Self

Technically speaking, the Self encompasses everything that makes a person up (often drawn on for power).<ref name=":23">SELF -Capital S. The Self includes the raw totality of our being. It is spirit, substance, power, and how we’re defined by the connections around us.
When we pay power for something and we don’t say how the payment will be made (and if we haven’t set some expectations in advance with pattern or label) then we’re assumed to be paying with Self. This can be hard to notice until we pay a lot, but makes us weaker, slower, less able to change things, hurts our friendships and relationships, and maybe the worst thing of all, makes our practice worse.
Tends to take away from everything about our Self evenly. But depending on how you pay, it might lean one way or the other. (Pay with blood, get physically weaker).
- 8.2 Bonus: Soul & Self</ref> It includes the Soul as the mystical "blueprint" for the person which changes only slowly over time (used to rebuild after injuries to the Self),<ref name=":19">Soul is the blueprint that determines ‘us’. We start out as derivatives of our parents (ugh) and a lot of those doors are closed, except the woohoo (for the butt) and needs, and our Crown is cracked wiiiiide open, so we’re taking in the world like crazy. And then as we mature we hope to find a loose balance. Connections constrain and define our general shape, and some Others can see this.
Lose the soul and you lose the blueprint. The recipe that makes us US. You might hold your general mental & physical shape but just about everything is going to distort you after that. All those key body parts/departments of the Self? Big factors.
If brought to the edge of death, a person with a soul can (but might not) find their way back to ‘normal’. A soulless Other or person is going to be like a drawing of a drawing of a drawing, and they easily lose their way. Tend to be easy to manipulate.
- 8.2 Bonus: Soul & Self</ref><ref name=":20">Short: spirits are immaterial forces representing things and concepts.  Souls are the codified ‘fingerprint’ of multiple spirits that come together as you develop a self.
Medium: It might be easier to explain how they’re the same.  Both of them are immaterial forces.  Unless you’re using the capital-S Sight, you can’t really see them, and you can’t interact with them.  You can create a nice cozy spot in a wooden box or an axe for them to nestle inside- a hallow, and you can create a space within yourself that they can plug into.  You can do the same with echoes- ghosts, which are also immaterial.  And you can do the same with incarnations.  If they’re too big or too strong, or if you’re weak or grievously wounded, they can take over or leak out.  That’s how they’re the same. [...] In between those, you have souls.  A soul is like a codification, recipe or DNA.  Run eggs, flour, and sugar through a certain set of steps, add a few other ingredients, and you have a pastry.  Change up the mix and shape, add in other things, and you might have a croissant or bread or biscuits.  The shape and end result determine the kind of imprints they may be prone to leave, the crumbs they leave behind.  It just includes stuff like trust and identity and dreams and health.  The soul helps the echoes happen.
- From Souls - answer by Wildbow</ref> and a person's Spirit as the more abstract parts of them (made up of a complex network of lesser spirits).<ref name=":24">Just like our body has cells, the Self has a really complex setup of spirits. Viewed from far away, it looks like one spirit but viewed up close, there’s always more ways to break it down. LOTS of emphasis on symbols, abstraction. This is why we usually have the masks built in if we’re looked at with Sight or scrying. - 8.2 Bonus: Soul & Self</ref><ref name=":25">So in sum total, my take is…

• Soul – the blueprint/foundation.
• Self – you as you are now. Multifaceted, a lot of stuff contributes, can have set ‘departments’, which seem to be practice-set convention, mostly.
• Spirit – Abstract & idea-driven ‘you’. Reflects self-image & others’ image of you, dreams, important things about you that don’t fit neatly elsewhere. Might be the kite that pulls you forward & feeds stuff into you to help you grow & develop.
  

- 8.2 Bonus: Soul & Self</ref> However, in practice these terms are used somewhat interchangably.<ref name=":18">“The part of you that connects to the Sight isn’t physical.  It’s your Self, your soul, your ‘you’.  The complex spirit or fingerprint that makes up all the parts of you that are distinct and unique when put together as a whole.  It adheres to patterns, adjusting and adapting by scales that have nothing to do with muscles or physical health.”

“What happened?” Avery asked.

“It adjusted.  As spirits do, your spirit worked off of underlying patterns and assumptions, that you were someone who always used the Sight, so you always wanted the Sight available.  There are many practitioners who do this on purpose, refining their Sight so it is something they can always have available, for specific purposes, and keep their vision clear for other things.”

