#and they all should be relatively easy to get bc all that matters is hp% main stat

[4giorno]

this was supposed to be my perfect kaveh piece but now its def my nilou off piece lmao

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Groetus, God of the End Times

Chaotic Neutral God of Oblivion, Empty Places, and Ruins

Domains: Chaos, Darkness, Destruction, Madness, Void Subdomains: Catastrophe, Entropy, Insanity, Loss, Night, Stars, Truth

Inner Sea Faiths, pg. 46~51

Obedience: Preach of the coming end times to a listener who has not yet accepted this truth. If the person leaves or otherwise refuses to listen to you for the full hour, you must find another person to preach to so that you are proselytizing the entire time. Alternatively, if no one at all is available to listen, spend an hour contemplating ways and times the world might end—do so in an empty place where nothing lives and no person except Groetan worshipers have been for at least a month. While you contemplate, deface any surface available to you with unholy images and symbols, such as a skull-like moon. Benefit: You gain a +1 sacred or profane bonus on Will saving throws.

the sad part is that pretty much every god in inner sea faiths is like this. First Ghlaunder and now THIS! Paizo was scared of Deific Obedience when it was first written, and it shows!

God you really are just tasked with being an annoying doomsayer for an hour, huh? Standing around with a sandwich board that reads THE END IS NIGH every single day you want your god’s blessing. You can easily get away with just preaching to your party every day, provided they don’t mind listening to this crazy babble... and, of course, provided that the end of the world isn’t actually coming, or else your evangelism will come off as tasteless. But, what do you care? You’ve been saying it all this time! It’s likely going to get you punched in the face or even mauled by a crowd if you try it in the middle of a city currently undergoing a crisis (as cities in Pathfinder are wont to do), though. So, uh, be careful.

This is one of the rare Obediences where the primary method is actually easier to do than the secondary, because it specifically demands that you find somewhere “nothing lives.” While a merciful DM may allow you to share a space with vermin, this does mean you can’t simply find a quiet area in a woodlands, because trees, brush, and grass all count. Stick to the cities or in ruined civilizations! Ironically, this means that being captured and thrown in a dungeon is actually beneficial for you, provided no one else has been locked in that specific cell for more than a month.

All this hard work for a measly +1 though. I’m insulted, honestly; it’s a universal bonus to the most important saving throw you have and it stacks with everything, but it’s only a +1! It would have been fine at +2! Come on, Groetus, shell a bit more out to your flock!

Boons are acquired slowly: the first once you reach 12 hit dice, the second at 16, and the third at 20. However, the Evangelist, Exalted, and Sentinel Prestige Classes can be entered as early as level 5; doing so grants you the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14 instead. As Groetus is a true deity and does not require Fiendish Obedience, you earn the right to enter the classes earlier than those who serve fiends!

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: Doomsayer. Gain Doom 3/day, Augury 2/day, or Bestow Curse 1/day.

Oooh, Bestow Curse! That’s always fun to see! It’s a Save-Or-Suck that keeps on s--being terrible long after the battle has ended, if the enemy you slap with it gets away! It’s ALSO a touch spell entirely negated by a save, and we all know how I feel about those. Better make sure it sticks and sticks hard, or drawing into an enemy’s melee range can earn you a pretty severe slapping.

Augury is decent to have as a spell-like (I’d never prepare it as an actual spell), though its limited gaze of only 30 minutes into the future is an equal blessing and bane and it relies entirely on DM fiat... AND there’s a non-negligible chance it simply won’t work! Which means that if you don’t want to rely on the Save or Suck of Bestow Curse, your best bet (eugh) is the tragically weak and ironically ominous Doom--WAIT THAT’S RIGHT I ALMOST FORGOT! The Shaken condition also imposes a -2 to saving throws! Ok yeah, if you don’t want to rely on BC, Doom is a pretty good way to go if you have some way to bolster its pathetic saving throw of 11+Cha mod.

Boon 2: Consume Essence. 1/day, you may touch a corpse. That corpse must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Cha mod) or be reduced to dust as per Disintegrate. You gain 1d8 temporary HP, which last for a number of hours equal to your Hit Dice.

Before we get into the rest of this mess, I just really need to point out that an unattended, nonmagical object is not able to make saving throws, and a corpse is an object. ThereFOR, it should not even get to make a save against this ability!

