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supergoji18
2018-03-23, 11:50 AM
Hello everyone!

I am currently developing a homebrewed setting that I intend to host many campaigns in, and I need your help. I am having trouble developing the metaphysics of this setting, specifically in regards to the soul, the ethereal plane, and the astral plane. Here's a few things to know about my setting so far:

- I decided to do away with alternate planes of existence like the 9 Hells and the Elemental Planes. Instead, these places are locations within the world's setting itself. You could in theory walk from the plane of fire to the abyss, then take a detour and visit the feywild. Things are a bit more complicated than that, but for the purposes of this discussion they are essentially all in the same world.
- There is no such thing as a "force of evil" or "force of good." In other words, there is nothing in the setting that is innately evil or good, not even fiends or celestials. I never liked the idea that one was evil just for the sake of being evil.

Because of the first thing I listed, there is no traditional afterlife. Instead, I'm debating on one of 2 models for what happens when you die in this world:
1. You are reincarnated at some point in the future.
2. Your soul becomes dormant, unable to interact with the world but also unable to experience pain, simply content. Think of it like Dark Souls, where souls don't have an afterlife and they instead just linger about until some hollow comes around and claims it to fuel their power.

Also because of the first thing I listed, I am having trouble developing a purpose for the Etheral and Astral planes. Here are some things I was considering:
- for the Ethereal plane, it is just the unseen world and nothing more. The other option I've considered is to have it act as the spirit world, where souls go when they die.
- for the Astral plane, i've got nothing. I'm really having trouble developing a purpose for this place aside from "its transcendent and stuff."

So in summary, I need help developing a model for souls, the afterlife, and what to do with the ethereal and astral planes in my setting. I would appreciate any help, advice, or inspiration you can provide.

Tiadoppler
2018-03-23, 12:45 PM
- I decided to do away with alternate planes of existence like the 9 Hells and the Elemental Planes. Instead, these places are locations within the world's setting itself. You could in theory walk from the plane of fire to the abyss, then take a detour and visit the feywild. Things are a bit more complicated than that, but for the purposes of this discussion they are essentially all in the same world.

I'm kind of curious about the "Things are a bit more complicated than that" part. What shape is your world? A globe? A torus? Taking a page from Iain Banks and making a shellworld? A Discworld? Where would the feywild be in relation with the "plane of water"(if it's not a plane, then it's just a... water? Waterpark? Ocean?)?



Because of the first thing I listed, there is no traditional afterlife. Instead, I'm debating on one of 2 models for what happens when you die in this world:
1. You are reincarnated at some point in the future.
2. Your soul becomes dormant, unable to interact with the world but also unable to experience pain, simply content. Think of it like Dark Souls, where souls don't have an afterlife and they instead just linger about until some hollow comes around and claims it to fuel their power.

Also because of the first thing I listed, I am having trouble developing a purpose for the Etheral and Astral planes. Here are some things I was considering:
- for the Ethereal plane, it is just the unseen world and nothing more. The other option I've considered is to have it act as the spirit world, where souls go when they die.
- for the Astral plane, i've got nothing. I'm really having trouble developing a purpose for this place aside from "its transcendent and stuff."

I'd use the Ethereal plane for unseen stuff/lost souls/ghosts/walking through walls/more mundane uses, and the Astral Plane for soul "power storage" where souls go to be recycled, renewed and returned to the Material Plane. The Ethereal Plane is relatively easy to access, while the Astral Plane is much more difficult.

A ghost is created when a person dies and their soul is sucked into the Ethereal Plane (where it can weakly affect the Material Plane but doesn't get renewed and reincarnated) rather than the Astral Plane (where it cannot affect the Material Plane at all, but it is renewed for later reincarnation).

