I'm curious to know what happens to the essences of living things in the Sixth World once they pass on. There seems to be some precedent in things I've read that the departed turn into spirits on other metaplanes, but I've also come across conflicting information as well.

The reason I ask is because my black magician, Bane, has been feeling guilty over the death of a little girl that he believes he indirectly caused. He has vowed revenge upon the person responsible for her death. If the dead turn into spirits of any stripe, however, he will pursue them into the metaplanes after he has killed them and find where they are. Then, he will use the rules on page 133 of Street Magic ("Destroying a Spirit Utterly") to make sure not even residual traces of his soul exists anywhere.

To say he's a little vengeful is an understatement. However, I need to know if there's anything concrete out there before he attempts to track down a person in the metaplanes. If killing them would be "enough," then I suppose he would be happy with that. But ultimately, he won't stop until he has punished the person as much as he possibly can.

...and, if the dead turn into spirits, couldn't your black magician then track down the soul of the little girl and at least make peace?

Definitely, and he intends to find her and do that as well. But the way I portray his tradition (based on the write-up in Street Magic) is very much influenced by his following of LeVay-style Satanist philosophy. That religion promotes vengeance rather than turning the other cheek. Being that he was responsible for the death of a small child (which is another big no-no in his religion) he feels he must avenge her as much as he possibly can. Which is why I ask what happens to folks when they die.

well, before i answer your question, let me ask you this: if i were to say 'Earthdawn', how would you react to it?

We all know that Earthdawn is the official previous age of magic before Shadowrun, but that the powers-that-be can no longer confirm that for Intellectual Property Rights reasons.

Anyway, does Earthdawn actually answer the soul question in a book? (and if so which one?) A summary of the answer would also be nice

I don't really pay attention to the Earthdawn/Shadowrun crossovers. I know that they were hamfistedly, retroactively linked together back in the 90's, but I don't really fancy some of the things that official recognition of the links would bring to my game. On top of that, I know far less about Earthdawn than I do about Shadowrun, so assume Earthdawn isn't an issue.

There is some canon precedence for dead people becoming spirits. There's an early adventure called Imago that features such a scenario (I won't elaborate, because I don't want to spoil anything). There is also the ancestor spirits in SR3 which were distinct from other spirits in that edition.

But IMHO if the idea of people becoming spirits makes for a good story (and your idea sounds like a pretty cool story to me) you should run with it.

I have always seen the existence of spirits and their relationship to an afterlife to be ambiguous, in the sense that you could be talking to the spirit of a dead person, or a spirit assuming the form of a dead person, and it would be almost impossible to tell the difference. Same thing for an afterlife, as opposed to a metaplane resembling the afterlife of your particular faith. Since spirits and the metaplanes are shaped by the collective beliefs of humanity and the specific beliefs of the summoner, it is hard to tell what is real, and what isn't.

Short answer - it's up to your GM, and for your character, it will be a matter of faith, or lack thereof. He will probably be able to find a place resembling what he expects the afterlife to look like, where he can destroy a spirit who looks like the dead guy he's seeking, and talk to another spirit who looks like the dead girl. At least, that's how I would run it, with some ambiguity - I think that even in a world with magic, it should be hard to be sure what happens when you die.

In addition to what previous posters have stated, there is some evidence/mention of soul survival after death in the novels Striper Assassin, Nosferatu (or was it Black Madonna? - in terms of reincarnation/past life memory), and the Dragonheart Trilogy (ugh ).

Imago....

I can't unplay that one.

Thanks. He's either going to try and utterly destroy the guy, or subdue his spirit and get its formula, his "true name." Then he'd give it to the spirit of the little girl so that her murderer would be a slave to her in the afterlife for all time. Either way, he's going to try to make things right. He just can't let it go.

Either way, I'm going to pitch it to the GM as fulfilling a Deed ordeal so I can get some of the cost of the next initiation knocked off. I think it'll make for a pretty cool plot, ending in an awesome metaplanar quest.

There's at least one metaplane of death, probably several (cybermancy involves a quest to that place).
However, you'll have to find a spirit guide to get there.

Well, if _he_ is responsible for the death, why does he want to destroy someone else? Shouldn't he just commit Seppuku and get over with it?