“Uh, so how do I tell my Self to not do that?” Avery asked.

“That might be something that Charles can help you with better than I can.  Intuitively, it makes sense that if you don’t want it on most of the time, don’t use it most of the time.”

“Are there any other ways?” Lucy asked.

“You could make the pattern more elaborate, so it is harder to fall into by unconscious habit.  Saying a particular word or wearing your mask or a pair of glasses when you want the Sight available.”

“Does this happen with other things?” Avery asked.

“Absolutely.  Use of a particular tool or practice might wear down a path, that path becomes a requirement, then becomes something inexorably tied to you.  I wouldn’t panic.  Nothing that is done in this sort of way is likely to be impossible to undo.  It might be very hard to undo, but not impossible.” - Excerpt from Lost for Words 1.7 </ref><ref name=":2">“No compromise.  I intend to kill each of you in turn,” Mara spoke.  “One by one.  I can ward off the spirits and powers that would carry your companion’s souls to their eternal rest.  Bind soul to dying body, so that their self can endure the moment of death for centuries.  The act of rotting and being ripped apart by carrion birds, a dim, broken awareness.” - Excerpt from Sine Die 14.7</ref><ref name=":0">Thrice must the blighted man be bestowed that foul breath that escapes the mouth of the long dead, as airs and humors bloat the corpse, the soul released at death introduced between each to accept and accommodate those airs most foul.  During these times the body will be well restrained, as the soul will be in the worst of agonies and the body will not be limited to their normal strength.
[...]
The Bane is oft used as a devise against those who practise, for death has already taken them thrice over, while their spirit and soul are inured to the worst torments and agonies. [...] The creator must deliver their instructions to the Bane with gravest care, as the Bane is obedient to a fault, the soul broken many times over.  Once destroyed, the Bane will never return. 
[...]
One might surmise that the Nosferatu are a natural variation of the Bane, insofar as they are natural.  The Nosferatu, if this theory were correct, would incubate spirits of death within them, and depositing them within a victim, inviting them to and from the veil of death.  The blight, both pre-existing and given, would be one of the blood.
As such, consider the same methods that function on the Nosferatu.  A length of green wood will serve as a conduit for the living energies to vacate the dead prison that confine them.  Natural energies, too, will suffice, with daylight, running water from a natural source, lightning strikes, clean fire if the Bane is not pre-treated, a spike of crystal, or a stalagmite with a history of attachment to the ground serving to provide this conduit of natural forces. - Morte Vilify: Perversions of Death, quoted in Duress 12.3</ref>

Self

The Self includes every part of a person - the Soul and Spirit, but also the personality, Visceral body, Connections,<ref name=":23" /> and Name.<ref>Names are a lynchpin in the composition of our being.  You’re going to suffer if you don’t fill that void. - Excerpt from Signature 8.2

“In theory only.  I’m curious how this works.  You degrade?”

“No name, nothing at the center of my self.  I think it’s like the metaphysical equivalent of taking ten pounds of flesh out from within someone’s ribcage.”

“So take a new name.  Replace thy flesh.”

“That doesn’t help the fact that I don’t have many connections.  If I have too few and they get severed, or if they grow weak-” - excerpt from Signature 8.5

“-I name myself Mags.  By this, this remnant of my old name, I claim my Self, I claim my strength, and I deny Maggie Holt from taking anything further.  I give up what I have lost, and I hold to what I still have." - excerpt from Signature 8.7</ref>

A Practitioner can build up a stronger Self over time.<ref>[Lucy] focused on her Self, that she’d been trying to shore up as a power source. - Excerpt from Back Away 5.1</ref>

Spending Self

The Self is the "default" source of Power for fuelling Practices. If not paid for with some other kind of power, most Practices will draw on the Self, usually drawing equally on all parts of the Self. Thus leaving them a bit weaker in personality, body, connections etc.<ref name=":23" />

If one lacks the power for a Practice, attempting it may simply have no effect, or drain them to the point of passing out and risking grave harm to their Self.^{[citation needed]}

Using blood to power a practice draws on the blood donor's Self,<ref>Blood is power, basically the most distilled and direct form you can offer.  The caveat being that when you deal with some Others, you give an inch, they take a mile.  And you don’t want them taking a mile of your blood or personal power. [...] Remember that every second that you’re using your blood to keep it here, you’re making yourself just a bit weaker.  - excerpt from Damages 2.3</ref> especially the physical side of their self, leaving them physically drained.<ref name=":23" />

Self-Care

Doing favorite activities, those one likes, helps heal the Self;<ref>“Zachariah?  Perhaps you should lie down?”