Necromancy: accessing the Astral Plane. Bringing a dead soul back to life, or harvesting the souls of the dead to fuel powerful magic.
Spirit Magic: accessing the Ethereal Plane. Walking through walls, ensuring that ghosts find peace, teleportation? invisibility?

redwizard007
2018-03-23, 01:01 PM
Why do you need Ethereal and Astral planes? Both usually function as ways to connect the other planes. That is no longer an issue for you. If it's purely to support existing mechanics then you might be better off refluffing those mechanics than forcing "spirit realms" onto a setting where they don't fit.

supergoji18
2018-03-23, 01:29 PM
I'm kind of curious about the "Things are a bit more complicated than that" part. What shape is your world? A globe? A torus? Taking a page from Iain Banks and making a shellworld? A Discworld? Where would the feywild be in relation with the "plane of water"(if it's not a plane, then it's just a... water? Waterpark? Ocean?)?

The complicated bit is that I haven't fully worked that out yet :smallbiggrin:
I've gone through a few rewrite of how exactly these things work, but here's the gist of what the current version is:
- the realms are physical locations within the campaign setting, all existing on the same plane
- the presence of these realms has altered the very geography of the world to reflect their nature.
- the realms also at least partially exist in a demiplane kind of place. Think of it like the tent that's way bigger on the inside like in that one Harry Potter movie.
- as an example of what all of this means, there is a place in my setting called Mt. Brakken. It is a sacred mountain that is heavily associated with storms, thunder and lightning. In actuality, this mountain is the manifestation of the realm of sky and storms, and if you were to climb to its peaks you would essentially enter this realm.


Why do you need Ethereal and Astral planes? Both usually function as ways to connect the other planes. That is no longer an issue for you. If it's purely to support existing mechanics then you might be better off refluffing those mechanics than forcing "spirit realms" onto a setting where they don't fit.
This might be what I do. I wanted to keep the ethereal plane as a way to incorporate a "spirit world" where beings like angels and demons can move unseen through the world. I also wanted the astral plane to be a place of transcendence where powerful supernatural beings exist. But I feel like it may not be necessary.

Anonymouswizard
2018-03-23, 01:54 PM
Because of the first thing I listed, there is no traditional afterlife. Instead, I'm debating on one of 2 models for what happens when you die in this world:
1. You are reincarnated at some point in the future.
2. Your soul becomes dormant, unable to interact with the world but also unable to experience pain, simply content. Think of it like Dark Souls, where souls don't have an afterlife and they instead just linger about until some hollow comes around and claims it to fuel their power.

Don't forget option 3, that there is no afterlife. You live, you die, and all that's left of you is the changes you made to the world.

But without a traditional Heaven there's still many places to play with an afterlife. For example:
-When you die you get reincarnated as the next one of your direct descendants to be born. If this is known suddenly making sure you have a large family becomes more important.
-When you die you go to the Void, a realm of near-existence where you can see but not interact with the real world. You exist for as long as those in the world remember you, but afterwards fade to nothing.
-When you die you return to the beginning of your life, doomed to make the same decisions again and again. As you age you forget the memories of your previous life until by the age of two you remember nothing.
-The soul is bound to your body. After death you remain aware, able to feel but unable to act. Eventually you end up in a state where you can sense nothing, conscious all the time.
-All beings are part of the world. At the end of time, after the last living thing has died the world's mind will once again awaken. It will remember, and it will know how to act, how to create the new world.

Be inventive, be creative, and don't be afraid to be weird.


Also because of the first thing I listed, I am having trouble developing a purpose for the Etheral and Astral planes. Here are some things I was considering:
- for the Ethereal plane, it is just the unseen world and nothing more. The other option I've considered is to have it act as the spirit world, where souls go when they die.
- for the Astral plane, i've got nothing. I'm really having trouble developing a purpose for this place aside from "its transcendent and stuff."

So in summary, I need help developing a model for souls, the afterlife, and what to do with the ethereal and astral planes in my setting. I would appreciate any help, advice, or inspiration you can provide.

