[Shade Genkai]

Applicable BYOND Key - Angriushexius
Character Name - Ilyas
Discord for DM'ing purposes - something.somewhere (I'd like to remove this after approval/denial, if that's alright)
Request Type - Character Technique: Deceased Soul Binding/Storage
Request Details - This request is for a technique the above character can use to reflavor the possession subtalent as well as to use the souls that they are possessed by in combat in an indirect capacity, such as using the souls to explain how certain strange techniques like Negotiate and Steal function.

That said, the main purpose of this request is to add a source of antagonism for the character, mainly those that would find the act described below as spiritually reprehensible if they become aware of the details of it. Though certainly that distaste could be provoked simply by being aware of the difference between a possession by spirits and a possession by souls (which, as far as I'm aware, the only real difference between the two is that souls have solid identities).

The souls themselves are intended to come from deals made with npc's encountered in the character's day to day life and business affairs, which I would be glad to speak more about in DM's. Though if someone else were to request the character perform this service for them they wouldn't pry particularly deeply into how consensual the deal is between contractor and contractee (That said, if it should ever become the case that a deal of this nature occurs between two PC's I'd require full ooc permission and understanding of the details presented in this request post for all parties involved)

I don't intend for this to occur any mechanical or IC benefit, the main purpose is for plot and character hooks. It could be the case that NPC or player souls could divulge information to the contract holder, but in this case it would only ever be information that the contract holder in question could reasonably be approved to have. In the case of it being an npc then the owner of said npc would have to giver the approval, with the same criteria needing to be met for any PC. I'd also be glad to hear any other stipulations that would be preferred for these contracts to either add a more esoteric touch to them or for balancing purposes if such is desired.

Reason why you are making this request (if applicable) - Hear me out. . . I think it'd be cool and fun to play.

Roleplay & Lore supporting your request -  Afterlife Debt

It is often the case that people require certain services or goods to ensure the continued quality, or even the very existence, of their lives. In more fortunate circumstances the cost of these goods and services are rendered up front or immediately after their fulfillment. Otherwise, a debt is accrued upon the recipient's part.

Debt can be a terrible thing to crawl out from under, especially in a world dedicated to value. In some cases it can even prove as disastrous to one's life as if the initial purchase had been entirely forgone. . . simply on a longer, far more looming scale. Some even find themselves with a sort of debt that binds them to the mortal plane even after they should have departed. Foul acts, lingering emotion, unfortunate circumstances; all of these can inflict debts of a spiritual variety. Debts which demand one's memory of even the method of payment as compensation.

There are only a small, though happy, few debtors that may find the end of their days without having their lives marred by what they owe. Though, in this circumstance what hardship may befall those who rendered their services or provided their goods; now forever denied the compensation they were due? Is it fair that their lives are bereft of what they may have gained from a truly even deal?

Making sure that accounts are settled is a foundational necessity for any nation built on trade. To that end, Ilyas has developed a method to ensure that even those who are not able to pay for what they require are able to receive what they need without denying their benefactors what they deserve for providing what was necessary.

By mixing a debtors blood with ink produced from a plant known for draining focus from those that interact with it unprotected as well as other alchemic reagents, and having the debtor sign a contract which outlines the details of the future role of service they are to undertake Ilyas is able to bind the soul of a debtor to the written contract, themself, or a client that has requested the service specifically. This binding functions in much the same way as possession for a normal person or a haunted item, the only difference being that the entity being bound is a fully realized soul with its identity intact, allowing for those with the necessary capability to communicate with the deceased. . . though certainly other uses for souls have come to light in Korvara.

The details of the contract are generally up to the creditor and debtor to decide, though usually a number of years of service are decided upon beforehand. Often based upon the degree of benefit provided to the debtor's life by the creditor's service, or indeed as direct a trade as the number of years lived after services rendered translating to the number of years of service to be provided.

In reality the specifics of the contract are unimportant, as is the material upon which the contract is written. The necessary components of this technique are the ink, the blood of the debtor, and willful act of signing the contract. It is not necessary that the blood be given willingly or that the signed name be the debtors true name, nor is it particularly necessary that the debtor understand the specifics of the contract that they are signing. . . though should a soul find itself bound to someone or something against their will it's to be expected that they're not going to be very happy about it, and while the wording of the contract can have some influence on the departed's behavior any entity with a strong enough will is fully capable of defying the contract holder's desires. Though their main recourse for fully nullifying the contract is to find a way to destroy the physical copy, specifically the portion they signed, the bound soul may also try to take a more manipulative approach to force the contract holder or an outside party to destroy or nullify the contract by other means.