What stats do you even use for it? The former creature? Because that’s just unnecessarily confusing, especially if you use it on the corpse of a long-dead creature. I really, really don’t see why this ability should allow a save, especially since A) it’s only usable once a day and B) it’s incredibly weak. Under what circumstances would you use this? Because I’ll tell you right now, using this against a baddie that’s supposed to be recurring will simply make the DM contrive a reason for them to come back anyway. Turning them to ash will just make it harder. I suppose there is a niche use in bringing it against creatures who can reanimate themselves, or against casters who may have Contingencies in place, but

but still, like. It’s a bad Boon. If you want a body destroyed, hacking it to pieces or burning it is just as easy, all this ability does is save you time. And maybe not even then! Because it gives the body a saving throw! For WHATEVER reason! And you only get to do it ONCE a day! Honestly, everything about this ability is just a progressively more insulting middle finger, all leading up to the pitiful 1d8 HP you get. There’s a lot of Boons that are straight up bad or useless, but I think this is the first one I’ve actually hated. Lets move on...

Boon 3: Whispers of Insanity. 1/day as a standard action, you may whisper Groetus’ Truth into the mind of a creature within 30ft. This acts as the Insanity spell, but the save DC is 10+1/2 your HD+your Cha mod. In addition to the normal methods of curing Insanity, a Modify Memory spell or similar can end the effect. A Knowledge (Religion) check (DC same as the saving throw) reveals this information.

Insanity is a decent spell, essentially being a permanent Confusion... but it only affects a single target, and whoever you’d want to use it against is typically not going to last long enough for the permanent duration to matter. I suppose slapping someone you hate but don’t necessarily want to kill is good enough, or blasting some poor random sod who hasn’t accepted the Truth, but as a Boon? Groetus really doesn’t bless his Evangelists with anything good.

Insanity is not only a level 7 spell while most 3rd Boons grant 9th level effects, but in stark contrast to a normal third Boon, the version you get here is actually weaker than just getting the spell normally, because Insanity has a Long range (100ft + 10ft/lvl) and can only be removed with 7th+ level magic (Greater Restoration, Heal, etc). Having a much easier method of dispelling the effect is just insulting, even if it is flavorful. This would be considered a second tier Boon by most deities, or even demigods! Come on, Groty, step it up!

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: Maddening Voice. Gain Lesser Confusion 3/day, Mad Hallucination 2/day, or Confusion 1/day.

Off to a bad start. Lesser Confusion may as well not even be a spell, so we’re moving on from there. Mad Hallucination is a fun spell to not need components for, barraging a single target with visions of insanity for upwards to an hour, though mechanically it’s only a -2 to a very small number of relatively unimportant checks (caster level really only applies to players, who must regularly pierce SR). Rather uniquely, it’s not mind-affecting, but is instead a phantasm Illusion, allowing it to affect a wider range of creatures than normal! But it’s still not really super useful, because as it’s negated by a Will save and penalizes Will saves with a successful application, wouldn’t you have preferred a Save or Suck first?

This leaves Confusion which, as area of effect spells go, isn’t the best. There’s a 1/2 chance that they essentially lose their turn, but a 1/4 chance that they’re unaffected by the confusing magic and a 1/4 chance that they attack the nearest creature... Which, more often than not, means your allies anyway. Speaking of, Confusion doesn’t discriminate between ally and enemy, so blasting a crowd that happens to have a friend inside will force them to make a Will save as well.

It’s a hysterical spell to drop on a crowd of smaller enemies (or a crowd of innocent civilians), but the coin flip nature of its effect makes it terribly unreliable. It’s still the best option among the three, though.

Boon 2: Silent Witness. 1/day as a full-round action, you can protect yourself with the effects of Invisibility, Nondetection, and Sanctuary for 10 minutes per Hit Die you possess. Anyone who succeeds at a Will saving throw (DC = 10 + 1/2 Hit Dice + Wis mod) or a caster level check (DC = 11+your HD) against these effects sees a glimpse of something unfathomable and becomes confused for 1 round unless it succeeds at a second Will save with the same DC.

Have you ever wanted to be this gif?

Then good news! Exalted of Groetus can live out that dream! With little more than a gesture and a bit of concentration, you can just vanish from the world for a little while. It’s not a complete disappearance, mind, because anything with blindsense, blindsight, or scent can still track you, but by god can absolutely no one see you (remember you’re shielded from Detect X spells!). And, thanks to Sanctuary, even if they have a way to keep track of you, there’s a chance that they won’t be able to act on it.

The mindbogglingly massive 10 min/level duration effect on each of the effects screws over Nondetection (with a normal 1 hour/level duration) but is a monstrous buff to Invisibility (1 min/lvl) and especially to Sanctuary (1 round/lvl), because someone failing their save against Sanctuary means they can’t target the warded creature for the duration of the spell! While normally a fighting monster could just pull back and wait for the effect to expire as they focus their efforts on the rest of the party, good luck kiting for 10 minutes. The shielding effect breaks the moment you attack, but you can get around that by never casting damage-dealing spells! Crowd control and SoS spells all day!