1st ed actually had ghosts as a critter but they didn't really make an impact and later editions dropped them. I think that there is a reason to believe that the spirit lingers on but passes to another plane-maybe an undiscovered metaplane after death. A mage who is out of body when the body dies 'lives' for as long as the essence lasts then disappears which implies some sort of survival beyond the body. In a game that has elves, dragons, trolls, orks, vampires and the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber why not gohsts?

The issue with ancestor spirits is there's no way to verify that it really is grand pa and not some free spirit with a sense of humor. That is a lot of what you hear in RL problems when people get scared by Ouija boards. Whether it's their own little subconscious or something real they think they've got someone good who then tells them to do stuff bad.

That having been said though, there's no reason why the mage couldn't looking into necromancy,maybe one of the versdions of the Necronomicon really works, maybe he develops thefield himself or taps into someoen with latent talent like Whoopi Goldburg in Ghost.It could be a whole adventure to try and run down the rules for such a ritual to summon back the spirit of thechild just to apologise-and will she be nice about it or pissed she's potentially been brought back from Heavan? Cute little girl now has great wisdom or serious 'tude.

Unconfirmed and unconfirmable.

Ghosts exist, but whether ghosts are spirits of the dead or just strong emotions impressed into mana and given form is up for debate. All reliable evidence suggest the latter. Either way, they aren't something to mess with. Specters from SR3 were incredibly dangerous.

Metaplanes that resemble traditional afterlives exist. Whether these are actually those afterlives is open for debate. The fact that the afterlives of mutually exclusive cosmologies exist simultaneously suggest that they probably aren't really afterlives. It is actually quite probable for the same historical figure to show up in multiple "afterlife" metaplanes.

And then there are conjured spirits. A person can conjure a spirit that looks and acts like practically anyone, particularly if it is an ally. This is generally dependent on the conjurer's expectations rather than some actually queue of spirits in an afterlife. I would be willing to bet that there are so many Elvis spirits running around that they could have a convention.


But it does get a little dicey when you understand that sorcery can, in fact, raise the dead, in spite of that Street Magic says. It is just that in order to raise the dead there must be certain conditions that do not currently exist, there must be an extremely high mana level and a being commonly identified as the personification of Death must be imprisoned. If both of those conditions were met then a resurrection spell such as Journey to Life would work.

But, resurrection does not imply afterlife. It just implies that death can be undone. It possible that such magics merely rebuild a person from nothing.

And then there is Lethe, aka Free Spirit Cyberzombie Dunkie, our greatest President reincarnated as an amnesiac free spirit possessing a cyberzombie physically transferred to the metaplanes, apparently. Don't even ask me anyone to explain that. It's inexplicable. Plot device dragon magic, Mary Sue drake adepts, brown nipples, and probably large amounts of LSD were involved.

The note on Sorcery raising the dead, as well as the dunkie-cyber-zombie stuff. Do you have a source for it? I'd love to see how they try to pull all that together.

The Dunkie cyber zombie stuff is from the Dragonheart Trilogy, a veritable bloody orgy of improbable plot twists and gratuitous nipples, unfortunately necessitated by the untimely demise of Nigel Findley.

The sorcery raising the dead stuff is in Earthdawn, scattered across various books.

Ancient History has kindly provided us with an excellent resource about this sort of stuff.

earthdawn treats sorcery differently, imo. in earthdawn, sorcery encompasses a lot of stuff that is not sorcery in shadowrun.

So earthdawn and shadowrun are currently under different management... does that mean that the metaplot is still there? Are the horrors still an issue? What's harlequin doing now?

Horrors metaplot was tied up in the Dragonheart Trilogy.

Harlequin is hanging around Chateau D'Iff doing whatever it is that bored immortals do. Getting as crazy drunk as only someone who can't be killed by alcohol can (well beyond the point where you start measuring your blood alcohol level in proof), occasionally teaching Frosty a new (or very old) trick, and calling things be highly anachronistic names (netherworlds, interconnected wireless telegraphy network, that sort of thing) - possibly all three at once.
And possibly cussing out insane ancient forgotten gods that only he can see every now and then.

which does draw to a point that the other side is not all the same.some might be the rememnants of oncel iving people pressed onto the environment, soem might be aware intelects surviving beyond their body and some might be malious spirits that never were alive or human

That's an awful lot of room for a gm to play

Didn't Stephen Kenson write a novel dealing with ghosts and such? Like where Talon revisited ghosts of dead gang members or something?