If you don't have anything good at the moment, don't define it. I think you'd be best off gutting the Astral in your case, it's lost it's purpose as the connecting plane.

For the Ethereal, just keep the standard bit. The second 'layer' of the world that you can enter at certain points, and only occasionally interacts with the first 'layer'. If you want keep the deep ethereal, as you wander further into the ethereal you interact with the world less and less.

redwizard007
2018-03-23, 07:37 PM
If you don't have anything good at the moment, don't define it. I think you'd be best off gutting the Astral in your case, it's lost it's purpose as the connecting plane.

For the Ethereal, just keep the standard bit. The second 'layer' of the world that you can enter at certain points, and only occasionally interacts with the first 'layer'. If you want keep the deep ethereal, as you wander further into the ethereal you interact with the world less and less.

I second this.

Astral adds nothing unless you want it to become your Far Realm as it gets further from the real world, but it sounds like you already have a Far Realm.

Ethereal as the realm of the classic outsiders, at least when they are moving about, fills a couple niches rather well.

Something about using these specific planes like this rubs me the wrong way though. Maybe reverse them? I'm not sure. It certainly works.

Frozen_Feet
2018-03-24, 03:15 AM
Ethereal realm is spiritual space which overlaps the material world. Ghosts etc. immaterial beings move through it. This also how reincarnation works: as a person dies, their soul drifts through the Ether untill it finds a new suitable body.

Astral Realm is the spiritual space overlapping with the Outer Space. Without space travel, it is only traversible immaterially. Souls which have become content with the world float upwards untill the reach and become stars.

NichG
2018-03-24, 06:51 AM
Instead of Planes, why not Fields? It goes thematically better with the idea of keeping everything together in one unified world. So there isn't a separate plane of existence where souls are, but rather souls are patterns or persistent aetheric structures, much as spell energy exists on the material plane but at the same time is a different thing than light or matter. Living beings are comprised of material, energetic, aetheric, and thaumic fields all worked together into a single functioning organism, but upon death the different components become separated and decay at different speeds, with the energetic components decaying fast (the body cools), the material components breaking down over hours and weeks, and the aetheric components persisting for years before they finally either succumb to entropy or become entangled with an opportune material matrix in the process of formation (e.g. unless they reincarnate).

Since the aetheric components are on their own incomplete, they can't think or move or really have volition until they fuse in such a way, so reincarnation is mostly a matter of luck and opportunity. However, if the thaumic signature of the dying entity has the right structures, it can propel a newly deceased soul into a vessel intentionally (so the right magical rituals can force-reincarnate people or guarantee specific reincarnations) or even preserve the aetheric signature as a ghost capable of manifestation so long as the magical energy persists - generally requiring the entity to be linked to a natural magical energy supply.

Millstone85
2018-03-24, 07:23 AM
There is no such thing as a "force of evil" or "force of good." In other words, there is nothing in the setting that is innately evil or good, not even fiends or celestials.If you don't mind me asking, what then are fiends and celestials?

supergoji18
2018-03-24, 07:50 AM
If you don't mind me asking, what then are fiends and celestials?
They are categories of spirits with different traits who are opposed to each other. Celestials held in higher standards among society because of their more humanoid appearances.

The two important things that not having objective/innate good and evil causes for them is this:
- Celestials do not serve the best interest of mortals. This means that they could only help mortals to further their own goals, or even actively harm mortals when the need arises. They will then use their otherworldy charisma and their status among mortals to justify their actions by saying it was all "divinely ordained."
- The actions of fiends have a deeper reason behind them than because they're evil. They still perform acts that mortals would consider evil or harmful, but it isn't because they're compelled to cause suffering. For example, the balor isn't destroying the dwarven mine because of evil, its because he's trying to search for something buried there and the dwarves are in his way.

This opens up a lot more room for storytelling form me.

Millstone85
2018-03-24, 09:00 AM
Something you could do is make spirits afterlives into themselves. They "eat" souls, but it is more like a swarm incorporating a new member.

