Self

A soul is a person's consciousness or "self", a bundle of living energies.<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><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> It is normally carried on to the afterlife after death by certain Others,<ref name=":2" /> but may remain trapped in their ghost or corpse in unusual circumstances,<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><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><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> or be captured by a Practitioner or Other.<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><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>

A soul 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, among others.<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" />

Blake Thorburn 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.” - Collateral 4.12</ref> Others such as Demons 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 themself 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" />

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. - quote from Duress 12.3 </ref>

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" />
• Nosferatu (possibly)<ref name=":0" />
• Rose Thorburn Junior (possibly)<ref>“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>

References

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