The Hollowborne, the Soulless Avatars of Hunger

The Wheel is the cycle by which mana goes through. Souls are a crucial part of this process. Their presence allows for mana to enter the mundane. Though not all beings have souls. The more complex a being's consciousness, the bigger its spirit. Once a species has a complex enough consciousness, they receive a soul. spirits can be seen as pseudo-souls in a sense. Most of them will record data from their hosts similar to how a soul mirrors its bearer. After death, the spirit will then dissipate into the environment, saturating it. Its memories become scattered throughout the environment, being picked up by ley lines. Ley lines use this information to protect life and to promote the evolution of sapience, sentience, and complex consciousness as a whole. This is the reason for so many different sapient species on Terra. From the thousands of shades of humanity to the hundreds of tribes of dwarves to the myriad of elven beings. Each one has a hierarchy and place in the environment. Though their intelligence may be dangerous to nature as a whole, the Aether has measures to control them to a certain extent. Guardians, magical beasts and etc. The Wheel has a place for all, even those without an individual soul.

Bacteria, for example, are alive, have spirits, but are, in fact, soulless. Their pseudo-souls are intertwined with the Aether. If a species makes another go extinct, the Aether does not care. As long as it doesn't happen at a scale large enough to threaten the balance, it is indifferent.

Even though certain species do not have individual souls (the majority of life), they still receive enough mana to survive their respective environs. Their spirits absorb mana from the environment, and when they die, other spirits absorb them in turn. This is the very reason for the Aether to promote sapience and complex consciousness. Though ley lines themselves have souls that provide for their worlds, they cannot depend solely on their own natural dissipation of life-force. Ley lines are holes into the fabric between planes that allow for absurd amounts of mana to saturate the world. Souls are pinpricks in that very same fabric that help support ley lines.

Souls attach to their bearers when their brains are in development - either in utero or egg or another scenario. The mother's spirit splits off to produce the spirit of its offspring. Mana is used to open a breach into the soul plane. Sometimes this process does not succeed. The rate for failure is extremely low. The chances of not being born without a soul are nearly impossible, but it does happen.

In the case of when a being, whose species has individual souls, is born without a soul, they are known as a soulless one. Their spirit feeds off the environment, taking mana from it instead of providing it with mana. Soulless ones still have the basal parts of their soul present in their spirits but do not have the more complex machinery that comes with a full soul - a soul located in the astral sea. Soulless ones can reproduce, but their offspring do not share in their soullessness. The exact mechanics of what creates soulless ones are not entirely known, but the leading hypothesis is the lack of mana needed to open a breach into the soul plane.

Soulless ones can link and even awaken magic in a sense since the basal parts of the soul are present in the spirit. The extent of their magic is dependent on their spirit. If their brain has not connected with the basal parts of the soul, they will not be in control of their magic - it'll be entirely reflexive and non-responsive to their whims. This sort of soullessness makes the connection between the mind and aura nonexistent. The emotional state of the host will not be present in their aura.

If a soulless one has an intact connection between their mind and their soul's basal parts, their magic will be controllable though there are some complications. They must awaken or link before the age of ten. Their brains need to malleable due to the lack of a complex soul. Souls are mediators between the spirit and its bearer. Without them, over-stimulus becomes commonplace.

Soulless Ones that awaken are known as the hollowborne. The reason they awaken is mostly due to low ambient mana. Their spirit enters a frightened state that makes them search for magical sustenance. Most hollowborne feel hollowness in the region occupied by their ethereal stomach or Center. After awakening, hollowborne need to be in mana saturated environments or need to supplement their own mana from another source since they cannot generate it themselves. Hollowborne can manifest as slightly vampiric due to their need for mana. Since they've awakened, their use of mind mana increases, and thus so does the need for foreign mana. Hollowborne need mana-rich foods like the flesh of magical beasts or the stalks of magical flora to survive in low mana environs or aetheric deserts.

Hollowborne do not go through soul-dreams as other normal sorcerers do. They dream of unending hunger, waking up from their nightmares with a hollowness to the fabric of their beings that they've never thought possible before. Hollowborne can only awaken through low levels of internal mana. Any other method of awakening is mostly impossible. Due to this fact, many would-be mages that cannot link nor awaken are treated with disdain and are discriminated against. Some religions even hunt them due to them being "soulless aberrations". Though they are products of a failed process, they are not aberrations, far from it, in fact. Not all beings have souls in nature, which does not make them any less important, and if not for mutations, the disparity known as species would not exist. For mutations are the tools of evolution. Of the Aether and the Wheel itself.