Invisibility and Nondetection also make you the undisputed king of sneaking into places, too. Mundane eyesight and magical detection spells will fail to pierce your veil, requiring the 6th level True Seeing to actually see where you’ve gone. I really enjoy the added touch that anyone successfully piercing the spell effects has to make a save or become confused. It’s just some nice frosting atop this cake! Already Groetus is looking better and better!

Boon 3: Infinite Patience. You cannot die of old age, even through magical means. You still physically age, accruing bonuses and penalties as normal. In addition, once per day as a standard action, you can choose any one action you could ready and define a condition under which you will take that action. Within the next 24 hours, whenever you observe that condition, you can take the chosen action as an immediate action.

Age without youth isn’t something you see a lot of nowadays, except in cases of diabolic bargains going haywire. To have a god inflict it upon its followers is something special; I like enjoy the fact that you’ll eventually just need to outright mummify yourself if you want to keep moving (or invest in mechanical/magical parts). It brings to mind the mental image of a cult to Groetus opening an ancient coffin to reveal their absolutely skeletal leader, old enough to have seen Earthfall and coursing with madness and might in equal measure.

But post-campaign shenanigans aside, the primary use of this ability is a pseudo-Contingency that you can use to prepare anything. Any action you could conceivably ready (an attack, a standard-action spell, a sudden move, a sabotaging strike, etc) is usable with this ability! And because you don’t have to name the action or condition right away, with a bit of good guesswork (or divination magic), you can custom tailor your immediate action for maximum benefit; you can go the mundane route and have it be something simple, like “if an enemy strikes me with a melee attack, teleport to safety” or “if I am brought below half health, cast Heal or Mass Heal on myself/my allies,” or the bonkers route like “the instant the enemy opens their mouth to monologue, cast Disintegrate” or “if someone compares me to an animal, use magic to turn into that animal.”

This ability rewards both creativity and thinking ahead, so get good at both! Because used right, this ability is “cast any spell w/ a standard action casting time as an immediate action,” and used wrong it’s “do nothing.”

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: Endbringer. Gain True Strike 3/day, Death Knell 2/day, or Keen Edge 1/day.

I’m 90% sure there’s been Boons named Endbringer before, and nowhere else is it less appropriate than this menagerie of mediocrity. Oh, sure, Keen Edge is nice and all, but want a fun fact? Groetus’ sacred weapon is the heavy flail, which deals bludgeoning damage, and Keen Edge can ONLY be applied to a piercing or slashing weapon. That means you, the Sentinel, the holy martial warrior, cannot bless your own holy weapon chosen by your god. Sure, you can bless someone else’s stuff, but it still boggles my mind that they’d give you spell that cannot work on your own weapons!

Ironically, despite that, it’s probably your best choice. True Strike is useless unless you can cast a Quickened version, and Death Knell saves you basically no time (if you want a dying enemy to die, walk over and stab them 2~4 times). The only real use for Death Knell for a martial character is to take care of creatures with Ferocity or Diehard, or cheesing a creature with Regeneration.

Boon 2: Visions of the End. 1/day as a full-round action, you can gain the benefits of Augury, Know the Enemy, and Locate Weakness simultaneously, all regarding the same creature or object (even if the spell normally doesn’t function with objects) and its death or undoing. These effects apply only to the target.

Because these are relatively niche spells: Know the Enemy lets you make an immediate Knowledge check versus the target with a +10 insight bonus, and Locate Weakness lasts 1 min/level and allows you to roll twice for critical hit damage and take the better results. While normally KtE only affects creatures, this ability allows you to make it against objects as well.

Evangelists got screwed, huh? Imagine not being able to cast three spells at once (this post made by Exalted And Sentinel Gang). Now, granted, this ability isn’t as useful as Silent Witness above is, but it’s a pretty handy way to deal with a creature you’ve never seen before. With Locate Weakness’s lengthy duration, you can use this ability before combat begins and use the knowledge gained from Augury (perhaps asking if a certain tactic would work?) and Know the Enemy to better prepare yourself and your party.

The added flexibility of being able to focus this power on an object opens up a lot of options as well, such as using it to parse the history of an Artifact, to know where or when an item may have come from, and how best to destroy it if need be. This spell combo isn’t the best, but even at its worst it’s a free +10 to a Knowledge check against any critter or object and an Augury against the same target to let the DM sprinkle some hints for you here and there.