Celestial spirits are picky. They seek out the souls of individuals who were seen as pillars of their communities or who lived in accordance with certain virtues. Most of them appear supremely beautiful, even beyond the regular senses. Those who embody concepts like martydom are not so pleasing, but still incite sympathy. Yet, there is no cosmic certificate that celestials are made of good.

Fey spirits are also picky. They seek out the souls of animals and plants. Only rarely does the soul of a humanoid, or other sapient, feel close enough to nature for them. Many barbarians, druids and rangers try to become such exceptions.

Fiendish spirits are scavengers. They eat the souls that other spirits ignored. In the beliefs of most cultures, that is a disgrace, at best. The fall of many a celestial came when the spirit decided to become a purgatory for lost and unwanted souls.

Elemental spirits are soulless. They emerge from raw magic and matter. Genies are the exception, each being born from the fusion of an elemental spirit and a single soul.

supergoji18
2018-03-24, 09:59 AM
Something you could do is make spirits afterlives into themselves. They "eat" souls, but it is more like a swarm incorporating a new member.

Celestial spirits are picky. They seek out the souls of individuals who were seen as pillars of their communities or who lived in accordance with certain virtues. Most of them appear supremely beautiful, even beyond the regular senses. Those who embody concepts like martydom are not so pleasing, but still incite sympathy. Yet, there is no cosmic certificate that celestials are made of good.

Fey spirits are also picky. They seek out the souls of animals and plants. Only rarely does the soul of a humanoid, or other sapient, feel close enough to nature for them. Many barbarians, druids and rangers try to become such exceptions.

Fiendish spirits are scavengers. They eat the souls that other spirits ignored. In the beliefs of most cultures, that is a disgrace, at best. The fall of many a celestial came when the spirit decided to become a purgatory for lost and unwanted souls.

Elemental spirits are soulless. They emerge from raw magic and matter. Genies are the exception, each being born from the fusion of an elemental spirit and a single soul.
I like this idea, and I may modify it to fit with the setting.

Something I was considering doing was what diablo did with its mortals: they were born from the union of demon and angelic essence, and so the two groups are in constant battle to win over their children to bolster their ranks. Not 100% sure i'll use this, but its an idea. I could even merge it with your idea, where human souls are essentially a mixture of the other spirits essences, and whichever one wins out at death is what the soul will become.

erikun
2018-03-24, 02:07 PM
This might be what I do. I wanted to keep the ethereal plane as a way to incorporate a "spirit world" where beings like angels and demons can move unseen through the world. I also wanted the astral plane to be a place of transcendence where powerful supernatural beings exist. But I feel like it may not be necessary.
You could just incorporate the Ethereal Plane into the Shadow Plane: it is like a "shadow" or "reflection" of reality. Depending on how they work, ghosts could either be the reflecting of people or actions from the real world - a particular tramatic event or particular influencial person could "live on" due to the Shadow/Ethereal basically repeating the events - or it could be a place where dead people who refuse to "move on" end up, still stuck near the real world but not able to be a part of it because they're dead. Especially if you don't emphasize the shadow aspect, it could just be a gloomy/misty version of the real world where spirits, angels, demons, and other things which don't interact with the real world directly travel through.

Astral Plane could be the Dream Plane, or something similar. There honestly isn't a point in Astral if you don't have other planes to travel to. Ethereal could be considered somewhat a part of the real world, but going to Astral pretty much means you've left the real world behind.

Millstone85
2018-03-24, 02:52 PM
I could even merge it with your idea, where human souls are essentially a mixture of the other spirits essences, and whichever one wins out at death is what the soul will become.It is like my idea, only it is the opposite. Instead of a spirit being made of several souls, a soul is made of several spirits.

