#an artificial human created to take on the physical likeness and memories of a deceased individual

[imageingrunge]

You know in hindsight I should’ve always known I would not like Paul in the second dune book. It was always there that he was not the “good guy” but I got too caught up in the messiah symbolism of it all my bad 🤡

[dailycharacteroption]

Roleplaying Races 10: Shabti

 To western civilization, the idea of “taking it with you” after death is a mark of hubris and arrogance, and yet it wasn’t viewed as such by the ancient Egyptians who believed that whatever one is buried with would have otherworldly copies of in the afterlife. (The idea that the dead might physically take their wealth with them after death was solidly dashed the moment the profession of grave robber was invented, so pretty much immediately, but it was still considered a grave crime, as stealing grave goods would in turn rob the deceased of their otherworldly copies)

In any case, one such funerary good among the wealthy pharaohs and nobility were the shabti, or ushabti or even shawabti: tiny figurine statues of humanoid figures, whom were believed to animate into servants for the wealthy upon entering the afterlife.

This practice arose as a replacement for what the ancient Egyptians did before: when such a wealthy figure died, in order to give them servants to go along with all their stuff, said servants and slaves would be sacrificed and entombed alongside their former master, giving them an entourage in the afterlife.

Needless to say, that practice was not very popular among the common folk, and presented a lot of problems in maintaining a healthy population. Hence why the practice of creating shabti came to be.

Now, Pathfinder’s core setting has its own Egypt-analogue, and in a fit of brilliance, came up with a race inspired y that ancient practice!

 In Pathfinder, a shabti is a sort of “artificial soul” created by a magical effigy called a sovereign shabti, which is made to be a near-exact copy of a mortal’s soul. Such beings were created to serve as a proxy for the soul in question, usually one of great wealth and power in life in order to be able to afford the process, and take the punishment of that soul instead.

In theory, the shabti was meant to be mistaken for the original soul, and sent on to final judgement, taking the brunt of their afterlife punishment, whereas the actual deceased is processed according to their alignment like any mortal soul.

Naturally, this process is used by the wicked elite to give themselves a headstart into integrating themselves into their afterlife without being immediately set upon by fiends, or else by reformed evil folk that wish to avoid any karmic backlash for their past and being judged based on who they were at the time of death.

However, all of this hinges upon the bureaucracy of death actually being fooled by the shabti, which doesn’t always happen.

If the psychopomps catch the deception, either during judgement or after the fact while patrolling the lower planes, shabti can be rehabilitated, and set free on the lawful neutral plane of Axis, where some migrate to the material plane.

For their part, shabti resemble golden replicas of the people they were made to be copies of, often with markings reflecting of ancient Egyptian/Osirian fashion, like eyeshadow and whatnot. Their composition of quintessence combined with their inherently mortal nature makes them native outsiders as well.

Mentally, shabti are very human-like, which makes sense as that is what they were designed to be. In fact, when created they earnestly believe that they are the person that they are a copy of, all the better to exploit them as scapegoats.

This set of false memories means that when shabti are informed of their true nature, they tend to struggle with their identity. Some may revel in the opportunity to forge their own path, but plenty of others struggle to find themselves.

Due to their extreme rarity, shabti don’t really have a culture or society of their own, though they do tend to have a fondness for the culture of the mortal they were templated off of.

 Shabti have durable bodies and the charm of a leader.

As beings of quintessence, shabti are immortal, being immune to age, though they can still be slain by other methods.

Thanks to a curiosity of their composition, shabti cannot rise as the undead, never fearing that horrible fate. What’s more, energy drain does not seem to affect their bodies, though enough can still kill them.

Having a whole lifetime that isn’t theirs in their minds, they can prove to be surprisingly knowledgible about a multitude of topics.

As artificial souls, shabti tend to be difficult to resurrect, their spirits either breaking down too easily, or perhaps a reluctance of deities to grant such a blessing to a creature that defies the natural order somewhat.

Supernaturally charming, many shabti can implant ideas into the minds of others.

 Additionally, there are a few minor variations on the shabti. This includes those that are more human-like, Lack inherited memories but are full of potential, able to inflict feedback upon those that drain their energy, and express extreme willfulness to resist magic that bends the mind.

 Charming and durable, shabti can be social and spellcasting masters, as well as front-line warriors as well. In fact, because they have no real weakness, they can excel at pretty much any class. Whether they embrace the nature of their past life, seeking to relive past glories that were never theirs, or seek to distance themselves with their actions, many might choose the path of adventure.

[dannyphantom-rewrite]

Ghostly anatomy

Ghost Cores: are the sole organ that a ghost processes, although the core itself is made a few seperate components.

(please pardon my poor art skills) 

Outer Wall: Thick many layered endoskeleton surrounding the core, composed of hardened Ectoplasm. Microscopic pores allow for the steady intake and expulsion of ecto-energy.

Membrane: A thin porous sheet beneath the outer wall, keeps Plasma and organelles contained.

Plasma: A soup-like substance composed primarily of super charged Ectoplasm.

Vacuole: Organelles responsible for containing energy reserves, becomes active when a ghost uses their abilties or becomes injured. The sudden release of energy acts as both a catalyst to recovery and a form of adrenaline.

Scire: Latin word for "to know", a vaguely heart-shaped organelle responsible for storing information/memories. The "brain" of the core. 

Vibrato: Responsible for speech, and more animalistic vocal responses; growling, purring, rattling, hissing, ungodly shrieking and unnatural echoing. Greatly influenced by emotions.

Mitochondria: Energy Vacuums. Organelle responsible for drawing ecto-energy in from the Ghost Zone, through the Outer Wall and Membrane, filtering out harmful components, transferring excess for storage in the Vacuole and finally, releasing resulting waste products.

Nucleus: Synonymous with the Soul.

-Ghosts need ecto energy to function, and Danny and Vlad aren't an exception. However, while normal ghosts take it in from the Ghost Zone (The process is kinda similar to photosynthesis, and if you're thinking that the core looks a lot like Plant cell, you're right and that's why.) Danny and Vlad don't spend nearly enough time there to sustain themselves and have to actually consume Ectoplasm from time to time. Think of it like a dietary supplement. 

Ectoplasm and injury: 

-Aside from their core, a ghost's body is literally just Ectoplasm. When they get injured they can quickly pull energy from their Core's Vacuole to heal/repair the damage. Major injuries take more time to repair, for example; loss of a limb. Re-growing an arm takes significantly more time and energy than sealing a cut. 

-If a ghost expends ecto energy faster than they can replenish it, they run the risk of destabilizing into a pile of goop. 

-If a ghosts core is damaged it can heal, so long as the injury is on the outer wall or membrane, damage to any of the organelle is permanent and will greatly affect how it functions. For example, a puncture to the Scire will result in memory loss, and a snapped Vibrato chord could make vocalizations painful, or even render the ghost mute. Damage to any of the three mitochondria slows the rate of energy absorption and thus makes injuries heal much slower.