Boon 3: Frightful Presence. You can terrify foes as a free action whenever you take an offensive action, such as attacking. Foes within 30 feet of you and with fewer Hit Dice than you must succeed at a Will saving throw or become shaken for a number of rounds equal to your Hit Dice (DC = 10 + 1/2 your HD + Cha mod). If the victim has 4 or fewer Hit Dice, it becomes panicked instead. Foes with more Hit Dice than you are immune to this ability. 

Frightful Presence is a massively powerful ability when it’s on a dragon or powerful Outsider, terrifying whole armies at once and sending them scattering--perhaps even to the point of attacking one another to get away--but in the hands of a player? It’s not exactly as strong. When you face something with Frightful Presence, there’s a 100% chance that they’ll have more HD than you (and maybe your entire party), assuring that you’ll be shaken up at least once in the fight. If you have FP, however, it’s never going to work on anything you desperately want it to, because anything with your HD or higher is entirely unaffected and unimpressed by your antics, and of course anything worth fighting has more HD than you.

The scaling on this ability means basically no minions will march into battle against you without being shaken, and swarms of minor foes trying to clog you up will be sent running to the hills by your terrifying aura. It’s a satisfying feeling of power to walk into an area filled with low level enemies (or civilians) and force them to run in utter, pants-soiling terror at the mere sight of you. What’s better than a tank that draws aggro? One who ends it.

There’s no per-day use on this ability and no 24-hour immunity clause on it, so even if you fail to scare the crowd once, you can just try, try again every single time you attack. So, it’s safe to say that while Groetus started off pathetically weak with his basic benefit and the travesty of his Evangelists, his Exalted and Sentinels more than make up for it in terms of power and flexibility. Not bad! And soon, we’ll see what sorts of actual sentinels he’s got on his side...

You can read more about him here.

[bublp0pr]

Soul Theory abridged (+ my theories)

So a bit ago I wanted to make this post about Chara and Asriel but i realised i kept having to explain myself when i talk about the nature of souls. It’s so damn annoying to try and explain every time so i figured i should compile my understanding of the game’s pseudoscience on the matter (as well as throw in theories that i operate under). Took me a bit to get it all out but i think it’s worth it (i’m such a nerd).

I tried to be impartial but i am stating my own theories at points so don’t treat everything as fact. I try to state when i’m just coming up with my own opinion though.

I couldn’t help but start a lot of personal notes (using ~italics~) and tangents along the way, sorry (I put headers before and after them so you can skip though, don’t worry :P) .

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Let’s start with the basics. The soul is the very culmination of one’s being. There are 2 known types of general souls: human and monster. There is also a subclass of monster soul known as a boss monster which acts differently to normal monster souls (more on that later).

Stats

HP

A soul has the core statistic of ‘HP’ which defines its original and current state of health relative to how many hit points it could take before the soul will be destroyed. For example, a monster with A/B HP: this indicates their soul is originally capable of receiving B hit points of damage (the number to the right of the slash) and in their current state they can receive A more hit points before they die (the number to the left of the slash).

Some speculate that HP is short for HOPE.

Monster food, rest, DREAMS and “being filled with determination” are all the ways the game mentions to ‘recover’ HP, or in other words raise the statistic’s current value. With one exception, all forms of increasing HP cannot raise a current statistic above it’s original value, making this the soul’s normal limit. Rest however has the unique ability of raising the current value above this limit.

A soul can increase its original (i.e. maximum) HP by gaining ‘LV’.

LV (plus AT and DF)

Also known as ‘LOVE’, LV is short for level of violence. The normal soul begins with an LV of 1, as any being is in some way capable of committing violence, regardless of their disposition towards it. LV affects the nature of how ‘easily’ a soul is able to defend itself against others and hurt those around them. To me, this implies that a minimum quantity of this statistic is necessary for a soul’s basic survival because it regulates all defensive and offensive function.

~This sounds like weird stuff to be specific about but trust me, I’ve read comics where Frisk has had ZERO LV. Firstly: check the menu at the start of the game!! Second: I mean, come on! Come ON! Seriously? The character who 50% of the time agrees to go along with Chara’s plan has 0 LV to start?? If you had 0 LV you wouldn’t survive your first fight.You would also be incapable of gaining LV in the first place as you would find killing fundamentally impossible. But hey that’s only my interpretation. ~

Numerically, LV increases a person’s statistic values of DF and AT (which reflect that ‘easiness’ to defend and hurt). DF reduces the hit points a soul will receive from attack. AT raises the amount of hit points a soul’s attack can potentially deal. I won’t go further into these however because there isn’t much linking them to the soul.

