What does it mean to be alive in the Realms?

[Overread]

So I got to thinking more about this and about how Souls work in AoS and I've hit some gaps in my understanding! 

 

First up its clear that mortal and immortal races in AoS have both souls and bodies and that souls hold a form (even if etherial) which can be captured, preserved, modified and used again. Alongside that we've got Chaos who appear to operate with their own rules and system and yet appear able to influence souls to such an extent that torment and mutation can spread through a normal soul into affecting its host body. Both with and without the long lasting taint of Chaos (ergo suggesting that Chaos taint and influence are separate things - one can be tainted by chaos but not influenced*)

It would also appear that in the AoS setting the souls of the dead travel down to Nagash once their mortal bodies fail them and that Nagash holds all the dead within his realm**.

 

Now if I recall right the Realms already had several races within them before those that fled the old world came to the various Realms. Those that fled and their souls appear to have pushed their way in and whilst men dominate; other races have come to rise up to hold their own territories. 

 

Now into all this we have several interesting elements. First up we've got Aelves, who appear to have fled to the Realms in very few numbers, with the bulk of them being consumed by Slaanesh. As a result it seems that their populations were critically low to begin with. However the Aelf gods/demigods rose to such power as that once Morathi showed them how to influence Slaanesh; they were able to capture the dark prince of excess and to start harvesting the souls trapped within him. 

Interestingly these souls are not left to drift to Nagash and die as normal, but are instead held in limbo and then pushed into bodies formed by those same Aelf godlike beings. To be pressed back into life. These attempts are not perfect; the Idoneth are damaged and it appears that whilst the initial block of them had souls; they cannot always if ever create new souls when they create new life; instead they get a half-alive creature that has no soul within it. It is alive and not considered undead; but until it has a soul sucked from another, it lives in a half-life state. 

 

This in itself raises the first curious question - mind or soul. The Stormcast and how they are reborn would suggest that the Soul of a person preserves their memories and traits as a person. Although it would seem many remember their Stormcast lives better than their former life (which would suggest Sigmar is doing something to their souls between Reforgings which might in itself be why some start to crack under the continual pressure).

Yet the Idoneth suggest that the body houses such elements as they appear perfectly capable of living (to an extent) without a soul. Furthermore they consume souls of other people and yet they remain Idoneth. I don't know if the Battletome goes into any more depth on that subject or not; it would be good to know. Furthermore there's no great mention of the first Idoneth having memory of their former life (again the Battletome might go into more depth)

 

Then we come to the subject of factions like the Daughter's of Khaine; who appear to have all female Khinerai and Melusai, probably due to Morathi's greater distrust of males and of how she forges their newbodies. To these souls, like those of the Idoneth, it would seem there are no memories passed to these new bodies of their former life. At least there is no mention in the Battletome of their memories and all are described as if fresh living creatures. There's also no development on if there are any males created through this process and thus if Morathi is breeding both species; or if both can interbreed with regular aelves and either pass on their mutation or not (which begs the question again of where body and soul divide on their influence in the creation of new souls and bodies). 

 

So we have Stormcast, Idoneth and Daughters of Khaine. In addition there are at least two more Aelven factions to come who have souls from Slaanesh within their ranks and thus might have more insight into how souls work within the realms. 

 

However there is one more question. What makes one undead in these realms. In the old world Undead was very specific in that it was a physical and soul state of being. In these Realms the waters appear muddied and it might even be that to be undead one must serve Nagash whilst those who have their souls preserved and reforged by Sigmar are not "undead" even though they might bare all the same hallmarks. It could be an interesting plot element as the lore develops; especially if/when we see groups such as Vampires take centre stage once more as undead-hate is often very rife and common within the living factions; thus it could be complicating if they are technically allied to with sort of undead aelves and stormcast!

 

*As proven by the mutations of Khinerai, Melusai and Morathi who are all chaos tainted and thus mutated, but not influenced nor controlled by Chaos.

** An important thing to note as in the 40K setting (which also features Chaos) the souls travel to the Warp where they are then consumed by demons within the Warp

[michu]

IIRC in the MP short story about Malerion and Morathi one soul salvaged from Slaanesh belly reacted to name "Teclis" and was sent back. I think that at least Malerion and Morathi recreate only Aelves that have lost their memories after long torment. Souls that still remember something and could recognize them are not rescued.