-if the nucleus is damaged in any way, that ghost WILL destabilize.

-Halfas definitely heal faster than normal humans, but Unlike normal ghosts, Vlad and Danny still have bones and organs and all that other junk, so they're not nearly as durable. 

-When either of them get injured Ectoplasm will flood to the site and act as a sort of internal support until the injury heals naturally. So for example, let's say Danny breaks an arm, Ectoplasm will fill in the break and keep the bone held together, and then slowly recede back into the blood stream as the break heals. 

-Another thing to note is that while Ectoplasm based limbs can grow back, living tissue doesn't. If Danny or Vlad lost a limb, they'd probably be able to make an equivalent Ectoplasmic prosthetic while in their ghost forms, but in terms of their human halves that arm or leg would just be gone for good. 

-Internal organs don't grow back either, but Ectoplasm is more than capable of patching up puncture wounds. So if there was every an incident where either of their insides ended up on the outside…well…that missing bit of small intestine is gonna get a glowing green replacement. 

-Danny and Vlad aren't capable of destabilizing into puddles either because of the whole bones and tissue thing, Rather, if they over exert themselves they simply revert back to their human halves and black out for awhile. 

Halfa's and blood type: 

-Vlad's blood type is O-, While Danny's is AB+. Both of them also have Ectoplasm running through their bloodstream and are unable to receive blood from a donor who doesn't also have ectoplasm in theirs. 

-Since Vlad's blood type is that of a universal donor, he'd be able to give blood to Danny, but Danny wouldn't be able to donate to him. If Vlad ever needed a transfusion, he'd have to pull from a supply of his own that was set aside for an emergency.

-Niether of them can donate blood because of its Ectoplasmic content. 

Classifications of ghosts:

deceased soul: most common type of ghost, created from the soul of a living being whose death was either too soon, leaving them with unfinished business, or particularly violent and/or gruesome.

Natural-Born: Sometimes insultingly called Never-Borns, these are Gosts that were born as ghosts and were never actually alive in the traditional sense of the word. Youngblood and the denizens of the Far Frozen are good examples of this type of ghost.

Wraiths / Feeders: Not all deceased souls are feeders, but all feeders are deceased souls. This is a sub class of ghosts that needs to consume some sort of emotional response, along with ecto energy to sustain themselves. Ember, Spectra, and shadow are good examples, As they feed off of admiration, misery, and misfortune respectively. 

Shape-shifters/ blobs: sub class of natural born ghost. These guys have low ecto-energy/ power levels and somewhat unstable physical forms. This allows them to change shape with ease but they also get a lot of shit from other ghosts for being weak. They're a lot smaller than the average ghost and their default shapes don't usually look very humanoid. Examples include: Bertrand, Skulker and Ectopi.

Spirits: Ectoplasmic based entities that represent an idea or concept. For example, Clockwork is the Spirit of time. 

Halfas: Living Humans with fully formed ghost Cores.

Artificial: There are three ghosts that fall under this category, Dani, Dan, and Nurse Good, As they are the only ghosts that were not made by any "natural" means. 

Core bonds and reproduction:

-Okay before anybody asks "dude wtf do you mean ghosts can be born?" 

-Im gonna just. Explain that real quick and get it out of the way, lmao. 

-So, simply put, a natural born ghost is formed when ecto energy from two (or more) ghosts is combined. This is a process that takes an insane amount of energy and really shouldn't even be attempted unless the parents have super high energy levels or a third party who can help out. It's done completely externally and all in one go, so if the energy flow gets cut off before the new ghost's Core is fully formed it WILL destabilize, and there goes all your effort right down the drain. 

-And yes, Halfas can do this too, But they're offspring wouldn't inherit any human features, they'd be full ghost. While I'm on the subject, it's actually the only way Danny or Vlad would be able to have a biological kid. The ectoplasmic radiation from their accidents rendered them both sterile/infertile in the human sense of the word. Danny doesn't menustate anymore, and for lack of better terminology, Vlad is just firing blanks.

-Core bond is just the term for ghost marriage. Bonded ghosts are more in tune with each other than those that aren't,  as they develop a sort of empathic connection with their partner(s). 

-This last thing has absolutely nothing to do with Ghostly biology but I don't know where else to put it so here: 

Esperanto = ghost speak. 

The language was originally created to be easy to learn so as to act as a universal language. Unfortunately the idea didn't catch on IRL, BUT!!!

When you consider the fact that not all ghosts would speak English, it's definitely a good idea for the Ghost Zone to have a universal tongue to get past that language barrier issue. 

The language DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE TO BE LEARNED, It's just there. The information is the first thing stored in the Scire. Esperanto can be spoken, written or signed, similar to ASL.

[apenitentialprayer]

The Cult of the Saints: An Outline

The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, by Peter Brown.

Chapter 2: “A Fine and Private Place”