~ohh i’m tempted to start an extensive tangent [foreshadowing my bad habit...] about what i think DT and AT are really linked to... but that’s not relevant to this bc it’s not about the soul so i’ll just drop it.~

EXP

LV is increased by obtaining ‘EXP’ through the act of killing other souls. EXP stands for execution points. A set amount of EXP is required for each increase in LV, with a larger amount needed for every transition. I like to think this is suggestive of how the more you commit violence, the more desensitised you become to the basic acts; only actions severe relative to your current stance or something you still find to be a large mass count of simple murder can trigger the rise.

The game doesn’t specifically state what variables go into determining how much EXP a kill will result in. From what i can tell based on the game: the strength of emotional attachment, overall difficulty of the battle and brutality/mercilessness in how you kill them all factor in, but this is purely personal opinion.

EXP and LV remain permanent irreversible values within a run that cannot be decreased- only increased. 

There is an instance of losing an ‘experience point’ when attacking Naptsablook (whose intangible body makes the action redundant and even counter-intuitive) however note that EXP represent execution points not experience points making this situation meaningless. ~(thanks nochocolate for the blog post about it that cleared things up for me. Almost started a long theory tangent about the loss of EXP without realising the deliberate difference lol. http://nochocolate.tumblr.com/post/152125281314/if-you-tried-to-kill-napstablook-which-is ) ~

No amount of good deeds can remove LOVE gained. However, altercations to the timeline can reverse LV and EXP. This means that these qualities are not transferable with the restoration of the soul on loading/resetting a timeline. Similarly, AT, DF and HP are reset to their previous state when reloading (though, because accessing a save point restores your health before even offering to use determination to SAVE, some consider HP not to be set to its previous state but simply fully restored).

Death and persisting

When a normal monster soul loses all HP, it shatters, causing the monster to die.

Human souls and boss monster souls however can “persist after death”. The exact implications of this are unknown, however evidence indicates that it involves the soul continuing to exist after the body is destroyed (consider Asgore and the 6 human souls).

Irrelevant Non-Canon Theory Tangent Time! ( I will eventually go back to the main point, i promise... or you can just skip this lol)

This being said, when Frisk loses all their HP in the game, their soul breaks in two before shattering into infinitely small pieces that scatter off screen.

Now, their soul is exposed during battle in a way that monster souls aren’t. When Frisk uses FIGHT, they are damaging the monster’s body. After the body becomes dust, the soul then shatters killing the monster. But when a monster attacks the human, their magic is targeting Frisk’s soul, “the very culmination of [their] being”, rather than simply their body. This explains how HP can be lowered as simply a stat without affecting Frisk’s actual physical condition (like breaking their legs or leaving bruises etc.) and how Frisk is able to survive the conditions from attacks that would normally kill someone (bombs, intense heat etc.) What this means however is that a monster damages their actual soul in battle, meaning that by trying to kill them they are destroying the soul.

This does not make sense. The soul of course needs to remain intact for Asgore to use it and break the barrier. The only contradiction to this is Papyrus, who instead captures you when you reach 1 HP. But it is established that Papyrus misunderstands the general objective of monsters attacking humans, so this is not done deliberately to maintain the soul for Asgore. Even Asgore himself, when fighting you to collect your soul, triggers a shatter scenario when he defeats you.

All of this leads me to think that when a monster brings a human’s HP to 0, this is not expected to destroy the soul. That can mean one of three things: A) Frisk’s soul works differently to what the monsters are familiar with, B) The soul is supposed shatter and the pieces are collected because that’s how human souls ‘persist’, or C) Something is destroying their soul other than the monster after their HP drops.

Possibility B is irregular though, because this is not how Asgore’s soul ‘persists’ when you defeat him. For a brief period, the soul remains intact, hovering over the space Asgore previously filled. Note that this time period is longer than any of Frisk’s pauses after they lose all HP. After Flowey attacks the boss monster soul, it too shatters in the same way as Frisk’s and the game treats it as though his soul is now unrecoverable after this action. As humans and boss monsters are both described as having souls that last without bodies using the same term (persist) it would make sense that they function in the same way so possibility B is unlikely in my opinion.

My theory is that Frisk refuses to ‘persist’ in order to return to their save point. In other words, they need to place themselves on the brink of death to reload. An interesting case to correlate this is Flowey, when describing his first experience with resetting. Not wanting to live in a world without love, he chose to kill himself. It wasn’t until he was “leaving this mortal coil” that he began to refuse to die, using his determination to reload the world. Note that ‘refusing to die’ created a paradox where the soul itself had already been allowed to die because Flowey chose to, but determination made this option impossible. This contradiction may be the source of why time is affected to resolve the issue - ‘reloading’ to a point that had similar levels of determination but with a not-destroyed soul.

