Jefferson Wilson wrote: >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. > > > I assume that the usual caveat applies? But, see below also. >>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. > > > Cedonians would probably interpret Lugans and coriels as being the same, in essence. Coron would be an implacable enemy to the Ashtra, as he is to any being that would interfere with a soul's progress from life to death and back again. Coron also is the foe of those who would try to call the souls of the dead back to Celandra for their own gain--necromancers who try to raise a dead king to find where he hid his treasure, for example. >>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.) > > > Coron and Lucia probably would never judge the soul of a questae--they are only concerned with the souls of adherents to the Cedonian Church or related faiths. While the laity believe that Coron creates all souls, the inner circles of the church suspect that he is only responsible for the souls of those who worship one of the Cedonian pantheon, and that other gods of other peoples may also create souls. Also, 'creation' is perhaps not the best way to describe what Coron does with souls--it would, perhaps, be more appropriate to describe the process as adjusting the potential soul so that it can join properly with the material body. If a questae soul were to stand before Coron and Lucia, assuming that it followed the dictates of Exquaestio, it would have no problem passing Lucia's judgment, and probably would pass Coron's scrutiny as well. However, while Coron will try to respect Exquaestio's beliefs on reincarnation, if he feels that the soul is seriously lacking in some aspect, he will send it back. This would only likely happen, however, with a questae who has done an extremely poor job of following his or her religion's tenets >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. > > > Cedonian thought is that the other gods do not pass judgment on the dead; it is not their province. They may advise, but Coron and Lucia have the last word. The criteria that Coron uses to judge souls are largely beyond human comprehension; no-one really knows how he decides that this soul needs another incarnation, while that soul is completed after a single life. It is believed by some that the criterion is material accomplishments in life, but most believe that what Coron is interested in is whether or not a soul realized its potential. Coron himself will say nothing on the matter, nor will his servants answer questions on the matter On the other hand, Lucia's criteria are much easier to understand. Did the soul's acts in life promote justice or injustice? Did the soul in life treat other people as the living, thinking, feeling beings that they are; or did the soul act selfishly, without regard for the humanity of others? Was the soul honest more often than not? When the soul acted in ways that brought harm to others, did it feel remorse and regret for the suffering it caused, or were its feelings of regret simply the regret of having been caught? Did the soul in life try to recompense those it injured and help those in need, or did it solely look out for itself, hardening its heart to others' pain? >>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.) > > > Cedonians do not believe that evil souls are always reborn in poor circumstances, they believe that evil souls are reincarnated into circumstances where they can learn compassion. It's a fine distinction, but the two are not necessarily the same. The important thing is that the reincarnations of those who were evil in past lives are closely monitored by the gods. The Cedonian gods enjoy the challenge of trying to teach a person who has everything to be understanding of, and compassionate towards, those who have nothing--an evil soul is as likely to be reborn as a merchant prince's heir or a yeoman farmer's son, as it is to be reborn as a slave or a beggar's brat.. Their interventions are subtle, often through dreams--they prefer the nudge to the shove. There have been occasions, however, where persons who were wasting their potential, or who had ignored the more subtle warnings of the gods, received the divine equivalent of a boot to the head. The patience of the gods is nearly infinite; but their tolerance for willful stupidity is not. Note also that Cedonians do not believe that human souls are ever reincarnated in animal bodies--they believe that a human soul wouldn't "fit" properly in an animal, nor vice versa. That's not to say that they believe that animals are soulless, only that animals possess souls of a different nature. Andrew >[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. > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
