The Campaign Builder's Guild

One thing I'm thinking about now:

If every spirit has to feed on souls to sustain itself, what reason do they have for not running rampant? Why would demons have to tempt souls rather than just taking them? It's easy to say the soul has to be willing (or have agreed to the price), but for something like the Wild Hunt, clearly the soul is not willing.

There needs to be some kind of restriction on it, but something that makes sense within the context of the setting.

Quote from: PhoenixIf every spirit has to feed on souls to sustain itself, what reason do they have for not running rampant? Why would demons have to tempt souls rather than just taking them? It's easy to say the soul has to be willing (or have agreed to the price), but for something like the Wild Hunt, clearly the soul is not willing.

Perhaps willing/not willing isn't some binary thing, but instead, a typical soul has a great deal of inner strength to draw from, something that your average being, even a powerful one, can't overcome. Each soul, however frail the person may seem to be, is actually quite strong. This can tie into Brahman, or the reincarnation system, or something else, if you want to give it cosmic significance-- maybe they have to be strong to overcome the trials of samsara (do you use that term? I don't remember), or whatnot. Anyway, a lone demon or other thing can't overcome this strength, and they must resort to temptation and trickery. The Wild Hunt, on the other hand, being a large mob, can resort to a sort of soul-gang-rape and overcome it.

As far as the Wild Hunt, I'd clarify the idea is they take the souls back to the Celestial Emperor, and he awards them to those that have pleased him (and obviously keeps some to retain his own immortality).

Certainly, only the strong souls have enough strength to be worth feeding on, so that's a thought. Perhaps such souls are not common, for the simple fact that any that start to reach that stage look so yummy.