If you want something more disturbing, say that the spirits within a soul separate after death and each one of them transforms depending on how much power it accumulated. Thus, the death of a mortal could result in:
* a planetar and a shadow demon (strong celestial, weak fiend)
* a deva and a glabrezu (roughly equal celestial and fiend)
* a couatl and a marilith (weak celestial, strong fiend)

Though it makes it harder to relativize good and evil in the setting.

Grek
2018-03-24, 10:38 PM
Chesterton's fence, my good playgrounder! Never remove that which you do not know the original purpose of. Fiends who are intrinsically and immutably evil exist because D&D is a game about violence and many players object to killing people who might not deserve it, but who also don't want to double check that every orc is really really evil. The ethereal plane exists to because ghosts and other phasing creatures need somewhere to phase into and out of. The elemental planes are there to explain where conjurations get their materials. And so on and so forth. I'm not saying tha these changes to the setting are bad, but they do make quite a bit of work for you coming up with new explanations where you've removed the old ones.

supergoji18
2018-03-25, 12:27 PM
So here's an idea I just thought of that I like that kind of ties in things nicely together.

There are 4 ranks of souls: vegetative souls, sentient souls, sapient souls, and spiritual souls. Upon death, the soul lingers about for some time until it reincarnates. If the soul remains unchanged during its life, it reincarnates as a creature that possesses the same kind of soul it used to have. If the soul achieves some measure of enlightenment during its life, it becomes a higher ranked soul and reincarnates as a being with such a soul. If, somehow, it forgets what it means to be a soul of its rank, it drops to a lower rank soul and reincarnates as a creature with such a soul.

For example, say a soul originally started out as a sapient soul. A sapient soul is capable of rational thought, like a human. During life, this soul focuses almost exclusively on meditation and achieving a higher understanding of life and the universe. If they fail, they simply reincarnate as a human again. If they succeed and obtain a revelation, their soul is elevated to a spiritual soul and they become a spiritual being, the exact kind being dependent on the nature of this revelation. On the other hand, if a human fails to think for themselves or neglects to use their rational minds, they reincarnate as a sentient soul, which is the kind of soul that animals possess.

The Ethereal Realm is where souls go when they die, and where spiritual souls can go during life. Here the souls wait until reincarnation, during which time they are in a slumber until the time is right. Souls that refuse to sleep become ghosts or will-o-wisps. Ghosts can be corrupted into banshees or wraiths through powerful magic or through intense negative emotion, but can be restored to their former status. Specters and shadows are "echoes" of a soul, imprints left behind by the soul in the world of the living. The various forms of undead are the result of either magical reanimation or due to an echo of the soul remaining inside of the body and continuing to animate it. The exceptions to this are death knights, liches, mummy lords, revenants and vampires, whose actual souls are artificially bound to their bodies either through a curse, magic, or intense emotion at the time of death.

A vegetative soul cannot demote to a lower rank of soul, but a spiritual soul can achieve a higher understanding and take on a new existence. When this spiritual soul dies, it has the possibility to move on to the Astral Realm. This is the realm of transcendent thought, where souls that have achieved the deepest understanding of the universe reside. What they do here is a mystery that none but they could understand. It is possible to enter the Astral Realm artificially through magic or meditation. Instead of transportation, one can instead either converse with ascended souls in this realm for guidance, or draw strength from this realm.

What do you all think?

erikun
2018-03-25, 01:04 PM
First question: How does a vegative soul achieve enlightenment and become a sentient soul? Is this relatively easy, and if so, is there a new production of "souls" that replaces all the plants which ultimately reincarnate into animals? Is this relatively difficult, and if so, what actions would people who want to "help" vegative souls achieve their enlightenment do which could be productive?

What would a sentient soul need to do to become a sapient soul? What would a dog need to accomplish in order to become enlightened?

