Spirits And Dregs

A Dreg

Overview

There are two different classes of Spirit on Atharen: Noradac, sometimes called 'Adac' like the Gods for reasons that will be explained, and Dregs. Unsurprisingly, these two classifications are two sides of the same coin: creatures made of and from the same species of beings, the Adac, or Gods. Creatures that are often made for the same general purpose: to serve as eyes and ears for the Gods who created them, to communicate with followers, to guide and preserve, and to maintain the world. Spirits fulfill Domains for the Gods who made them. They act almost like dutiful worker-bees for their King or Queen, the Adac that guides them. Though, over time, this function has begun to shift for many, and in some ways it shifted long ago.

Creation

All Spirits were originally called Noradac for a reason. Every single spirit, without exception, is a fragment of an Adac, or a Creator-God of the Path. For this reason, calling the Spirits themselves 'Adac' is commonplace and equally understood. As Spirits are fragments or extensions of the Adac, the Gods are capable of freely assimilating their own Spirits back into their Divine Spark, and can take total and seamless control over spirits they have created. While there are exceptions such as the Patrons - who slowly acquire true free will, maturing into independent beings - this remains the rule for the far majority of them.

Spirits are created in a way similar to that of mortal beings. As they predated mortals, the Gods originally practiced the techniques of 'creating life' on Spirits, and from their learnings applied these and other methods in order to harbor mortal sentience. Spirits are formed from the smallest shedding of an Adac's Divinity into the ether around them, which they will then crystallize and manipulate into a fully realized form. They are created whole, though some may actually develop over time in different environments, or as they experience the world. Given the near-infinity that is the Gods' providence over their own domains, spirits they create can be truly vast and diverse.

The creation of a Dreg occurs similarly, if a God wishes to create one anew. In the case of many Dregs, however, they were reforged into Dregs by either the Bleeding, the leaking of Corruption or by their connection to their Adac. Dregs are often the result of tethered Corruption between a Noradac and their creator. This means that the more corrupted a God, the less of their original spirits remain, more and more of them transmogrifying into Dregs over time.

In all cases, considering a God must create Spirits by shedding a small aspect of their own Divine Spark, a God is limited in how many Spirits they may muster to the amount of Divinity they carry. Throughout time, the Gods of Atharen tended to grow steadily stronger due to the harvesting of souls, allowing for the creation of more Spirits, and therefore a widening extension of themselves and their Domains. As of the Bleeding, however, the Gods have been forced to cull many of their Spirits due to Corruption, and have not been able to reassimilate them for fear of corrupting their own divinity. This has led to a decrease of Spirits in the world. In addition, the growth of anti-Path rhetoric and even religions has led to the advent of Spirit hunting, a prestigious or sometimes ideological task to weaken the Living Gods' grip over the world.

As a result of this, while Spirits were once seen all over Atharen and would frequently interact with mortals, they now tend to hide and evade sight in those nations that view them with disdain, such as Daravin, Grisic and Lorien.

Differences

In many ways, the Noradac and Dregs are similar. They are both crafted from Divinity, both tethered to their God who may reassimilate them, they are both fragments of said God, and they both exist to fulfill their Domains and other objectives. However, there are a few distinct differences that separate Noradac and Dregs.

The first is the obvious: they appear vastly different. Corruption has a tendency to 'corrupt' the appearance of a being it inflicts. Skin will grow greyer and might wrinkle or sag, or may appear more like hunks of stagnant flesh lingering over corded muscles. Light colors become darker; metal aspects alter into rust. In many ways, corruption is synonymous with decay. The decay of one's mind, the decay of one's body, the decay of one's ability to safely harness Raw Magic or Divinity. For the Spirits, this is the same.

Dregs tend to appear more menacing, even horrific. They tend to be more violent, and even though they follow their Gods' objectives, the Corruption within them can often momentarily set their focus awry, as if clogging their connection to them. This can lead to them doing arbitrary things, veering off-focus, and expressing random acts of aggression or purposeless wandering. Spirits are far more orderly, purposeful, and benign. They are rarely aggressive, only acting in the most egregious cases of self-defense. They may even interact with mortals in a friendly manner, though as mentioned, over time this has significantly changed.

The differences between Noradac and Dreg are effectively that of day and night. While their function may be similar in nature, the way they act and manage their objectives is vastly different.

Function

Spirits are made for one, specific function called their Purpose. They tend to be neatly organized by their Purpose, and it is often clear immediately upon meeting a Spirit what their Purpose might be. One example of a Purpose is to serve as a weapon for a God; perhaps to tag alongside their faithful and hunt a dangerous apostate, a violent blasphemer. This is less and less common as the Gods have become increasingly non-interventionist, almost never interacting with their followers, or the world itself.

More commonly is the Purpose of maintaining domains. In essence, Atharen is unique in that it is formed and surrounded by vast magical barriers made of Divinity, and within it are subsects of the world assigned to individual Gods. As with all things, decay and volatility exist within the elements of the world itself, which is not always completely stable. The laws, boundaries and structural order of the world and its many facets must be maintained in order to continue functioning, and this task is performed by Spirits.

The Plane that separates Atharen from the Outlands, for example, occasionally manifests irregularities as Venadak's ether grows volatile or weaker in one area, becoming less reinforced. As a result, one of his Noradac (because not all Corrupted have exclusively Dregs) will go to the barrier of the Plane and will repair this irregularity, interfacing it with their Divinity in order to perform the function assigned to them. Another example for a more abstract Domain is that of Courlan's Domain of 'Truth'; considering Truth relates to objectivity or 'Objective Truth', a Spirit will interface with blips and exceptions that form within the laws of science or reality, ensuring that the integrity of this 'Objective Truth' remains. Similarly, a mortal may suddenly at times experience that they no longer experience hunger or pain. Not a genetic defect, this is actually a manifestation of Valteran's encoding within their soul manifesting an anomaly. A Spirit may visit them in their sleep and fix this irregularity, before disappearing to work on their next assigned duty.

Considering Dregs are locked in Bel, their purpose tends to be far less related to maintenance, and more focused on warring. Most Dregs are designed to be violent, acting as small proxies of the Corrupted God within the Endless War. When they are found on Atharen, they are often hunted by the combat-focused Spirits of the Living Gods, or by the few followers of theirs who may have connection to them, as any Dregs on the mortal plane are viewed as an incursion and a threat to stability.

Of course, this means that as Gods become increasingly corrupt - particularly Y'shendra, Valteran, Quarae and Jaxkael - they manifest less and less Noradac, meaning their Domains have become more unstable through time. While it was originally extremely rare to encounter a human who suddenly lost the ability to experience rage, occurrences like this are increasingly frequent.

Divinity

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Subtypes: Noradac

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Subtypes: Dregs

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