Andrew Janssen wrote: > The Nature of Souls and their Fates > ----------------------------------- > While humans are largely creatures of the material world, Celandra, they > are possessed of a portion of the spirit world, the Dreaming. That > portion is what is called "the soul". Souls are initially created raw > and unformed from the essence of the Dreaming by the god Coron. The soul > is bound to a body, and the unformed soul is gradually shaped and formed > by its life-experiences in Celandra. Exquaestio believes that the production of new souls is not dependent on a particular deity. Were Coron to be removed, new souls would still occur. > At the moment of the death of the material body, the soul is collected > by a coriel, a psychopompic (soul-escorting) servant of Coron. Different types of these entities are mentioned in _The Book of Travels_. When a person dies and his soul is in danger, Fvalrie appear to protect it. Lugan guide souls to their ultimate destination. Ashtra take souls involuntarily from the living (but may have all been destroyed the gods). Semrithe can force a disembodied soul or spirit into the Dreaming. (It's a bit unclear whether Semrithe are extremely rare, whether Feroze is reluctant to send them, or whether their actions are mostly unnoticed.) A related spirit is the Dvas, which gathers the prayers of the living so that they may be answered by the divine hierarchy. Supposedly every community of Questae has a Dvas associated with it, paralleling, but not dependent on, the anradan. > The soul > is taken to the Halls of Judgment, where Coron and Lucia dwell. Coron > judges whether the soul's life-experiences have completed its formation, > or if potential for growth or change remains to be tapped; Lucia then > passes judgment on the moral state of the soul. A soul's fate is > determined by the judgments of these two gods. Led by a Lugan the newly deceased soul enters the Dreaming. There it will encounter tests and trials which determine its final destination. These tests and trials are necessary because the soul, unaffected by a physical body, is significantly different from the soul+body combination. Final destinations include existence in a god's realm, continuing travel through the Dreaming, reincarnation, or even return to the physical world as undead. (Feroze prefers the first, accepts the second, and tries to prevent the third and fourth. The details of what happens when Coron wants to reincarnate a questae are unknown.) This view of the judging process is not incompatible with Cedonian beliefs. The difference lies in "where" the judging process occurs; which most will admit is probably inexplicable to the living. > Souls whom Lucia finds to have led lives that were either good or > neither good nor evil, and that Coron finds to be incomplete or > unfinished, are reincarnated. This is often the fate of those who die as > children or adolescents, or whose initial life was in a body that was > severely handicapped in some way, or who otherwise died untimely deaths. > The gods are patient; Coron will reincarnate a soul as many times as is > necessary to complete it. As long as some aspect of the soul retains a > capacity for growth, it will cycle through incarnations. The current belief (not backed by a story in _The Book of Travels_) in Exquaestio is that if a soul followed a particular deity in life, that deity will participate in the judgment. In some areas (the Northern Free Cities) this is in addition to Lucia, in most it is instead of her. As Feroze disapproves of reincarnation, the relationship between the gods can be adversarial. > The unfinished soul of someone who led an immoral or evil life is also > reincarnated. However, Lucia will not let an evil soul go unpunished. > The souls of those who were evil in their past life are generally > reincarnated into circumstances where, it is hoped, they will learn the > virtues of empathy and compassion. "That those born in poor circumstances are there because of actions in previous lives should not be simply accepted, even if true." (direct quote from _The Book of Travels_; additionally, several stories touch on the pernicious influence of this belief.) [remainder snipped. While there are divergences, they are probably no greater than the local variations in Cedonia.] (Hmmm, I think I now have enough for an Exquaestio philosophy page.) Jefferson (Exquaestio) http://www.picotech.net/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
