Letters from Ambassador Tukufu

One question which has never been answered to my satisfaction is how long it takes for the soul to depart the body for Judgement. Is it an immediate process? Does it take hours, or days? I would think it in the interest of the Gods to ensure the process is as expedient as possible, yet we do not know.
The Mother Church teaches that the soul departs the body and travels to face Judgment upon the next rising of the Sun as Illiiir’s light first touches the spot where the body lies. Magic spells that affect the life force have borne this teaching out to be valid. [Though the magic mattered more in d20 rules wherein raise dead was an actual spell.]

It is possible that the enlightened Tukufu may have more details on which he can elaborate on this topic.

Your brother,
Amadi D’Abura val’Abebi

Master Rasei, Brother D’Abura and other interested parties,

I am no necromancer with secret knowledge of the transitions between life, death and undeath. So I hope you will forgive me by stating up front that what I know about such things is either piecemeal spinets or second hand anecdotes. But I have learned some things in my travels. Like both of you and our friends from the Crusades and other the Blessed Lands, I have had the misfortune of fighting shades and the walking dead on too many occasions.

Brother D’Abura is of course correct in repeating the teachings of the Mother Church. In the overwhelming number of cases the soul departs with the next dawn for the Underworld and its ultimate fate based on what kind of life it led. Exceptions are just that. I do not have any particular knowledge of how or why a soul would not make the journey. But I do know that it does not take god-like divine intervention to cause the natural order to go astray. Too many Irregulars saw the infernal mages of the Sealed Lands use vile rituals to condemn damaged souls to shades. That such magics are potentially within the realm of mortal sorcery, as opposed to the power of the Valinor and Gods, is deeply disturbing.

Master Raseri you raised a question about a possible correlation between how powerful an undead creature would be and how long was the interval between death and reanimation. I have not explored the issue, but my initial thought is that this is not a terribly important variable. Milandir has fought on numerous occasions with armies of skeletons due to their troubled relations with Canceri. No reports exist to my knowledge of the ancient skeletons of Ventaka being any more troubling than the animated skeletons of the recently fallen. At least on an individual basis. There is a collection of correspondences that bewail the unending numbers of skeletons that Ventaka can spill out as a flood of bone in the rare times it is besiege.

What instead seems to be of most importance in guessing the power of an undead creature is establishing how a creature becomes undead. The creation of skeletons through the Graveblight Cants or necromancy produce essentially mindless drones that are easily dispatched. These things are essentially a residual body used as a marionette by the arcanum. More powerful creatures require intellect or spirit to move them. I do not truly understand what a Glakki spirit is, but I know they can be bound to corpses to create more resilient and intelligent forms of zombies. Shamans of the Hinterlands sometimes create them, and then struggle to control them. Greater still seem to be those undead that retain their Intellect either because they arise spontaneously from the Will of Neroth or because they are the most powerful of the val’Mordane. These creatures or sometimes persons, are the elite of the undead world and retain the ability to learn and grow.

I had not thought about the state of undeath as a possible escape from the Judgement of Nier. It seems like a very high price to pay. There are indeed stories of individuals who sacrifice their souls to attain the state of undeath, but I have not encountered one yet.

I remain your obedient scribe,

Tukufu, Ambassador of Altheria.

Bardus,

Ask a Marokene.

Regards,
Vaize.

Thank you so much for your rapid response. My mind is at ease knowing that there are well reasoned responses. Now for a question more to your expectations of me. What is the best spirit to carry in your pack when adventuring? I must confess I am quite found of spirits (the kind your drink, not the kind you fight) but I am not found of carrying much weight. So which of all the spirits of the land is the most effective in terms on a weight to stouper ratio basis? Mind you money is of little concern for me, I am after all the bastard son of a pirate.

Thank you in advance,

Bardus

Fellow Irregulars, Current Comrades and all Gentle Readers,

I turn to matters of prophesy.

You would have to be living as a hermit in the wilds not to know by this point that there are multiple prophesies concerning the “Coming of the Destroyer.” I have written my opinions about those prophesies and shared them with interested parties. But following a meeting with a man named Illak I am unwilling to print them here. It has been driven home to me that my readership sometimes contains unusual characters.

But during the most recent meetings of the Golden Court several “auguries” were cast. It has been my intention for some time to print them and their possible interpretations. I have admittedly been somewhat distracted by other questions of necromancy and the nature of rocks…but I now circle back. This one I feel most confident of interpreting:

“I see three heads upon the body of the Dragon
A crown wrestled between them,
They rip and tear
At one another until
The blood of millions
Drowns out the cries
Of their supplicants.”

As I am sure you well know there are potentially three active Dragons in the world. In the Blessed Lands we have particular concern for the Blue Dragon, Villa’Tavorentis, also known as the Doom of Tultipet. Astinax the Green lives within the confines of Ssethregore and was most famously seen assaulting Semar two generations back. Finally there is Lunqun’qun’ovn, the deathless, which consumed the Mercy of Neroth in antiquity well before the rising of the Coryani Empire. No reliable sightings of it has been made in my lifetime.

Initially I thought that this snippet of prophesy must surely deal with them. Villa’Tavorentis intersects with the Prophesies concerning the Coming of the Destroyer, and there is no shortage of crown imagery in those writings. However there is also no sign that the Dragons are in conflict with each other. Nor that a conflict between them is causing carnage. Nor for that matter do the Dragons have known “supplicants.” Only Gods, Priests and Kings have supplicants.

