What Do Souls Really Give You?

[cmwatford]

The issue with soul as spirit theory is that it doesn't take into account that souls are connected to, or part of, the astral.

[Vent0]

On-Gnosis-purchase/increase is a good stop to the previous abuse.

Even with the Stop-gap rules, a Mage only loses Gnosis once every 24 hours. So slotting in a Sleeper soul before the day is out means 0 Gnosis loss. But that doesn't establish when the soul is "yours".

Mage soul causing Sleepwalker status is what I was thinking, too. Though an enterprising Reaper could still make their own Sleepwalkers that way. (But, considering Thaumaturgy and any lesser template is considered to do the same, that isn't such a game changer).

[amechra]

Mage souls are "clean" - they lack the Abyssal Shard (good thing, that). I guess the process takes as long as it does to "purify" their donor soul.

Analysis time! (using the Stopgap Mage rules):
• Sleeper Souls stabilize a Mage's Gnosis loss - Mages can't use them to regenerate their Gnosis.
• Mage Souls can and do forcibly regenerate a Mage's Gnosis - I personally would tie the recovered Gnosis to the rate you recover Integrity at.

So Mage souls have an obviously souped-up version of a Sleeper soul's repair process - it can straight-up restore lost Supernal understanding, perhaps by blasting open certain channels.

My theories:
• Shoving a Mage Soul into a Sleeper makes them a Sleepwalker.
• A Sleeper Soul becomes a Mage Soul as soon as you buy a dot of Gnosis.

[Vent0]

Hmm. When a Mage is stripped of their Soul, they eventually lose the ability to work Supernal magic. So souls are in some way necessary for that. Working Supernal magic isn't inherent in the soul in question, though: Sleeper souls will do for a replacement, they just take longer for the Mage to recover. What about the other way around? What if you stuff a Mage soul into a Sleeper? Obviously, they don't suddenly gain access to Supernal magic, right? But why do Mage souls work "better" than Sleeper souls for Mages? Are they just "broken in" to Supernal magic like a well-worn pair of shoes? Or does a Mage's Gnosis do something to the soul to make it more compatible?

Odd, low-Wisdom Question: What is the time-table for making a soul "yours"? Could a Reaper:

1. Remove their soul into a Soul Jar.
2. Place a Sleeper soul in themselves.
3. The Sleeper soul becomes a Mage soul.
4. Repeat, as desired.
5. Profit?

[Elfive]

I don't think souls aid in resisting claiming through any physical mechanism. For one thing, there's no indication that animals are any easier to claim than humans. For another, ghosts and souls seem to exist on a different twilight frequency to spirits. So the soul hole being filled isn't an issue. They can coexist easily enough.

Hive claimed are a bit weird. The spirits in them end up stuck, to the point that they are destroyed if the body dies, but that apparently simply due to the vast excess of spiritual power stuffing that many into one host results in. There doesn't seem to be an upper limit to how many will fit.

[LostLight]

Unless the human body can hold up to two spirits, in which case it just looks like only one spirit can Claim someone at a time because basically everyone has souls (i.e. human spirits). The obvious way to test this, then, is to gather up a bunch of people, take their souls, attract spirits interested in Claiming victims, and hope the local Uratha packs don't find out about this.

EDIT: Alternatively, Claiming is separate from the soul-hole that the human spirit inhabits. In this case, presumably other spirits could be put into the soul-hole, meaning that the obvious experiment is to steal a bunch of souls and shove various non-human spirits into their soul-holes to see what happens.

I'm starting to see a Thyrsus Reaper Legacy coming out of this thread :P

[Vent0]

We cannot be Claimed - as humans can be Claimed in games. The being cannot be twice Claimed, can it?

Hive-Claimed?

[Melange_Thief]

Unless the human body can hold up to two spirits, in which case it just looks like only one spirit can Claim someone at a time because basically everyone has souls (i.e. human spirits). The obvious way to test this, then, is to gather up a bunch of people, take their souls, attract spirits interested in Claiming victims, and hope the local Uratha packs don't find out about this.

EDIT: Alternatively, Claiming is separate from the soul-hole that the human spirit inhabits. In this case, presumably other spirits could be put into the soul-hole, meaning that the obvious experiment is to steal a bunch of souls and shove various non-human spirits into their soul-holes to see what happens.

[wyrdhamster]

We cannot be Claimed - as humans can be Claimed in games. The being cannot be twice Claimed, can it?

[amechra]

If we're all Claimed, we got a pretty crap deal out of it. No superhuman attributes or Numina (Or... are psychic merits actually the Dread Powers developing for our Claimed status?)

Oh, but we do have super-animal stats!

Mainly our stupidly high Intelligence. And not only Supernatural Merits - most merits are arguably not things that animals can take (Professional Training? Mystery Cult? Status?). And, arguably, Integrity could be considered a supernatural advantage that you get due to being "claimed".

I like the Shartha idea, though - could be... interesting.

[Dreaminggod]

If we're all Claimed, we got a pretty crap deal out of it. No superhuman attributes or Numina (Or... are psychic merits actually the Dread Powers developing for our Claimed status?)

[Vent0]

Are there spirits of Pangaeans? Perhaps humanity originated in the Border Marches and migrated to the material world and adapted long before the Border Marches fell.

Although... the coincidence of Humanity's ascent (and the rise of agriculture) and Father Wolf's weakening does raise some interesting questions on the relation between the two. (correlation or causation?)

Maybe souls are the result of the first bits of Pyros refining into something more? Which really came first: the Promethean or the Human(w/soul)? At least as of 1ed, why do even Unfleshed become more human as they progress along the Pilgrimage?

[LostLight]

As an interesting twist to that, maybe the Spirits of Humans ARE the proto-souls. At some point the Human spirits claimed all of the humans and now humans are actually a special kind of claimed with a spirit-like being that only exists in claimed form and new ones are only made at human birth/conception.

I once wrote in the old forums a theory about that the origin of "souls" come from former human spirits- that they were among the weakest of their kind in the shadow, and during that time man was no different than any other animal. It all changed when they all gathered together and ate each other up, merging into a colossal being which was the greatest representation of humanity in the Shadow. Then, Father Wolf saw it as a threat, fought against it and killed it- only for it to scatter its Essence through the world, where it merged with every living human being, turning the entire race of humanity into what now is known as an "Host". That means that humanity is just what happens when an all race turns into a Shartha (and they were the first to do so) and all of our "inner wars" and "desire for conquest" comes from the simple wish of the Shard in each and every one of us to unite and re-create the glory of the former spirit.

Never meant for it to be a "head canon", though- just a mad blasphemy used to taunt players during a Werewolf game.

[ElvesofZion]

As an interesting twist to that, maybe the Spirits of Humans ARE the proto-souls. At some point the Human spirits claimed all of the humans and now humans are actually a special kind of claimed with a spirit-like being that only exists in claimed form and new ones are only made at human birth/conception.

[amechra]

That "history" seems like it has some holes in it (but I'll need more time to really identify the source of that feeling). Makes for many great plot hooks, though.

That's the entire point of it - it's basically just me making stuff up.