~but i don’t know a damn about quantum mechanics or what sort of impact determination has on it. So... yeah, the paradox thing might be overboard~

Another reason possibility C could be the case is because Frisk is aware of what happens if a monster catches them. Toriel explains to them in the Ruins about why monsters want to attack them, so it is reasonable to assume they may think this when they die. Using their determination, they refuse to allow monsters to contain their soul and instead shatter it and reload.

Tangent in a Tangent(???) The six souls

I think it is important to highlight the six already contained souls when considering this argument. Recalling possibility A, obviously how these 6 souls interacted with the monsters lead them to believe that depleting their HP still allowed them to collect the soul.

Not much information is given into the specifics of how each ended up in containers, whether Asgore killed each of them or if some were defeated by other monsters before they could get to this point. It is also not known if all the humans could reset.

Like I discussed in a previous post, Toriel mentions having the feeling when meeting all of the humans, she has the feeling they are “already old friends” (implying it isn’t the first timeline they encountered her. Note this is only mentioned after Frisk themself have also encountered her twice) and Asgore nods sadly when you tell him he has already killed you multiple times (suggesting he may be familiar with this from at least one of the previous humans). These pieces of evidence lead me to the conclusions that Asgore personally killed at least one of the humans and that all six had some semblance of determination allowing them to reset.

Why they eventually became captured despite this (again, like i said in a previous post) may be linked (in my opinion) to either a loss of their desire (and therefore determination) to continue - survival seeming impossible or their determination to return home waning - or a deliberate choice to sacrifice themselves for the cause of monsters.

*bringing tangent of tangent back to topic of original tangent now

This idea attributes more understanding into the nature of how determination and reloading works. That the humans had choice in whether to use their determination or could eventually lose that power makes the idea of Frisk also deciding what happens to their soul after defeat sound sensible.

It is also possible that Frisk’s soul shattering could suggest Chara’s intervention. It is of course Chara’s memories of Asgore insisting they remain determined that echo within the reload screen after Frisk dies so there may some sort of link there. The relationship of control between Chara and Frisk however is wholly unspecified for most of the game however so this speculation cannot be conclusive.

~This one webcomic called ‘The Thought’ by TratserEnoyreve has a scene that shows this idea about choosing death and Chara being involved pretty well here : http://tratserenoyreve.deviantart.com/art/The-Thought-45-597910634 (it was cool and inspired some of my idea so i wanted to show it :D )~

* End of Tangent * (finally)

Persisting does not specify if the soul will continue to exist forever unless destroyed or if there is a small period to use the soul before it eventually dies like others.

Boss monsters won’t die of natural causes unless they have children, that is not to say they’re immortal though because we know they can be killed (Asgore, Asriel and Toriel are/can be killed). The rest of soul types, humans and normal monsters, are also mortal and can be damaged and killed.

Composition of the soul

Monster souls are said to be made of love, hope and compassion. Human souls, as far as monsters observe, do not require these to survive and so their composition is not known. Alphys does learn however that human souls possess determination, which she concludes is what allows human souls to persist after death.

~I want to point out that Alphys harvested determination from the existing human souls, so all human souls have determination - NOT JUST FRISK! Siggghhh the amount of people that assume Frisk is the only human to possess it...nm. I’ll save the rant for later.~

A common theory among fans is that the qualities of Determination, Bravery, Justice, Kindness, Patience, Integrity and Perseverance (associated with the colours red, orange, yellow, green, aqua, blue and purple respectively) are what can/do compose human souls. Some fan theories go so far as to suggest one particular one particular trait manifests itself in each person, as the six human souls appeared to demonstrate qualities associated to one of these each.

~Now, i don’t really like going into all that jazz, especially since it’s all based on just the colour of their souls and a snowball mini golf game of Ball. So that’s all i’m going to say about those.~

Unnecessary Theory Tangent Time again! (I’m basically done this section so feel free to skip)

There is one thing about what makes up souls that i tend to theorise about that i haven’t mentioned yet...

Think about Flowey. He possess two things that that gave him life: determination and Asriel’s essence. Now, I’m not using that term lightly. We all probably understand at this point that when Asriel turned to dust - the seeds of the flowers Chara wanted their dead body to be buried with (before they were attacked) dragged back across the barrier with him - his dust became spread across the flower seeds that then grew  like in normal monster funerary practices. And we know that the flowers eventually received injections of determination from Alphys awakening the essence of Asriel left there because of this dusting. See, I said the word again! Essence is mentioned specifically from the book in the Library, where we learn about monster funerals:

“When monsters get old and kick the bucket, they turn into dust. At funerals, we take that dust and spread it on that person’s favourite thing. Then their essence will live on in that thing”

Obviously at this point their soul (which is described as the culmination of their being) is destroyed. So what exactly is the difference between a monster’s essence and the culmination of their self?