He nodded, sitting on the bench.  “I told them I was good to try it.  Not their fault.”

Their tutor nodded.  “I suspect it’s fine.  I just don’t want you to suffer.  Be sure you eat well, sleep well, do something you enjoy tonight, okay?  Shore up your Self.  Don’t do anything that draws too many spirits into or through you.” - Excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.9</ref> Blake Thorburn for example, speculated that helping people nourished his soul in a very literal sense.<ref>Like the witch has her black cat, kind of.  You could be alive again.  And I think you’d be you, because you’d take a little bit from me to stay whole.  I’d… I’d like to think I’d take from you too.  Because helping you, like someone once helped me?  It might nourish my soul, my being, if that makes any sense.” - Excerpt from Collateral 4.12</ref> Similarly being around or in familiar and comfortable objects or places,<ref>“It’s okay,” she said.  “Not great, but okay.  Is this wise?  Inviting people?”

“I don’t know,” I said.  “No clue at all.  But I’m drained, and if I’m supposed to recover personal power, reaffirm my identity and refuel myself where I was drained, well, getting my bike keys back made me feel a hundred times better than any night’s sleep I’ve had this past week.  Maybe seeing my friends will help.”

“I can get behind it, if that’s your reasoning,” she said.  “Since I’m obviously not socializing, I can sit and read.” - Excerpt from Collateral 4.1</ref> like one's home, have a similar effect.<ref>“I don’t mind,” Avery told her.  “I have enough siblings I got pretty used to it early on.  Feels a bit like home.”

“That’s important,” Jessica said.  “Feeling at home helps heal the Self, which you need after a stint in the Ruins.” - Excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.9</ref> A good meal can also be valuable.<ref>We really do need to eat.  Feed the Self. - Excerpt from Vanishing Point 8.2</ref>

A Practitioner might bolster their wounded Self by infusing it with spirits, echoes, or other immaterial forces. However, it is important that whatever is added fits with their Self and is minor enough that the Self can overpower and integrate it; if it doesn't, it might taint the core of their being and/or fail to take altogether. Side effects can include infused Spirits altering one's appearance, or echoes carrying false memories. In some cases, the Self will cause issues as it fights the infection; causing amnesia in an attempt to wipe out echo-created memories, for instance.<ref>Missing Self can be boosted with Spirit. May ‘pollute’ us if not aligned to our usual Self. Weird appearance & side effects. Other forms of bolstering Self come with similar issues. Echoes will juice more civilized, ‘human’ stuff (if those echoes are human. I had to ask Mr. Palaisy)… but because Echoes are essentially juiced up collective memories, they’ll have a much bigger effect on OUR memories. Pollution can be sneaky and dangerous because it rewrites us at the core of our being, like mad-science DNA teleporter stuff and flies except it’s not our bodies that change. The wrong thing can throw off our whole balance, and in the really bad cases, our Self gets so desperate for equalibrium that it overcompensates and goes too far the other direction. Putting out the fire with a flood, or responding to the fire by putting out ALL fires. Got too many false memories from echoes? BAM, Self took initiative and fixed it by purging your memories of the last year.
The GOOD side of bolstering Self is that it charges up most things about us. It makes us stronger, braver, more important, and better at practice. Which sounds great, but the problem is that:
A) It must blend! If it doesn’t mix into US, it’s less of a cyborg upgrade and more of a knife jabbed into us.
B) Big boosts tend to have minds of their own. Often literaly!!
So we gotta pick the right sources of power & take small steps, we gotta suffer the side effects and any pollution, or we stay really formal. Deals & duels make the You juice more cooperative, apparently.
- 8.2 Bonus: Soul & Self</ref><ref>Echoes can patch up the Self if matched well, but rarely mend flesh and they may even slow that healing. - excerpt from Vanishing Points 8.1</ref>