Second question: How does this apply to humanity and the actions of people? Does it apply? Is this an invisible process known only by the deities, and so it happens without humans being aware that it is a thing? Or is this method of reincarnation known to humans, who actively work towards a positive outcome? If this is your typical D&D campaign setting where the NPCs could literally pull the information straight out of the universe itself, then the nature of how the people act (or at least, how the informed people act) is going to be considerably different than how most people might expect a D&D society to act.

Conversely, if the deities are aware of the situation, how do they handle their mortal followers? Do they instruct them on prober sentient soul enlightenment so that they could potentionally have more followers, or do they attempt to enlighten their own sapient followers in order to get spiritual soul followers, or do they attempt to specifically NOT enlighten their followers in order to keep their earthly following as large as possible? What benefits do deities get out of having enlightened followers, and what benefits do deities get out of having earthly sapient followers? (This might change how deities behave in the setting.)

Millstone85
2018-03-25, 01:49 PM
Fiends who are intrinsically and immutably evil exist because D&D is a game about violence and many players object to killing people who might not deserve it, but who also don't want to double check that every orc is really really evil.Orcs aren't fiends, though, nor are they the mortal spawn of fiends. They are a race with a patron god who incites them toward violence, both through his priests and through their very blood. While it justifies fantasy racism, it still leaves players with the orc baby problem.


The ethereal plane exists to because ghosts and other phasing creatures need somewhere to phase into and out of.One would think that being a ghost is enough to pass through walls. In fact, by the 5e MM at least, ghosts can do that even when they aren't on the Ethereal Plane. As for phase spiders and the like, they could use the immaterial condition like in 4e.


The elemental planes are there to explain where conjurations get their materials.The mantle, the atmosphere, the oceans... Plenty of elemental expanses in the mortal world.

Anonymouswizard
2018-03-25, 04:01 PM
Chesterton's fence, my good playgrounder! Never remove that which you do not know the original purpose of. Fiends who are intrinsically and immutably evil exist because D&D is a game about violence and many players object to killing people who might not deserve it, but who also don't want to double check that every orc is really really evil.

Oh god, so many problems with this statement.

First off, I still think the idea of 'it's evil so it's fine to kill it' is morally suspect at best. I think the Knights of the Cross from the Dresden Files show this the best, even against an evil being a good person attempts to redeem them before they attempt to kill them (now with fiends in D&D this is a bit of a grey area, if they've been summoned there's no actual harm in killing them, and some of them are strong enough that it really can become a case of least damage. There's nothing wrong with your game being a murder simulator, but in mine even the gods of evil aren't definitively beyond saving (if they exist, jury's still out on the gods, demons are very real though). A paladin wouldn't fall just for killing somebody, but would for slaughtering a band of orcs instead of making sure they can attend their concert.


The ethereal plane exists to because ghosts and other phasing creatures need somewhere to phase into and out of.

They could just become more and less solid. What's wrong with that?


The elemental planes are there to explain where conjurations get their materials.

Except when it doesn't. Again, why is this needed? Many settings get by fine without this explanation.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-03-25, 05:17 PM
Except when it doesn't. Again, why is this needed? Many settings get by fine without this explanation.

Musing: is there value in leaving some things (and their causes) mysterious?

The more I think about it, I think yes. Some things just happen. No one knows why, no one knows how, they just do. There may be an answer, but the setting doesn't provide one, nor does it imply that there is only one right answer.

I don't claim this is universally true, nor that everything should be mysterious, but I think you're right that not everything needs to be explained.

Anonymouswizard
2018-03-25, 05:47 PM
Musing: is there value in leaving some things (and their causes) mysterious?

The more I think about it, I think yes. Some things just happen. No one knows why, no one knows how, they just do. There may be an answer, but the setting doesn't provide one, nor does it imply that there is only one right answer.

I don't claim this is universally true, nor that everything should be mysterious, but I think you're right that not everything needs to be explained.

I work under a general rule that I explain as it fits the story.