I’ll be honest. I don’t know myself. In a lot of fan fiction and art I’ve encountered, the term ‘essence’ becomes lost in story and they suggest that Flowey has Asriel’s memories brought to life by determination. Some say that means Flowey is simply a husk of Asriel, like an imperfect replica missing a soul that replaces someone long dead. Others say that Asriel’s consciousness is that essence or memory, and Flowey is in fact truly the original Asriel. Either way, what really fascinates me are the ideas of memory or consciousness being that essence we’re talking about.

These properties sound like the kind of things that come from the soul rather than the body... so what could that mean?

Well, option number one: it’s not linked to the soul. Perhaps this essence is intertwined with their magic (i’m going to be talking about monster bodies a little later), which means it would have to go somewhere when the body turns to dust. Voilà, you have the essence existing inside the favourite thing. I wonder if there needs to be some emotional connection to the object for the essence to be able to make a new connection, otherwise the essence would simply exist in the location they became dust rather than what their loved ones intended.

Option number 2: it is a part of the soul, possibly the shattered pieces or some part of it that becomes dust when it’s destroyed. This then has a similar effect as option 1.

Option number 3: perhaps a monster’s ‘essence’ is neither of these things. What if monster essence is their form of an intangible afterlife. Consider that Chara, like Flowey, was awakened when exposed to a large stimuli of determination. Unlike Flowey, we have no idea how Chara functions. Most consider them to be a lingering memory that now happens to reside in Frisk. Perhaps determination’s residual effects, when powerful enough, draw other beings back from the dead if they can find a host. But this is unlikely.

Relationship with body

A soul establishes an inseparable relationship with a body. This doesn’t mean that the soul must be physically attached, but a body cannot be sentient or function without connection to at least some of the elements of a soul.

Monster bodies

For monsters, their bodies are composed of magic manipulated by the soul. Though this is a broad statement. Ghosts, for example, are fundamentally under this same definition as much as skeletons however there are obvious differences in how this magic manifests.

The physical forms taken by monsters are surprisingly diverse. To name a few: beings made entirely of fire that they can choose not to let burn things, bones composed of and held together by magic that can twist their skulls shape to make expressions, incorporeal expressions of non-tangible magic, inanimate objects possessed by magic to complete corporeal beings... all mixed in with the more normal forms of anatomy that we’d place somewhere between animal and humanoid. All these forms however are made purely of magic sourced directly from their soul.

Because a monster’s body is directly connected their soul in this way, attacks to a monster damage not their form but their soul - which is why attacks affect simply the statistic of HP rather than their physical body. 

An exception to this rule is Mettaton, whose body shows sign of physical damage with the loss of limbs when you attack their soul. Though, i feel i should point out that Mettaton is made of both “metal and magic” (as included in the quiz) so parts of him are non-magic, purely physical.

Monsters food is designed to be converted to energy instantaneously on consumption, implying most monsters don’t have a need for digestive systems. Though a monster in Grillby’s does say he intends to try human food on the surface so it is likely that some forms are still capable of it.

Because of this direct connection between the soul and magic necessary for control of a body, all monsters can use some form of magic. It also makes their bodies more attuned to the disposition of the soul - which lets their battle statistics become dependent on their emotional state towards a fight. “If a monster doesn’t want to fight, it’s defenses will weaken. And the crueller the intentions of our enemies, the more their attacks will hurt us.” according to a book from the library.

Regardless of the form of a monster, with their body’s destruction the form shatters apart into s similar dust. There are notable instances from main characters in the game who are able to remain intact after losing their HP to deliver final words before eventually shattering, showing actual injuries such as cuts and losing their head. However most monsters simply just go paralysed for a second, shock on their face, and then shatter.

Human bodies

Unlike monsters, human bodies are composed mostly of water. I assume we all know what a human body is, it represents the actual things we have in real life. Human bodies have advantages over monsters because they are composed of physical magic rather than magic. It makes them stronger than monsters and lets their fighting skill be independent from their emotional state. But it does mean that humans can’t express themselves with magic in the way that monsters can. 

This isn’t to say that humans may not have been able to use magic, as seven magicians on the side of the humans sealed the monsters underground. But we don’t see any evidence of humans being capable of magic within the game to ground any arguments on. A book in the library states explicitly though that “the will never know the joy of expressing themselves through magic” so obviously there’s some significant inability on human’s part to ‘express themselves’ with it.