Chakras

When meddling with the Self, such as to steal parts of it for re-use, to create Binding#Human Vessels, or to interfere with the ongoing magic of an Other, there are seven standard points of access:<ref>He knew from his studies and work with the Doom that Hosts liked to bind things to key points in the body. It made sense that a Vessel would have their space carved out starting at one of those. He slammed his forehead into hers. The reaction wasn’t anything special. Which others? The Crown was one space, very top of the head, but he was pretty sure she’d manifest differently if the Other were housed there.
He punched her in the solar plexus. She didn’t carry the mirror woman there. He hit her again, dead center of the stomach.
There. He could see the Other within her react. It looked like it was housed in two of the seven points. Stomach and groin.
[...]
When it slammed her into the tree, the branches of that tree and the branches it had put into place slammed through the seven ‘host’ windows of her body. Crown, mind’s eye, throat, heart, solar plexus, stomach, and groin.
- excerpt from Back Away 5.d </ref><ref>When putting stuff into the Self, there are a few windows or key points of the body that have been formalized. A lot of the more intense schools of practice will dig into these, either to harvest from others or remove from themselves. Hosts, for example, dig out a hallow in one of these areas, usually.

Crown – Spiritual [top of head]
The Crown is said to be where the Self extends out to the worlds/realms. Connection to greater world, practice.

Brow – Awareness [forehead]
The Brow holds sight and Sight, third eye and regular eyes, nose, and primary senses.

THROAT – Connections [throat]
The throat is where many common social connections are rooted. Word, breath, communication, society.

HEART – Health, healing [upper chest]
Physicality, health, healing. Mr. Palaisy went on a tangent about how a connection to someone can be rooted in any of these parts; the heart may be where someone good for you is rooted. Wellness.

SOLAR PLEXUS – Absorption [base of ribcage, top of stomach]
Processing & digestion of outside influences, deeper knowledge, spirits. ‘Wisdom’

SACRUM – Wantings [stomach]
Rude stuff, food, entertainment, and our own creativity. The fuel that drives us. This may be where Power in general sits, when we’re done digesting it.

THE WOOHOO – Legacy [groin]
Opposite to Crown. If the Crown is the tree extending its branches, the Woohoo (not the official term) is the roots. What we leave behind, family, deepest connections (deep, hee hee), fundamental power, and the nature of the work we do. (you better do some work while you’re there, boyo)

We can apply some of these core principles to Others and objects. Ghouls, for example, are pretty hungry guys and gals, and have weird vitality. And not a coincidence? Hearts & gut are weak points!
- 8.2 Bonus: Soul & Self </ref>

• crown (top of head) - associated with the Spirit, the connection to other Realms and the Practice
• mind’s eye (forehead) - awareness, senses, Sight,
• throat - social connections, communication and word
• heart - health, healing, physicality, positive connections
• solar plexus - wisdom and deeper knowlege
• stomach/sacrum - desires, drives, fuel, "digested" power
• groin - legacy and roots, family, deepest connections, fundamentals of Practice and power

These seem to be mostly conventions, although as always conventions have a reality in the Practice.<ref name=":23"/>

Soul

The soul could be compared to DNA, as the "recipe" from which a person is constructed.<ref name=":19" /><ref name=":20" /> If something such as a ghost retains the soul, then it can reconstruct lost parts of their self and rebuild.<ref name=":17">Just to contrast, if a soul remains with an echo, then that whole and full capital-S Self is still there, the blanks can be filled in, and what’s lost can be regained. An echo on its own is going to be like a bad recording, but an echo with a soul can learn, adjust, and find its own personal will. It’ll grow up, where a ghost of a seven year old will always be seven. An echo as a familiar may regain touch with its soul, depending. - From Souls - answer by Wildbow</ref>

Soul Loss

Lose the soul, and parts of your self will begin to go awry, collapse, or fail to return correctly when lost.<ref name=":19" /><ref>If you’re forsworn, you may keep your soul and body, but you lose the things and conventions that protect your soul and body.  If you lose your soul, however, then the eggs, flour, and sugar that make up your Self are there but much more shaky, or in the hands of whoever owns your soul.  If you lose your soul while keeping from being forsworn, then the core of your self may be prone to manipulation, but they’ll have to keep to conventions and karma while they do it.

Lose your soul and you’re like a drawing of a drawing of a drawing.  Just slightly wrong, hollow, without the original vision.  If you lose something then maybe you can get it back, but it’s going to be a little off, a little ill-fit.  Stuff you don’t touch on often is going to fade faster.
- 8.2 Bonus: Soul & Self</ref>

Soul loss also renders a person more vulnerable to outside influence (like losing any other part of the Self);<ref name=":19" /> Others will sometimes ask for a person's soul as part of a deal in order to render the person vulnerable to possession.<ref name=":7">“Demons and devils do ask for people’s souls.  Or they make Faustian promises.  They don’t put any particular value in the soul, though.  That’s not to say the soul is useless as a commodity, it does have some power to it, but my understanding is that most such Others are more interested in the soulless than the soul itself.”