There are, however, other methods of nullifying or ending a contract. The contract holder may also choose to destroy the physical copy, though in many instances a clause is written that the creditor may end the contract by 'willing' it to be void, this action normally involves a short, single phrase invocation of sorts into which the desire of breaking the contract is encoded. In contracts that are designed to be as fair as possible for both parties there are also times in which the bound soul is given the option to nullify the contract by will as well, though this is often quite rare in any instance where a full explanation of the circumstances are explained to the debtor before their death.

Lore Support:

I wasn't able to find much lore at all directly referencing souls specifically, let alone the manipulation of them, I have found a few items which to some degree mention souls being used in similar ways to parts of this technique.

The most obvious would be the Torment Noctis, which mentions being able to use souls in its item text; particularly for the application of curses. While it would be a stretch to call this technique a 'curse' it does at least show that there are applications for souls outside of research into Homunculi.


Next we have the Valkyrie Ring. While the item itself doesn't claim to have any properties that manipulate souls it does make mention of the mythical figure it is named after. In doing so the text also notes that said figure is capable of directing souls away from Lazarus, a good sign for others intending outside interference in the natural cycle.



From here I'll move on to lore supporting the main alchemic ingredient mentioned in the post above, a flower that siphons focus. To start I'll reference the Whynesfelt, which has direct mention of such a flower in its item text.


Going forward from that though I should note that the particular flower used in this process is one that belongs to the personal lore of another player's character, which I've gotten permission to use and would be fine with discussing in the details of that in DM's for privacy's sake. The flower in question, though, is assumed to have been crossbred with the flower mentioned in the Whynesfelt description, to note its connection to already existing in-game lore.

Outside of these points I'm unfortunately unaware of any further supporting lore I can use. If there is more to be had I'd be glad to hear of it, and to adjust the details of this technique if necessary to account for any incongruities caused by that lack of knowledge.

[Shade Genkai]

Thought I'd check in on this, and further mention that I'm open to responding to DM's to hammer out any further details that may be desired.

[K Peculier]

"This request is for a technique the above character can use to `reflavor` the possession subtalent as well as to use the souls that they are possessed by in combat in an indirect capacity, such as using the souls to explain how certain strange techniques like Negotiate and Steal function."

Could you give more examples of anymore abilities you would use as this reflavor? Negotiate and Steal are most likely fine if they were just those two alone but on the nature of soul-keeping with the reason as "antagonism" could you also describe examples as to how you would roleplay an antagonist with the ability to manipulate souls at the level you are applying for?

I could see maybe a Reaper or Apertaurus gone rogue from their original purpose as a race doing a devil/contract theme with spirits at least, you wouldn't need an app for that though.

[Shade Genkai]

The only other skill that comes to mind that I'd likely have involve an interaction with souls in some way would likely be the matador rage functionality of the Demon Hunter class; the rage energy itself being stored in an attached soul in order to be expended later in battle for attacks. I may choose not to do that, however, as I'm more partial to the idea of the souls not being capable of directly acting on the living and instead focusing on things inherently difficult to explain like the two skills already mentioned, and I don't believe there are any more like that in the character's kit.

As for the matter of antagonism.

It's not my intention to be actively antagonistic, but instead to be a target for antagonism by those who would have a problem with the use of this particular technique. A certain exorcist duo in Korvara come to mind as an example. Effectively it's intended as something of a negative rp hook to provide tension in random encounters and in personal plot.

What the character mostly intends is to legitimately use this technique for business ventures such as selling souls to people that want to make Homunculi or people doing research into spiritual or occult matters. . . or anyone that wants a soul for whatever reason, they're not exactly a morally sound person. I could see people learning from the character, or just figuring out on their own, how to use the souls they have to fuel their own esoteric skills like Steal and Negotiate. Bearing the approval of their own applications in those cases should the need arise, of course.

Even despite that though there are more mundane uses I could see coming to pass.

Families that have knowledge intended to be passed down generation could hire the character to bind the soul of a member of the family so that those later down the line could refer to them for knowledge after they've passed; from the other direction, someone who wanted to continue to serve or assist another person after their death could request a contract be made that would allow them to do such as a soul. Both of these examples, as well as likely any other that would involve this ability, would require the clientelle and any other involved party to be able to have spiritual sensitivity in their own right, of course.

I mean, unless they for some reason are fully willing to believe that this person is doing what they say they're doing without external proof.

