Soul Trees

A soul leaves an imprint on everything it comes into contact with, for magic comes from the interactions of living souls, and the soul interacts with nothing more than it's body. This is why the body parts of various creatures are often used as spell components.   Perhaps the most dramatic show of the body's magical residue is a soul tree (or spirit tree). As most inhabitants of Valus know, a soul tree is a magical plant that grows over one's body after death. While most people don't end up growing a soul tree, the chances can be increased in a person with great power, influence, lifeforce, magical abilities, and affinity with nature. The species of the plant is usually one in the surrounding ecosystem, though this is never guaranteed. In fact, the species isn't even guaranteed it will be a tree! There have been many cases of flowers, bushes, vines, even grasses and crops. While not confirmed, there have even been myths of bodies generating animal burrows.    

Appearance

  Soul trees have a wide variety of appearances, depending on the species of tree, and the species and disposition of the person. However, there are some through lines. For instant, the tree will usually glow through any knots or breaks in it's bark. The color of this light depends on the person's alignment, neutral good glowing green, with lawful goods glowing warmer colors up to neutral good, which usually glows a fiery light. Chaotic goods glow with cooler, though no less intense, light, up to chaotic good with a violet intensity.   All plants grown through this process exhibit this glowing in some way, though the light usually wanes after decades, often fading all together after just a few centuries. However, those of great, powerful beings like elves of lore stay bright to this very day.  

Social Customs

  While it is widely considered irreprehensible to cut down a soul tree, there are many cases where a particularly devoted farmer has spawned off a fruit tree or a small grove of crops. There are widely differing opinions on the ethicality of eating from these plants, but the fact remains than many smaller communities like the isolated Hemic regularly eat from these "soul crops" and even regularly employ it as a combined farming and burial method. As disturbing as this may seem to some of us, who are we to tell them their ways are wrong?   The act of intentionally growing a spirit tree as a funeral right is a common practice of almost all elves, of both The Feywild and The Prime. Though the elves have not been unwilling to teach other races this method of ensuring the growth of a spirit tree, no mage of the more mortal races has shown the talent nor the lifespan necessary to learn the elven high magic needed for the right. As such, the only way to ensure a body grows a soul tree is through the help of an elven high mage, who, while often more than willing, are nonetheless hard to come by.   Many people from places where plants rarely grow, such as The Condian Empire, are greatly disturbed by the idea of a soul tree, worried that the buried loved one is trapped by it. This is simply untrue, however, as the soul tree is a result of residual magical influence from an already departed soul. More than once the soul of a powerful being has been summoned from the outer planes despite that being having a living soul tree elsewhere on the prime, so we can be certain that no one is trapped by their tree.   The effects between a soul tree and it's corresponding soul are not known for certain in common academia, though there are stories from elf legends of summoned souls being empowered by such a pure expression of who they were in life. However, I have no desire to test this theory. I say we should let the dead rest.  

Evil Souls & Special Cases

  Evil and true neutral souls almost never form soul trees, neutral because they often don't have the necessary force of personality, and evil because of their natural opposition to nature. However, there are some special cases.  While many neutral souls don't portray a particular tendency toward any one alignment because of either more pressing concerns than philosophy, or a particularly lazy and uncaring attitude, many people choose to be neutral as it's own philosophy.  The light from these trees can be highly variable.  Some display a shining silver glow, common in those who never chose a side out of a desire for solitude.  Others, though rare, might produce plants with an iridescent light, shifting across the spectrum in a rainbow pattern.  This is usually seen in those who took the time to understand many view points and lives, and see the value in them all.  However, only one of these trees are known to exist today.   Because life naturally avoids the personal magic of an evil soul, there are no known instances of soul trees growing from evil creatures.  However, as a foolish attempt at immortality, some evil wizards have attempted to create soul trees or something similar from evil creatures, and occasionally succeeded.  The results of this are highly variable depending on the magic used, but usually they are generally far different from soul trees as we know them.  While in many of these results the "soul trees" generate no light, some of the methods, usually involving fungi instead of plants, do in fact emit light in the lawful-chaotic pattern described above.  However, instead of seeming serene and peaceful, or kind and honest, these mushroom lights are reported to feel unnerving, and wrong in a way that defies explanation.   Thankfully, there are none officially known of, as most creatures with any sense destroy them on sight.  Reports of this fungal variety growing in the Ichrayan Forsaken Realm have been made, but it is things like that that make sure nobody tries to enter.       While death is usually a horrible experience in every way, the soul trees help us to deal with the loss, and remember that nobody who dies is ever truly gone.  I, like many others, have felt this comfort and am glad for their existence.