1. Inscriptions on graves stretching over a millennium are “reminders of the massive stability of the Mediterranean care of the dead.” Funerary customs were simply “part and parcel” of the human condition, and so rituals were surprisingly indifferent to labels like “pagan,” “Christian,” “elite,” or “popular.” They were less a religious experience as they were a human experience, with the central aspect in all cases being the importance of the deceased’s family in taking care of the dead. 2. At the same time, the grave became a flashpoint where tensions between communal and familial loyalties could be expressed and played out. Different societies at different times have attempted to deal with the apparent contradiction of loyalty among its constituencies in different ways; some have been content to allow certain members of the dead “to retain a high profile,” while others have attempted to suppress the power of certain deceased and their families. (x) 3. Though such tensions shift the field of conversation from overt theology to more subtle sociological concerns within the community, the language used to discuss these tensions nonetheless remain religiously charged. Granting ammunition to those scholars who use the two-tier popular religion model, writers of this period like Augustine and Jerome attempted to frame undesirable practices as pagan holdovers. 4. This framing of undesirable practices as pagan holdovers has influenced later historians; by taking such claims at face value, scholars like A.H.M. Jones could later look at texts written by these same authors that speak positively of the cult of the saints and frame these texts as the final victory of the vulgar in pressuring the practices of the elite. But such a view fails to hold up under scrutiny. 5. For example, the elites who decried ‘paganisms’ that had infiltrated Christian practice often blamed a phenomenon of mass conversions that had happened in the century since Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. There are two issues with such reasoning; recent archaeological work at Hippo has failed to find evidence of a sudden mass conversion to Christianity among its 4th Century inhabitants; the growth of the community seems to have come from a rising population occurring within a stable Christian community. Second, the practices being described as pagan in origin were often practiced by the elite Christians themselves, and had been practiced by such Christians for generations before. 6. By looking beyond the writings of a select few elites who lived during the generation of Augustine and Jerome, a different picture starts to be formed; this picture forces us to confront the tensions between the universal Church, which articulated itself as a form of extended spiritual kinship, and the biological kin units that were members of this Church. 7. The increased centralization of the Church in late antiquity, combined with the central ritual meal in which all members would participate, allowed the institution to become a form of “artificial kin group.” This is shown by their funerary practices; by the early third century, the Church in Rome had its own cemetery, and the burial of non-Christians within its territory was seen as a breach in kinship ties. Likewise, the Christian Church prayed for its dead specifically, at the exclusion of heathens, apostates, and excommunicates. Likewise, the dates of the deaths of martyrs and bishops were recorded and memorialized as a form of family history. 8. At the same time, the ‘privatization’ of the cult of the saints threatened the universality of the Church; writers like Augustine and Vigilantius criticized devotions centered on ancestral graves and relics for this very reason. There was an anxiety that the rise of feast days dedicated to localized saints could threaten the importance of Easter, and the holy sites in Jerusalem could be neglected in favor of tombs closer to home. 9. By keeping these conflicting interests in mind, the framing of the controversy changes from a Christian intellectual elite trying to suppress a ‘vulgar’ religious practice to a battle between two different Christian elites attempting to position themselves as the proper patrons of the cult; the bishops representing the universal Church, and the families of the venerated deceased. 10. This conflict can be seen in the creation of shrines and the private possessions of relics by wealthy laypersons. Families would often construct shrines to saints with the intention of burying their own dead in proximity to them, depositio ad sanctos. This led to some resentment; the grave of one poor person located outside a chapel had an inscription which said his position outside the church was a result of his poverty, but quips that he nonetheless is “as warm as they” who were laid to rest by the saint. In another case, a woman named Lucilla was rebuked by a deacon for kissing the bone of a martyr that she owned before receiving the Eucharist in her mouth. 11. In Rome itself, tensions between these groups were less severe; the Christian poet Paulinus praised a Roman senator who held a feast at the grave of an ancestor on his death-day, for example. Pope Damascus, likewise, was able to exert influence on prominent members of wealthy Christian families in order to keep a hold on “cemeteries that could so easily have slipped irrevocably out of their control.” Outside of Rome, Ambrose of Milan would play a prominent role in the cooling of this crisis. After the relics of Saints Gervasius and Protasius were discovered in 385, Ambrose was swift to appropriate them for himself; he collected the corpses and placed them in a basilica of his own creation, “inseparably link[ing them] to the communal liturgy.” 12. Ambrose had neither created the practice of saint veneration, nor did he simply accept cult veneration as something outside his control; by linking relics to particular churches and basilicas throughout his territory, Ambrose had essentially “rewired” the practice by connecting it to places of public worship. Augustine’s writings in favor of the saints would perform a similar function; whereas their intercession was previously a largely private affair, his recording of ‘authentic’ miracles by their intercession made these stories the public domain of all Christians. 13. In the generation directly after Augustine, the ambivalence towards the cult of the saints had shifted; figures like Gregory of Tours and Paulinus were greatly enthusiastic with the celebrations of the saints. Two factors may have played a part in this; first was the economic situation in western Europe; even during Augustine’s term as bishop, his community controlled more wealth than he ever did as an individual, and in fact struggled to find ways to spend it. 14. While much of the Mediterranean struggled with financing its ecclesiastical ambitions, Italy, Gaul, and North Africa seemed to have an abundance of wealth; whereas Alexandria “had to choose between shirts for then poor and the itch to build,” western Europe did not have the surge in population that made it difficult to fund reliefs for the poor and sick. And, without the traditional ways of spending wealth for the community, resentment for their possession of the wealth could fester. The cult of the saints allowed the Church to avoid that; by publicly funding shrines and hosting feasts and ceremonies at them, the money could be funneled back to the community. 15. Furthermore, the cult of the saints helped to redefine urban life in the Roman world. Before, the city was divided into citizens (men belonging to the city) and non-citizens (women, children, the poor, and visitors). Most of the time, these latter two categories were allowed to remain in the city, but at times of war or famine they were forcibly expelled; the line of who belonged was drawn. With the rise of the cult of the saints, both women and the poor were able to participate in public life like never before. 16. The most dramatic expression of women’s involvement would be the processions on feast days, which scandalized even some of the clergy; men and women, married and unmarried, walked and mingled together during these celebrations. Later, under Islamic rule, there are records of young men coming to such festivals specifically to see the women. In some cases, illicit sexual activity did occur - Augustine had one in one of the basilicas of Carthage before his conversion to Christianity. 17. Beyond the physical mixing of the sexes, the cult of the saints allowed women to partake in situations that were not dominating by men in the traditional sense. Most shrines were located in cemeteries, where the regulation between the sexes was more lax. Beyond that, however, the escape from the “rigidities of her urban setting” could mean a complete escape from the masculine presence in its entirety. One account of a pilgrim details her walking a circuit of shrines in which even the male saint being venerated did not act in the traditionally Roman masculine form. (x) 18. The poor, meanwhile, often congregated around shrines, as they were heavily associated with charity and gift-giving. This was part of a larger shift to a postclassical society in which the citizen/non-citizen divide was replaced with the rich and poor as the primary separator; the rich were expected to provide service to the poor through a religiously charged expression of patron-client relationship. The poor were not to be thrown out “at the first touch of famine,” but were essential parts of this system of patronage. 19. The inclusion of the poor as social recipients was mirrored by the inclusion of women as givers. This development allowed women to participate in public life at a time where public laws were still forbidding them to participate in politics; under the Christian worldview, charity was an act of mercy, and not an act of politics. Women could therefore visit the sick, feed the poor, and fully participate as patrons of shrine-based ceremonies without breaching this ban. 20. These developments hopefully show that the development of the cult of the saints was not the result of a “vulgar,” half-pagan majority forcing their will on a reluctant, educated Christian elite. Rather, it was a development within the Christian community that created intracommunal tensions and resulted in a tradition that broke from traditional paganism.

[themuzzleofnemesis]

7–Memory of the God; Scene 2

The Muzzle of Nemesis, pages 229-239

It was our last resort after failing to avert the destruction of the world. That is, to flee from Earth.

Seventy-two people were selected for the crew of the large spaceship, “Climb One”. All of them were celebrated scientists and researchers, as well as their assistants.

I, Levia Barisol, rode on the ship alongside my brother and my mother.

We had already selected several candidate planets viable for human immigration from many years of space exploration. The goal of the “Climb One” was to improve upon the environment of one of them to make it closer to that of Earth’s.

We weren’t the only ones able to successfully escape from Earth. Once we had achieved our goal we would reconvene with other spaceships and restart our culture on this new planet—or so we planned.

