The Soul and Death.

[Rathgar]

Finally got hold of a copy of Liber Chaotica (nice work MvS!) and it got me thinking (yes, I know I think too much...), so figured I’d open a discussion on the nature of Death and the Soul in Warhammer.

We know souls exist. The Chaos god crave them, necromancers can enslave them etc. But their nature seems a tad ill defined. LC and other sources I have read lead to the argument that the soul is a product of the Aethyr and that when a mortal dies its essence dissipates into the Realm of Chaos where it fragments and eventually resurface in entities solely governed by whatever that aspect was (and emotion a felling etc) thus creating the Gods etc.

I see two things in the way of this theory: Necromancy and Morr.

First off; Morr. He (or equivalent race god) owns all the soul not given over totaly to another God (like the big four). They go to his realm, where I always figured he judges them, that’s why vampires fear death so much, they still have to answer to their crimes before Morr. We know this is true because priests of Morr have the ability to “cross over” souls and similar talents concerned with passage. How can the soul both be eternal (and if you like guarded) and dissipate?

Similarly, Necromancy. It’s a direct raid on Morr’s kingdom. Souls are stolen from him and forced into servitude. Now can this happen if the Soul is not complete after death? I’d take vast magical energy I would have thought to steal bits off the gods and reassemble an essence.

And how about ghosts? And similar creatures like banshees bared from Morr’s realm (if such a place exists)?

I have a few ideas how to remaby this, like there being two components to the soul but I though I’d ask if i’m making an elementary mistake about it all and if its all already been cleared up.

[RobC]

Without putting too much thought into it, I'd always assumed that Morr's protection of souls was more doctrinal than actual. Morr's priests might be able to help the dead escape desecration by necromancers, and perhaps even the most devout contribute to the entity that is Morr, but I would imagine the vast majority of souls end up in the warp with nary a prayer.

[Arnizipal]

So for most people in the Warhammer World there is no hope of a pleasant afterlife, but an almost certain damnation into the hellish realm that is the Warp?

Nice...

[RobC]

No, it's worse than that. The soul dissolves into the warp, meaning that you essentially cease to exist. It's oblivion by any other description.

[Rathgar]

How then are ancient corpses reanimated after the original soul has long since dissipated?

Is just any old soul that’s still “defined” if you like used?

[Griefbringer]

Do you really need anything of a soul to re-animate an old corpse? I had the understanding that skeletons were pretty much mindless automatons, only acting by the will of their creator.

[Arnizipal]

For zombies and skeletons you don't need souls, but for more powerful undead (Wights, Spirit Hosts) you do.

[Griefbringer]

Well, with wights the souls have never actually departed from the body, but remain tied to it after the death, due to some curse.

[The Pale Lady]

There is certainly a 'spirit world' somewhere because the histroy of hte necracrch vampires talks of how their forefather used to leave his body and walk the paths of the dead, effectively 'dying' and going to this misty, cloudy ethereal realm somewhere and talk with the spirits and ghosts their.

[RobC]

Doesn't sound like it fits too well with the pre-existing theory of the Warp. Maybe there is a 'spirit realm' of souls still tied to the material world, trapped between the two for whatever reason.

[Eversor]

:chrome: Read the old RoC books. They have the lowdown on how things work

[Rathgar]

I don’t buy it. If you’re just magically animating corpses why don’t you make constructs (because that’s all they are) out of stronger material?

There are repeated references to “eternal enslavement” in undeath, I’m sure you need souls to animate corpses. But I could well be wrong.

[MvS]

The imagery for the dead and undead in Warhammer and 40K is very jumbled and inconsistent, with different fluff writers just making up their own stuff off the cuff to suit whatever it is they are trying to put across.

I mean, what exactly is the 'spirit world' supposed to be? It doesn't fit with all the descriptions of what the Warp is at all. It's fine and dandy to have the mythologies and religions of the Warhammer World preaching whatever they like with regards to the afterlife, but it doesn't fit with the objective description of what souls are supposed to be in the Warhammer imagery and what happens them after death.

I also dislike the idea of vampires essentially being Buffy-esque daemon possessed dead people. Daemon-possessed are daemon-possessed, vampires are different. They don't like daemons and are detached from Chaos, similar to Nagash.

[Eldacar]

Just off the top of my head, the spirit world could be a kind of "in-between" wedged in between the Warp and the material world. What it would contain would be those souls that don't go to the Chaos Gods, and this realm would be what Morr protects/has guardianship of. However, Necromancers, Vampires and so on can reach into this world and forcibly return those souls to the material world and enslave them to their will.

Does that work?

[Bubble Ghost]

I also dislike the idea of vampires essentially being Buffy-esque daemon possessed dead people. Daemon-possessed are daemon-possessed, vampires are different. They don't like daemons and are detached from Chaos, similar to Nagash.

Same here. The whole "vampires don't have a soul" thing bugs me too, as does the way their faces and claws get nastier and more bestial when they're in a womper. Buffy was a great TV show but, as with anything that successful, it went and imposed itself on other stuff, annoyingly. I tend to just ignore the Buffy bits, or we'll end up with Mannfred von Carstein having bleached hair and saying things like "cor blimey, the Grand Theogonist went and unbinded me bloody army Mary Poppins, what a pooooof."

