Soul beads are a product of pure energy. They have many uses as a magical battery of sorts, powering many artifacts and are required for the activation of warforged and automatons.
Discovery
In an effort to create weapons that matched the power of magic, an artificer by the name of
Calyne Jayne Duskfeather went in search of a power source. In her travels, she found a vein of crystals that had been lodged into the earth from one of the
Planar Fluxes. Solidified energy from the ethereal plane had the potential to fulfill her needs and was abundant in the
Greymist Mountains.
Much to her disappointment, the shards of crystal proved too unstable. Most of the weapons and devices she created would explode when stressed. With a new idea in mind, the artificer would go on to modify an arcane energy condensor to draw from the ethereal plane rather than the material plane. Her research would eventually be halted due to the unethical implications. Many scholars and clergymen were concerned that in the layman's terms the devise would be harvesting souls for power. The project would go untouched for several years until the life of someone she loved was fading.
Going back into her project with earnest to save a life, Calyne Jayne would end up building a mechanical body in hopes of extracting the soul to transfer to the new body. The device did extract something. A small sphere roughly the size of a large marbel appeared. Like the shards, it had all of the same energy stored inside, however, when put into the body that had been build, the automaton that awoke did not have the same memories or personality. The bead alone was enough to power the mechanical construct and emmitted enough power that there was no telling how long the construct would last.
Regardless, since it had failed to save the person, Calyne Jayne called the invention a failure and her research and schematics would be abandoned.
Use in Malgrave
Eventually these pieces of research and schematics would be found by a ruthless warlord,
Baracus Krieg. Impressed with the design of the more complex memory core, he would order an army be built to serve him while he conquered Colotan. While the mechanical soldiers would be built to the exact specifications, they still only functioned as golems and constructs. While the craftsmen had been using crystals from elemental planes that contained more power, it eventually became apparent that they did not possess the same type of spiritual energy that could make use of the complex memory core.
Soul beads would be produce in mass for several decades, used to power the warforged Warlord Krieg had built. They would also be set into armor and weapons to project barriers and bypass defenses repectively. They were even being used to propel projectiles from weapons as small as a hand crossbow to the largest sized siege weapons. Designs were even made up for magically driven war machines, however, it seemed without proper mechanical bodies, these would become possessed and haunt their makers, bringing an early end to Krieg's campaign.
There are still many out there, scattered across the world from the warlord's conquest, but the creation of more has been outlawed due to the sentience that the soul beads bring to whatever they are used to power.
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