[Yoshiya]

Narmarti do actually have souls they are just very weak and rapidly deteriorate. As such without the energy of another beings soul to regenerate it they die within about 10 years or so.

Bodies without souls (such as those left behind by Idoneth raids) are actually described as though being a deep sleep from which they never awake. This is still interesting however as it shows that the body isn't contingent on a soul to live, just to be animated and have consciousness.

As for the split between life and unlife, I think one is considered Undead is they are animated with death magic (unclear if a soul is needed though my guess is stronger ones like vampires have them whilst zombies are just animated flesh and bone). Normal beings are presumably animated with a small amount of inherent life magic so being animated by death magic is the natural opposite to this. I'd almost argue that Stormcast are self-aware golems of Storm magic brought to life with the infusion of a soul.

[DarkWingDuck]

 

Minor Soul Wars spoilers: 

Spoiler

There's a passage in Soul Wars, where Balthus Arum (sp?) talks about souls traveling to Realm of Death. I recall that he mentions that some get lost on the way (presumably causing haunted places outside of Shyish), and some are even reborn before they get there. So reincarnation apparently is not an unheard of thing in the Mortal Realms.

I vaguely recall that he also mentioned that some souls get lost in the space between Realms.

 

[RuneBrush]

My interpretation is that each soul behaves differently.  A "strong" soul such as those taken by Sigmar to be made a Stormcast, or by Nagash to be one of his lieutenants, have a greater capacity to remember their former lives.  A weaker one may only remember a single emotion (e.g. those that may become a Chainrasp) or none at all.  Processing a soul can also remove certain things from it, in the new Soul Wars book it talks about how Nagash is able to manipulate a soul and with skill make it something different.

Probably the best analogy is that a soul is akin to a fruit.  It's possible to peel it, remove the pips, slice it etc and ultimately change it's form to something more suitable.  In some cases a fruit may be preserved, other cases it may be consumed.  Chaos ultimately will rot a fruit away to nothing, but in some cases it may be possible to retrieve something before it's rotten to the core.

[Yoshiya]

I'm actually inclined to believe that it's meddling with a soul that causes it to lose its memories rather than the inherent strength of the soul. Remember before Nagash and Sigmar got involved there was a natural order to things. People died and based on their belief system would go to their respective afterlife.

The afterlives described in the core rule book all heavily imply that one retains their memories after heading to the afterlives (even in the worst ones they normally remember enough to suffer for whatever sins they committed). Indeed in some cases the afterlives are almost described as merely a relocating of ones essence to be fixed to another location given that they can still be visited by relatives etc.

To use @Runebrush 's fruit analogy once the fruit falls from the tree (death) it leaves behind anything that physically kept it attached to the tree, which may sometimes include a few parts of their personality etc but it is mostly intact until it lands in its afterlife and slowly starts the process of vanishing into the ground.

Whilst falling, or before completely vanishing, however, a powerful being separate from the grand order of things and pick up the fruit and start changing it, in the case of Nagash cutting it up into the worst parts for his usage, and in the case of Sigmar adding other ingredients to make its flavour all the stronger.

[EccentricCircle]

To what extent it is still canon is debatable, but according to the Liber Necris of Mannfred Von Carstein each mortal being is composed of seven componants.

Kha: They physical body

Ka:  Ego, reason and abstract thought

Ba: Subconscious self and emotion

Ab: Conscience, understanding of right and wrong, and the ability to choose between them

Sekhem: Soul-Fire, The driving life force, composed of aethyric energy

Ren: The True Name

Khaibet: The Shadow

This distinction was central to the Nehekharan religion which underpins all of Nagash's works of necromancy to the present day. The Liche Priests of Khemri defined the soul (or Akhu) as being made up of several of these components: The Ka, Ab, Ba, Ren, and Sekhem. These were bound together, and created the essence of who and what the person was. In theory it should migrate to the afterlife after death, and the person's sense of self should continue in perpetuity.

However the Chaos Gods were able to separate the different componants of the Akhu, and recombine or devour them. In this way they reshape souls to their purpose, whether transforming them into Daemon Princes, or just devouring them.

