Soul Chip

A Conscience is the Soul of a person donated to the Temple during the final days of their life. When the moment of death comes, the Saints-Servant in attendance takes the holy incense and captures the deceased’s spirit as it tries to flee its body. It is sealed away inside a vial, to prevent it from entering the afterlife. It is then forged into a tiny amulet, which can be inserted under the skin, just behind our ears. This helps it to fuse with our own shadows. They’re meant to help us make good decision and remind us not to make bad ones.

— Fyodor Ordesky, as quoted in The Sorrow of Souls, Book One: Harbinger

Emerging from the butchery of the Great Confiscation (850HE) and the savagery of the Hubraic Wars, humankind was weakened and jaded. They did not expect the revelations that surfaced with the Resurrection of the Throwbacks (7SGC). Having set out in some futile bid for revenge, desperate to slay the shameless hominids that had allowed countless generations of humans to worship them as deities, the Saeric people learned of the horrific realities that had unfolded in the Spiritual Realm. The Raven had overthrown the cthonic fertility godess, the Phoenix, and transformed Her kingdom into a pit of torment and torture. The Throwbacks warned mankind that the only chance they had of not falling into the Raven's clutches was to find a way to stop the Souls of their dead from leaving life.
Years passed. Countless Souls were loss to the talons of the Raven and His dread minions. Finally, a solution was discovered: not only was it possible to trap a Soul inside a tiny glass vial, but a human Soul could be fused with the Shadow of a living person, transforming the incoporeal mass into a sentient being. With that, the most important relic of the Raskvaerii Faith - the human Conscience - was borne.

Welcoming A Conscience

"As is the right of all Kredasene, you have rejected the holiest gift any mortal can receive of the Saints: you have chosen not to welcome a Conscience into your shadow. Do you accept all this to be true?”

“I do.”

— Radimir Ekhorin and Chazley Dunheuvelin, as quoted in The Sorrow of Souls, Book One: Harbinger

The method of infusing a Reliquaried Soul into a Soul Chip is a closely-guarded secret. This knowledge is rumoured to be known only by a reclusive sect within the Mother Temple, whose name is not common knowledge even amongst the Saints-Servants. Conversely, the process of inserting a Soul Chip into the human body is fully understood and well-documented on the skin of the faithful themselves.
From the age of ten, children are expected to choose a Patron Saints, and welcome a Conscience into their Shadow. This surgical

A diagram highlighting the customary place to embed a Conscience by Henry Gray (1872) editted by Caitlin Phillips

procedure is carried out under a general anesthetic either in the Mother Temple or other licensed, smaller temples. The Soul Chip is inserted under the skin behind the child's right ear. While the majoirty of these operations are carried out on children and adolescents, the expansion of the Raskvaeric Empire has prompted a rise in converts to the faith in the Holy Chorus of Saints. The welcoming of Conscience by adults and elders is now an accepted practice in the modern era.

Conscience by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen

Appearance

The process of fusing the Soul of an honoured dead with the shadow of a believer has a profound affect on the appearance of that person's shadow. The shadow is transformed from simply a dark area where light from any light source is blocked by the opaque object that is its master's body. Instead, the Shadow takes on the shape of its host's physical form. Its body is incorporeal and appears to be made from a dark mist, although none but the host can derive any sensation from attempting to touch the Shadow.

Communication with Consciences

Consciences are devoid of facial features, including mouths, which makes it impossible for oral speech. For this reason, a formal sign language has been developed in order to allow Conscience to communicate with their hosts and others. This language is called Shadow Sign, and is generally believed to have been inspired by an early form of sign language used by deaf individuals in the Raskvaerii capital of Latharin at the start of the new era.
The impact of Shadow Sign is complex and, in some countries, problematic. On one hand, the widespread instruction in Shadow Sign across the Raskvaerii Empire has meant that communication barriers for people with various audiological conditions have been largely removed over the past two-hundred years. However, other Saeric countries have exprienced the sytematic supression of their native sign languages in favour of Shadow Sign. This is a point of bitter contention for these Saeric Deaf Cultures whose members do not worship the Holy Chorus of Saints, and do not want to use a language so heavily steeped in Raskvaerii culture and religion.