Soul Seal

Cost: 50m
Target: Caster or entity

There are many dozens of words and symbols for dealing with souls, but most of them strike or draw or arrange the souls only after they have left the body or only as a part of the person. Only the Inimitable Sign of the Self can command a soul from the body and shift it to another location, and each such sign is specific to the individual it will affect. Each must be discovered or researched separately.

Aside from that annoyance, Soul Seal takes one minute to cast (i.e., three separate Speed 20 Shape Solar Circle Sorcery actions before the sorcerer can perform the Cast Sorcery action). Once finished, gray light lances from fourth-dimensional directions through the target, severing the higher soul from the body and propelling it into another vessel. For willing targets, the effect is automatic death of the body but preservation of the mind. Players of unwilling targets roll the characters' (Essence + Willpower) in an opposed roll against the sorcerer's (Willpower + Occult). A successful target suffers one level of aggravated damage and loses one point of Willpower. Weaker targets suffer the worse fate: immediate death of the body. It is a small blessing that a hostile Solar Circle sorcerer cannot destroy the mind with this spell.

Once the soul leaves the body, an arc of the same gray light conveys the soul to a new vessel of the sorcerer's choice. It may be anything within eyesight. Well-intentioned castings of this spell generally place the soul in a prepared vessel, either an automaton designed for it to control or a special container to hold the soul while an appropriate body is constructed. First Age soul-detainment receptacles typically included a magically simulated pocket reality to entertain the soul during its residence. Some such receptacles may still exist. Any souls they contain, however, are probably quite mad after so long in isolation.

Placing the soul in another living creature traps the affected spirit. Sentient targets of the implantation may resist it. Their players roll (Stamina + [[[Resistance]] or Integrity]) at a difficulty equal to the caster's Essence. Success means the caster must select a new target. Once the soul comes to rest, it becomes little more than a passenger in another person's body, experiencing most of the person's senses but able to do little. Some learn to communicate with their hosts or assume control in the host's sleep. A strong-willed soul might take command of an animal host's body. Cast into flora or stone, the victim of Soul Seal has only faint awareness of the surroundings. Creatures made host by this spell gain an extended life span about equal to the remainder of the victim's remaining natural years. Over those years, they begin to take on the resident soul's characteristics: A person begins to look like the soul's old body, a dog has remarkably knowing eyes, a stone or tree slowly develops what looks like a face, and so on. Resourceful sorcerers, thaumaturges or gods might eventually be able to release a trapped soul.