For every deficiency a magical body has, the more it adapts its strengths to make up for its weaknesses, cannibalizing the weak to hone the sharp. The ethereal body of a hollowborne is remarkably over-developed. The aura of a hollowborne has strong properties of magical absorption but low magical resistance. Since hollowborne have always taken mana from the environment, their aura is less of a skin-like ethereal organ and more like a gaping maw. Normal souled beings use their aura to protect themselves from foreign invaders and only use their ethereal stomachs to process foreign mana found in food. The ethereal stomach and aura of a hollowborne are one and the same. Their Centers slowly cannibalize the aura and take its place. Due to the nature of their auras, Hollowborne have an increased chance for magical Infections and possession. The aura of a hollowborne can be conditioned to more easily devour foreign mana - allowing for impressive levels of magical absorption. Some hollowborne can even harden their aura to achieve magical resistance for a brief time.

Hollowborne are spiritualists through and through. Since they lack complex souls, they make do with their spirits. Hollowborne can manipulate their aura and ethereal body effectively with enough practice. This allows them to take up ambient mana and store it inside their spirits for later use. Hollowborne can create spirit cores, like in the East and the Kedweni Free City-States, to store foreign mana.

Though they do not have souls, hollowborne can still become sorcerers and arcane and accomplish complex magical transmutations to a certain extent. Hollowborne that awaken when their brains are still developing are usually the only ones capable of complex transmutation. Their brains adapt to form fleshy pseudo-arcanums. This may lead to neurological conditions like mental illnesses or impaired intellectual faculties. Corporeal arcanums are unique because they cannot be used to perform vancian-arcane magic - for they are made of flesh. The younger a hollowborne awakens, the higher their chance for the ability to create corporeal arcanums. The more a hollowborne practices with their mana, the more their corporeal arcanums develop.

Due to their deficiencies, hollowborne are very weak in magical transmutation. Though they can reach slightly impressive heights in sorcery, arcanistry, and transmutation, they have a low potential than true sorcerers.

Hollowborne develop acute aura senses. They have a high probability to link with the Trace. Hollowborne also have a high likelihood of linking with a variation of the Sixth Sense. Their special version of this aura sense is known as the Hungry Sight. It does not have empathetic capabilities like the normal Sixth Sense but does have a much more pronounced sensitivity. It usually self-regulates so that the mind is not overwhelmed but instead focused. Offering just enough insight to find sustenance.

Hollowborne may bind themselves to souled beings or take their souls for themselves. Hollowborne may find themselves with familiars to ease their burden in low mana environments. Or they may take the spirits and even souls of their enemies to sustain themselves. Since these souls have matured alongside another host, most of their functionality has been lost. No matter how many souls a hollowborne takes, they will forever feel hollow after linking. It isn't just the never-ending hunger for mana. They have been denied the very thing all other sapient species have. The very same thing that was to be theirs, never to be had, forever out of reach. A thirst burns at the back of their throats as they gaze into the abyss of the poisonous ocean of their reality.

Even though hollowborne have an increased chance for possession, the effects of a magical infection or possession are less severe. The over-developed ethereal stomach of a hollowborne slowly devours the foreign invader, seeking its insights and meta-knowledge to better consume its brethren. Though it takes longer for the parasite to be ingested, rarely can the foreign magical body survive inside a hollow spirit. Many hollowborne and beastborne have gone the way of cannibalism, for the ethereal bodies of their brethren are the most compatible. Humans have long since branded these devourers as wendigos in the age when man gathered in tribes. Hollowborne that have been possessed by strong daemonic entities have the choice whether they continue with their "guests". The Lilith strain of vampirism is known to offer the prospect of a soul to a hollowborne. Since they can molt their bodies and further bond with a soul, they could, in theory, truly become whole. Since they can reorganize their biological bodies, they can reintegrate their brain with a soul. Said soul would need to be procured or maybe even created. The most compatible soul found in nature would be the soul of a newborn since it has yet to fully bond with its bearer—something not easily taken without committing the most taboo of acts.

Hollowborne can become beastborne to a certain extent. Though they lack a soul, if they link with low levels of mana whilst being attacked by a magical beast, they may link with the powers of a beastborne and hollowborne alike. These mages become apex predators in their own right. Their synergistic powers are primal, and with the already dangerous changes in their brain's structure, they usually become deranged. Insanity is rarely a beautiful sight for those that still hold onto their own humanity. Only one such soulless one has survived with the dregs of sanity—the Red Wolf of Erastus.