User:Asherinka/Sandbox

"The body may die but the soul is ever-lasting."

A soul is an incorporeal essence of a living being. This concept is shared by all known Theodosian cultures. It is sometimes referred to as "spirit"   (unlike a Fade spirit) or "essence".

Origin
"Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls. From these emerald waters doth life begin anew." According to the Chant of Light, the Fade began as an "ocean of dreams" and was reduced to a well when the Maker used it's primeval matter, or "emerald waters", lyrium. He "took from the Fade a measure of its living flesh" and created men. The Maker gifted them with the spark of the divine, a soul made of "dream and idea, hope and fear, endless possibilities."

Asala means soul in Qunlat. The Qunari also call distress caused by traumatic experience asala-taar, or "soul sickness". Tamassrans are tasked with curing it. Little is known of their interpretation of the concept beyond that.

Body and soul
"Bodies are such limiting things."

- Flemeth

In life the soul is tied to a mortal body and thus restricted to a specific form. A notable exception are shapeshifter mages, who can turn into animals. In order to learn each new form such a mage must copy a creature's soul.

The mortal body needs sustenance and will eventually decay and die. One's years can be extended by the lashing of soul to a Fade spirit. The latter can be forcefully bound with blood magic or willingly provide the spark of life and remain a part of the soul. Some elves in uthenera are said to have been able to reach "perfection" and draw sustenance from the Fade. Their bodies no longer required food or water.

A part of the living essence or the soul in its entirety can be placed into an inanimate object. Thus a phylactery is a vessel, often a glass vial, containing the essence of a magical being that is secured with blood magic. . A soul of an arcane warrior was trapped for centuries inside a phylactery found in the Brecilian Ruins Flemeth put a "small piece" of herself inside the amulet that Merrill used atop Sundermount to summon her.

Paragon Caridin created golems by placing a soul of a dwarf inside a stone body. He killed a dwarf at the Anvil of the Void and encased their soul in a newly forged body with the use of lyrium. A magical, not mechanical, process animated the golem.

Dreaming
"From the Fade I crafted you, And to the Fade you shall return Each night in dreams That you may always remember Me."

When a person dreams, their soul temporarily leaves the body and passes into the Fade where it is free to assume any form. Dwarves do not dream and their souls are normally not to be found in that realm. If the souls of the dreaming are harmed or "killed", they return to their sleeping bodies and awaken before the moment of death.

It is possible to enter the Fade through one's mind with magic and remain lucid. Several mages may be required to perform the ritual, with their powers bolstered by lyrium or blood. A single dreamer mage or even an ordinary mage using dreamer techniques can perform the same feat. A soul of any individual can be sent into the Fade this way, including dwarves and golems. However the magic that keeps conscious minds in the Fade also prevents them from returning to their bodies, meaning that they may die in both realms There are known exceptions to this rule, when victims became Tranquil or simply woke up instead.

Sleeping visitors of the Fade realm find their most comforting thoughts under the watchful presence of its benign inhabitants. Spirits of fortitude and compassion weave dreams that strengthen the soul of the waking. Rage, hunger, sloth, desire, and pride, these are the dark parts of the soul that give demons their power, the hooks they use to claw their way into the world of the living.

Trapped souls
"You don't need to go back to that other world. You can stay here."

- Katriel

Demons and some mages can trap unfortunate souls in one of the Fade realms to feed upon them. Victims are bound to exist in an endless dream and are unable to return to their bodies until the captor is defeated. If they linger in the Fade for too long, their body will die. Some souls choose to stay even when free to leave. Yet others appear to get trapped after their deaths.

If a mage is overwhelmed by the demon, the latter can control the body through the captive spirit like a puppet, resulting in an abomination in its most direct meaning. When the demon is defeated in the Fade, the control is broken and the mage's state is reversed. However, the soul is left scarred by the experience and never truly recovers.

Death and afterlife
"Draw your last breath, my friends. Cross the Veil and the Fade and all the stars in the sky. Rest at the Maker's right hand, And be forgiven." The bond between spirit and physical body is generally broken upon death, though it may be preserved with magic Most cultures agree that souls of the dead pass through the Veil and enter the Fade. Even Fade spirits do not know what happens afterwards. They believe there is a place for those souls beyond, but the details are obscured from them.

The Chantry teaches that the faithful rest at the Maker's side. Until the Golden City turned black, the spirits of the dead gathered in it. Since then they journey to a realm beyond the Fade to join the Maker instead.

