Prologue to HP 12 – The Chosen

Haakon would be most unhappy with anyone or anything that would deny a soul passage to the Judgement of Nier and either the Paradise of the Gods or the Cauldron. No one should pass on before their time (hence the beef with the Grey Crones), but “trapping a soul” sounds bad to me. To be honest I wrestled with the issue of bringing Nasha back, but convinced myself that if Beltine didn’t want it to happen the process would fail. She is a goddess after all.

Hmm given the mojo we saw with Illiir and his Cursing the Dwarves I got the impression the Human Pantheon was pretty “Omni” everything. Besides when playing that mod with Haakon and “playing in character” it would have violated rule zero (Don’t be a jerk) to kick up a fuss about returning Nasha. At least that’s the way it seemed to me at the time. So I dialed the exorcist back a bit so we all had fun at the table. Having fun with friends is the whole part of the exercise to me.

That said thanks for the update Henry. Food for thought as it were. I was raised Catholic with that whole “infallibility” thing you know.

Considering the “omnipotence” displayed when Illiir cursed the Celestial Giants, him having a lack of omniscience concerning their subjugation of humanity suggests the gods have some dangerous blind spots. Of course given the classical mythological models that inspired the Arcanis pantheon, powerful gods with “human” qualities certainly fit and I have no issues with that. I don’t know if I would want to bet my character’s life on pulling one over the gods though.

But that’s only if they know about it, and Henry says they are not omniscient. Which if you think about they can’t be otherwise it would eliminate or severely curtail human agency. And then how could be “big damned heroes.” (sorry channeling Firefly here )

Those seem like reasonable options given our player knowledge. Is it possible that one or more released souls might become shades who could possess other living people?
That is a common trope of D&D ghosts. I don’t recall seeing any examples since moving to the new rules set (and don’t offhand recall any D&D3.5 Arcanis games where it happened either).

If I recall correctly the shades of both Lucius Orata and Duke Adolf val’Tensen possessed people in the old campaign. It’s not something that has gotten a lot of attention. To my knowledge there really hasn’t ever been an Arcanis module based on an investigation to see if someone is possessed and then doing something about it. (That might change with current developments). I think with Beltinian exorcists one can assume that possession is enough of a problem that people have (over the ages) explored and developed specific ways to combat it.

Possession is a literary trope as well as a D&D one. I think it’s possible in the Arcanis world