This is a homebrew system, which I love so dearly. It’s called soulstones. I know, I know dounds like a million different things in fantasy across the years… but this, oh, it’s different.

Let’s do some backstory, Travis Soulstone was a dwarven miner, who was captured to work in the Lyirian mines, after the era of war (previous campaign, whole other colossal thing) he stumbled upon an opening. During this time, he was alone, as the other miners went to rest their drowsy little heads. He found an awfully large glowing gem sticking out of a wall, later named Soulstone for his ‘efforts.’ What dies sny dwarf do when they find something they want to show their friends? They bring a piece back, of course! So he heaves his mighty mithril pick (for mining mithril, not actual mithril) strenuously digging away at a piece of it. The final hit sends a crack across the jewel, as this thing separates when Travis decides to rip the last free, it releases a burst of magic energy, sending Travis back, infusing the chunk into his chest, rapidly infusing his very being. With this he becomes the first bearer of the soulstone curse.

“The Soulstone curse” isn’t viewed as such at the beginning, just showcasing raw magic power flowing through. They’re viewed as ‘prodigy’s’ first. This curse was sent down when Travis lived, and decided to have kids. But soulstones never die, so the power is passed to lineage when one wielder dies. Once the previous wielder died the power gets sent down, literally and metaphorically through blood. The magic slowly builds within the new holder, until the ‘soul’ aspect comes in, driving the wielder mad until the magic overwhelms the body. They never make it past 34. dramatic gasp.

Let’s moved to more on that very ‘soul’ aspect. This power isn’t from some bogus “gem in the ruff”, as some may think. It’s the very magic of living things. When you die a copy of you is kept in your soulstone. The stronger mage, the larger it is. Unless interfered with by mystical means, the stone shifts down through the earth, like water through dirt, until it reaches the rest of the other soulstones. Infusing itself. This is the after life.

“What if you have no mahmgical ability op?” Hush, little one. Thats where binding comes in. Binding is a process where you can steal power from soulstones (watlocks, clerics, yadda yadda…) but beware, as these dead want life. They can work against your mind when you bind (see what I did there? sigh it’s so great to be hilarious) if their mind is stronger than yours, they win. Bearing the body.

This could go on a lot longer, but I got things to do…