How do you soul?

What is soul, and what does it do in your universe?

For my setting souls are the catalyst for changes to occur. Only things with souls can permanently affect the world. Souls are constant things but only get to be alive in the world for so long before they must begin the cycle anew. Necromancy is thus considered bad as it prevents a soul from continuing its cycle.

The first gods created souls so that the world changes in ways they could not predict. After they left the lesser gods arose. The lesser gods found they could use the souls of the departed as a source of power while the souls are transitioning from death back to life. This process erases a souls memory of its past.

In my universe, souls are an intrinsic connection between dynamic entities (things that change) and the generative principle of the cosmos. That which caused the universe to become, also caused each component part of it to become as well. But not just in a material sense. There are nonphysical cosmic dimensions that encompass the physical universe, and the original generative principle comes out of those nonphysical dimensions. This shared spiritual essense is what connects all enspirited things.

In my work, souls are the atrophied vestiges of the primordial power locked within the consciousness of mortals. When mortals die, their souls change them into revenants bound to their remains. Souls are becoming less powerful and will eventually cease to exist unless they are preserved by way of sorcery. When revenants perish, their souls cease to exist.

in the regional gods setting, souls are one of the 3 things that a living being is composed of; the body, mind and soul.

when the body dies, the mind is shattered and the soul is tethered to the body with but a fragment of the mind intact. it remains tethered to the body until a new moon occurs, at which point the soul will rise into the abyss and thusly be devoured by the hollow god Enrh. it's believed by most who even know of it, and supported to some degree by evidence, that souls devoured by Enrh eventually reincarnate into the fish swimming in the luminescent lake deep below Enrh's territory.

of course, Enrh isnt the only god to touch souls in some way. Sancrst fully expects the Old Guard to take their dying to his territory, but what he actually does with the deceased is preserve the body and soul, denying Enrh a new moon meal, and allowing him to transform the dead into dragons at his leisure. In general, preventing Enrh from taking a soul is quite difficult, but possible under the right circumstances and not just by the other gods. As for what the soul actually does, well it acts as that intrinsic part of what makes a person what they are; there exist creatures created from the body and as much of the mind as could be preserved, but lack the soul. Even if they retain their personality or memories or appearance, someone interacting with them will just instinctively know something is missing and understand its not really the person they knew. conversely, creatures made from the soul but lacking the body or the mind can be instinctively recognized as the person that soul came from, despite lacking any of the overt traits associated with them. (incidentally, free will is tied to the mind rather than the soul, and as such the latter type of creature is very much a puppet for whatever created it)

Edited by Tarsen on Oct 23rd 2018 at 10:41:50 AM

My universe doesn't have souls as such but it does have magic. All organic life is based on the usual biological foundations but on top of that they have "life force", an energy contained within a creature. Life force is required to live, loss of all life force results in the stopping of all vital functions and thus death. For most purposes life force can be treated as the equivalent of a "conventional" soul, minus the mystical component that souls usually carry.
If enough life force is piled into a single spot, that life force will become sentient and as opposed to life force in organic beings can also take in an element (for example fire), resulting in an elemental creature. The creature's power and intellect depend on how much life force it has. Organic beings do not rely on their life force to be intelligent.
Magic is the result of the controlled conversion from life force to elemental energy, which in theory any human can do (and only humans, the mental capacity required for magic is significant). However most humans do not have enough life force to cast any meaningful spells, the ones that do have more (over a hundred times over the average) are considered mages. When a mage first taps into their power, their life force "activates" and promptly becomes sentient while still being bound to the mage's body. The process of becoming a proper mage involves binding the will of your life force into your own.