The southern Avvar believe in a hazily defined afterlife governed by "the Lady of the Skies" where the dead are reunited with their kin.

The Qunari believe the Fade is the Land of the Dead. Entering this realm while still alive is forbidden by the Qun. Its tenets emphasize that existence is a choice, and one can refuse it.

Unlike all other races, dwarves believe that in death the spirits of the worthy return to and rest in the Stone after the words of a ritual are said. They become the Ancestors who guide and care for their descendants for eternity as well as make the Stone stronger.

mortalitasi

Lost Souls
Some cultures elaborate that not all souls are worthy of the afterlife.

The sinners are lost, returning to the ether from which they were formed when they enter the Fade. The Chantry says the rest are left to wander as lost souls.

Leliana: Only those who are worthy are brought to the Maker's side. So many other sad souls are left to wander in the void, hopeless and forever lost. Morrigan: And what evidence of this have you? I see only spirits, no wandering ghosts of wicked disbelievers.

They believed a dead man could become lost on his way to the Maker’s side, forever adrift in a land of shadow. They said the dead passed through the Fade on their way to the Maker’s side, and sometimes lost their way. Perhaps she was a ghost.

Unquiet spirits of the dead, shades are the remnants of lost souls that have slipped across from the Fade into the mortal world. They have no true memories of ever being alive, only a yawning emptiness and a sense of what they’ve lost that leads them to seek out living beings. At first they merely gaze upon them from the shadows, but soon enough they begin to envy the living and covet their lives. As their malice grows, they start draining the life energy of others, sapping away their spirits merely by drawing near them.

According to the dwarven legend, the profane are cursed dwarven souls so corrupted that, in death, even the Stone refused to take them back. Forced to wander the Deep without rest, they fed upon the energy of the lyrium veins and their hunger grew. What I thought was rubble gathered beneath my feet, taking a terrible form: a beast of stone surrounding the shattered skeleton of a man. A rock wraith. The spirit of a dwarf so foul the Stone itself rejected him. <> Perhaps, in the end, it felt remorse. Perhaps it was one lost soul recognizing another.

Souls and spirits
"Our mistakes make us who we are."

- Isabela

While purpose and relevance are paramount to a Fade spirit, experiences and memories thereof are what defines a soul. Unable to experience life themselves, demons seek out the dreaming in the Fade and draw sustenance from their memories. . They copy and thus preserve frozen moments that form vast oceans, containing not water, but memories.

Races of Thedas devised more accurate ways to preserve their experiences. Ancient elves recorded their memories in the Shattered Library before entering uthenera. They developed close relationships with spirits whom they called "their brothers of the air". Spirits acted as keepers of knowledge and teachers. As each servant of Mythal reached the end of their years, they would pass their knowledge on through the Well of Sorrows. Dwarves store their Memories in lyrium.

Darkspawn and Old Gods
The mage-lords were cast back into the mundane world as the first darkspawn, say the Chantry’s texts, their souls corrupted.

Darkspawn are believed to be soulless.

An archdemon cannot be killed conventionally because its spirit simply passes to the nearest soulless darkspawn to be reborn whenever its body is destroyed. But the Grey Warden, a tainted being, may also draw the archdemon’s spirit. The Warden who delivers the deathblow thus tricks the creature’s soul into their own body – ending the Blight, but with fatal results for both.

It resembled a dragon in outward form, but no dragon was ever so terrible within. Darkness crackled around it, and darkness was its soul.

Archdemons are reborn if killed by someone other than a Grey Warden, their essences leaping to a nearby darkspawn. It is the presence of the Grey Warden that prevents this, their body trapping the soul of the beast, killing them both.

The Archdemon’s death had only forced its soul to relocate into the body of another nearby darkspawn, whose form it then twisted back into the shape it preferred. <> Then their Order proposed that the Wardens’ subtle ties to the darkspawn might prove to be Thedas’s salvation. If Dumat were slain by a Grey Warden, they proposed, then the Old God’s dying spirit would rush into the Warden’s body. Since a Warden’s body already has a soul (as opposed to the soulless darkspawn), the resulting paradox would destroy both Warden and Archdemon. <> They have observed that Grey Wardens not otherwise slain in battle or strife are able to resist the slow corruption of their souls for about thirty years.

In this place we prepare to hunt the pillars of the earth. Their workers scurry, witless, soulless. This death will be a mercy. We will make the earth blossom with their passing. Codex entry: Old Elven Writing