspond to the conscious ego can think that it has sold itself, or that it has been lost or made worthless, but, the part that would correspond to the unconscious (i.e. the part that gives you dream images, or that gives you ideas "out of the blue") is, in a sense, "the real you" and although the ego-part of yourself can be deceived or controlled, that other, deeper part, cannot be, and it's the real you (i.e. it might correspond to the True Name and all that).When someone places part of his soul into an object (i.e. Voldemort in Harry Potter), he really is weakening himself, and really is drawing away his power by dividing up his faculties.  But, even though he may think it's his soul that he's doing this to, it's not--it's the ego-centered portion of his consciousness that he thinks is his soul.The deeply, truly wise (i.e. those that don't end up turning into crazy necromancers, etc.) can eventually learn of their own soul nature, and can even tap into it.  In this regard, I use a very old Wizards of the Coast product (pre-aquisition of TSR days) called the Primal Order.  From that system, each person's soul has a certain amount of divine energy (primal base = (level + wisdom)/4).  So long as that divine energy is below 10, that individual cannot access the primal energy that the soul contains.  Once it gets above 10, the individual has primal flux equal to a tenth of his base to spend every day.  There are lots of things to do with flux, and they're detailed in the aforementioned book.Dave</blockquote>

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