“I met an imp a few days ago, who was very interested in finding chinks in the defenses, so it could wedge itself into them,” I said.

“Exactly,” Duncan said.  “It’s not demons and devils alone that want that kind of opportunity.  Nature abhors a vacuum, and you’ve cracked yourself like an egg, emptying out the contents and allowing anything and everything else in.” - Excerpt from Conviction 5.4</ref>

Uses

A captured or traded soul can be used as a source of power.<ref name=":7" /> Valkyries and Necromancers deal in this sort of magic,<ref>“He was unhappy with the fact that she only bore girls.  Valkyries and the various offshoots, they work with spirits and souls.  Rather than have girls, he used his newborn daughters.”

“As fuel,” I said, just a little spooked at the thought. - Excerpt from Execution 13.5</ref><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":21" /> among others.<ref name=":2" />

Weapons or energies associated with life and/or nature, such as green wood, can serve as a "conduit" for the trapped soul to leave an undead creature.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":8">I saw Evan take to the air, sparrow wings flapping.  Whatever hit he’d taken earlier, he was still in one piece.

The witch hunter caught the stake, and didn’t toss it again.

“If you try, little bird,” she said, “I will stake you.  Your tricks won’t work.”

Evan was a soul in a different form, just like the Bane was.

I wasn’t entirely sure the method of soul extraction wouldn’t work on him too. - Excerpt from Duress 12.3</ref>

Afterlife

There are Others responsible for ferrying the soul to their appointed afterlife after death.<ref name=":9">As in, that thing you’re looking at is an embodiment of a moment of suffering.  What you see there is all there is.  The real June went on to the afterlife.  This is an emotional event that hit the world hard enough to make a dent shaped like ‘dying of hypothermia’.  - Excerpt from Damages 2.3</ref><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":10">“Whatever’s supposed to help you on to the afterlife, I think the Hyena scared it off.  It’s why you’re so… whole.” - Excerpt from Collateral 4.12</ref> Sometimes known as psychopomps, one type of Other that fills this role are Daenas - although, Farnaza, the one example that we know of, will only guide the innocent, while the guilty they condemn to eternal wandering.<ref name="17.ze1">Daena were those who managed key duties, in a manner that made them spirit-adjacent and angel-adjacent.  They were tied into the great wheel of creation, with a corresponding ability to manipulate or manage spirits.  Most handled one thing as a key duty, with the classic being that they were Psychopomps – guides of the dead.  There was one Daena on record as having handled seven, but the greatest were typically assumed to have five at a maximum.  Daena Farnaza had three: sorting echo and soul with an eye to the guilty, maintaining cycles of Nature, and dispatching those who defied the Fates. - excerpt from Gone and Done It 17.z</ref><ref>“Musser stole a Daena familiar.  A Zoroastrian psychopomp.  When seen by wrongdoers and murderers, she appears ugly, and she condemns them to eternal wandering.  Others she guides as a psychopomp will.”

“Bit crude,” Ann Wint said.  “I don’t like black and white tests of character.” - excerpt from Fall Out 14.1</ref> A Revenant can be created when a soul persuades or fights off these beings, in order to return to their body and pursue some urgent mission.<ref name=":4">“I delivered the pizza,” he said.

Ah.  My mind flashed back to that scene.  Goblins had impaled him on the fence, and the faceless woman had taken his face, all in an attempt to bait me outside.  I hadn’t fallen for it, and he’d mocked me after the fact.

I ventured, “Can I ask what you are?”

“I don’t know so much, not really.  I died, and I kicked and screamed so much that they wouldn’t take me,” he said.

The wan smile and relaxed attitude he offered me did not look like the expression of someone who’d clawed their way back from the afterlife.

