Spirits

The next lore post is here! This time, it's about spirits. It's a bit of a follow-up of the magic lore post from before, so I didn't repeat some things here. You can find that post under the lore tag.

If you like some parts or maybe want to know about something I forgot to write down, leave a comment below :)

These things are a mix of actual Egyptian mythology, and the game's own lore that I came up with.

Where spirits come from

Spirits are simply souls. Essentially, they are what you would call a ghost. When someone has extreme trauma either from their life itself or the way they died, they might be unable to move on. It’s sort of an ‘unfinished business’ thing, but think more along the lines of for example a single mother being murdered and leaving behind a baby, instead of ‘I left the fire on in the kitchen’. The trauma has to be extreme enough that the soul itself becomes so emotionally distressed that it can’t understand the simple, inherent process of death and it keeps clinging to something that they should have moved on from the moment they became incorporeal – when they died.

Every single spirit in the world is like that. There is no exception. Those who don’t have trauma simply move on to the afterlife or the heaven or whatever you want to call it.

What it is like to be a spirit

Confusing. Cold. Sense-less.

Spirits don’t have the same senses that humans do. They only have the sensing ability that priests have, and pretty much nothing else because they lack a physical body, so they lack the nerves and the brain that can touch, taste, smell, etc. They also don’t see like a human does. They have a 360° vision that they can concentrate into smaller parts. The spirit-body is basically just for appearance. It serves no purpose other than to give them an opportunity to interact with material things and let their presence known to others.

When Zaia breathes and blinks and does all those small human movements, that’s only for show. They don’t need to do any of those things. They only do it to appear more human and blend in better. (That’s why captain is so freaked out by them lol)

Emotional bonds can work in a tricky way though. That’s one way for them to experience human touches. They can’t feel touches in general the same way we do, but when a spirit has a very strong bond with a person, through touch, they can feel what the other person feels.

Spirit body and eyes

The spirit bodies are made up of the essence that the priests use to summon them, and it's held together by the spirit's will and magic. They are basically just very-well executed illusions, that's why they don't have a shadow. Because technically, light just simply passes through them. Zaia is skilled enough to manipulate their body to make a fake shadow, but that takes a lot of concentration, so they usually don't do it unless they have to.

Because they are dead. Their eyes don't reflect the light at all, so they are just black holes. Those are the only aspect on their body that they can't change. Some say they are reflecting the Duat, which humans cannot comprehend, so that's why they show nothing at all except an empty blackness.

Misconceptions about spirits

There are many theories running around in priestly circles about what a spirit is and how their whole being works. In Egyptian mythology, the soul has several parts. Khet is the physical body, Ren is the name and identity, Ba is the personality, Ka is the vital essence etc. Their priests argue about whether a spirit is a Ba or a Ka. Some say they are both. Some say they are neither, but simply a copy of the Ka that has stayed behind by some mistake, therefore, should also be treated as such: inconsequential, something that has never even been a human.

Nobody knows for sure which one is true, therefore, many spirits are mistreated and used as slaves without any respect. Even many who recognize that spirits are at least partially human, they also only treat them as such: only partially human, therefore, worth less.

In reality, a spirit is everything a human is, except they lack an organic body.

Why priests summon spirits and how

Priests have a spiritual obligation to the gods, and that also includes helping those who got stuck on this side to move on to the land of Osiris. By giving the spirits a body and purpose, they are fulfilling that obligation. The more a spirit stays in this world, the longer they have to reevaluate what happened to them in life and be able to find peace through different means. Kinda like a spiritual therapy.

When a soul becomes a spirit and keeps lingering, many priests can sense that through their sensing ability. Those fresh spirits are invisible and can’t interact with the world, because they are, essentially, still partially in the Duat, but they still have a massive spiritual aura in this world.

Through meditation, the priests can contact them to learn their names and identities, which is essential for summoning them later. They can only summon a spirit who is known to them either by knowing them personally, by word-of-mouth, or by reading about them in a text, although this latter only works for older spirits.

Spirit essences

The essences that make up a spirit’s physical body are materials whose essence resonates the best with the spirit’s own. This can be determined by trial and error most of the time. If a priest tries to summon a spirit with incorrect materials, the spirit simply won’t be able to build up a body from them and they would slip back to the Duat. Then the priest has to try again.

Questioning the spirits about their life and their preferences can help find the right materials faster. Those who had good, strong memories of campfires or a kitchen’s warmth, or were a devout follower of Ra, usually end up attracted to a fire essence. Those who spent a lot of time at sea or maybe died by drowning, can end up resonating the best with water etc.

