OVERVIEW -------- Spirits are strange beasts, falling into a grey area between raw magical energy, and the mundane. Spirits, often also called 'souls', are posited to be a creation caused by the accretion of intelligent thought around a physical body as a nucleus. It is widely accepted that unintelligent undead, for instance, while posessing the necessary physical form to attract the spritual energies, are obviously lacking in independant thought, and hence lack a spirit. Similarly, articifial constructs, while imbued with magical energies, are generally incapable of sufficient independant thought to be able to be said to posess a spirit. It is not infeasable to attach a spirit to either of these, but to do so requires imbuing the creature with the ability to possess thoughts. [See also, constructs, infusing] The converse, that without a living entity to serve as an anchor, there can be no functioning spirit, is a more difficult matter to prove. It is difficult to imagine a manifestation of intelligent thought without a physical entity to direct it. Counterarguments and exceptions include otherplanar entities and incorporeal creatures, for instance. However, it is arguable in many of the incorporeal counterexamples, that the creature is an animated undead, who originally posessed a body before being slain. Thus, it is not that the spirit coalesced based a nonexistant physical form, but rather that the spirit formed as all spirits do, and later lost its physical body. [See also, incorporeal undead]. DEATH AND RESURRECTION ---------------------- Death severs the spirit from the physical body, leaving both unattached. Nonetheless, the spirit maintains a tenuous connection to the remenants of the body. It is this relationship which spells such as /raise dead/ and /resurrection/ trace in order to bind the two back together again. The bond with the body is what allows the simpler /raise dead/ spell to function -- the traces of the spirit are easier to observe when much of the body remains intact. [See also, body preservation]. However, the residual spiritual connection is imprecise; it is established not only to the body, but to all of the posessions of the body as well as the location of the body. It is this property which causes many undead to haunt the locations surrounding the location of their demise -- even far long after their body has been moved elsewhere. For instance, the /true resurrection/ spell uses the provided location and time of death to seek out the vestiges of spiritual binding that still remain, even more than a hundred years after their termination. Similarly, the archmage Iluvilan was known for her development of more advanced versions of /speak with dead/ and the like that functioned on items owned by the deceased, or the location of their death. [See also, scrying]. When the spirit is sundered from the body, it often remains on the plane for some time before departing. In this state, it is more susceptible to magical influence -- hence why many of the more intelligent and powerful undead are created swiftly. [See also, self-created undead] When it departs, the spirit journeys to the closest-aligned plane. Most remain as petitioners on the plane, and are generally un-noticable even to those present on the plane. The more powerful spirits, however, often eventually manifest into native creatures of the plane. Doing so does not preclude them from being resurrected back onto their prime plane later, but such cases are rare, and the creature often recalls vague memories of their time on the remote plane. [See also, planar travel]. STORAGE AND TRAPPING -------------------- There are two well-known methods of storage and trapping of spirits. The simpler of these is the /magic jar/ spell. By use of this spell, you voluntarily transfer your soul into that of a carefully prepared gem or crystal, leaving your body bereft -- see below for more on proper preperation of the recepticle. You are then capable of forcing annother's spirit to take your place in the gem, and assuming control of their body. [See also, charms and compulsions]. However, each of these swaps leaves a tracery connecting them to their original body, much as if they had been slain. This enables the spirits to return to their appropriate positions at the conclusion of the spell. However, these connections are fragile -- separating them by too far prevents the spirit from snapping back to its original body. For example, if a mage casts /magic jar/, and then possesses another's body, he might then walk some distance away, carrying his original body, and then cause the gem to be destroyed. This would leave the victim effectively dead, while returning the mage to his proper body -- and also leaving him with the victim's undamaged body. The other spell, commonly referred to as /trap the soul/, serves the opposite purpose -- to capture the soul, rather than the body, of a victim. Again, it requires a properly prepared gem -- but since the containment is more permant, it must be more carefully prepared. A more powerful version of the spell, known as /soul bind/, has fewer restrictions on the actual act of drawing the spirit out of the victim's body, which is by far the most difficult part of the process. The most common container for spirits is a carefully prepared gem. This gem must be properly cut and inscribed with draconic runes of binding. While a mundane gem is sufficient, several archmages have noted that Khyber dragonshards are, for obvious reasons, particularly good for this purpose. Eberron and Syberis dragonshards have also been used -- Eberron shards are better than mungane gems, but not as potent as Khyber dhards. Syberis dragonshards, interestingly, seem to reject the spirits of non-dragonmarked individuals, with the exception of aberrant dragonmarks. They are, however, accepting of those with the *possibility* of acquiring a dragonmark later in life; some guess that at least one of the noble houses has token to using /magic jar/ equivilent spells on newborns of the family, in order to more quickly ascertain if the babe has dragonmarked potential. [See also, dragonshards, dragonmarks]. - item imbuement SPIRITS AS POWER SOURCES ------------------------ - energy drain - devourer SPIRIT CHANNELS --------------- SPIRIT FILTERING ----------------