Hello there. I have a question that kind of fits here, and kind of fits in Advice, but it's more of a ruling/official question, so here it is.
Are there any defined mechanics for souls in Hell and the Abyss? We know that Demons and Devils both like souls, as they gain some sort of undefined "power" from them. Are there rules to how this "power" takes place, in what form, and how it is transferred? Are souls divisible? Some concepts (such as Pit Fiends responding to high level good characters as sacrifice) imply that souls have more power than others. Does this mean that they provide more power? If so, does the whole soul have to be used at one time, or can its power be split up as nonspecific energy,and therefore to multiple devils or demons? How long does a soul usually stay in Hell or the Abyss before being turned into a Lemure or Dretch?
I understand that these things are left to DM discretion, but does anyone else feel that these sorts of things should have a "base" reality, where this is generally what goes on, if the DM doesn't want to write out their own rendition?
As I have it figured, souls are tapped for their energy and it becomes nonspecific "outsider fuel" which can be used in place of experience. Devils or demons who actually captured the souls gain the most power from them. Devils pay taxes on their souls, as they have a highly lawful heirarchy, and lesser devils are paid for jobs (such as Lemures assisting a higher devil) with small amounts of energy, and therefore have a chance to metamorphosize into a higher devil after a long period of being generally useless fodder.
The souls themselves are basically mixed in a painful extracting vat, (Think I read something like this in a 3.5 manual of the planes or some such) and once they are tapped of their spiritual power, lose their memories and become Lemures or Dretches out of the sludge.
True. I was wondering if Pathfinder specifically had anything like that, because I've read through many of the books on planes and devils, and they were a good resource. However, even they didn't (to my recollection) have anything specific, like "A soul lasts as many material plane days as it's Charisma modifier" or "1d4 weeks" or something along those lines. Now, usually a DM would just assume "Yeah, the soul you're after will be fine" or "It will last until X because I said so", but a general rule of thumb could open up standardized campaigns of freeing, selling or otherwise dealing in the souls of the damned.
Also, what is "dotted"?
As has been stated before, the source of information you seek lies neither with devils or demons; the daemons and their book, The Book of the Damned, Vol. 3: Horsemen of the Apocalypse has what you're looking. There's a decent-sized section for souls as fuel and currency and what souls are roughly worth.
Bestiary 1 had some notations on how demons are formed from souls, sometimes from a soul stew of multiple souls with similar vices or multiple weak demons from one soul.