As time went on, one by one the periodic communications from the other ships came to a stop.

I can only speculate as to why. But I think it’s because some of the deviants who had been the cause of the Earth’s destruction—“HER”s—had snuck into their crew.

Ultimately we were forced to conclude that the “Climb One” was completely on its own. The odds of there being any other Earthlings alive outside of us was exceedingly close to 0.

We altered our initial goal, and decided that we wouldn’t just improve upon the new planet’s environment, but also undertake the creation of a new lifeform that was close to that of earth people. Unfortunately the genes of the spaceship crew had already mutated, and as such we had to give up on creating any clones. There was no point in making lifeforms with no reproductive potential, after all.

The task given to me was fine tuning the new lifeforms’ minds. They would need to be able to build up a culture similar to that of what we had on Earth in a shorter timespan. One of the crew who liked computer games had remarked that it was like a “New Game Plus”, which wasn’t actually all that wrong.

As per its name, the “Climb One” had to become a foundation by which mankind could “climb up” from the tragedy of their dead Earth.

.

At the end of a long period of work, we finally achieved our great feat.

An environment that resembled Earth’s, and a new race of humanity.

We had successfully created both.

It took many sacrifices to get there. A being of “HER” had been on the “Climb One” as well.

Seth Twiright—A man who by all rights would not normally be on the ship. Right before he had been selected as part of the crew it was discovered that he was an “HER”, and it was thought that after that he had committed suicide. No one noticed for quite some time that he had ridden on the “Climb One” by masquerading as another member of the crew.

As a result a great deal of the crew died, and it wound up leaving some slightly distorted figures in the long-awaited new world, the “Third Period”.

I had retained the spirit data of the deceased sixty-two crew members. Under suggestion from Professor Held, these ended up being installed in a forest in the new world.

They would watch over the new world as “spirits” that could have no influence on its culture.

Thanks to Seth there was a very high probability that “HER”s had been born into the new world as well.

The remaining crew discussed what counter-measures we could enforce, but it was there that a definitive crack arose.

Eight of us--I, my brother Behemo, my mother Rahab, and Gilles, Vlad, Marie, Salem, and Lich--insisted that we should transplant our spirit data into the new race of humans and proactively manage the new world hereafter.

But the remaining two—Professor Held and Hazuki—opposed that.

They argued that “The role of ‘Climb One’ is over. Now we should leave the world to the new humans, and quietly wait for death inside this spaceship”.

We just couldn’t accept that.

Neglecting this world that we struggled so long to create.

I don’t know what the two of them were thinking.

In terms of numbers, we were the overwhelming majority.

But the “Black Box” device we needed to move the spirit data couldn’t be used without the consent of all living crewmembers.

The verbal quarrel finally broke out into a mutual slaughter.

--And at the end of it, the spaceship “Climb One” crashed to the ground.

.

Our physical bodies were destroyed, but fortunately our spirit data remained in the ship.

However, without our bodies we wouldn’t be able to use the “Black Box”. I’m repeating myself, but to activate the device we needed a living crewmember.

Even if we could work the “Black Box” through some means, we had no destination for the spirit data to be moved to. At that time it would have been fortuitous if there were a body in the new humanity that was suitable to be transferred into, but it was hard to imagine that working out well.

What I came up with as a compromise was a “dud” sample left in the crashed ship alongside the “Black Box”. It was a creature that my brother had created during the course of his research into the new humanity, and it had a form that was almost like a “dragon” from fantasy stories. We would move our spirit data into it temporarily as it sat in cold storage, and after that take our time waiting for a body among the new humans.

…Only, my brother—the one who actually made it—apparently wasn’t that enthusiastic about this plan.

Right before the spaceship crashed, Professor Held and Hazuki injected me and my brother with a certain chemical.

It was a drug that could change humans into this “dragon”. And we wound up with the unpleasant sensation of feeling both the fear of our bodies changing into monsters, and also at the same time fear of the imminent crash.

--In any case, first we had to resolve the problem with the “Black Box”.

There was nothing we could do but wait, for quite some time. Perhaps once the new humanity’s culture developed there would eventually be someone who could activate the “Black Box”.

We continued to wait for that day inside the ship as spirits.

--And it was through that that I came to learn the reasoning for Professor Held and Hazuki’s objection.

Thanks to Seth, my spirit had also become violated by malice—“HER”.

As time went on, my spirit data was gradually changing.

And—

In the end, I became something that desired only destruction and chaos.

We had no use for a world that would not be as we wished.

We would destroy it all.

And then do it over again from the beginning.

.

Finally, our chance arrived.

Seth Twiright was truly an amazing man. It seemed he’d been able to manage a transfer of his spirit data right before we killed him.

We didn’t notice it because he’d moved his spirit data to a body that he’d been keeping in cold storage. He’d slipped it past our notice by sneaking it among the sleeping new humanity.

The cold storage device was shut down by a timer, and he finally opened his eyes inside a laboratory named “Lunaca Labora”.

An illegal stowaway though he may be, Seth was also a member of the crew of the “Climb One”, as far as it went.

He should have been able to activate the “Black Box”.

The problem was, trapped in the ship as we were, we had no way of contacting Seth across such a vast distance.

The culture of the new world had advanced considerably. As our technology was scattered through the area around the crashed ship in particular, a country with a superior culture that made use of it came to be, called the Magic Kingdom Levianta.

Ruling this country was a woman called Alice Merry-Go-Round. Strangely, she had the ability to contact us.

I don’t know why. All I can say is that it was an unanticipated product of this new world that was outside of our supervision.

My brother and I decided to disguise ourselves as “gods” and give a revelation to Alice.

But then, us being “gods” wasn’t entirely a lie. We did create this world, after all.

By Alice’s decree Seth was invited into Levianta. He ended up being in charge of the ark “Sin”—what the people of Levianta called the “Climb One”—as one of their researchers.

Naturally, we ordered Seth to activate the “Black Box”…but he refused.

There was no way he’d accept what we told him to do, given we tried to kill him.

However—we still had a chance.

In the “Climb One”, Seth had infiltrated as one of the members of the team that designed the new humanity. Using that knowledge, he newly constructed artificial humans in the world called “ghoul children”.

These were also clones of Seth.

So then, these “ghoul children” should also have been able to use the “Black Box”.

What was more, my brother and I had been progressing along in preparations to obtain bodies. He had told me that he wanted a proper human body, not just the failed “dragon”.

And so we tried to have appropriate bodies—the “Twins of God”—born into the world via “Project Ma”—an artificial insemination project named such by the new humans.

Although, that apparently wasn’t working out. The first mother selected had miscarried, and the next one safely birthed the twins but then ran off with them. Due to various troubles with the ones after that, we were unable to secure bodies we could move into.

And as that went on, time passed pointlessly.

.