So I’ve discared that theory. Instead I now believe the writing refers to far off Ssethregore. You may or may not know that it is reportedly ruled by an ancient Naga. Their Emperor Khass is said to be cunning, and perhaps a match for the Sorcerer King in Arcane Might. Be he is not immortal and it is said he has three potential heirs. The eldest is called Kressk and he has dominion over the treasury. The next is Kllahss and he has dominion over the army. The youngest is Ss’rogg who has dominion over the spell casters of Ssregore. Supposedly all four hate each other.

If Emperor Khass were to fall from power. Presumably with a little help from one of the heirs, then I would guess that a three way power struggle for the Crown would commence. It’s not clear to me what external signs we would see from the outside. But one would expect a decrease in attacks along the borders and signs of different segments of the Empire at war with each other.

If anyone heads to Semar in the future I should surely be interested in reports on the current situation.

I remain your obedient scribe,

Tukufu, Ambassador of Altheria

No doubt at least some elorii will dance in the streets shouting “I told you so” if that bit of speculation proves true.

I remain your obedient scribe,

Tukufu, Ambassador of Altheria

Ambassador,

Those Elorii miss the superior quip; “of course -history repeats itself.”

Let them come,

Vaize.

Disciple of Anaphylaxia, servant of Belisarda.

To Past and Present Comrades and all Gentle Readers,

There is one augury left. I am afraid I am not very confident in interpreting this one at all. I have solicited opinions from other scholars and adventurers. But nothing leaps out at me with clarity or certainty. Perhaps you may find ideas of your own. The last augury goes:

Behold the unblinking eye
That stares down as like the sun.
Like a shadow it stalks
Unseen and unknown by all.
Haye’, haye’: The Destroyer is come!

Other prophesies of the Coming of the Destroyer reference “the invisible” who are the only ones who “knew her name.” That reference might line up with them somehow with this “unseen” and “unknown” presence. Though the connection with an unblinking eye looking down on everything escapes easy interpretation.

I have often wished to have unblinking magical Third Eye that sees the world as it really is. If i had such a thing then I would use it to pierce this mystery.

One companion has suggested it refers to the Sleeping Emperor. I asked for further details But she just shook her head and would not elaborate. I do not see this connection.

A second comrade offered another thought. In their opinion the first four lines refer to Aperio. At least this interpretation seems consistent in all its details. The moon is dark, almost impossible to see at night and full of mysteries such as why and how it was formed. But how would the Dark Moon connected to the Coming of the Destroyer? For that matter why would it be connected? While I take this as a possibility, its not at all clear to me that the moon is in fact connected to the Destroyer.

Perhaps you, gentle readers, will find a clearer meaning in time.

I remain your obedient scribe,

Tukufu, Ambassador of Altheria.

Cousins, Comrades, and all Gentle Readers,

Do you ever wonder how strange and sublime our existence is?

The Mother Church, and all those splinters that ultimately derive from it, teach that the essence of mankind is tripartite. There is the body, the soul and the intellect. Though other people and races may have variations on this. For example some Myrantians insist the soul has as many as seven different parts with strange names such as the Ka and Ba. Even with such variations, on the surface “the composition of mankind” seems fairly cut and dry.

But when one scratches the surface of how these components interact, there seems to be no end to unusual corner cases worthy of consideration.

Take the body. It should not be mysterious. The body is as a physical thing that can be seen and manipulated. It is designed, according to church dogma, to house the soul. But it is not clear to me if the soul is housed throughout the body, or in a specific part of the body. If the soul is housed throughout the body, then an unfortunate event like the amputation of an arm should also damage the soul. I don’t know of any respectable theologians who espouse this view. But the alternative is also problematic. If not the whole body, then is there a specific part of the body that houses the soul? Which organ might that be? What would happen if that organ was damaged or destroyed?

Or is the tether between the body and the soul something stranger and more esoteric? If so what might that be? We know in unfortunate cases that the soul can survive without a body in the form of a shade. Can a living body survive without a soul? Or only as an undead creature?

I find myself confused on these issues.

While considering the soul I also find it troubling that I don’t have a clear idea of how many people pass beyond the Judgement of Nier and ascend to the Paradise of the Gods. Does this happen for most people living pious, but quiet and essentially normal lives? Or is it only saints and heroes that make it to the Paradise of the Gods? I suspect it must be closer to the previous than the later. But if most people go to the Paradise of the Gods, it stands to reason that fewer souls go into the Cauldron than are born. Is it possible, if this continues for thousands of years, that the Cauldron could theoretically run dry?

Do human souls tend to run in families? Say you are a soul from a val’Assante patrician, in Illir’s corner of the Paradise of the gods. Your time comes to be rewoven into the fabric of the world. Are you automatically sent to be reborn into the val’Assante family? Or could you be sent to an ordinary human family? Or even a different val family?

From the outside looking in, doctrine seems stubbornly silent on the issue.

I find the Intellect is no less troubling.

Ask yourself, “Are my memories part of my Soul or my Intellect?” Since humanity is invariably born without knowledge of past iterations, but at least sometimes comes into the world with an old soul reborn anew, it would seem logical that memories are the property of the Intellect. But bide a moment and consider shades which are no more than lost souls. Many shades show signs that they remember their past lives. I am told the same is true for the ancestral spirits called upon by the val’Ishi and other servants of Beltine. How can that be possible? If memories are part of the soul why aren’t we reborn with a sense of our past lives like the elorii? If not then why does the Intellect sometimes live on with souls? What is going on here?

Perhaps I need to study metaphysics in depth to seek answers to these questions.

I remain you obedient scribe,

Tukufu, Ambassador of Altheria