I'm developing a fantasy world a lot like your standard D&D setting, where I decided that leaving the issues of magic, gods, and demons up in the air beyond there often being sightings of demons and angels that are practically never verified. Magic exists, but users of both divine and demonic magic are rare and set apart from society, so almost nobody knows how magic actually works beyond connecting to otherworldly beings (somehow). In another setting all that's known about magic is that it's the secret arts of the druids, and in another you have to make a pact with one of the infinite elemental spirits/demons making up the world but the knowledge of that is very hit and miss. In every case the question of 'where the fire comes from' hasn't been important.

On the other hand in my science fiction setting that's being develop ships accelerate by warping space. Because of this life in a ship is almost always spent in free fall, unless the ship includes spinning sections for centripetal gravity. Having this explanation and consequences allows me to craft a more 'scientific' feel (and in another setting all ships move via various reaction drives, including several models of 'torch drive' to make for more entertaining space gameplay).

PhoenixPhyre
2018-03-25, 06:09 PM
I work under a general rule that I explain as it fits the story.

I'm developing a fantasy world a lot like your standard D&D setting, where I decided that leaving the issues of magic, gods, and demons up in the air beyond there often being sightings of demons and angels that are practically never verified. Magic exists, but users of both divine and demonic magic are rare and set apart from society, so almost nobody knows how magic actually works beyond connecting to otherworldly beings (somehow). In another setting all that's known about magic is that it's the secret arts of the druids, and in another you have to make a pact with one of the infinite elemental spirits/demons making up the world but the knowledge of that is very hit and miss. In every case the question of 'where the fire comes from' hasn't been important.

On the other hand in my science fiction setting that's being develop ships accelerate by warping space. Because of this life in a ship is almost always spent in free fall, unless the ship includes spinning sections for centripetal gravity. Having this explanation and consequences allows me to craft a more 'scientific' feel (and in another setting all ships move via various reaction drives, including several models of 'torch drive' to make for more entertaining space gameplay).

I agree that it strongly depends on the setting. The "harder" the setting, the more explanations are needed IMO.

I tend to run with the model (for my fantasy setting) that there is an explanation, I just don't know what it is right now. Call it lazy generation for setting details. I know what the outcome is (to fit other themes or to make certain things possible/impossible/common/rare), but the cause is left uncertain until I need to know more or until a player comes up with a really good explanation for it. Once it's been "discovered" in play, it's fixed. Until then, nothing's set in stone.

supergoji18
2018-03-25, 06:14 PM
First question: How does a vegative soul achieve enlightenment and become a sentient soul? Is this relatively easy, and if so, is there a new production of "souls" that replaces all the plants which ultimately reincarnate into animals? Is this relatively difficult, and if so, what actions would people who want to "help" vegative souls achieve their enlightenment do which could be productive?

What would a sentient soul need to do to become a sapient soul? What would a dog need to accomplish in order to become enlightened?

Second question: How does this apply to humanity and the actions of people? Does it apply? Is this an invisible process known only by the deities, and so it happens without humans being aware that it is a thing? Or is this method of reincarnation known to humans, who actively work towards a positive outcome? If this is your typical D&D campaign setting where the NPCs could literally pull the information straight out of the universe itself, then the nature of how the people act (or at least, how the informed people act) is going to be considerably different than how most people might expect a D&D society to act.