Nagash's art then puts this power to reshape and use the elements of the soul into the hands of mortal necromancers. You can see that with the nighthaunt he has left some elements of the soul intact, while excising or altering others. The nighthaunt still have their soul fire, but their true name has been lost or twisted. Their conscience has been stripped away and their Kha or physical body long lost. Other undead consist only of the Kha (body) animated by the driving animus of their Sekhem, but without any of the elements that made them them. In the case of self aware undead like the Tomb Kings of old, the Ren, or name remains bound to the Sekhem and the Kha. 

So what happens when Sigmar reforges a stormcast. Clearly the Soul Fire is what gets reshaped, and attached to a new body or Kha. The Stormcast seems to retain their Ka, Ba and Ab, but they are given a new name. Does this replace their Ren, and thus their identity? Or is it a way for Sigmar to conceal their True Name from Nagash?

[MacDuff]

It's hard to believe that toy soldiers can inspire such deep thinking, but here it is.

[EccentricCircle]

Well, we've got to obsess over something in inordinate detail, otherwise we wouldn't be a fandom...

 

[mmimzie]

The way I see it is souls are an energy and a person that can be manipulated, and is aimless unless given the ability to aim themselves.

 

Deepkin fo have a soul memory in that from their time.with slaneesh thst is passed down through the generations that acts a shadow on their lives, and makes them seek seclusion. Also the energy of other dead is housed within the namarti who were bore with weaker souls and who have other and some times several would placed within them. Upon death namarti seek to house their souls within coral that way it does not fall back into the hands of slannesh or their followers. Also these souls can be manifested into the power edolons. Idoneth also have the ability to harvest and store souls also in said coral that they use for later transplants.

Stormcast are soul plucked just before death as I understand it. They were saved at a moment of a heroic death at which time sigmar took the soul qnd polished said soul up. These souls are anchored to the sigmariaum where in when ever they die, their souls can be returned to sigmar all be it damaged. Likely these souls by sigmar touched were allowed to be less confused and remember their former glories as heroes.

 

Chaos followers upon death tend toward being claimed by their God and either honored of defamed based loosely on their deeds and behaviors while following their patron god. 

Nagash went out and killed all the various gods of death and some more God besides to try and seat himself as the sole God of death via which all souls eventually travel too, and to a great extent it worked. Baring followers of chaos, idoneth, and stormcast souls of the dead are dammed to the hands of nagash. Nagash also makes warriors to ensure souls continue his way. Have a special distaste for stormcast and chaos who openly claim souls. While I'm not 100% sure of he is fully aware of the idoneths behavior but he certainly knows somethings is afoot. 

[michu]

13 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

Stormcast are soul plucked just before death as I understand it. 

Not necessarily. Anvils of the Heldenhammer were created from souls of long dead heroes (even from the World-That-Was).

[Lemon Knuckles]

OK you guys have completely distracted me from work and got me thinking deep thoughts.

I'm not a lore expert, so this will just be an unfolding of my attempt to grapple with these questions.

Let me take a stab at some terms.  Think spectrums here more than black and white...I'm painting with broad strokes:

1. Soul = Power
   • The potential to expend force outward, to interact with the world, to make something happen
2. Body = Identity
   • Something that it is to "be" like, a set of experiences, persepctives, a particular awareness
3. Soul + Body = Intentionality
   • Purposeful application of power in order to influence the world in a particular way; not inert, not random

So imagine a soul before it is "born."  It is just pure potential power with no interest or awareness.  Aetheric energy in the void. 

A soul is born into a body and suddenly it "experiences" what it is to be like something.  It experiences feelings of love, fear, pain, rejection, etc.  It develops a concrete sense of itself as preferring some things over others, some outcomes over others.  It begins to interpret the world in a particular way, it develops identity, and through identity it develops intentionality.  It's identity is unique, as all bodies and circumstances are unique, and thus different and competiting intentionalities inevitably collide, and thus, well, Warhammer.

So let's go further and broad stroke intentionality across two axes and try to map the grand alliances.  I made a graphic.  Don't laugh. 

Intentionality can be sketched across a spectrum of Autonomous - Contingent, and Rational - Irrational.

1. Autonomy = the application of power is free of external control
2. Contingent = the application of power is controlled by external identity
3. Rational = Intentionality aligns to objective benefit
4. Irrational = Intentionality subverts objective benefit

I really have to get back to work.  Lots more to say on this regarding death, undeath, Stormcast, Deepkin, etc, but I'll throw this up here for now and see where the conversation is when I can get back.

Interesting thread!