Reforged
The Reforged are members of the Forgist or Knappist faith who believe, whether as a philosophical stance or due to personal religious experiences, that they have been reincarnated.
Transmission & Vectors
The belief that one is Reforged may stem from genuine religious beliefs and experiences, with reveries induced by psychoactive drug consumption being particularly conducive to such experiences. Exposure to concepts from Rostran Esotericism may also increase the odds that one may come to identify as Reforged - though, just as often, it may produce a full conversion to Knappism instead of, or in addition to, newfound Reforged beliefs. The common thread is that all Reforged are somehow connected to the Forgist faith or its offshoots.
Causes
Generally, Reforged do not manifest any obvious signs of pre-existing mental illness, though the belief necessarily puts one at odds with those with more objective views of the world. Becoming Reforged may be a matter of choice, deliberation, epiphany, or some subconsious rejection of hard Linearism.
A rare (but annoyingly visible) few chose to wear the title of Reforged as a means of gathering attention or covering for some sort of grift. The 'Reforged sooth-sayer' is a common cover identity for con artists in Petalcap Vale or Godshead Rock. Such scamsters typically target unwary non-verdial tourists with promises of transcendant knowledge from beyond the veil of death - for a small fee, of course, 'to pay the reaper's tax.' Such practices are considered distasteful by most Vale citizens, but the law has yet to come down on the practice in any meaningful way. it is generally accepted among observers that, if an individual expresses the belief that they are Reforged and doesn't regularly try to turn a profit on this identity (i.e. via 'seances'), then they most likely hold a genuine belief that they are Reforged.
Some Reforged do genuinely manifest signs of delusional psychosis, such as mania, personality disorders, or schizoid disorders. In these cases, Reforged beliefs become entangled with other aspects of the underlying disorders. For example, certain sufferers of Folded Hands Syndrome arrived at their depressed states due in part to a belief that, since they were denied the opportunity to leave the Manifold at the end of their last life, there was no reason to continue fighting their inevitable imprisonment within the Manfold; for these unfortunate individuals, being Reforged creates a state of learned helplessness.
Show spoiler
Some Reforged actually do have fragmentary memories of previous cycles spent within the Manifold. While The White-Haired Gentleman and his trusted compatriots in The Waiting Room are usually very rigorous in locking away such memories when a person dies - leaving their blanks clean in preparation for rebirth into the Manifold - the ancestral memories of the The Curved Time shared across all extant cultures in the world show that this process is by no means perfect.
Symptoms
A small number of Reforged describe dreams in which they existed in a previous time period. Others express a sense of deja-vu in situations that should be otherwise completely unfamiliar. The rarest, most impressive, and convincing feats of Reforged individuals involve verifiable statements of fact which, barring some previously undisclosed travels, involve people, places, and events which the Reforged would otherwise have no way of knowing of.
Treatment
Reforgist beliefs borne out of mental illness often fade when the underlying condition is treated. Patients are often uncomfortable to face the manifestations of their mental illnesses, and may require additional therapy and support to get over their feelings of discomfort over these experiences.
The Verdant Order regards Reforged as abberant with regards to the 'pure' state of Verdial psychology and often agitate for the belief system itself to be regarded as a form of mental illness. This view is of the minority among verdials as of the year 10,000 AR. Most regard Reforged as a 'new age' strain of Forgists and harmless (if eccentric) curiosities at worst. As a consequence of this majority view, however, Reforged are sometimes subject to proselytization by more orthodox Forgists and Knappists seeking to correct their doctrinal 'misunderstandings.' Such religious interventions are rarely effective at converting a Reforged, with lower success rates the earlier in life one adopts the Reforgist beliefs.
Affected Groups
Most Reforged are verdials, though some Rostrans and a rare few humans are also Reforged. Ovinex are not known to express Reforgist beliefs; the notion that one's spirit might live on through the flock is firmly ingrained in the Unnamed Ovinex Religion and, thus, it is not considered unusual for an ovinex to unwittingly re-enact behaviors and preferences that one's ancestors showed in their own times.
Cultural Reception
Reforged face a small amount of hostility from other ardent Forgists. Belief in the reality of Reforging - a Vale Verdial idiom for reincarnation - is an Epicyclist position; Forgism is distinctly Linearist, though not to the zealous degree of the Church of the Unexpected.
More secular members of Vale Verdial society scoff at Reforgist beliefs for the simple fact that there are more mundane explainations for knowledge of events removed in space and time from the believer's current circumstances. For example, radio communications and the RadNet have rendered the many cubes of the Manifold more interconnected than ever before. It is always possible, skeptics argue, that one might have simply heard an interesting story in passing and become infautated with it or simply formed false memories around it. Dedicated skeptics often dig deeply into the backgrounds of those Reforged who seek to turn a profit on their 'condition,' often revealing charlatanry or, sometimes, a history of real delusions of grandeur.
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