How are new souls created?

Swanchika

Chieftain
Joined
Mar 20, 2012
Messages
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So, a good chunk of the game and its lore revolves around what happens to souls after people die, but I was wondering about how these souls come about in the first place. When a person is born in Erebus, where does their soul come from? Since the souls of the dead are made into other stuff (be it demons, angels or just left to wander in Arawn's vault), it can't be old souls in fresh bodies, but then who or what makes these new immortal souls?
 
I assume Traducianism.

A normal individual's soul would be generated from the souls of both his parents.

The first Dwarves' souls might have been generated from a portion of Kilmorph's soul, or the Earth Goddess might have sent back the souls of dead humans who had worshiped her and entered her vault, or perhaps the Dwarves are actually just an offshoot of humanity whose myth about Keldon Ki has no basis in truth.

Anesidora and Gabella's souls would be produced from the souls of all 21 gods.

Nemed and the other gods would have souls created directly by The One, the only being able to create a soul ex nihilo.
 
Wow, thanks for the fast reply!

How does it work for the Sidar, then? Since their souls are already halfway there to Laroth's underworld, are their children born with already fading souls as well, or is it that they don't reproduce and new Sidar are made from ordinary people who learn the Waning ritual?
 
Well, the Sidar do not have a high birthrate.

Canonically they are not a whole civilization, but a number of secretive enclaves whose inhabitants were mostly born elsewhere. Most Sidar never undergo Waning anyway, but stick around the enclaves as acolytes to help support the genius of those shades whom they most admire while deciding whether or not the process might be right for them eventually.

I imagine a Shade could still sire or bear children with ordinary souls, but their fertility would diminish the farther along in the process they get. In the most advanced stages of Waning a body becomes immaterial and hardly anything of the Shade remains but a faint whisper. I would not expect any children to be born to Shades in that state.

More importantly though, those who seek to use the Waning ritual are probably not very interested in producing offspring. Most seek this sort of immortality in order to further their passions to create in other ways, with a focus on art, poetry, mathematics, literature, etc. Only very few, like Rathus Denmora, are devoted to military pursuits. Shades find that even their closest relatives have trouble remembering that they exist, so Waning is not conducive to a healthy marriage or family life. The process makes them loose their passion, but they tend to continue for a long time out of habit. The process also removes the distractions largely by making such diversions no longer enjoyable. A Shade would get no pleasure out of sex and have little to no libido.

Sandalphon's Pedia Entry said:
"I never really missed love," Sandalphon mused, as they ambled along between the taverns and shops. "Love, hate, anger, greed and jealousy are just a few of the confusing, unnecessary emotions bound up in your soul. You soon realize that you are better off without them."

"Was there nothing you missed? Nothing you felt you were giving up when you abandoned your soul?" As the acolyte asked the question, they turned a corner. Cursing, she swept after them.

"Oh, of course there were things I missed. It took years before I got over the loss of pleasure over food, and smells, and music. All those things appeal to the base instincts. But in the end, they paled in comparison to the prospect of getting drunk on knowledge, of gorging yourself on all the wisdom of the world, which you have endless time to explore."
 
I've recently been reading a lot of lore from the Pathfinder setting, which gives a good deal of thought to this subject. Way more than anything else I've ever read, from any official or unofficial source. Probably doesn't count for FFH, but I like it. In that setting, souls are formed spontaneously on the positive energy plane, and are nurtured for a time by Jyoti or some such, they're some positive energy bird dudes, then are emitted out of stars, His Dark Materials style, to lodge in living beings.

Ok it sounds stupid when I write it. Then again I consider the universe of FFH to be in a class with Tolkien and Elder Scrolls and Forgotten Realms. And even Homestuck. As in, it's an Amaranthean universe. And every soul is merely a tiny shard of the oversoul, and each such soul is capable of becoming its own over-deity of an entirely new universe, ad infinitum. Like a pirate radio station, free from the confines of heaven and the depravities of hell.
 
If you are still wondering about where souls come from, Kael revealed a fairly definitive answer https://www.reddit.com/r/fallfromheaven/comments/amb5af/the_worlds_of_fall_from_heaven/
The Infinite Garden said:
One of the stones that was stolen out of heaven by Agares lies here, the Font of Life, and from it pours the infinite sentient souls that can be born upon creation for all time. As long as the Font remains here, the entire world is one living creature.

The petitioners of this world are charged with overseeing the cascading waterfall of life that passes through this vault and directing each spirit to their birth. They are valkyries at the beginning of life instead of the end. In some cases they seek the spirits of those with unusual promise, affinity or potential to be born into lives that will require their strengths.

The archangel, Basium, has abandoned his guardianship. It was once his role to stand before the Font of Life, an eternal, unyielding guard. But Sucellus retains close watch on his vault and it has largely been unthreatened.
Souls thus all seem to come from a Gem of Creation that Agares smuggled out of the True Heaven, and linked to an infinite plane when he still had the power of ex nihilo creation. I guess that implies that Agares made every mortal soul before the Twenty One came together to form Creation?
 
Thanks for the addition! (it's amazing that Erebusology is still active after all these years!)
That said, if the Font of Life is the infinite source of souls, how powerful is Sucellus' guard watch that no evil god has even come close to trying to take it? Perhaps they all just know that the flow of souls would stop if the gem were removed from the Infinite garden?
 
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