The “ghoul children” each had their own individual will, and some of them lived within the country of Levianta.

That was the siblings Kiril Clockworker and Irina Clockworker. I considered using one of them to get to the “Black Box”.

Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—Irina was selected as one of the candidates for mother in “Project Ma”. My brother proposed waiting for her to give birth to the “Twins of God” and then having Irina activate the “Black Box” afterward.

But—I couldn’t stand to wait any longer.

I didn’t know if Irina could give birth to the “Twins of God”. It might be another failure.

If that was the case, then we already had a body. Even if it looked like a dragon, at least I would be able to get outside.

A certain woman was murdered during the pointless quarrel over the selection for mother candidate in the seventh “Project Ma”.

Her name was Elluka.

She was Kiril’s girlfriend.

Kiril’s heart had grown weak.

It was simpler than anything to take advantage of it.

I guided Kiril to the ship—and was finally able to get him to activate the “Black Box”.

However…he was after all a mere clone. The certification didn’t completely take, and so the “Black Box”—broken down due to the crash and age—started to run out of control.

The “dragon” defrosted and started to rampage before we could shift our spirit data into it, destroying the ship.

Amid all the chaos the “Black Box” continued to operate on its own—and moved mine and my brother’s spirit data somewhere.

That place was…Elluka’s body.

.

In this world there is a certain Rule.

--“The souls of those who are reincarnated shall have their prior memories sealed”—

.

Having “swapped” into a body that wasn’t suited for transfer, I lost my memories.

.

I have several questions regarding the experiences of the others’ spirit data aside from my brother and I.

First, Professor Held. He and Hazuki’s data wasn’t inside the crashed ship.

But there was a being called the “Great Land God Held” in this world. A great tree of the forest that had a will of its own.

If his true identity were that of Professor Held’s spirit data, then when in the world had he found the time to move said data there?

And I was quite sure that he hadn’t wanted to oversee this new world in the first place.

There was another god in this world—that bat they called the Sun God was probably Hazuki, but I had the same questions regarding that as I did the Great Land God Held.

And aside from that, there was also the data of the remaining six who had been in the crashed ship with us.

I had thought that they vanished after being caught up in the ship’s destruction, yet their souls had at some point been settled inside various items called “The Vessels of Deadly Sin” along with Seth.

--Strictly speaking, Lich was the exception. His soul alone had come to live in the forest as a spirit along with the other crewmembers, not joining with the rest of us.

…Though naturally, at the time I had lost all memories of being Levia, and so I had not been able to even contemplate such questions then.

 .

I came to live in the new world as “the sorceress Elluka Clockworker”.

Perhaps influenced by having obtained a body from this new humanity, I became able to perform a movement of spirit data even without a “Black Box”. By using this to periodically change the body I dwelled in, I was able to live for a very long time.

A man searching for his lost love, Karchess.

A wild thief, Platonic.

The drunkard red swordsman, Leonhart.

The cool and collected assassin head maid, Mariam.

My adorable apprentices, Michaela and Gumillia.

The servant devoted to his sister, Allen.

The hot-blooded cop, Ayn.

I had met with various people along the way, and also parted with them.

--That life changed about six hundred years after I had first “swapped” into Elluka.

There was another aside from me who led an eternal life. The girl who had her spirit data put into a red cat plushy by Seth…Kiril’s little sister, Irina.

She had challenged me to a duel.

As a result of the battle at Merrigod Plateau, my brother who was inside Elluka with me went to the “heavenly yard”—

And my spirit was swallowed up by a new being.

A woman who was born as the result of a merging between me, Irina, and one of the “Demons of Deadly Sin”, Eve.

She took the name of “Ma”.

<<prev------directory------next>>

[orangemix]

The Medicinal Properties of Traditional Incense

We make use of medicinal plants in may means. We consume them (infusion, product, blossom significance, alcohol tincture, glycerine cast, syrup, honey essence, oxymel), eat them (pill, tablet, homeopathic pills, electuary, cooking flavors, veggies, pot natural herbs), absorb them via our skin (salve, cream, poultice, mask, hydrosol, oil, lotion, balm, cream, compress, vapor rub, vital oils, ear drop, bath, saturate, sitz bath), absorb them via our mucus membrane layers (suppository, sinus clean, enema, douche, eye decrease), and also use them in spiritual ways (amulets, beauties, medicine packages, spots, incense). We additionally inhale their medicine via cigarettes, pipelines, steams, necessary oil diffusers, atomizers, and, yes, incense.

The medicinal impacts of incense rely on our feeling of scent. The procedure occurs when particles take a trip up the sinus cavities, dissolve right into the mucous cellular lining, as well as are discovered by the olfactory receptors on the ideas of the olfactory sensory neurons. How these molecules are noticed is arguable as to whether the neurons are noticing the resonance of the particles or their form, with the theory alternating between both ideas to and fro over the centuries. Either way, our feeling of smell is really weak contrasted to other animals. For example, human beings have 10 centimeters square of olfactory tissue in their sinuses, while dogs can have up to 170 square centimeters of olfactory cells with a hundred times a lot more receptors per square centimeter. Odor is the only sense viewed in appropriate mind which is the side of brain focused on instinct as well as creativity, versus the left mind which is focused on evaluations and reasoning. As a result of this the impacts of scent are physical, psychedelic, and psychological. Surprisingly, fragrance is taken into consideration to be the spirit of the plant therefore impacts our spirit. Smell is likewise processed via the limbic system, which takes care of feelings, lust, memory, creativity, and appetite. this is why odor can cause emotions and also memories. Smell is also our earliest feeling, part of the prehistoric "reptile brain" which is 450 million years of ages and precedes various other old senses like sight and also balance.

There are records of making use of incense throughout the old world. The earliest recorded use though it was also utilized extensively in ancient times in various other . dutch orange is really various in composition from natural incense. Synthetic incense is generally made with a binder, normally starch, a bamboo core, which generates copious smoke and also adds the smell of melting bamboo, as well as ignition source such as charcoal, sodium nitrate, paraffin, or an oil solvent. The paraffin and petroleum solvents are especially unsafe due to the fact that they are neurotoxic and the breathing of their smoke can cause bronchial asthma, skin responses, queasiness, dizziness, sneezing, and also frustrations. The smoke is likewise an irritant for the eyes, nose, and throat. Synthetic incense also normally consists of synthetic fragrances, 95% of which are derived from petroleum as well as create the same signs provided above. These synthetic aromas are favored by specific suppliers due to the fact that they are lower in cost, even more constant, can be used to produce novel scents not discovered in nature, and are an ethical replacement for ingredients from jeopardized types like musk, ambergris, and also civet. Synthetic aromas are not the same in intricacy to all-natural fragrances so they can scent artificial. They do not have the very same physical, psychological, and also psychoactive properties of natural scents, and have the negative impacts noted above. Sadly, there are no legal limitations on the amounts or mixes of synthetic fragrance chemicals, the ingredients of these synthetic fragrances do not need to be detailed, as well as just a portion of them have actually been checked for safety.

