Regarding souls and their manipulation

[Arrghus]

Hi, Arrghus here. Been thinking about a certain something lately, a project of mine, and I've decided to take one of my problems public.


So, what do you think would happen if you artificially grafted an extra Po soul onto a person? I'm considering both having two Po and fusing the one with the other.


Sorry for being so general. I'm trying to get as wide a spread of interpretations as possible. Also, this is mainly something to do with mortals, but opinions of what would happen to Exalts and other, stranger beings are appreciated.

 

[Plague of Hats]

Two possibilities spring immediately to mind. First is that the extra po soul exerts its own, unique animalistic force on the character's actions, sort of like a separate personality. It may take over, sending the primary soul-pair into what amounts to a fugue state while the whole entity appears to everyone else to become a different, crazy, feral person. Or it might retain some higher reason by being attached to the entity's hun in the process.


The second possibility is that it empowers and invigorates the recipient to an unhealthy degree. Passions are stronger (+/-1 to MDV modifiers for Motivation, Virtues and Intimacies; +1 die to Virtue rolls for Virtues rated 3+), ferocity alone might be stronger (apply a Limit track and the Berserk Anger Limit Break), restraint might suffer (-2 dice to Temperance rolls). On the other hand, it might come with upsides, too, as much as enlightening the mortal.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

A second Po? My general thought if such was added would be that it would throw their soul out of balance. Normally a Hun and Po are in balance. Adding a second one into the works, and it would likely be...less than pleasant. I'd likely add the Wandering Po Deformity to such a being, as while they were conscious they barely manage to keep such in check, but once they are sleeping...well. I'd also possibly consider giving them the God Body Abomination, allowing them to tap into that animalistic madness for power in times of desperation.

 

[Jukashi]

I don't know... my impression was that the po was just the living essence that collects in your physical body. To have two, you'd need to have two bodies; if you stuck a second one in, the essence you were incapable of holding would bleed off and you'd be left with a merger of the two, maybe.

 

[Jagane]

Something's gonna happen like that in the game I'm in, in this case it was a po that managed to linger till about the time that the hun it had had reincarnated. What my storyteller and I came up with is that when the hungry ghost (as it is now) makes a move on the character, basically it's gonna eat the po that she already has and take it's place. The po's logic being that it was originally it's soul in the first place, and the new body is prettier, cleaner, and much less deteriorated than the skeleton it currently inhabits during the day. =P A side effect will be the character's gonna get the emotional baggage of being tortured to death in her last life taking over her emotions for a while, and get the wandering po deformity.

 

[Arrghus]

Wandering Po? Is that something like your Po rises as a Hungry Ghost when you sleep?


Also, Jukashi, interesting perspective. I never though of the Po as a metaphysical manifestation of the Breath, but it makes a kind of sense. To a degree, anyway. It doesn't explain everything completely (the emotion part, among other things), but still. Fascinating.


And Jagane, consuming the previous Po, that's an interesting idea. I'll have to think about it a bit.

 

[cyl]

The Po is the base part of the human soul... his basic and most instinctive self.


When a human is born, it is said (IIRC) that his soul (the higher soul, the Hun) enters his body at the first time he takes a breath, and that it leaves him to enter Lethe with his last, while the Po lingers a bit more within the body protecting the rotting corpse.


The consequences of having 2 Pos in one single body would be devastating... resulting in personality conflicts and perhaps a total lack of control of the Hun over the two Pos. Such a mortal would not blend in society, it would be nothing but a cunning animal, that is, if his mind could survive the potential constant conflict of the Pos for controlling the body.


The lead of the wandering Po is perhaps the most interesting... somebody carrying within him a vicious creature who's irrevocably tied to him, and tries to escape / take control at every occasion it has (think Sylar and Matt in the last season of heroes), that could make a cool story.

 

[Jagane]

Wandering Po? Is that something like your Po rises as a Hungry Ghost when you sleep?

Exactly! And as cyl said it wants out! There's various ways to stop it from coming out and slaughtering/attacking folks while you sleep, sleep warded, in a circle of salt, in the sun, etc. But this will slowly drain your willpower 1 temp point at a time, once drained you just don't bother and the hungry ghost runs free again, even more active from being confined.


It can be killed, but you have to have someone killing the darn thing nightly, because even if killed it will respawn the next night and will exist as long as it's host lives, and possibly haunt their corpse after like a normal wandering ghost. It also has all your skills as well, so it's a tougher opponent than your average hungry ghost, even with it having only half the Int dots you do and only one dot in charisma and manipulation. It also has claws.


It's found in Scroll of Heroes page 139 and 140, there's also a demonic version called walking nightmare that's essentially the same thing but you take anti demon precautions against it rather than anti ghost ones.

 

[Jukashi]

Also, Jukashi, interesting perspective. I never though of the Po as a metaphysical manifestation of the Breath, but it makes a kind of sense. To a degree, anyway. It doesn't explain everything completely (the emotion part, among other things), but still. Fascinating.

Well, emotions are basically body things, the manifestation of your instincts. Your basest urges are those to protect, satiate and express yourself physically; the essence in your body resonates with these things the same way that the essence in a fire would help burn things. I'm not sure why animals don't have hungry ghosts, though, if that's the case. Probably its the influence of the Underworld; the hun is something with a primordial spark in it, so when the Neverborn fell it was like a little tug on all the huns that allowed them to become ghosts. And that leaks over into a human's po and lets it become a hungry ghost.


On an unrelated note, maybe if you had two pos, one would live in your body and the other would live in your shadow.