On Souls, Spirits, Life, Death, Necromancy and the Occult:
- To begin, a fundamental premise for the realm, which is that all living, human beings are composed of three parts: the physical, the spiritual and the soul.
The physical is the irrational part (meaning incapable of thought; the body is autonomous and not dynamic), the quantifiable part; it is the organs, the skin and etc. In a connection to sensation perception, the physical is what receives a given sensation, although it doesn't necessarily perceive (that is to understand or actually feel) it. All matter has a a physical part, from metals to creatures to humanity.
The spirit can be compared to the energy of the human being, the 'lifeforce'. To draw a connection, it is the similar to the lifeforce in early Daoist belief. This is what gives any living being the capacity called 'life'. The spirit is largely impossible to quantify or behold in any way though, but it is figured to exist because the realm deduced that their must be a difference between living and nonliving beings. What is the difference between metal and creatures, if not for one is living and the other not? And it is this that the term spirit has been used for. The spirit by itself is primal and this is the aspect of a being that causes desires and wants, in charge of feelings and emotion. In the connection to perception, the spirit is what allows a sensation to have a feeling (that is, the spirit is what makes some sensations positive or negative, harmful or not). Unlike the physical aspect, only living matter/beings have this: creatures, humans, plants, etc, while not nonliving things like metals.
Finally, there it the soul. This is the unique aspect only present in humans. It is comprised of the consciousness and the mind. This is where personality and reason and the like are found. The soul is also what allows human beings to spellcast, the distinct activity unavailable to other things. In the sensation/perception comparison, the soul is what processes the sensation (that is, the soul is what actually recognizes the sensation).
To oversimplify this a bit too much, the physical is the body. The spirit is the heart. And the soul is the brain.
To try and put it in other terms, the spirit is the "Id", the soul is the "ego", and the physical is really none of it at all, since it has no higher function than to be a quantifiable, physical state of matter - a vessel. In this Freudian relation, the "superego" would be found between the spirit and the soul, as the conscience requires emotion as well as reason/understanding to work.
One other thing is know is that the spirit and soul are eternal in the sense that they don't die, though I can feasibly see moments where it can just be plain destroyed and wiped from existence. The body, on the other hand, is temporary and temporal, subject to the rules of matter, atrophying away after so much time.
When any living being dies, the spirit is lost and the soul as well, while the physical body is left to begin to decay. It is unknown if death causes the departure of the soul and spirit, or whether the two aspects are removed first causing a subsequent death. Moreover, the spirit is what remains active in any form of the afterlife; the soul usually becomes inactive. Now, this isn't to say that the dead are without knowledge, they just are less prone to critical thinking and all that, being above mortal concerns, they have no need of the nutrition necessary for the body or the problem-solving of the soul, merely the feelings of the spirit. Still, as always, there are exceptions and these exceptions are the dead who still actively use the soul; it is usually these beings (we'll call them ghosts, as to not confuse terms of spirits and souls, which are distinct and already defined) who interact with the mortal, physical realm for whatever reason.
Please understand that the soul and spirit, though distinct, are one entity in the sense that the soul is never without the spirit and vice-versa. Still, with that said, and as alluded to above (and will be alluded to below), one aspect can be 'inactive' even though it is still inherently present. It's like putting that aspect to sleep or turning it off; it's not merely destroyed. Only the physical aspect can be removed from the spirit/soul combo. And again, these soul/spirits without a body will be given the general term of ghost, just to keep anyone confused form calling the ethereal being a spirit and stuff.
Anyways, there are certain scenarios where the soul or spirit can still be left inside the body without the other.
In the case of a body and an active soul (and inactive spirit), the being is considered amoral. In function, they are like robots, a rational being lacking a heart, able to think and act but having no source for emotion or feeling. These beings also have no 'reason' to exist, as the spirit is where desires/wants/dreams/aspirations/etc. stem from. They just follow directions and do what is smartest, considering their objective and situation. These are your undead husks and vessels. Due to the active soul, they can have the mental capacity for speech and etc.
On the other hand, in the case of a body with an active spirit (and inactive soul), the being is similar to an animal, primal and savage, an irrational being of emotion, only doing what they feel they need to do, which is usually along the lines of surviving, keeping the physical intact. These are your brainless undead creatures, like zombies, just waiting to do whatever their whim or natural instinct causes them to do. Considering the inactive soul, this is why zombies and related creatures are incapable of speech, because they lack the mental capacities.
A body without either spirit or soul is just a lump of bones (and maybe flesh), a sack of potatoes. They could theoretically be manipulated with magic, similar to a puppet, but they are not autonomous or alive at all.
Necromancy can be considered a general term for any effect that causes a body that has lost (or didn't have) a soul/spirit to have one. Either the spirit, the soul or both can be fully returned to a being, meaning you can have all of your "zombies", "husk slaves" and "resurrected individuals"
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The Occult is just the unknown thing that most people commune with to a spiritual degree. It's just a part of their belief system and faith. The actually occult is mysterious and just as unknown as magic though, so whether it plays a part in anything (or not at all) and how it does is not known.
