The soul, sometimes also referred to as a spirit, is the immaterial essence of intellect and personality common to most self-aware mortal beings in the Known World. After death, the soul usually passes into an afterlife of some sort when properly buried or otherwise granted appropriate funerary rituals, lest it becomes enslaved by a necromancer or devoured by a Daemon.
Spellcasters[]
The scholars of the White Tower of Hoeth have theorised that all souls exist simultaneously within the Aethyr, just as the body inhabits the physical world.[7a] These are called "aethyric selves" and while all living creatures possess one, only those who can communicate with it also can cast magic, using the aethyric self as a lens to draw the Winds of Magic.[8a]
Each spellcaster interprets the aethyric self differently, shaped by his training and the winds he draws upon. An unformed or vague vision of the Aethyr opens the soul up to all kinds of dangers, from inviting corruption to attracting Daemons of Chaos.[8b] Galea claims that this rudimentary power is present in all souls and that all mortals call upon its inner resources in moments of extreme stress.[11a]
The Imperial Colleges of Magic practice a form of mutilating the soul called "Pacification," which prevents the victim from ever working magic again, as the most heinous punishment that can be applied to a renegade wizard of one of their orders.[7c]
The souls of Men are described as dim and flickering when compared with those of Elves, yet the few ones with arcane sensitivity are said to shine like a beacon to the creatures of the Aethyr.[7b] The act of spellcasting draws them near, which makes warding and correct training a necessity for all spellcasters.[10b]
If these precautions are not met, a Daemon can devour the soul of its victim and possess the body.[9a] Because the souls of mortals are part of both the material and immaterial worlds, they pose an intense attraction to the aethyric forces both divine and unholy, for without mortals to embody them with their emotion and to personify them through their actions, the natives of the Realm of Chaos are reduced to powerlessness.[10b]
Elves[]
The souls of Elves are constantly in peril of being devoured by the Chaos God Slaanesh or of being dragged into Mirai, their Underworld.[1a] In order to avoid these fates, the High Elves generally bind their spirits to waystones,[2a] while the Asrai bind their souls to the physical land of the forest of Athel Loren.[1a] Only the Dark Elves stand without protection against the dangers that threaten Elvish souls.[3a]
Mankind[]
The Empire[]
Common belief in the Empire is that the soul resides in the head, which is why skulls feature as prominent heraldic devices and charms.[7d]
The Magistorum Chaotica states that the soul exists as a triad. Its constituent parts are called Qeyos (the spirit energy or raw magic), Feyos (the unconscious or non-sentient inner being) and Deyos (an intermediary force between the inner realms of thought and the physical world which acts as a kind of spirit consciousness).[4a]
The Cult of Sigmar claims that the soul exists as a spiritual dyad, referred to as animus and anima -- its identity and energy.[4a]
According to Richter Kless, the mortal soul is not comprised of several parts, but more precisely the relation of various different parts, similar to how a water spout comes into being through the interaction of wind and water under the right circumstances.[10a]
The Imperial philosopher Neustadt, in his work De Re Munde, postulated that every living, self-aware being possessed souls, even mutants and Beastmen.[5a]
Nehekhara[]
The Liche Priests of ancient Nehekhara held that the every self-aware mortal being consists of seven material and immaterial parts.[4a]
- Kha - The kha was the physical body.[4a]
- Ka - The ka was the person's ego, reason, and abstract thought.[4a]
- Ba - The ba was the subconscious self and the individual's emotions.[4a]
- Ab - The ab was the individual's awareness of right and wrong, and their ability to choose between the two, the conscience.[4a]
- Khaibit - The khaibit was the physical shadow of a self-aware being. To the Liche Priests, the existence of a shadow was a byproduct of existence and showed that the being in question was mortal or at least affected by time.[4a]
- Ren - The ren was the True Name. It was the metaphysical "notion" or "idea" of a self-aware being, the signifier of self and identity generated through interaction with the mortal world; it was their memory or legacy, essentially how a person is remembered in history.[4a]
- Sekhem - Sekhem was the soulfire, the aethyric energy which actually comprised the essence of the soul.[4a]
Together, ka, ba, ab, ren and sekhem formed what the Liche Priests referred to as akhu, the union of all these parts together that consisted of what later Humans would classify as souls. To ensure that the akhu would not fragment after death, mummification rituals were developed that bound the more vulnerable parts of the soul to the physical body, shielding them from the hunger of Daemons and non-mortal spirits and guiding its descent to the Realm of Souls.[4a]
As this physical form still suffers from the passage of time, the Liche Priests further studied what they referred to as sahu, the temporary physical forms Daemons and djinn create when they interact with the physical world. They theorised that an akhu could be bound to a sahu to allow true immortality. The main problem was that the sahu of Daemons and djinn was ultimately unstable and depended on the Winds of Magic to exist.[6a]
The Mortuary Cult found no solution to that problem until the Great Necromancer Nagash pioneered the blasphemous art of necromancy by combining the lore of the Liche Priests with knowledge of Dark Magic gained from Dark Elven prisoners.[4b] In their final composition, all souls are different and thus, one soul, even if complete, does not equal another.[6a]
Necromantic lore subscribes to this worldview and traditionally classifies Undead after what part of their soul as understood by the ancient Nehekharans is missing.[4c]
Fate of the Soul[]
Most cultures in the Known World believe in a life after death, which the soul enters after having lived its life. In the Empire, most believe this to be Morr's Realm, although minor cults believe that their patron deity has a divine realm of their own reserved for the worthy.[7a]
In addition to this, there is a very general belief among most Old Worlders that those who worship the powers and dominions of the Old Dark, the Chaos Gods, or those people who live without showing the gods the respect and worship they require and deserve, will be sucked into the endless hells of the Realm of Chaos.[7a]
According to Richter Kless, upon death, a soul is drawn into the Aethyr. Those who were sensitive in life to the currents of magic remain self-conscious, while the souls of the vast majority fragment and dissipate into their constituent parts.[10b]
The sage Galea states that the mortal soul is a fragment of Chaos embedded within the mortal body. Upon death, it returns to the Realm of Chaos and, if sufficiently strong, reincarnates. Similar souls cling together until they coalesce, giving birth to a deity. This deity then shepherds souls to reincarnate, imprinting a part of itself into them. Yet as all mortal souls are fundamentally born from the same essence and return to it upon death, the question remains whether there is only one soul which all beings share.[11a]
Sources[]
- 1: Warhammer Armies: Wood Elves (8th Edition)
- 1a: pg. 26
- 2: Warhammer Armies: High Elves (8th Edition)
- 2a: pg. 24
- 3: Warhammer Armies: Dark Elves (8th Edition)
- 3a: pg. 24
- 4: Liber Necris (Background Book)
- 5: Gotrek and Felix: Trollslayer (Novel) by William King
- 5a: "The Mark of Slaanesh"
- 6 Warhammer Armies: Tomb Kings (8th Edition)
- 6a: pg. 58
- 7: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Realms of Sorcery (RPG)
- 8: Van Horstmann (Novel) by Ben Counter
- 9: Blood of Aenarion (Novel) by William King
- 9a: Ch. 18
- 10: Liber Chaotica (Background book)
- 11: Warblade (Novel) by David Ferring
- 11a: Ch. 9