soul

CW: discussion of human remains

Classification

Most philosophers belive, that the souls of animals, humans, giants, lower spirit beings and the gods are categorically different. Thus they can be classified based on the species that they belong to, and this helps in understanding their properties.

Human souls

Human souls can be considered semi-immortal. When a person dies, the soul is first separated from the body, and becomes a táldar, wandering soul. The most of the mental characteristics of an individual seem to be contained in the soul, because the mortals continue their rational and social interactions after death much as they did in life. The soul can wander around invisibly, but still retains some connection to it's former body during this stage.

After some months or years the soul fades. During this process the soul forgets all the memories of its past life, and finally passes in Waumin, the land of the death. It is told, that the demons known as the Herd of the Underworld grind up the bones of the death, permanently separating the souls from the bodies. The souls wander in the Waumin, for an unknown time, serving Ulalte the lord of the death. They have lost their memories, but still retain some traces of their personality, and might act according to their previous position or profession. Thus the souls still need to pass through the waters of forgetting, before they can be reborn.

Giant souls

Giant souls go through a process of direct rebirth. If the body of a giant is killed, the soul can move freely, and find a suitable mass of matter to animate, and form it into its new body. The giant souls don't seem to lose their memories or sense of self in the process. Giant souls are how ever susceptible to the magic of greystone, and their souls can be permanently killed by greystone blades, such as the mythical Skyswords.

Necromancy

Souls are highly sought after resource both by necromancers and their foul purposes, as well as by the Wild Spirits that seek to devour them. Most souls, however, are well protected by their living family members. Of these traditions, refer to: Faren funerary traditions and Clothing the ancestors.

The Soul-body problem

The connection between the soul and the body has always fascinated the philosophers. While the táldar seem to be free to move anywhere, some force seems to connect them to their previous body, and they prefer to continue dwelling near it. However, the old dead can continue living in the lands of the mortals even after their body has degraded completely.

A fascinating tool for research is the Greystone, that seems to have unique capabilities of interacting with souls. The most commonly known, is the fact that greystone weapons can directly kill the soul of their victim.

Usually the soul leaves the body only after death. However, rare cases of soulessness have been reported, where the body of an individual continues to live after the soul has separated from it. Typically this causes the body to remain in a unresposive state of sleep, and unable to feed, it withers away soon. Sometimes this is caused by non-fatal woulns by greystone weapons: the weapon has caused the soul to die, but not yet the body. However, controversial accounts have reported cases where the normal physical activity of the body has continued, just without the soul.