Soul Studies

Ever since the early beginnings of the Spire Academy, scholars have been studying the soul and its many mysteries. Soul studies is a core subject taught to Spire initiates, as it is a fundamental stepping stone to being able to cast safely, and understand the world at a metaphysical level.

Basic Soul Theory
The most agreed upon theory within soul studies is that all living things are born with a soul, and that soul is made of two parts; A vessel, and its essence.

Soul Vessels
A soul vessel is an invisible boundary which exerts a force to keep soul essence within itself, and due to their invisible nature, the size and shape of a vessel may be only be defined by the soul essence contained within itself, or if an external caster projects their own essence around the outside of the vessel’s boundary.

Boundary testing has revealed that a vessel will take on the same rough shape as the physical body of the living creature it belongs to, and it will ‘grow’ with them. Similarly, the vessel may be slightly bigger, or smaller than the physical body, however this seems to not have any noticeable effects in everyday life, but has some minor advantages in some casting arts. With an ‘internal’ boundary aiding in self Vigormancy, and an ‘external’ boundary aiding Physimancy projection and emission.

Soul Essence
Soul essence is often referred to as the fuel for the vessel, it is naturally generated by living creatures over time and is stored within their soul vessel. Essence is the only part of the soul which can be seen using specialist equipment, or advanced casting techniques, such as Resomancy, and is consequently the easiest aspect to observe.

Observations have revealed that typically, essence is generated from the centre of the vessel where it then spreads out to fill out any empty or deficient areas, ensuring all essence is stored within the vessel evenly, however it is still debated whether it is the vessel, or the physical body which actually generates the essence itself. The amount of soul essence which a living creature does naturally generate can vary based on both on their species, and on individual basis. It should also be noted that illnesses, or damage to the physical body have been shown to reduce the rate soul essence can naturally generate.

Advanced Soul Theory
Aside from the fundamental aspects of the soul there are further interactions and functions which are taught to Spire Apprentices. Mainly soul capacity, soul refinement, soul harmonising, essence lag, and essence transfusion.

Soul Capacity
Soul capacity is the term given to a vessel’s ability to store essence within itself and also how efficiently it can be stored. It should be noted, observations have revealed that the visible size of a living creature’s soul vessel does not affect its ability to store essence.

Throughout a living creature’s lifetime, their soul capacity will typically grow at a miniscule rate, however there are some individuals who actually grow at a faster rate, but in the same small increments. These individuals are typically Astorian, and are commonly referred to as being casting attune.

Soul Refinement
While a vessel will naturally, over time increase its capacity, there are ways to artificially accelerate it, and increase essence generation; this concept, also known as soul refinement, works in a similar way as exercising a muscle, where an individual will expend essence to the point of mild strain, then allow the vessel time to recover.

During the recovery period the vessel will be unable to spend essence effectively, but it gradually increases its capacity, and rate of essence generation during that period; however, one notable difference from physical exercise is that a vessel’s capacity will never decline due to underuse, although essence generation will.

Caution should be taken when undergoing any form of soul refinement, as there is a risk of inducing certain soul based illnesses when attempting to modify a soul vessel, mainly soul burn, and essence build up.

Soul Harmonising
Under certain conditions a soul vessel is able to resonate at a frequency which allows for the most efficient and potent casting, this is called soul harmonising. While harmonising can occur in all living creatures, in a casting attune individual it has the potential to result in bursts in uncontrolled elemental casting, commonly referred to as a blip, this type of event is one of the reasons all casting attune Astorians are housed in the Spire Academy, so they may learn to control such frequencies.

Harmonising can occur when a living creature experiences the purest form of an emotion, with anger, sadness, happiness, and love being the most common emotions to trigger a vessel to harmonise almost instantly. The purity of an emotion is typically determined by a lack of thought, only existing on said sole feeling, however due to the difficultly in maintaining a thoughtless state, this form of harmonisation is equally difficult to maintain.

Another method of harmonisation is to listen or play music. This method generally takes longer to harmonise a vessel; however, it has the benefit of being able to harmonise multiple individuals to the same vessel frequency when they are involved in the same musical session, and depending on how much the vessel holder enjoys the music being played, the effect of harmonising can last for several hours.

It should be noted that the lunar cycle can also provide an innate amount of harmonisation, especially to individuals with large soul capacities, with the largest natural effects occurring during a full moon.

Essence Lag
The boundary which makes up a soul vessel is not absolute, meaning that small amounts essence is naturally lost to the surrounding area, with the highest concentration lost on contact with physical surfaces, this ensures that the amount of essence being produced continuously by the living creature doesn’t overload and stress the vessel, and also allows fresh essence to circulate, this is referred to as essence distribution.

When said essence is lost to a surface it lingers for several hours before dissipating completely, this process is called essence lag; the specific amount of time it takes before the essence fades away completely depends on how long the vessel was in contact with the surface. The lingering essence can be viewed with techniques within the Animancy casting art or equipment used to see live soul essence, however there are also techniques within the Physimancy casting art and equipment can remove, or nullify essence lag should an individual not want to have their essence traced.

Essence Transfusion
Essence transfusion is process of moving soul essence from one vessel to another. Under this term there are two main categories to consider; essence acceptance, and essence extraction.

Essence acceptance is a difficult process due to the self-contained nature of soul vessels, as they cannot under normal circumstances absorb, or accept essence from external sources. In order for a vessel to accept essence the receiver vessel is required to be harmonised with a donor vessel, afterwards the donor, or a third party, can manually transfuse raw essence into the receiver vessel using the Resomancy casting art.

There are alchemical remedies which, when drunk alter the drinker’s vessel to a specific frequency, by-passing the need for either party to be conscious during essence transfusion, and thus these remedies they are highly regulated across the three kingdoms and only allowed use in medical emergencies, or in permitted medical facilities.

Essence extraction requires creating an essence vacuum on the outer boundary of a vessel as they cannot be directly entered, this vacuum triggers the process of essence distribution, where the vessel then expels essence to compensate. The most effective method of essence extraction is through the use of specialised runes, as they can create a localised vacuum on a surface, and they also be arranged to transfer the extracted essence to a specified location the surface is connected to; otherwise, the Physimancy casting art can be applied to trigger essence distribution at range.

It should be noted that the less essence a vessel has, the less it can expel via essence distribution, meaning that there is a threshold after which no more can be extracted, despite there being essence being present. Skilled casters can also negate attempts of essence extraction to a degree by manipulating their own essence to concentrate in specific areas of their own vessel.

Trivia

 * Spires traveling outside of the Academy must have a forge stone on their person at all times to prevent essence build up.
 * Studies show that all vessels have a specific emotional state they can harmonise the easiest with, which typically does not reflect the vessel owner's personality, the only time a state preference has been observed to change is after the vessel owner has gone through a life changing event.