Souls

Souls are of significant importance in Baltia, as they are the root of all energy within the world. Souls are the primary source of magical energy in the world of Baltia, with the oldest and most prominent forms of magic using the energy released by souls as the fuel to create miraculous effects. As a general rule, all mortal creatures that are “naturally” born into the world will have a soul, including even plants and insects. However, not all souls are equal.

Even the smallest blade of grass technically has a soul. However, its soul is so small and weak as to be functionally imperceptible unless one looks very closely. Similarly, the soul of this blade of grass puts out nearly no energy at all - but it does indeed put out the tiniest bit. This little bit of energy, when multiplied against the countless blades of grass that exist in the world, begins to add up over time.

Further, the more complex a creature is, the more powerful its soul and the more energy that soul puts out. A tree's soul is more powerful than the soul of a blade of grass, the soul of an animal is stronger still, and the soul of a humanoid even more powerful still. When examining the beings that naturally reside in the mortal world, those creatures that tend to rest at the top when it comes to soul power are those one would likely expect - dragons, krakens, and other creatures that are singularly considered extremely powerful.

Souls seem to, for lack of a better term, simply spring up. The exact mechanism behind their creation is a mystery even to the gods, or at very least, the gods claim this to be the case. At very least, it seems unlikely that the gods are responsible for the creation of souls - the Old Gods were once mortals, and as such, most certainly have souls of their own. The New Gods, meanwhile, emerged well after souls were an identified phenomenon. Where, then, did souls come from?

The leading theory among mortal scholars is that souls are not created intentionally, but are simply the result of interactions between the membrane of Baltia and the realm of the Outside that surrounds it. These scholars, and the textbooks they write, theorize that souls materialize within the Outside. Should a soul that is materialized within the Outside be close enough to the membrane of the world (as much as the concept of distance can matter in the Outside) then it has a chance to filter into Baltia.

It's speculated that only very small and weak souls, like those of plants, could filter through this membrane. However, once they've done so, these souls find themselves within the realm of the Afterlife.

Those who have come back from death claim that the afterlife is a world much like our own, so much so that some even struggled to recognize that they had died due to the similarities. There are communities, plants, animals, and anything else that one has come to expect from the world of mortals. But these surroundings are not believed to be mere decorations - they too are likely transient beings in the afterlife. When one sees a tree in this realm, they are in fact seeing the soul of a tree. When one sees a man, they are seeing the soul of a man.

It's unclear whether this some form of shaping effect, where the gods have willed souls to take on the forms of their most recent incarnations, or if it is a matter of perception. It could indeed be that in the afterlife, we simply see the souls that surround us in a form that has become logical and comfortable to us over the process of living in the world of mortals.

With the exceptions of celestial and fiendish beings, all souls in the afterlife are likely to be reincarnated. For humanoids, this is typically a challenging processes - one is not able to begin a new life without active effort. For most, this effort means finding their way to the nearest servant of a god capable of releasing them back into the mortal plane, though some allege that there are other means to enter the next life.

However, plants and animals lack the intelligence to actively seek out such a fate. Do they reincarnate, and if so, how? Once again, the gods are either unwilling or unable to provide conclusive or meaningful answers to these questions.

There are a number of theories on the subject. The most popular one is that the less powerful a soul, the easier it can “naturally” move into the world of mortals overtime. Therefore, plants may simply reincarnate after a short period of time, while the same may occur for animals after a longer one. Proponents of this theory typically believe that the gods deliberately prevent self-aware creatures from reincarnating in this same way, so that they can identify potentially useful mortals before sending them to their next life.

Souls hold the unique position of being the only infinite sources of energy within Baltia. Every soul is constantly creating energy, and while they are capable of naturally storing a limited amount of it, most souls quickly reach their limit and begin to overflow with energy. This energy then bleeds into the environment, reinforcing the ambient magical energy that permeates the world.