“A revenant,” I said.
[...]
“I’m not a big fan of murder myself, but when Death comes calling, as he might do for me, or when the world wants to swallow you up and digest you, as it might be in your case, sometimes you’ll do what you have to.  Get the power you need to stay here, clock the hours you need to clock, do your part to keep the universe running.” - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.2 </ref><ref name=":16">Example Revenant by Wildbow</ref><ref name=":3">“Tallowman.  Originally thought to be possessed, modern thought points to him being a revenant.  Died, or suffered some gruesome injury, but didn’t go down.  Soul couldn’t rest, too hungry for revenge, basically a serial killer zombie.  The spirit didn’t leave the body, and the body came back for unfinished business.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.7</ref> Valkyries would sometimes position themselves as such figures, making use of religious concepts of an afterlife to gain an agreement that they could collect a person's soul on death. They would leverage the agreement to collect Ghosts or Vestiges of the person.<ref>“Right.  In this case, you’ve got practitioners convincing warriors, usually dying soldiers, that there’s an amazing afterlife of parties and respect for their deeds waiting for them, so the warriors agree to give up their spirits after death.  Use that agreement to help make a vestige or create a ghost, a representation of their skills or their knowledge, their strength, whatever else, and imbue all of that into a vessel.” - Excerpt from Damages 2.3</ref><ref>“As Valkalla, male Valkyries, Max and I are combat practitioners, we’d belong in the moot. We transport spirits, manage and harvest Soul and Self, we can act as psychopomps to get credit with the universe, we’re already halfway there, we might as well do that.” - Excerpt from In Absentia 21.10</ref> The soul may also be trapped in their ghost,<ref name=":1">“-nevermind.  Okay.  Evan.  He… he’s still there.  The echo, yes, but there’s the consciousness, and he’s still got the consciousness.  It never moved on.  He doesn’t want to move on.”

“He’s a soul?” - Excerpt from Conviction 5.3</ref><ref name=":11"/><ref name=":17" /> corpse,<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5">The Bane is form’d of one with a blight of body, already within the grasp of Death, they yet hold a breath of life.  The Dark Necromagus must be at the bedside of the deceased as they cross over, to catch the breath in a prepared vessel.  Thrice must the blighted man be bestowed that foul breath that escapes the mouth of the long dead, as airs and humors bloat the corpse, the soul released at death introduced between each to accept and accommodate those airs most foul.  During these times the body will be well restrained, as the soul will be in the worst of agonies and the body will not be limited to their normal strength.[...]
The Bane is oft used as a devise against those who practise, for death has already taken them thrice over, while their spirit and soul are inured to the worst torments and agonies.  Barriers will serve their purpose, but hexes and deleterious magics will often glance off the Bane, rendering them a potent devise against the unwary.  Without expecting their workings to go awry and come back to them, such a Magus might find themselves dealing with their own practises and the Bane both.
The creator must deliver their instructions to the Bane with gravest care, as the Bane is obedient to a fault, the soul broken many times over.  Once destroyed, the Bane will never return.  - Morte Vilify: Perversions of Death, Quoted in Duress 12.3</ref> or a suitable vessel<ref name=":6">“The Shepherd collected his soul,” Rose said.  “Not just the echo, but the soul.  He got in touch with us yesterday, offering a trade.  Laird for Fell.” - Excerpt from Void 7.4</ref><ref name=":12">“Yeah.  Can you keep my [Fell's] soul or whatever it is out of his [Conquest's] grasp?  Killing my mortal body won’t be enough.”

“I can try.  I might need to make a container.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.9</ref><ref name=":21">I dragged the bodies together, and as I reached the Necromancer, he fought me, weak.

He had what appeared to be a doll in one hand, fashioned of some soft material.  It wore another man’s face, hyper-realistic, distorted in agony.  In moving the necromancer, I’d broken a black ribbon that stretched from his neck to the doll’s.

I watched as he struggled to wind the ribbon around his own neck with hands that grew steadily weaker and clumsier.  Once the connection was formed, he touched his thumb to his bloody wound, running it along the ribbon, from himself to the doll.

A hyper-realistic wound started to open on the doll’s throat.  His own wound started to close.

He stopped, his hands trembling, and the transfer reversed.

The Hyena’s effect taking hold?

I watched him try and fail again.  Using ghosts as some sort of repository or sympathetic replica, to take his pain.

No, a ghost wouldn’t be enough.  Just like with the Bane, something like this might well require a soul.

Very gently, I pulled the doll from his grip.  The ribbon came undone again.  Weak hands reached for and failed to grab the doll.

“Be free, soul,” I said, before cracking the doll down the middle.The agonized face separated, and a moment later, the doll’s face was only two depressions for eyes, a bump for the nose, and a line for the mouth. - Excerpt from Duress 12.8</ref> by a Practitioner or Other.

