Death (MTAw)

Purview: Darkness, Decay, Ectoplasm, Enervation, Ghosts, Soul Stealing

Death is a gruesome and terrible Arcanum. With it, a mage can exert control over that most primal and frightful of mysteries. Ghosts and the dead fall under the purview of this Arcanum, as does the health of the soul.

Those who delve deeply into the Mysteries of Death are often (though not necessarily) morbid people, given to considerable introspection regarding mortality, decay and endings. Many such individuals had too close a brush with their own mortality at some point. Out of fear (or disdain), they attempt to master the very metaphysical constant responsible for claiming those whose time has passed, seeking to define the limits of their own existence rather than being subject to the whims of a cold and impersonal universe. Like the Arcanum they pursue, such mages tend to be subtle, owing much less (despite what others might think) to bad horror movies and heavy metal than to a pervasive, cold and clinical outlook on Creation, one in which they have already perceived the destiny of everything and flensed away their fear in the crucible that is the knowledge that all things must die in time.

Ruling Realm: Stygia

The gross/subtle pair of Matter/Death provides the Ruling Arcana of Stygia that bleak land where disincarnated souls gain rest until called upon to incarnate again into the cycle of life. Death is the ephemeral expression of that pair.

In Atlantean metaphysics, the function of Death is to root the soul in the material world, to give it an anchor for its sojourn in the world. Death draws the soul down into matter and density with an inexorable gravity. But it also releases the soul in time by decaying the body to which it is tied, freeing the soul to return to the Supernal World with the memories of all its bodily experiences. These memories, entered into the Book of Stars, lend weight and fresh meaning to the ethereal heavens.

In the current age of the Fallen World, most have forgotten this core truth, and use the power of Death for debased reasons. Necromancers manipulate the shades of the departed for selfish gain. The Atlanteans did not believe that ghosts were conscious beings. They were not even "beings", but things. They were shells left behind by the soul, still bearing the imprint or form of the soul. They mimicked consciousness, still "wearing" the personality and behavior of the departed soul. Atlanteans also believed that the soul could never ascend back to its source as long as its shell was still intact and bound to a worldly anchor. In essence, to manipulate the shell was to also affect the soul that once owned it. Much of the instinctive terror that this Arcanum evokes is attributed to its power over the soul.