Natural incenses, on the other hand, are typically 100% plant. In natural incense is made with a base of makko, a.k.a. tabu no ki. This is a water soluble, adhesive, unsmelling material that burns smoothly and also equally. It is the powdered internal bark of Cercidiphyllum japonicum (Katsura Tree, Japanese Judas Tree), an evergreen in the Magnolia family, and operates both as an all-natural binder and also as a source of ignition. Fascinating to note is that the Magnolia family members is the most primitive of all angiosperms (blooming plants), evergreen yet with leaves, and the flowers develop right into cones comparable to those found on conifers. The fossil record for these plants returns to100 million years! Other examples of plants in this household consist of cinnamon, cassia, bay laurel, champa, nutmeg, mace, star anise, ylang-ylang, camphor, avocado, hill magnolia, laurel, and rhododendron. In  the traditional incense base is halmaddi, the resin of the Tree of Heaven, which has an unusual hygroscopic residential property (it draws water out of the air) that makes n incenses feel damp to the touch. Hamaddi incorporated with honey, adds the wonderful honey/vanilla note to champa (spice blend) incenses. To the base of makko and also hamaddi is added ground and powdered herbs including materials, barks, blossoms, seeds, origins, leaves, fruits, branches, roots, light bulbs, timbers, lichens, algaes, as well as pet ingredients like ambergris, musk, pangolin scales, and conch shells.

Incense is traditionally utilized for various reasons, particularly medicinal, ambient, and spiritual applications. Medicinal usages consist of enhancing power, avoiding as well as dealing with ailment (fumigation), inducing and promoting restful sleep, excitement the sex drive, boosting positive feelings, as well as a decrease of anxiety, anxiety, fear, fear, sadness, or temper. It is additionally used for atmosphere, to clear and/or specify an area, generate a certain state of mind among a group, to scent room, clothing, hair, or writing paper, to cover unpleasant odors, to influence imagination, or to develop focus for research study. Historically, prior to mechanical clocks, it was also used to track the flow of time throughout reflection, meetings, or at the geisha residence. The spiritual uses of incense are many. For prayer the incense smoke is viewed as a means to draw in and also please the gods, sweeten your prayers, and the climbing smoke is stated to carry both prayers and also the spirit of the deceased as much as paradise. Incense is additionally made use of spiritually to generate introspective states, desires, and also visions, and to aid with emphasis throughout petition. It can even boost the acoustics in churches as well as various other huge areas as well as help one accept interactions from plants. It detoxifies and sanctifies space, individuals, and ceremonial objects, and repel evil spirits, insect pests, condition, as well as unfavorable energy. It is utilized thoroughly to mark parties as well as initiation rites as well as is burned as a sacrifice itself. Lastly, it is utilized to mask the smell of cremation as well as pet sacrifice.

Incense ingredients come from all parts of plants as well as have a variety of activities: bark, blossom, fruit, fallen leave, material, wood, and also seed. Cinnamon is a frequently used bark that counters exhaustion, depression, as well as weak point, as well as tones as well as calms the nerves. Cloves are an instance of a blossom that is used (they are actually a blossom bud) and they are thought about to be a mental stimulant. Juniper berry, a fruit, stimulates and also strengthens the nerves, enhances the spirit in difficult circumstances, and eases anxiety, nervous tension, and psychological fatigue. Eucalyptus leaf boosts as well as gets rid of the mind concentration, while benzoin resin is soothing and uplifting, comforts the depressing as well as lonely, and acts as an anti-depressant as well as sedative. A common incense seed is fennel which boosts courage, resolve and also strength in the face of adversity. Sandalwood, among one of the most usual bases for incense, is relaxing and also harmonizing, reduces tension as well as tension, serve as an antidepressant, and combats anxiety, stress and anxiety, nervous exhaustion as well as anxiety.

[lemuelmononobe]

Voltron has ended and I just finally digitalized my OC for the show...

Name: Blade Nadezhda Dunkeheit Titles: Einherjar of the Black Hound Garmr NA - 235

Age: Season 1 - 17 (22) Season 6 - 18 (23)

Birthday: May 23 Rebirth: November 28

Species: (Experimented) Human Heritage: German (Janus)/Russian (Allisa)

Relationships: Hunk - Best Friend Lance - Prank Partner Keith - Sparring Partner Pidge - Little Sister Figure Shiro - Uncle Figure Coran - Weird Uncle Figure Allura: Big Sister Figure Garmr - Friend and Hound Allisa - Deceased Mother Janus - Deceased Father

Weapons: Garmr - His Hound. Unlike the Lions of Voltron, Hound is a pendant that acts like a full body bayard. Created by Blade when a meteor of the same ore as Voltron fell on Earth. Due to it’s small size Blade couldn’t build a ship, hence why it is a pendante. Unlike the Lions, Garmr’s energy source is his Einherjar. Thus those who wishes to use him must need a large amount of quintessence within themselves. Allura, Lotor, Haggar, Blade and other Alteans are capable of using him. if someone uses him that lacks the required amount of quintessence, they will quickly tire out. Also unlike the Lions who sends signals or ideas to their Paladins, Garmr can talk to it’s Einherjar as one would normally talk to anyone. Body - Experimented body can control his biological components giving him abilities of numerous animals and aliens Magic - After consuming Altean hair he has given the ability of magic but he doesn’t know how to use it though.

Rules: 1. Anyone can give him an order 2. Any kind of order is acceptable. 3. Only the one who gave the order can cancel or change the order. 4. One order at a time. 5. Achieve the order at any means possible.

Personality: Kindly know he has two personalities. The reason for this is his body protecting him. Animals have self defense mechanism that protects them. His doesn’t protect him physically but emotionally. When fear overrides his system his self defense mechanism activates causing his brain to shut down all emotions. Only when he feels safe can snap him back to normal. Self Defense: Stoic and robotic. He follows the rules, making him the perfect tool for anything. His fighting capabilities during this phase is inhumanly great that Voltron fell before him during their first meeting in less than five seconds due to the lack of mercy and no fear of death. Normal: After being trapped in his self defense mechanism for nearly 17 years he is a bit shy and stoic towards new people. He often maintains distance towards newcomers and doesn’t trust easily. After gaining his trust he will show affection by physical touching. Which can be seen at the team when he constantly hug Hunk, carries Pidge around, massage Lance, pet Keith, arm wrestle with Shiro and teach the Alteans the Earth dances. He is also caring and fierce fully loyal once he trusts you. His fighting capabilities are still great in this phase but not as great when his self defense is activated due to his empathetic self. He is also known to call Pidge by her real name Katie, and calling Shiro by his first name Takashi and is also known to use German phrases from time to time. Russian phrases are rare but it also happens.