Some powerful magic can also recall a soul from the afterlife.<ref name=":15">Example Advanced Astrologer Rites:
[...]
Dedicating the Star - Carefully tended diagrams can be a source of power that is then used to call forth a specific being, on a date relevant to that being.  Can be a way to call forth deities in physical form, great Historics, the souls of dead loved ones (with caveats), and so on. Essentially the result of a magic circle drawn out on a city-sized scale. - Pact Dice: Astrologers</ref> A Deity can create a soul or draw one from the afterlife as well, though it is easier for the deity to just make a reasonable facsimile.^{[citation needed]}

Karma is implied to determine whether you receive a good or bad afterlife, with Diabolists going to something akin to Hell.<ref>The next thought outside family was the lawyers, the nebulous idea of dying and going straight to some miserable afterlife, simply because of the karma that dragged me down.

That was a bit more of a push.  The concrete idea that I wouldn’t find peace, going down that road.

I took a step back, slowing the rate at which Conquest closed in.

I didn’t want to go to hell, or whatever equivalent I was due. - Excerpt from Void 7.7</ref><ref>“I grow tired of this.  One of your champions has been claimed by Death, someone precious to you is on the way there, and the younger Rose Thorburn has informed me that you have nothing good waiting for you on the other side.” - Excerpt from Void 7.3</ref>

Bogeymen return to the Abyss when they die rather than passing on to an afterlife.<ref>, I found myself lying between fire and fence, my heels almost touching the wing-tipped toes of the Necromancer’s boots.

He hit me with distilled echoes, every single one of them a dying memory.

What I experienced was very similar to having my vision go dark, darkness creeping in around the edges, the vision that remained getting spotty.  Thing was, it happened all at once.  I might as well have been hurled into a deep, dark well, with only meager light at the top.

I could hear the Drains [...] I had to claw my way back to reality.  Out of the well, past the darkness that creeped in around the edges of my vision.

I was out and up for about one second before the Necromancer hit me again.

Back into the well, now with visions and sensations to go with all the fleeting images. - Excerpt from Duress 12.8</ref> hang dogs with sufficent power can inflict punishing afterlives on their targets trapping them on the material plain.<ref name="HG">Hang Dogs - Come about from mindless, often group-targeted mass-lynchings and killings (to meet the criteria for the faceless dead or the 'dead as statistics, not people'), sometimes with hysteria involved. More focused against one side in a conflict, with ‘favored enemies’ that they are more effective against, have weaker equipment, more personality from the outset. Stem from hate rather than war, very effective against their favored enemy and against the unaware, are difficult to track and pin down, may have other abilities relating to their means of death or the hysteria surrounding them. May be protectors of 'their' people, but their way of going about this (targeting and mutilating/killing the aggressors) has a tendency to perpetuate or escalate hostilities and do more long-term harm, where such is possible. Can arise from genocide in war, in which case they would band together with other Dogs, but can just as easily appear in groups on their own in a rural area, if there's sufficient murder of a subgroup. Hang Dogs tend to swell in strength more than other Dogs, especially as time passes, and Hang Dogs of sufficient strength may be able to claim souls and imprison them (a consciousness forever embedded in an object, tree, or corpse, watching and unable to speak/act) or to drag or send aggressors to other realms, such as the Abyss or the darker places that lie beyond the gates of Death. Many are put to rest by the very groups that they came from. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> Barbatorem is said to be able to sever his victims from the afterlife, "forever and irrevocably denying them whatever good things might await them after death". <ref name=":13">On a more abstract level, Barbatorem deals a deeper form of damage that is hard to encapsulate in this text.  Rather than state the myriad ways he might harm his victims, this author would suggest a few key points to note, suggesting the wider variety of feats he can accomplish: It is believed that he can sever his target’s ability to access any higher plane, forever and irrevocably denying them whatever good things might await them after death, and he can remove any ability a practitioner has. - Excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref> The Nightmare Tromos claimed that, after the woman whose familiar he was eventually died, she might join him in dreams.<ref>S:  What happens after?  Annabelle isn’t immortal, I presume.

A:  We’ve talked about that.

T:  I enjoy her company.  If she is strong enough, she will join me in the dreams.  When I visit nightmares unto others, I ride them down.  The great black wolf, the bull, the horse, the brutish man.  They flee, tripping and injuring themselves, climbing to their feet, only to trip again, until they are too battered to stand.  Or they run out of strength and hear my footfalls as they lie there, panting, and then they feel the injuries.  They feel pain, they know terror.  I could see Annabelle there.  A rider astride me, a taunting voice, someone to trip them up one final time, to bar their way.  When we were not riding down our prey, we might roam, visit realms, domains and demesnes freely open to Others.