Some -actual- antagonism I could see coming to pass is the character blackmailing someone they will eventually gain the soul of who is also particularly invested in the integrity of their soul's fate. Since there is the possibility to trick someone into a contract (IC'ly only, as mentioned above OOC understanding and consent is a necessity, both just for keeping things on the up and up and to prevent confusion down the line). In those instances though the binding technique is more a means to an end as opposed to the direct source of the antagonism, it still requires someone who both cares about their soul and can be made to comply to whatever is intended of them. Since the 'ownership' of the soul transfers only after death and there's no way for the bound souls to truly interact outside of communication or utilization by those that own them in already OOC'ly approved techniques or methods.

[K Peculier]

I'm still hesitant to approve soul manipulation as you've described at this level of proficiency. Especially if it's just more of a negative RP hook rather than actually using it to actively cause trouble and being a dedicated antagonist which even then would most likely need to be in the hands of an Eventmin character at the least.

The use of spirits in combat and daily could already be a rather controversial ability to use as a negative hook although with how often player characters are able to manipulate the use of spirits already available to them mechanically in the name of skills/talents/traits it's rarely seen as anything negative in the larger roleplay community.

The soul is a lot more special and abstract and being an expert at utilizing souls is a bit too powerful for players to have without it being the actual art of necromancy which is another player applied ability that is not easy to get as it relates to the manipulation of souls.

If you're still key on doing this whole plot, you'll more or less want to apply for the power of necromancy to your character/s.

[Shade Genkai]

I would like to continue forward with this technique, if at all possible, so if apping for necromancy in full is the preferred route for that I'm fully willing to. I would like to ask a few questions to clarify some points you've made, though, as I don't believe I fully grasp the contentious parts of this app.

It's fairly clear that this technique is considered powerful, but it seems that there's an issue with underutilization of it in reference to the intentions I outlined following your first set of clarifying questions. Is this the case? And if so what would more preferred uses for this technique be in the Korvara setting?

There also seems to be some disconnect between us in the area of how much potential a soul has for use. As far as I've been able to find Souls are just spirits that still have a personality and/or memories. I'm aware that they're useful for the creation of certain forms of homunculi. If there's further lore regarding the capabilities of a soul I'd be grateful to hear it, as parsing SL2 lore for any given topic is a task in and of itself.

I'd also like to take a moment to re-emphasize the limitations regarding control of the contracted souls.

While I stated that the wording of the contract could have influence over the soul's behavior I now feel that I was too vague in that description.

The level of influence I intend in this technique should be thought of more along the lines of mild conditioning as opposed to control. A good real life comparison would be service animals. If an animal is predisposed towards behavior conducive towards acting as a service animal then training it to that end would produce favorable results. An animal that is naturally feral or that doesn't develop the same sort of social bonds as humans could never realistically be used for such tasks.

To wit, dogs can make for good service animals, hippos cannot.

The most the contract is capable of is skipping the 'training' so to speak, and even then the soul of an intelligent entity wouldn't show the same level of obedience as an actual service animal, even if they were predisposed to such behavior. Anyone with a developed enough sense of self would, at most, feel only a slight, seemingly natural compulsion to behave in ways the contract outlines if it is not immediately contrary to their nature.

Finally, to address the point of engaging with the community at large; that's not really my intention or focus with this.

While I recognize that actions taken with this particular technique have the potential for an overarching effect on world plot and that's something to be taken into account for matters of approval, my only real goal is to be involved with instance by instance stories/plots. It's one of the reasons I've put so much emphasis on making it clear that any other characters benefiting from this technique in any sort of unique capacity would have to deal with their own apping process for whatever they may have in mind.

tl;dr - If apping for necromancy in full is the next step then I'm fully willing to. Would it be preferred that I start a new application for that altogether, or is this post a good enough starting point for that?

---

As one further note, I'm entirely willing to drop the reflavoring of steal and negotiate if that's a particularly large hang-up, the main reason I intended to reflavor them in this app is because. . . I mean. . . How do you tangibly steal someone's motivation? Or negotiate with someone to get poison out of your veins?

[K Peculier]

I would say this is a good enough starting point to be delving into the realm of necromancy rather than completely mastering its use to raise the dead consistently and other fun horrific acts.

Just be aware that other players if they were to investigate the nature of this power, it would classify under the realm of 'Necromancy' which may net you into some IC trouble with those do-gooder types.

If you're willing to accept those consequences in addition to still needing the consent of players essentially 'selling' their soul then I can go ahead and approve this.

[Shade Genkai]

I am fully willing to accept those conditions, thanks for being willing to work with me.