Soul Tangle

A soul tangle is a powerful artifact, often a weapon, that uses a mortal soul in its construction. Creating a sould tangle is a drastic act undertaken only by the most despirate. The process contorts one's soul into a tool able to achieve the loftiest goals, but the price is an early death and the potential loss of access to an afterlife. The person giving up their soul to commission a soul tangle's creation is know as it's supplicant.   A soul is naturally insubstantial, able to pass through the boundaries of the physical world and the even the barriers between planes. A newly departed soul is usually able to automatically navigate to its eventual resting place. For even a powerful mage, such travel is only achieved with great difficulty. This subtle power of the freed soul is what the soul tangle exploits.   Almost any crafter can be trained in the creation of soul tangles. The process is not very complicated. However, one needs special tools created from very rare cerulean steel. The crafter can only draw out a willing soul from a living mortal. Using the cerulean steel tools, they will extract, knot, and weave the soul around itself into something like a net, allowing it to hold tight to a physical item. The item itself must be crafted new at about the same time as the soul is extracted. Souls will not be bound to items that existed in their finished forms before the soul tangle process began. The reason for this restriction is unknown, but it may be due to the soul tangle mimicing the way a soul binds to a newly created infant.    The supplicant who provided their soul may access the full benefits of the newly created soul tangle. The power of a soul tangle draws upon the ephemeral, reality-spanning nature of souls and the remaining life of the person who submits themselves to the soul tangle's creation. The unlived years of life that they would otherwise have had are burned as fuel, the force of which is channelled through the woven soul within the item. As their life is quickly consumed, the supplicant can usually only survive long enough to pursue the single objective they created the soul tangle to acheive. Depending on how judiciously they conserve this power, they could live for days or weeks.   Despite the cost, the promised benefits of a soul tangle may be the only way supplicants can reach their desires. The abilities conferred by the soul tangle can make even the most meek and mild of individuals into a force of nature, for a time. The supplicant gains immediate access to powerful supernatural abiltiies and all the potential their lives could have held. The limiting factor to the potency of a soul tangle is how much time the supplicant would otherwise have had to live, as dictated by fate.    As stated before, the solution offered by a soul tangle is generally sought for only the most dire of problems. However, for those willing to pay the price, success is a likely outcome. For example, a supplicant may have a burning need to set an injustice to rights, but they are completely without the means to punish the guilty parties. Or, they may need to accomplish something that is normally impossible, such as curing a deadly plague. The supernatural ability will often specifically address what they need to do, while the vitality and luck granted will ensure they can properly position themselves to act.    The centerpiece of a soul tangle is that the item functions as a focus for a unique supernatural ability. As this power connects to the soul within the item and not Mystra's Weave, it cannot be countered, dispelled, or effected by an antimagic area. The ability granted is tied deeply to the person and the reason they are taking such drastic action. The expression of this power is defined by the soul itself, it is not chose by either the supplicant or crafter. However, it is always suited to the supplicant's purpose. The crafter's choice and style of physical item created to house the soul tangle is beleived to color the expression of the ability. For example, an assassin's bow shoots deadly arrows, a healing teapot's cure is dispensed as a hot beverage, and a rain caller's musical instrument plays a song to summon weather.   The supplicant also gets more than just the supernatural ability. All the life they would have otherwise lived is immediately consumed to fuel the soul tangle. This inferno of vital energy burns within the supplicant. They at once feel more alive than ever, but also can sense the candle of their lives quickly burning down. In this state, their body can draw on all the strength, health, and recovery they could have experienced, possibly many years worth. They could potentially survive destructive attacks that would be fatal to most people. Additionally, they can recover from most injuries within minutes. Having the ability to draw upon all of the luck and good fortune they may have had due to them, they are able to succeed against any challenge they could face.    Conversely, drawing out all life's potential into single purpose, the supplicant exchanges success for endurance. Once they begin a soul tangle their days are numbered. Knowing their endevour is a suicide mission, such individuals cannot be dissuaded from their task. They will resist logic, reasoning, and persuation to divert their course. While one must be deadly certain to engage in a soul tangle, the proces itself seems to further galvanize their resolve. It is for this reason some poetically say that a supplicant's life ends during the soul tangle ceremony; what walks away from the forge is not a person but a purpose.    When the supplicant passes away, the soul tangle item could remain. If cerulean steel tools are not used to unweave the soul, it can remain in its recepticle indefinitely. In this state, the soul does not pass onto any form of afterlife unless freed and unwoven. The passing of the supplicant ends the supply of living power into the tangle, but a fraction of the original supernatural ability could persist. The item also retains its immunity to anti-magic. The utility of such items leaves them highly desirable to adventurers and others despite the moral implications.    Known and Noteworth Soul Tangles   Edwina was an elderly healer in a town struck by a fatal plague. Her own daughter succumbed to the affliction, and she inherited the care of her two grandchildren. When they too began to show signs of the plague, Edwina commissioned a soul tangle. The crafter was a potter who placed Edwina's soul into a teapot. Edwina was able to them brew a tea that cured the plague. She went from house to house in her community serving her healing tea. Once slow and bent, she could now trot quickly to reach everyone in town within a few short hours. When the last person was cured and the town was saved, Edwina went home, where she passed away sitting at her kitchen table beside her teapot. For years after, her teapot was used to brew a tea that confered an echo of her healing powers.    Florencina's community was beset with drought. It was the tradition of her people to engage a soul tangle at hard times like these. Before all of the crops could die, Florencina had a soul tangle placed into her triangle, which she would normally play to call in the farmers for dinner. It was said she returned home to her porch and hung her triangle. From her seat she neither moved nor slept, but when the earth on the farms grew dry, she would play the triangle and sing out "rain rain come today." She rermained in this state for an entire summer, several months. When the town officially called for the harvest, she stood up and immediately collapsed into a pile of dry dust. If the story is true, that would make her the longest a supplicant has survived. Her soul was set free from her triangle, as was the law in her community.    A shepparding communiy was once beset by strange, murderous predators. At night these beasts would come and take precious sheep. Eventually, they grew bolder, coming further and further into the daylight. And then one day, they took one of the town's children. Traps and ambushes failed to work, and the quick creatures fleed from any serious threats. Finally, Marshal, a man with several children, forged a soul tangle with a coat of fleece. No longer speaking or responding to the other townsfolk, he began to haunt the dark forest. The fleece seemed to lure the predators, but they died the instant they touched it with their claws or fangs. Over the course of a few nights the predators were wiped out. Marshal himself dissappeared, and heis remains were never found.    The nomads of the Dry Plains were often poorly treated by their sedentary neighbors. It was not odd for them to be conscripted into military work or forced labor. It happened that Olympia's entirely family was conscripted and lost to war. Having nothing else but her vengence, she had a soul tangle made into a warrior's curved sword. A dancer among her people, she was not skilled in the ways of combat. The sword guided her agile footsteps to quickly put her into striking distance of those who ruined her family. She would dance between the blades of their retainers, unable to be struck or blocked. When her bloody busines was done, she turned the blade upon herself. The nomads of the Dry Plains are said to keep her weapon as a symbol of indepenance and a warning to those who might try to wrong them. Several nomad tribes include a curved sword in their emblems.