A:  That sounds like a fun way to spend a few decades or centuries. - Excerpt from Gathered Pages: 2</ref>

Spirit

A person's Spirit is the more abstract parts of them, made up of a complex network of lesser spirits.<ref name=":24" /><ref name=":25" /> The complex spirit of a human, not anything physical, is the part of them that connects with elements of the Practice such as the Sight; like any spirit it tends to latch on to patterns, which can lead to patterns establishing themselves in your Practice.<ref name=":18" />

Examples

Others Created Using Souls

• Evan Matthieu<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":8" />
• Banes<ref name=":5" />
• Revenants<ref name=":3" />
  • Tallowman (probably) <ref name=":3" />
  • Pizza Man<ref name=":4" />
  • Jo Steck<ref name=":16" />
• Nosferatu (possibly)<ref name=":0" />
• Rose Thorburn Junior (possibly)<ref name=":14">“He’s not real,” Rose said, “The diary says as much.  When a man is cut in twain by the shears, the part that retains the heart and soul is female.  He’s… I’m going to need your help.  I’m going to need promises, because we can’t fly blind here.” - Excerpt from Duress 12.5</ref>

Known Soul-Manipulators

• Practitioners
  • The Shepherd (Valkalla)<ref name=":6" />
  • Crone Mara (Heartless)<ref name=":2" />
  • Gail Duchamp's husband (Necromancer)<ref name=":21" /><ref name=":0" /><ref>The other man looked out of place compared to the two guys, who looked very much like bikers who had cleaned themselves up but couldn’t give up the general trappings.  He had neatly parted brown hair, sharp eyes, and a cleft chin that might have been attractive if it wasn’t so pointed.  He wore a scarf and a stylish, form-fitting jacket with four brass buttons arranged in a square, his pants cut to a slim fit, and he carried…
    
    I saw his implement.  A crystal ball with a skull in the center, tucked in the crook of his arm.
    
    Looking at it, I was immediately reminded of the Bane.  The undead thing with scythe-arms.  A tormented soul.
    
    Gail’s husband.  Joyce had separated wife from husband.  She’d done it very deliberately.
    [...]
    Images of faces flickered between the orb-encased skull and the necromancer’s fingertips, as he caressed his implement.
    [...]
    The necromancer reached out, and the images of faces danced out, much like a flash of electricity.  Green Eyes took one to the collarbone, reeled, and then disentangled herself, ducking under a fence - [Excerpt] from Duress 12.8</ref>
  • Gudbrand (Valkalla)<ref name=":22">“Gudbrand,” Joyce said, looking down at the list.
    
    “Valk-something?” I asked.
    
    “Valkalla,” Joyce spoke.
    [...]
    “He was unhappy with the fact that she only bore girls.  Valkyries and the various offshoots, they work with spirits and souls.  Rather than have girls, he used his newborn daughters.”
    
    “As fuel,” I said, just a little spooked at the thought.
    [...]
    That left two options.
    
    The valkyrie man who had turned his own children into fodder for his practice, and the scourge, who dealt specifically with Bogeymen and the Abyss.
    [...]
    I caught sight of the Valkyrie-man.
    [...]
    Unlike Crooked Hat, the Valkalla was undeniably bad. - Excerpt from Execution 13.5</ref>
  • Advanced Astrologers<ref name=":15" />
• Others
  • Conquest (Incarnation)<ref name=":11">Her old mentor offered himself up, to be one of those tragic ghosts in the Lord of Toronto’s manor, buying her safety with his afterlife.  - Excerpt from Collateral 4.10</ref><ref name=":12" />
  • All Nosferatu aka Vampires (possibly)<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":0" />
  • Barbatorem (Demon)<ref name=":14">“He’s not real,” Rose said, “The diary says as much.  When a man is cut in twain by the shears, the part that retains the heart and soul is female.  He’s… I’m going to need your help.  I’m going to need promises, because we can’t fly blind here.” - Excerpt from Duress 12.5</ref><ref name=":13">On a more abstract level, Barbatorem deals a deeper form of damage that is hard to encapsulate in this text.  Rather than state the myriad ways he might harm his victims, this author would suggest a few key points to note, suggesting the wider variety of feats he can accomplish: It is believed that he can sever his target’s ability to access any higher plane, forever and irrevocably denying them whatever good things might await them after death, and he can remove any ability a practitioner has. - Excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref>

References

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