Post by Faljere D'ael Elderbaden on Aug 9, 2015 15:12:33 GMT -6
The Spirit World: An Exploration of What Comes After Life
The age-old question found in all societies revolves around the most primitive of fears: what happens when we die? The Vikings believed in Valhalla, an honourable land where only the most revered warriors could dine with the gods. Christian society taught heaven and hell, where the good get sent to paradise while the bad are sentenced to an eternity of torture. The arrival of science in our world suggested that we simply cease living and that our bodies join the earth with its nutrients. However, what no one has accounted for is proof of the very-real Spirit World, where the dead roam in peace. This document will explore all the different aspects of the true Afterlife, from what are our spirits and where do they come from to how can we contact the dead…or should we?
Spirits
What exactly is a spirit?
Despite being a very exact term, it is also broad enough to have more than a few answers. Upon death, the entity of a person is divided between soul and spirit. The soul can often be compared to a brain, and keeps the original host’s personality, memories, and emotions; however, the soul is the logical part of the dead’s entity, and is devoted to getting the now-dead person where they need to be next: the Afterlife.
If the soul is the brain, then the spirit is the heart. It allows for feelings and memory to mean more than just being a distant trait. The spirit adds the colour and feelings of the soul, outlining them to be what they truly used to be for their imminent arrival to the Afterlife.
The soul first arrives as soon as its host is killed, and remains in an almost purgatory-like place for some time (see Section 2: Stages of Death and Rebirth). There, it awaits the spirit; in the past, this would take generally five months, as that was the amount of time it took for the spirit still in the body to make its way out of the decaying corpse. However, new traditions have been set without knowing that this actually speeds up the process of delivering the spirit to the body (i.e. cremation).
Stages of Death and Rebirth
The Insubstantial Plane is home to many things, including the souls awaiting spirits or spirits trying to make contact with the Physical Realm. This is the starting place for all spirits until they receive their spirit from the body and meet a spirit escort who will bring them to the Afterlife—generally, it is a spirit who is connected to them in a distant way as to not cause the spirit distress but to also ensure a small bond from the start.
To a spirit, the Afterlife can really be anything that they may find comfortable. Those who prefer warzones may find themselves in a rather barren place with barricades and ruin, while those who prefer nature might see a forest or a garden waiting for them. Naturally, the plane also shifts slightly, and so nothing remains completely the same forever.
The energy of the Afterlife helps purify a spirit of all bad things, although nasty traits and quirks will never truly be gone. That being said, upon entering the Afterlife, spirits enter a tranquility field that calms them and eventually softens any aggressive or battle-hardened edges. This keeps other spirits in check and allows everyone to enjoy the next phase of life—others in the land of the living may perceive it is death, but to spirits it is simply more life, just not as living as before.
Playing a Spirit
Playing a spirit can be a difficult task if the player is not devoted to the idea. Spirits have a tether to the Afterlife, and as such can’t usually be seen roaming in the living realm—the closest they can get is the Insubstantial Plane, where usually they are sent to retrieve another spirit or where they go to do their best in communicating with the living.
Communicating with the living usually appears in the form of hauntings, mirages, and other illusions that most skeptics would pass off as ‘nothing’. However, a well-tuned mind and heart can truly hear or see what some spirits have to say, making them nowhere near impossible to reach.
Spirits—both in the Afterlife, the Insubstantial Plane, and the very rare occasions on the Physical Plane—have a single colour that shades the aura around their body and fills their eyes, pouring out like waves of light. This colour usually is representative of a personality trait of the spirit, but the shades can change depending on the mood of the person, as red may grow darker with anger or pinker with calm. These waves will also come out of any wound that the spirit received in leading to its death. (For example, the spirit of the Half-Elf warrior Jennis Moongem is surrounded by heroic, noble orange energy that also spills out from her chest, from where her heart was ripped out. The wound itself cannot be seen, as it is obscured by the light.)
Spirits can also only interact physically with the living in only one way on the physical realm, and this way usually represents the manner in which they died or a strong personality trait they had. Most warrior spirits will only be able to interact with the living through acts of violence, as would those who suffered a violent murder. Some healers, such as the late Isador Doc, are able to interact with the living only through healing methods, and some assassins who used poisoned weapons would be able to poison their targets. Spirits who died by natural causes such as illness or old age will have full interaction with the living, however, due to the nature of their peaceful deaths.
Final Word
Spirit lore is very complex, but makes for a pleasant afterlife for all involved. Just remember: just like with any realm, the Spirit Realms can be abused and manipulated, so always watch out for those with just enough intelligence of how to do so. This text is still written as a theorem of how spirits truly work, and any corrections from other students of Opum Anima (Spirit Works) should be brought up with a professor in order for the change to the text to be made.
