So 2E is definitely pretty sparse on information for daimons (the word occurs all of 4 times in the book including the index) but after reading a few of the older books, this idea sort of occurred to me. When a person dies with a regret, their daimon stays behind to take care of it. Or at least, that's how it should work, but traumatic death is traumatic. The daimon does not survive the ordeal intact.
Okay so why do I think this is the case? Well, it really comes down to what a daimon is; a guide. It's a daimon's job to help you get over the hang ups you have about yourself. The name is quite telling and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimonic is as good of an explanation of its function as any. So if some aspect of the self were to stay behind to take care of your hang ups after death, and allow you to move on, it would be the daimon. Your vices certainly aren't going to do it and ghosts are way too incomplete to be the whole soul (Souls have all 5 subtle Arcanum, ghosts only have Death.)
This sort of brings me to a separate point, the Death Arcana is probably misunderstood. What do death, cold, and shadows have in common? They're absences of something else (Life and Forces.) If ghosts really are remnants of daimons, power over absence being associated with them makes sense. The daimon is your internal power of reflection. How do you reflect on something? Often by contemplating its absence and what that would mean. Death is the Arcana of reflection. It's what allows for growth. This is why the Lower Depth without Death is a static world choked on unkillable, cancerous life. And why ghosts rank up over time, unlike spirits who gain power by eating essence (and other spirits,) ghosts seem to just get more powerful the longer they have been in the Underworld. The Underworld is a reflection or at least the Dominions are. Visiting these Dominions allows a ghost to reflect and grow. Looping back to daimons, what is their purpose? To provoke reflection and growth. Daimons, if you could safely remove them from a person, would be governed by Death, they are your shadow, your ghost.
Okay so why do I think this is the case? Well, it really comes down to what a daimon is; a guide. It's a daimon's job to help you get over the hang ups you have about yourself. The name is quite telling and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimonic is as good of an explanation of its function as any. So if some aspect of the self were to stay behind to take care of your hang ups after death, and allow you to move on, it would be the daimon. Your vices certainly aren't going to do it and ghosts are way too incomplete to be the whole soul (Souls have all 5 subtle Arcanum, ghosts only have Death.)
This sort of brings me to a separate point, the Death Arcana is probably misunderstood. What do death, cold, and shadows have in common? They're absences of something else (Life and Forces.) If ghosts really are remnants of daimons, power over absence being associated with them makes sense. The daimon is your internal power of reflection. How do you reflect on something? Often by contemplating its absence and what that would mean. Death is the Arcana of reflection. It's what allows for growth. This is why the Lower Depth without Death is a static world choked on unkillable, cancerous life. And why ghosts rank up over time, unlike spirits who gain power by eating essence (and other spirits,) ghosts seem to just get more powerful the longer they have been in the Underworld. The Underworld is a reflection or at least the Dominions are. Visiting these Dominions allows a ghost to reflect and grow. Looping back to daimons, what is their purpose? To provoke reflection and growth. Daimons, if you could safely remove them from a person, would be governed by Death, they are your shadow, your ghost.
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