The Afterlife & The Soul-Cycle¶

The Orthodox View: The Great Return¶

In the eyes of the Auriels and the Covenant, death is not an end but a return.

The Soul-Cycle: Souls are sparks of the Astral Veil encased in mortal flesh. When the body dies, the spark returns to the Nexus Void (the core of the Veil) to be cleansed and eventually reborn.
The Golden Hall: A persistent myth among the common folk that the faithful are welcomed into a paradise by Solphirion. The Church encourages this belief, though high-ranking Arch-Mages know the “cleansing” destroys individual memory.

The Nexus Void is the churning engine of creation at the center of the Astral Veil.

It is not a place of judgment, but of Recycling.
Memories, personality, and “self” are stripped away like slag from ore. Only the raw magical energy remains to be reused.
Ghosts: Occur when a soul refuses to enter the Void, clinging to the Mortal Plane due to trauma or unfinished business.

Detailed in the Forbidden Texts of the Thousand-Petal Court.

Crystalline Souls: The magical mutation of the Crisaels “calcifies” their souls. They become too dense to return to the Veil naturally.
The Echo-State: When a Crisael dies, their soul does not ascend. Instead, it “shatters” into background magic, becoming a semi-sentient echo.
Consequences:
- This is why Crisaels hear “voices” in their crystals — they are hearing the screams of their ancestors who are trapped in the material world, unable to move on.
- The Singing Reefs in Ravance are believed to be a mass grave of Crisael souls underwater.

The Duraliths (and their distant kin, the Dunthars) believe that upon death, their souls return to the earth, becoming veins of ore and gemstones. They do not seek the sky (Veil) but the deep core of the world. This is why they revere mining — it is communion with their ancestors.