When a monster attacks a human, their magic is targeting the soul, “the very culmination of [their] being”, rather than simply their body. This explains how HP can be lowered as simply a stat without affecting Frisk’s actual physical condition in the game (like breaking their legs or leaving bruises etc.) and how Frisk is able to survive the conditions from attacks that would normally kill a human (bombs, intense heat etc.)

~^ I mentioned this part in my tangent... but who the hell reads tangents??~

Obtaining additional souls

Souls that can persist are able to be absorbed by other beings. Souls of a similar nature cannot be harnessed by each other (monsters can’t possess monster souls and humans can’t posses human souls). Note that Flowey, being a soulless creature that classifies as neither category, was able to collect and use both types in his process to becoming the Ultimate God of Hyperdeath. 

When a creature in possession of more than one soul dies, all souls existing connected to them die as well... though considering the only example of this is Chara, who maintains some sort of existence considering they’re awoken by Frisk (at the very least in genocide routes, debatably in all of them), I personally think the term ‘die’ may not be totally correct...

~and no, i’m not going to start discussing the tens of different interpretations for Chara’s role. So i’ll just stay as vague as that.~

Containing more souls makes the being owning them more powerful, manifesting a physical change in appearance and a dramatic increase in strength and attack abilities. The strength of the souls becomes cumulative, with additional souls adding their original strength to the new total. 

The combined soul strength of all the monsters in the Underground is equivalent to one human soul.

~(though not including Napstablook for some reason...) As this doesn’t extend to Mettaton or mad dummy, it may have something to with his non-tangible nature~

Examples within the game:

- A human possessing an additional monster soul or a monster possessing a human soul becomes powerful enough to pass through the barrier capable of resisting the strength of any monster or human without this.

- Flowey possessing six human souls is in possession of enough determination to override Frisk’s ability (this is an indication of the irregular amount of determination within Frisk considering this much is necessary). It also gives him the power to entirely destroy Frisk’s save file.

- The power of seven human souls in one being is considered to make the being a god. This power is also the standard needed to break the barrier. 

- Asriel, in his true Ultimate God of Hyperdeath form, is composed of six human souls and all the monster souls of the Underground that equates to the strength of 7 human souls. With this power he is able to regenerate a monster form for himself again and shatter the barrier. 

Comparing the strength of this form to when he had six souls, we receive an idea of how significantly the increase of a single human soul’s worth of power can raise attack.

Determination

~A fair deal of determination stuff feels like it should really be classified as it’s own field of lore pseudoscience. So i’m not going to go into detail. Let’s just get the basics out here though...~

As previously mentioned, human souls naturally possess an entity known simply as ‘determination’. Alphys describes determination in her research to be “the will to keep living... the resolve to change fate.” 

Determination is considered in multiple contexts to mean different things. However, in discussing the element as it relates to the soul, it is what lets Frisk (and quite possibly the other six souls at some point) reload after dying and reset the timeline if they wish to do so. 

Here’s an overview of how i understand determination to work:

in a situation or environment that fills Frisk with the emotions and convictions of determination, this determination manifests itself as a physical thing called a save point

Accessing the save point and making use of that power, flavour text for the player provides a description of what filled Frisk with determination and they recover their HP. (determination has been shown to be able to recover HP. Consider dreams in the Asriel fight “through your DETERMINATION, the dream became true. HP maxed out.”)

Using the determination they access at this save point, they can SAVE their progress - a manifestation to their determination to continue on the path they are on (as it saves over any previous files)

They then continue on their way.

When they lose all their HP, their soul shatters and they hear Chara’s memory of Asgore speaking encouragement over their sick bed when they were dying. He specifically tells them they can’t give up, that this is all just a bad dream, and that they should stay determined. This is COMPLETELY personal interpretation but i like to think this is somehow Chara trying to communicate to Frisk through sharing memories to press on.

This reminds them of their determination and Frisk is given the option to continue.

By selecting to continue, their determination to survive brings them back to their last source of determined commitment to their progress (i.e. their save point). This brings everything about them, from their physical to soul-related properties, back to the state they were in when they SAVEd.

~I’m not going to go into quitting. Because that’s a topic for another day.~

Alphys also suggests it is the component of human souls that allows human souls to persist after death, whether this is true or not though is never confirmed.

~if it is it raises questions about how boss monsters persist... do they maybe have determination? Or perhaps Alphys was simply mistaken, assuming it was used for persisting when it actually allowed reloading instead~

---

Annd that’s everything. That i can think of. There’s probably more. If there is i’ll probably edit the original post. But that’s what i understand about souls haha. 

And now that this is done i can go back to harmless lyric posts and continue writing my fanfiction because it sorta fell on hold i got so many theory concepts i wanted to back up while doing this lol.