Self

A soul is a person's consciousness or "Self", a bundle of living energies.<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=":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=":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">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> It can be considered a form of complex spirit.<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>

The soul could be compared to DNA, as the "recipe" from which a person is constructed. Lose the soul, and parts of their self will begin to go awry, collapse, or fail to return correctly when lost. Conversely, 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 Trash Souls - answer by Wilbow</ref> Others will sometimes ask for a person's soul as part of a deal in order to render the person vulnerable to possession. Duncan Behaim used a Practitioner bleeding themselves for power until their being was almost gone as an example of soul loss, which may imply that a Practitioner's "personal power" is the same thing as their soul.<ref name=":7" /> The soul or Self is the part of a human 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" />

Self-Care

The soul or self is the person and this can be used as a source of power.<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> Valkyries 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" /> among others.<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>

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 familiar and comfortable places, 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>

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" /><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> A Revenant is 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. Instead, 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> The soul may also be trapped in their ghost,<ref name=":1" /><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=":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=":17" /><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">“Good,” he said.  “Because there’s a loophole in this contest of yours.  Nothing says I have to be loyal or obedient, and as far as I’m concerned, the best way to stop Conquest or his champions from

[...]

“Yeah.  Can you keep my soul or whatever it is out of his 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>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 the 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> 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>

Others and Souls

Examples of 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=":5" /><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><ref name=":52">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.
    
    I put the halves of the doll on the ground. - 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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