To DeadCruiser:
- With all that I've said so far, especially concerning the above answer on soul and spirit (and my prior posts on automatons and technology), I can say that you can have little minions to an extent, as I am enacting some limitations just for the sake of power-balancing, OOCly. First, you have to realize they'd be incapable of magic themselves since they aren't human beings. Second, they'd be considered automatons, since they would theoretically lack both a soul and spirit, although they are capable of action because in pure technicalities, they do have what one could cal a "basic soul". Therefore, they can only follow the directives given to them; they never do anything else beyond their objective, although they do attempt to do their objective in the most efficient way possible. Once a mission is complete (if it isn't a repetitive task), they'd be in a sort of hibernation, waiting the next order. Also, realize that just to refrain from having the minions being overpowered, the minions will be relatively weak physically, in terms that they can be destroyed and broken to an easier extent (though, their sharp weapons and experimented bodies can still cause damage; it's not that their power is weaker but that their constitution/durability is). And the final restriction would be that you can only have a few haemonculi to call your minions, again for the sake of power-balancing. Three seems like a good number, I think, maybe.
Other than that you basically are allowed the "horrid little minions made of various scraps of flesh scuttling about [the] evil laboratory, completing menial tasks and gurgling, "Yes, master" to [melodramatic orders]?".
On the topic of means of transportation:
- Airships, in the way I think they're being imagined, can't really be done with the technology of the time period. I mean, in our world, motorboats (that is sailboats autonomously maneuvered by mechanisms) didn't really become possible until around the 18th century, with the invention of a screw propeller and steam engine and that proper gliders weren't invented until the 17-18th century either (with the very powered aircraft not created until the 19th century). Thus, the realm is still using glorified sailboats (and perhaps basic sailing ships) for mere water. Plus, they'd need understanding of advanced aeronautical physics, which I would assume is beyond their current level of understanding.
Still, with magic, I can see certain versions of 'airships', but they'd very primitive and would still be considered 'human-powered' because they would require a constant human(s) to use spellcasting in order to achieve the desired effect of lift. These airships would be like early sailboats probably, merely going to where the wind takes them. Still, with enough humans, some witches could spellcast lift while others could spellcast a specific wind-force to propel the levitating ship where they want. Again though, this is highly complicated and difficult (and for efficient and semi-reliable travel also involves multiple witches), so travel by air would definitely not be favored over the typical horse; it is too much difficulty for something that could be substituted by the easier-to-handle horse riding. Again though, there may be specific situations where it could work and be the better option, I guess.
Regarding coven politics, sustenance, power and the D'Cerf's system of government:
- Beginning on the topic of resources and sustenance, remember that other than magic (which is really quite normal in society and culture), coven work exactly like any other human form of organized civilization. Thus, to illustrate, the ones who bring the food are the ones whose duties involve the gathering or development of good. That is, farmer (those who deal with flora), as well as hunters and ranchers (those who deal with fauna). Nothing really unusual here. Sure, maybe they utilize spellcasting to some effect, but again (as mentioned previously), magic isn't going to solve any problems related to resource harnessing and gathering.
See, just like in our world, in the realm, humans still need the same basic, fundamental necessities to live, and so the progression and development of civilization is identical, originating from the creation of sustained agriculture and moving on from there.
Speaking on dominance and the question on what makes the D'Cerf better, I reiterate the importance of the resource called humanity, which I argued was the most important resource in a previous post. The D'Cerf is the most powerful, in short, because of their number. The D'Cerf range in the upper 100s, which is higher than the other coven that only boast population sizes in the middle 100's (at maximum). Now, you may ask what got them to this point, and honestly, I can't tell you that exactly. Perhaps it was good agriculture and a boom in childrearing, but regardless, the D'Cerf grew above the others and came to the point where because of their number, they began to progress socially, technologically and magically. With more people to farm, more agriculture was made. With more thinkers, other spells were properly discovered. Et cetera. Et cetera. Now, I do realize how idealistic this sounds, but really this is how things are. And remember to keep the perspective that this is merely in comparison to the other coven; keeping a global perspective (and comparing them to our world), they are still far, far, FAR more underdeveloped than we. Again, their time is of roughly the middle and dark ages (more towards the dark ages); they haven't even reached their renaissance.
To clarify, a coven is merely the word used to describe these bodies of people. As I mentioned in an earlier post on the definition of a coven, it is literally just the word I liked to use in this realm. Really, a coven is entirely synonymous with the world civilization. It doesn't really indicate size or power or resources, it just means a group of people who live in a community. I originally decided to use this word based on the existence of magic in realm. Don't let it confuse you.
Also, recall that all of the covens in this RP (the ones that will actually be RP'd and involved) are all relatively small. All of them are confined within their own set of walls, being similar to castles and holds, than whole kingdoms or provinces. Smaller than even city-states. The reason coven developed separately from one another and not combining into one government (besides the obvious reason of ancient, small communities having been found independent of one another) will actually be explained in the RP, during one of the later chapters, since it becomes pivotal to the a portion of the plot.
Going on, it is through their power in number that the D'Cerf retain their rule over the other coven, because with their number they have both the benefits of leading in force and industry. And yes, the D'Cerf do require "security payments" from some (not all) of the other coven, threatening to kill all inhabitants if they don't. Again, this is a darker RP, things like this are bound to happen; the political leader of the D'Cerf was a bit greedy, although a tremendously good leader for his coven, if not entirely a good person to those outside the coven. Regarding industry, the D'Cerf leads in most areas, particularly in magic. Having a larger number of occultists and scholars has given them the upper hand in general, compared to other coven, so the D'Cerf often wave and trade their intellectual superiority around to get what they want.
Concerning public opinion, since the coven, albeit larger than others, is still relatively small, and because of that a sense of community and "family" (a better word is nationalism) is evident. Coven are not highly developed political structures; again, they are kingdoms. So being in a coven is still a lot like being in a group or team or order, there is a sense of belonging within the group, being in the inside. This is one of the underlying reasons between the current competition (and sometimes animosity) between coven, among many other things.
