Talk:Souls/@comment-4074516-20170924185301

Thoughts I had, kept for legacy purposes

((Regarding the spark, I am faced with a decision - will there only be beings other than the first divine after The Shattering or already before it? (The Shattering being an event in which one or more of the divine split their soul and implanted the shattered sparks into mortal life. I am thinking about making it some kind of Lucifer's fall type of story, perhaps with a lord of souls before Aesturex being the one to cause the Shattering due to his discontent with God's rules, or perhaps with the other divine's nature etc. It doesn't have to be a lord of souls, of course, as it could just as well be a single, powerful divine, that was pissed at the lord of souls for not allowing his creation to have immortal souls as well, leading him to sacrifice himself)

Or would the lord of souls have been able / willing to create further sparks before The Shattering occured? Would he have been able to do so of his own volition, or only within God's commands (even if his developed will went against them), or only after direct communication with God? Or would only God have been able to create new sparks, considering that they are mana manipulators? For that I would need to know whether sparks are created from mana or directly from creation.

Them being able to be created from mana would mean that theoretically a skilled enough magic user would be able to create new sparks with enough mana, however, that could simply be circumvented by saying that sparks are borderline / completely impossible to create for anyone but the lord of souls or maybe a few chosen other divines. (Perhaps due to enormous mana requirements, enormous intellect requirements, understanding about the nature of souls beyond what anyone but him could know, or due to the inherently non-neutral nature of most sparks, or perhaps it is ingrained in the universe as a form of law, which would be borderline impossible to bend unless you were to use insane amounts of mana, maybe multiple of the previously stated possibilities)

Them being direct results of creation would perhaps make them being able to mold mana feel a bit more legitimate, but perhaps also not. I am unsure how to put this down into written words. Should they be able to be created from mana it would also be possible to create something else with the ability to attract and manipulate mana from mana, shouldn't it? Or would anything with these capabilities count as a spark, but perhaps as an incomplete one in some cases? Could a skilled enough mage created a semi-spark, that would act as a sort of mana-magnet, or perhaps a tool to channel mana through that would automatically provoke a certain effect? (Esentially an artificial soul that can only manipulate mana in one way)

Would sparks being able to be only created directly from creation take away these possibilities? I feel that the above ideas could make for good plots and interesting types of magic, and I don't want to limit them. With sparks only being able to be created by God directly, or perhaps with the initial sparks being the only one's intended, that would add an interesting limited-rescources dynamic to the soul business perhaps.

I can imagine that maybe, every once in a while, a new divine has to be shattered (read: sacrificed) by the lord of souls so that new sparks are available for the ever increasing mortal population. Maybe Heirir could be worked into this as well then, or rather, it has to be worked in, as it would be the eternal residence for the shattered spark shards of the originally divine beings, who are now splintered and possibly corrupt.

Alternatively, maybe once a resident of Heirir choses to let go of their life and memories once and for all (read: has come to terms with death) their spark will reincarnate. Perhaps it would carry minor residues of its previous owner (which might or might not cause flashbacks to previous lifes for the new owner, or perhaps it could help their magical abilities somewhat to have an "old soul"? That might be an interesting plot-point).

These traces could also be a possible answer for the question asked in the next paragraph - a soul pieced together from various shattered and changed sparks would never be the same as the original, and would possibly even create a being whose entire existence is pain due to its soul being glued together from puzzle pieces that don't fit anymore.

Another possible question would be why the shattered divines are not pieced together again after death. Perhaps there are strict requirements to be met for that piecing together to happen, such as the souls now attached to the sparks all being willing, the spark shards all being gathered and not being corrupted by their use by mortals. I can imagine that the lord of souls would be able to circumvent these requirements somewhat, but perhaps it simply doesn't pay to do so, or perhaps it goes against his own morals.

Or perhaps Heirir and the demons are needed as a balance to deal with the demonic essence that has arisen through the misuse of the sparks by mortals (because I imagine demonic essence to be produced whenever mana is used by someone without a complete spark, and especially when the usage of mana opposses the spark's nature)

Perhaps I could just keep things super simple instead and retcon The Shattering from ever occuring. So far I haven't mentioned it in any rp, oneshot etc. so there would be no conflict there to rip my hair out about. If the Shattering didn't occur I would of course need a different explanation where the spark that humans had comes from. Maybe I could just say that after a certain point of sentience (sapience) a creature or perhaps rather a species develops a spark.

Of course, it would be difficult to judge when this point is reached, especially when the young of a species that does possess sparks may simply not have fully developed brains yet and, as such, would be cognitively inferior to grown members of a species that does not possess a spark. Why should an infant have a spark, but not a gorilla? This also brings up the question of whether or not infants and the like even have a spark, or if they only get it later in life.

Because, realistically, a toddler does not have the mental capabilities of a fully functioning human - it takes months for them to even recognize themselves in the mirror. If they die, they would likely simply be stripped off the few memories they do have and be reeincarnated. However, what if a family with a really young kid dies and ends up in the underworld, would their child be simply taken away and reeincarnated? That seems rather harsh. Would they receive some kind of illusion / homunculus child to fool them while the real one is long gone?

Perhaps human souls already exist fully developed and the body and physical mind simply need time adjusting to them. Perhaps I will simply get rid of the concept of sparks entirely and say that only humans and other species like them have souls at all, which are assigned at birth by the lord of souls. That would however require me to asspull some explanation for all life attracting mana. Or perhaps it is not all life that attracts mana after all, but really just humans? This would make draining the environment or using very life-rich environments as magic casting grounds invalid though.))