Why the people aren’t more aware of spirits

Most priests try to keep the existence of spirits a secret for many reasons. One of those reasons is because they don’t want to encourage the desire to linger after death. They are afraid of people becoming obsessed by the thought of staying behind, to not die, or to spend more time with their loved ones even after death, so they try to keep this knowledge between only a select few. Most adult priests know about spirits. Apprentices know they exist but they are only being taught about a spirit’s real nature after they graduate. Many high ranking members of sociaty know about them too, mostly from their priest acquintances, or because they were told for security reasons.

Some richer members of society are also in on the secret for simple financial reasons. Because they are the ones who donate the most to the upkeep of temples, the priests are more inclined to perform summoning services for them – for good compensation, of course.

What is the Duat and how it works

In Egyptian mythology, the Duat is the place where souls go after they die. It’s a neutral place, not heaven or hell, but something of a land in-between. According to their myths, the dead have to go through many challenges and tricks where monsters and other creatures try to lead them astray. To help them along the way, with the funerary rituals, they usually place a copy of The Book of the Dead next to the corpse.

Once the soul manages to pass through the Duat, they arrive to the Gates of Osiris where Osiris himself awaits them with the testing of the heart. The heart of the dead person is placed on a scale where it’s weighed against Ma’at’s feather of justice. If the heart weighs less than the feather, then Osiris opens the gates and the person can pass to Aaru, the Eternal Field of Reeds where they can live in peace and prosperity to the end of their existence. If the heart is found unworthy, the soul of the dead person gets eaten by the crocodile monster Ammit and is condemned to eternal stagnation in the Duat.

In the game’s lore, the Duat and Aaru exist as both a fantasy and a real place. It’s a different dimension where souls slip into after they die and there is no physical body attaching them to this reality anymore. The souls’ experiences in the Duat vary greatly. Every person basically sees what they believe in. Those souls who find peace in death, will ‘pass on’ to a higher state of being, from where they can later be reincarnated once they are ready to be born again.

Those who don’t move on, become spirits.

What people see in the Duat

Spirits usually cannot explain what it is like to die and go to the Duat. When priests ask them, the spirits all agree on one thing: there are no words for it. It’s a completely different reality that only makes sense to the one person who experiences it. There are no physical senses, not ones we are used to anyway. There is no sense of time. There are no sights or smells. It’s a different state of being.

The entirely different reports were the reason why humans eventually came up with the idea that the Duat is full of ‘mysterious beings’ who ‘challenge the dead’ through tricks and other ways.

How spirit magic works

Spirit magic works, in its essence, exactly like human magic does. The big difference is however, that spirits don’t have physical bodies that hold them back. They can concentrate thought in its essence. They are exactly like what a human at full potential would be. If a human wouldn’t have second thoughts and material things holding them back in the back of their minds (smells, discomforts, oh no I’m getting hungry, what is this weird smell? Tia didn’t clean the sacrificial bowls again…), then a human would also be able to do what spirits do.

Because of the lack of distractions, spirits are only able to cast the type of magic that resonates best with them, which is usually their essence.

The big drawback of spirit magic is that it’s not sustainable. Since spirits themselves need an energy source to even stay on this material plane, their magic is also very energy-dependent.

Young spirits are also a lot more volatile and clumsy. It needs practice to be able to hold and control a spirit-body, and it needs even more to be able to cast precise spells. The strength of the spirit usually depends on the spirit’s personality, willpower, etc. The precision and finesse depends on how much practice that spirit has. Ebo is very strong but he is not that subtle. Zaia (at full energy) is a bit weaker than Ebo, but a lot more accurate.

How long can spirits linger

That depends on the spirit. As soon as they are able to get over the things holding them back from moving on, they return to the Duat and they will never be able to be summoned again. Those spirits who are bound in magical blood contracts (like Zaia is with Qenna) stay until they are either let go, or the magical contract is fulfilled or nulled. After that, the spirit will move on.

They usually don’t stay on this plane longer than a few decades. Most of them fade away after a few years, some even a few months. Ebo, with his 60 years as a spirit, counts as old. Zaia is very old.

What happens once they move on

The pass on. Nobody knows what happens after that. They go to the afterlife, and then, later, they might be born again as a human, but by then, they won’t remember their previous life.

Is reincarnation a thing in this universe?

Yes.

What the fuck is Petmes

He is two dinosaurs in a trench coat, obviously. Pay attention.