The age-old question found in all societies revolves around the most primitive of fears: what happens when we die? The Vikings believed in Valhalla, an honourable land where only the most revered warriors could dine with the gods. Christian society taught heaven and hell, where the good get sent to paradise while the bad are sentenced to an eternity of torture. The arrival of science in our world suggested that we simply cease living and that our bodies join the earth with its nutrients. However, what no one has accounted for is proof of the very-real Spirit World, where the dead roam in peace. This document will explore all the different aspects of the true Afterlife, from what are our spirits and where do they come from to how can we contact the dead…or should we?
Spirits
What exactly is a spirit?
Despite being a very exact term, it is also broad enough to have more than a few answers. Upon death, the entity of a person is divided between soul and spirit. The soul can often be compared to a brain, and keeps the original host’s personality, memories, and emotions; however, the soul is the logical part of the dead’s entity, and is devoted to getting the now-dead person where they need to be next: the Afterlife.
If the soul is the brain, then the spirit is the heart. It allows for feelings and memory to mean more than just being a distant trait. The spirit adds the colour and feelings of the soul, outlining them to be what they truly used to be for their imminent arrival to the Afterlife.
The soul first arrives as soon as its host is killed, and remains in an almost purgatory-like place for some time (see Section 2: Stages of Death and Rebirth). There, it awaits the spirit; in the past, this would take generally five months, as that was the amount of time it took for the spirit still in the body to make its way out of the decaying corpse. However, new traditions have been set without knowing that this actually speeds up the process of delivering the spirit to the body (i.e. cremation).
Stages of Death and Rebirth
The Insubstantial Plane is home to many things, including the souls awaiting spirits or spirits trying to make contact with the Physical Realm. This is the starting place for all spirits until they receive their spirit from the body and meet a spirit escort who will bring them to the Afterlife—generally, it is a spirit who is connected to them in a distant way as to not cause the spirit distress but to also ensure a small bond from the start.
To a spirit, the Afterlife can really be anything that they may find comfortable. Those who prefer warzones may find themselves in a rather barren place with barricades and ruin, while those who prefer nature might see a forest or a garden waiting for them. Naturally, the plane also shifts slightly, and so nothing remains completely the same forever.
The energy of the Afterlife helps purify a spirit of all bad things, although nasty traits and quirks will never truly be gone. That being said, upon entering the Afterlife, spirits enter a tranquility field that calms them and eventually softens any aggressive or battle-hardened edges. This keeps other spirits in check and allows everyone to enjoy the next phase of life—others in the land of the living may perceive it is death, but to spirits it is simply more life, just not as living as before.
Playing a Spirit
Playing a spirit can be a difficult task if the player is not devoted to the idea. Spirits have a tether to the Afterlife, and as such can’t usually be seen roaming in the living realm—the closest they can get is the Insubstantial Plane, where usually they are sent to retrieve another spirit or where they go to do their best in communicating with the living.
Communicating with the living usually appears in the form of hauntings, mirages, and other illusions that most skeptics would pass off as ‘nothing’. However, a well-tuned mind and heart can truly hear or see what some spirits have to say, making them nowhere near impossible to reach.
Spirits—both in the Afterlife, the Insubstantial Plane, and the very rare occasions on the Physical Plane—have a single colour that shades the aura around their body and fills their eyes, pouring out like waves of light. This colour usually is representative of a personality trait of the spirit, but the shades can change depending on the mood of the person, as red may grow darker with anger or pinker with calm. These waves will also come out of any wound that the spirit received in leading to its death. (For example, the spirit of the Half-Elf warrior Jennis Moongem is surrounded by heroic, noble orange energy that also spills out from her chest, from where her heart was ripped out. The wound itself cannot be seen, as it is obscured by the light.)
Spirits can also only interact physically with the living in only one way on the physical realm, and this way usually represents the manner in which they died or a strong personality trait they had. Most warrior spirits will only be able to interact with the living through acts of violence, as would those who suffered a violent murder. Some healers, such as the late Isador Doc, are able to interact with the living only through healing methods, and some assassins who used poisoned weapons would be able to poison their targets. Spirits who died by natural causes such as illness or old age will have full interaction with the living, however, due to the nature of their peaceful deaths.
Final Word
Spirit lore is very complex, but makes for a pleasant afterlife for all involved. Just remember: just like with any realm, the Spirit Realms can be abused and manipulated, so always watch out for those with just enough intelligence of how to do so. This text is still written as a theorem of how spirits truly work, and any corrections from other students of Opum Anima (Spirit Works) should be brought up with a professor in order for the change to the text to be made.