Conversely, if the deities are aware of the situation, how do they handle their mortal followers? Do they instruct them on prober sentient soul enlightenment so that they could potentionally have more followers, or do they attempt to enlighten their own sapient followers in order to get spiritual soul followers, or do they attempt to specifically NOT enlighten their followers in order to keep their earthly following as large as possible? What benefits do deities get out of having enlightened followers, and what benefits do deities get out of having earthly sapient followers? (This might change how deities behave in the setting.)
Reaching a higher rank of soul requires the soul to do something that relates to the processes of the higher rank soul, and then upon death during the wait time for reincarnation they contemplate on this during their sleep and begin to understand what it means to be a higher ranked soul. For example, suppose there is a wolf defending its cubs. The wolf acts out of parental instinct and out of love for its children. These things are part of what it means to be a sentient soul: to be capable of experiencing emotion and self-directed action. Now during this battle the wolf begins to think intently about what it is doing. It begins to plan out its actions instead of acting out in the way it thinks is best at the moment. It begins to think about the deeper reasons why it is acting the way it is, concluding to itself that the reason it defends its children isn't because it is forced to but because it choses to do so out of love. The act of contemplation and, more importantly, the achievement of understanding are both qualities of a sapient soul: a soul capable of wisdom and rational thought. When the wolf dies one day, its soul passes on to the ethereal realm where it sleeps. As it sleeps, the very act of having achieved higher thought processes causes its very soul to change from a sentient soul into a sapient soul, and when it reincarnates one day it does so as a sapient creature such as a human or as an awakened animal.

The difficulty of this is a matter of circumstance. The wolf in the above example was fortunate in that it experienced a formative moment which allowed for its ascended reincarnation, but other wolves wouldn't always be so fortunate. It is both a personal and circumstantial process.

I have decided that for this setting deity is a title as opposed to a category of beings, meaning that being a deity is really a matter of what other creatures think of you. So that issue isn't really going to be present.

However, the process is unknown to all but the spiritual souls. Since when you reincarnate you do not have any memory of your former life it is difficult to discover the process of reincarnation on one's own. Spiritual souls know of the process because of their very nature, but even they do not fully understand it. In fact, they really only know that it is possible to reincarnate and of the different kinds of souls. This uncertainty is what causes the different groups of spiritual souls to act in the manner that they do, as they believe that theirs is the correct path to final enlightenment and crossing over to the Astral Realm.

Andor13
2018-03-25, 08:15 PM
- There is no such thing as a "force of evil" or "force of good." In other words, there is nothing in the setting that is innately evil or good, not even fiends or celestials. I never liked the idea that one was evil just for the sake of being evil.

If there are still factional/philosophical differences, and it sounds like there are, you may find it useful to import the allegiances system (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Allegiances) from D20 Modern, which is a much more flexible way to describe characters attachments and ideals.


Because of the first thing I listed, there is no traditional afterlife. Instead, I'm debating on one of 2 models for what happens when you die in this world:

There is no need to have a single system that applies universally. There could be differences by faith (Followers of Druidic beliefs reincarnate, while followers of Gods are turned into angelic/demonic spirits, and the unfaithful tend to either fade away or become undead.) Or differences by race as in Tolkein where Elven spirits pass into the halls of Manos but human spirits pass beyond the world to join with Illuvatar (maybe.) Or regionally or by blind luck, what have you.


Also because of the first thing I listed, I am having trouble developing a purpose for the Etheral and Astral planes. Here are some things I was considering:
You might make it sort of an energy state equivalent. So the Ethereal is the lowest energy state, a shadow realm beneath the material world, inhabited by spirits and wraiths too feeble to long take form in the Material world. Entering the Ethereal is like going swimming, easy to do, but you'll bob to the surface without continually expending effort, and you're going to get cold.... Whereas the Astral is a higher state, inhabited by spirits who have transcended the Material in some fashion, it is more distant and distinct from the Material world, it translates poorly to material senses and understanding. "The angels directions say to enter the Astral from the point of blindness, wait for 5 miles, then turn towards G#, take 3 steps towards ennui and then just follow the tale."

It may be worth exploring that leveling up is itself a process of gaining energy, so that a 1st level character becomes a weak ethereal spirit upon death, while 2-5th level characters usually reincarnate, but higher level characters are prone to ascension, and thus become of interest to astral entities trying to recruit for their faction.

supergoji18
2018-03-28, 08:44 AM
Thank you all for the suggestions. Seeing so many different ideas has helped me to develop my own. I appreciate all the help you've given me. Happy adventuring everyone!