Backstory: His parents Janus and Allisa we’re both orphans. The two grew up in  the same orphanage in Germany and was never adopted. The two feel in love with each other as they grow up and helped around the orphanage. Later in their lives they became great scientists and got married. Allisa then became pregnant with Janus’ son. The two named him Blade after their first date when Janus tried to impress Allisa by carving their initials on a tree which Allisa replied sarcastically “Oh yes, bring a blade on a first date in a forest far away from civilization where no one can hear me scream is romantic.” Then tragedy struck the two. An accident occurred in their lab causing Janus to forget human emotions leaving Allisa. To make matters worse Allisa lost Blade in the accident. As a way to cope with depression Allisa kept Blade’s corpse in a specialized container as a reminder of the happy times. After five years she finds Janus again and found out he made a military organization with questionable morals named Angel Corps. In hopes of reminding Janus who she is, she joins the organization. After watching a documentary Janus sought to create the “perfect human”. A human capable of evolving so quickly that it can’t die by natural means. He instructs his scientists to create his desire by any means necessary. Some started from scratch, creating artificial humans, others started to experiment on young orphans, while Allisa who is slowly losing hope used Blade in the experiment. A lot of the experiments failed and died. A few like Allisa’s experiment succeeded. At first Allisa was filled with joy. She has managed to bring her son back to life. Until reality struck her that her son is to be made a soldier, a killer, a monster. Blade during the time was known by his code name. NA - 235. NA meaning Noah’s Ark which is the name of the project he is in and 235 as his number. He made friends with other experiments like him as they were all grouped up in a room. From time to time the scientists came to experiment on them. Little by little their numbers dwindle. The last experiment was the remaining experiments take a serum. Unlike 235 who was fine with the serum the rest of them turned into grotesque flesh monsters. Seeing his friends turn into such creatures scared him so much that the last experiment finally made 235 activate his self defense mechanism. And so he killed his friends when he was ordered by Janus. Allisa watched in horror seeing this. As the creator of the “perfect human” Allisa became Janus’ new assistant. Allisa accepts the “promotion” in hopes that she can keep her son safe. 17 years passed and a meteor fell. 235 was sent to investigate the it due to it’s abnormal readings. When he finds the meteor he called back the organization reporting his findings. Before the organization could give him a new order, a voice asked him to create something from the meteor. He does so with the voice guiding him and slowly made a pendant out of it. It is then revealed that the voice was Garmr. 235 gave the pendant to Janus when he was instructed to give him the meteor. Curious Janus wore it. Janus finding the pendant and the ore it is made of unique but ultimately useless gives it to Allisa.  Unknown to him Garmr tried to heal him. Slowly his emotions arise again and the memory of Allisa returns. Sure enough he looks and finds Allisa and asks her forgiveness. In joy Allisa does and the two planned to run away with their son for a peaceful life they originally planned. Unknown to the two a rival organization ordered 235 to destroy Angel Corps and to kill everyone involved in it. 235 follows this order. Allisa who had the pendant wished for someone to help her son. Garmr moved by her plea for her son and not for her life spoke to her. There the father and mother gave their quintessence to Garmr asking him to protect their son. When 235 finally killed the remaining people of Angel Corps, his parents, Garmr used the quintessence given to him to order 235 to use him. Garmr wants to fulfill the two’s wish but he doesn’t know how. He is young and has no experience with caring for another. And this robotic phase he is in isn’t a sickness since it’s natural for his body to engage in this weird self defense so he can’t heal him like what he did to Janus. Then he hears a roar of five lions, sensing they are like him he orders Blade to search for the Pride. The Pride of Voltron. Months passed and Voltron hearing a howl leads the Paladins to a moon. There they found Blade but Garmr who was scared for his Einherjar after the Galra continuously attack them both thought they were enemies and ordered Blade to fight them. In five seconds Blade defeats them. After hearing the the Voltron Lions roar, Garmr realizes he has found the ones who can help Blade, telling him to stop. After the fight Garmr apologizes and pleads for the Lions to help his Einherjar. Hearing this the Pride accepts his apology and promises to help Blade, coaxing their Paladins to welcome Blade into their group. The group naturally wasn’t so trusting with Blade at first. They also soon found out that he will obey any order which Lance used to his advantage to prank them all. In irritation Keith accidentally ordered Blade to kill Lance. Keith managed to cancel the order in time but in doing so they grew to hate Blade ordering him to isolate himself in a room. The only one was kind enough to visit and try to befriend him was Hunk. Bringing him food, talking about random things, asking about his life. With Hunk’s kindness Blade slowly felt safe until his body deactivates his self defense phase. After 17 years Blade finally cries into Hunk’s arms. After this he slowly bonds with the rest of the group who slowly but surely accepts him. Now he fights with them and depending on their choices, his future will change.

[thestaticghost]

How to Make a Bound

((I’ve mentioned a little while back I was working on developing geists and bound away from their roots - Geists: The Sin-Eaters. I’ve finally fleshed out a direction I want to go in. It is important to note that when interacting with other blogs that have ghosts and the like, I rather go for a hybridization of whatever headcanons are standard on the blog and mine, rather than be all “mine is the correct one”. The only two things I will not bend on are A. geists and everything that makes them and B. Twilight.  The latter being because it is a very large part of D’s lore and has been created to be expansive on purpose, so if another character uses the afterlife or underworld in any way, it can easily be explained as another part of Twilight or alternate reality.

PS. I need a better name than Bound, so if you all have any ideas, please tell me.

PPS. The title was originally different, but I realized I kinda laid out everything needed to understand how to design your own bound so. Maybe one day I’ll make this an adoptable species sort of deal and design different geists and bound for people...that’d be cool.))

Before we get into geists specifically, let’s talk ghosts and spirits. Ghosts are the souls of the deceased. In DN specifically, they’re the natural plasma that occurred in a living creature’s existence. So, a mage would have more plasm than a regular human, but they wouldn’t be as strong as someone who is, say, half-elf. 

When a ghost is first “born”, they can be one of two states. The first is a ghost with full memory of their past. They may or may not be aware that they died and may try to engage with their living compatriots for awhile. These guys tend to degrade pretty quickly to the second (general) type of ghost. The second type of ghost are classified loosely by the fact they’ve begun to have memory loss. Here you find the ghosts that are repetitive in nature, doing things over and over, or have been condensed down to a single emotion, like rage. Wrathful ghosts can be extremely dangerous. Revenants and poltergeists can both fit under here, so these classifications are very loose.

Ghost forms will evolve over time, according to what their plasma dictates. That’s why when I do draw ghosts, I tend to draw animals, like Rikki and Tavi being vaguely ferretish with antlers. The older the ghost, the more twisted their image, typically. 