~

Eldacar's idea might well work re. the 'spirit world'. Kind of like a ghostly purgatory. It would certainly explain why banshees and ghosts are so damn miserable all the time.

[Arnizipal]

Same here. The whole "vampires don't have a soul" thing bugs me too, as does the way their faces and claws get nastier and more bestial when they're in a womper.

IIRC correctly, Vampires have always been able to do that. Looking at some older models, those would have a hard time trying to pass as humans in their 'fighting form'.

Eldacar's idea might well work re. the 'spirit world'. Kind of like a ghostly purgatory. It would certainly explain why banshees and ghosts are so damn miserable all the time.

I like the idea, but where exactly would this fall in terms of the 'overlapping gods' theory. Morr is part of Nurgle (stasis), right? Would Nurgle be able to draw power from this 'spirit realm'?

[Gazak Blacktoof]

Okay lets see if I can have a go at working this through.

According to the Liber Chaotica the souls of the dead disipate and become part of the Warp/ Aethyr. Only those souls that "belong" to the gods through a pact or else through force of will like the souls of wizards stay intact after death. IMHO retaining a state of consciousness in the warp is a far more grissly fate, internal servitude, pain and suffering until the end of time and all that. Once "normal souls" have become part of the Aethry they dissipate and the emotions and thoughts that are strongest within them collect together, these collections of thoughts (basic concepts) and emotions can eventually atain a state of consciousness of sorts.

Pressuming that daemons are portions of a god's being (or are at least similar, both being creatures of the aethyr) and that daeomns can be bound and manipulated it must be possible to bind or manipulate a soul. This leaves us with the question of where you get a soul to bind.

The traditional view of ghosts/ poltergheists is that they have unfinnished business or are in some other way unrestful, unable to totally forsake the mortal realm. Perhaps these souls are kept whole in the aethyr after death in the same way that a wizard might retain a state of self after death i.e. through force of will. These souls can then be manipulated by necromancers.

[Eldacar]

I like the idea, but where exactly would this fall in terms of the 'overlapping gods' theory. Morr is part of Nurgle (stasis), right? Would Nurgle be able to draw power from this 'spirit realm'?

Do you draw power from, say, your hand? Your heart sends blood to it to keep it "alive", so to speak, and in return, you can use it. That's kind of how I see it working, as a symbiotic sort of relationship. Not a good analogy, but I can't think of anything better right now.

This leaves us with the question of where you get a soul to bind.

That's why I threw out the "soul realm" idea. So the "ghosts and poltergeists" would be in the soul realm, and necromancers etc. would be able to maniuplate them in that manner.

[MvS]

I dislike the idea of yet another spirit world, neither the Warp or the real world. Again, it defeats the object of what the Warp is.

However, it could be made to work if the 'spirit world' is also the mortal world. So existing at the same time in the same space as the mortal world, actually 'on top' of and part of the mortal world, only it is completely immaterial.

The ghosts that are trapped upon the mortal plane are the souls or soul frgaments of those people who have died, but due to curses, spells, leyline, warpstone, a massively strong will and any number of other factors, they haven't left the mortal world yet - they are just transparent, immaterial and 'ghostly'.

Of course their presence would rely upon a magically saturated environment - much like daemons. Although it would take less magic saturation for a mortal soul to remain behind than it would take for a daemon to manifest.

Those with the eyes to see it can see this 'other' realm that exists on top of our own (and is, in fact, our own realm), populated by ghosts, spirits, the magical echoes of other dead things like the odd tree or animal. This could explain Necrarch vampires and the like who see the 'world of the dead' more clearly than they do the world of the living - so the spirits that exist all around us but are completely invisible and insubstantial are entirely visible and tangible to them.

Sometimes, when the Winds of Magic blow very strongly or when a spellcaster wields strong magics, the more coherent of the spirits trapped upon the mortal plane can manifest themselves as ghosts, wraiths, poltergeists and so on.

But again, this isn't a separate realm that is neither the Warp or the mortal world, it is just another way of seeing and experiencing the mortal world. Gods and daemons can influence both these aspects of the mortal world, but they can effect the immaterial aspect of the mortal world even more easily, because it is shouldn't exist anyway- it's existence is dependant upon magic leaking across the world, and therefore upon the Warp.

Sound good?

[Gazak Blacktoof]

I'm not keen on a spirit realm seperate from the warp, they are after all the same thing essentially. As I said some souls remain whole within the warp, perhaps it is only these souls that necromancers can fully manipulate. An entire soul is unnecessary in most circumstances though IMHO. A skelton or zombie probably only requires a part of the soul for re-animation so a fragment might be all that is required, they aren't required to do any thinking, they are only required to kill. This would also explain why elements of the undead army are more capable of independent thought. A tomb guard for example underwent a far more lengthy preservation process than average "joe" skeleton, but not as much as a tomb king. Perhaps these processes bound the soul to greater or lesser extents.

A seperate spirit world is unlikely in warhammer simply because the soul exists in the warp whilst a person is still alive. Its unlikely that they get transfered to a holding area the instant after death whilst some clerk of the gods sorts the good from the bad etc.

EDIT: What MvS said above sounds plausible to me, at least the Wahammer sense of the word.