Spirits are not ghosts. Unlike them, they were never bound to a living body and thus are considered pure plasmic beings. Otherwise, they function similarly to ghosts on the surface but have fewer weaknesses and leave the underworld less often.

Now that ghosts vs spirits are out of the way, let’s talk Twilight. Twilight is, of course, the underworld, a world between worlds that connects all of the different realities with each other. It’s not been discussed much, but Twilight is also host to the various dominions of death. There are “levels” to Twilight, each one utterly unique, and the old dominions are where you can find Hel, Hades, and other gods associated with death and the afterlife. Another major feature are the rivers. They are not of water, like in many realities, but of plasm. These rivers can be highly dangerous unless they are utilized correctly. How does one use it correctly? To shed one’s plasm into it, so that it may one day be reused for some other purpose, up to and including new life. So, reincarnation is a thing, sort of. 

Because plasm is so charged with emotions and memories, when a ghost passes entirely those memories join the others in the plasm rivers. Another important note of Twilight - it’s time-locked. So one can feasibly leave through a door or gate in San Francisco and leave through another door in Tokyo and no time has passed. But it’s up mainly to the will of Twilight. It’s essentially a sentient creature in it’s own right, but I’ll make another post about that later.

Now for, finally, geists. And wraiths a little. They are both creatures created from ghosts but are no longer considered ghosts because of their transformation. The simplest way to differentiate them? Geists are “natural” and wraiths are artificially created by necromancers. Both of them can be hurt in much the same way a ghost can, but both are extremely powerful and nigh on impossible to destroy forever. Wraiths also have fewer limitations than geists, able to fully access their powers immediately, but unless they’ve been untethered from their creator, they’re mostly bound to the necromancer’s will. Doesn’t mean they won’t do creepy shit or try to get free though.

So what are geists? Well, they’re souls that used the plasm rivers of Twilight not to pass on, but for power (or they accidentally fell in whoops). Plasm is the magical energy of all the realities, so it becomes tempting to a creature of pure plasm to add to their personal collection so they might do more. So they try to steal from the rivers. It never turns out well. The rivers are potent and the memories and emotions of all of eternity’s living beings are there, and a snippet of those memories are dumped wholesale into the ghost as it binds to new plasm. The longer they are in the river, the more plasm they get, the more memories are stuffed into their figurative craniums. 

Obviously, even a snipped of eternity is infinite, so overwhelmed between their new raw magical potential (which oftentimes physically deforms the ghost as well) and these memories, a newly made geist goes mad. Typically, they become shadows of their former selves, and without the restraints on their powers, they could easily destroy large swathes of Twilight or any reality they wander into. Fortunately, when they first became a problem, a Law was created by Twilight, binding their powers and limiting their use to essentially party tricks. 

A geist has all this power at their potential, imbued with plasm to the point where they are no longer ghosts but pieces of Twilight as well, but they are considered half a soul now and can no longer access their powers without making a deal with someone on the verge of death. What does the half a soul have to do with anything? It’s an artificial term made to discuss the codependence of geist and bound on each other for survival. If they die and the deal is refused on either end, there is no afterlife for them. They are too volatile, and thus immediately return to plasm.

Geists are also far more likely to be cannibalistc than other types of ghosts, going after their fellow dead and devouring them in hopes that the plasm gained would stabilize their new forms. It doesn’t, but it does increase their hunger and drive them desperate as the hole they feel consuming them grows bigger. A geist without a host will not die necessarily, but the time without feels like the end of their world.

The urge for cannibalization is passed onto the bound the longer they’re alive/the more often they take advantage of the deal. The deal already requires sacrificing a random life to take the bound’s place, but it does not sate the needs of the bound, who are often weakened and confused when brought back to life at the dawn of the next day.

Some interesting powers geists do have while unbound: in addition to their normal ghostly powers such as levitation, invisibility, and intangibility, they find breaching into the world of the living much easier. They also have the ability to pull a dying person’s soul into a pocket dimension - a small piece of Twilight utterly unique to them that they can design however they think will help make a deal. In this small space, they can stop and reverse the symptoms of death and even set the body to heal longterm illnesses and defects if the deal requires. Their limit is based off the strength of the deal and their own willingness to play along. Example: D and Voice’s deal is incredibly strong. Voice has been able to help heal many long-term diseases D had, but he’s refused to cure his asthma and didn’t fix a poorly healed broken hip because he wasn’t in the mood for it. They can recreate a body completely from scratch, but there are some negative consequences of that.

A deal-made body can be visually similar to the original, down to the DNA that makes it up, but it’s an object made of plasm. Not many bound will make the deal when their original body is entirely destroyed as the more often they die, not only do their cannibalistic urges grow, but so do visual signs of their body breaking down. Blackened extremities, slowed or stopped heartbeat, lack of appetite or need for sleep, are all symptoms that grow more obvious with the creation of a plasm body. These bound that take advantage of the deal over and over and over are often considered half-dead or more, having difficulty living a normal life. They also find themselves subject to hearing the memories and emotions of Twilight’s plasm the geist stole, oftentimes leading to misdiagnosis of mental disorders in extreme cases or resulting in self-isolation. Bound who make it to this level typically retreat to Twilight if they are able, slowly deforming more and more until they’re unrecognizable for what they once were.

When a deal is made, a bound is given an unique set of powers based off their affinity for the elements and some school of magic. Popular schools include empathy, illusions, and divination, as well as the classic elemental spells. A bound will have natural access to one school of magic and one element, though they can learn more on their own depending on their magical potential. When a bound has low synergy - when the wills of the person and the geist don’t match up, often leading to a power struggle on who gets to control the body - the geist can access their own powers while in control, but not their host’s. When the host is in control, they cannot access the geist’s powers. Typically, this isn’t too big of a deal because a geist will seek out someone similar in temperament to themselves, leading to a very similar power set. For example, there is an as of yet unseen bound in a story I’m writing - the geist’s name is Slinker. Visually, they look like a blobby, watery cat creature with glowing eyes, and they have control over water and illusions. Their host, Felix, has control over water and empathic abilities. 

Permanent low synergy will lead to the creation of a shell - a body whose soul only mechanically moves it around like a puppet. There is no personality, there is no magic, there is no hunger. They are very similar to ghosts who just move in a pattern and are typically pitied by even necromancers, who have no use for them. The only thing they’re good for is energy in a spell.

When a bound has high synergy, with the combined wills of geist and host acting as one, their magic becomes wholly what was created with the deal. The geist may not physically manifest anymore either, a feature seen at other levels where the consciousness is more split. Not that all geists will manifest. Voice is not unique in the fact that he only manifests if forced to and prefers to be a literal voice in the air. 

There’s a whole lot more, but I’ve been working on this for two weeks so. I’ll make a more streamlined version later