How would the Soul Anchor work without devilish interference?

[Dagnew]

I know that Barzillai Thrune engaged in powerful magics in order to become a Genius Loci after death, so what he does isn't an example of how Soul Anchors work naturally.

I know that Soul Anchors are supposed to allow a soul to keep its memories in the afterlife, but, how does that work...?

Do you have to die next to the Soul Anchor, or can you bind your soul to it with a ritual and leave, or, can somebody else perform the ritual after you die...?

Even if the soul keeps its memories after death, it still has to be judged by Pharasma before being sent to its destination in the Outer Planes, and when Pharasma notices it keeps its memories, she will at best erase them before ending it away, or at worst, punish it by leaving it stranded in the Boneyard forever...

So, does the Soul Anchor bypass Pharasma's judgement too? And if so... what happens to your soul? Does it leave the River of Souls and stay floating around in the Astral Plane? Or, does it get sent to an appropiately aligned Plane?

What do you think?

[Kasoh]

As I understood it, a person just has to expose themselves to the Soul Anchor to gain its benefits, though it seems more like anyone who dies in its area of effect can benefit from it, but I had a few players who wanted to gain its benefits.

So, specifically, in Breaking the Bones of Hell, it says "soul anchors are an occult creation of Mahathallah—places where she has corrupted and damaged the River of Souls so that those who die in close proximity pass through judgment in the Boneyard with their memories intact."

So, it must allow a soul to get judged and retain memories because that what it says it does.

Keeping the memories allows one to keep experience, and I assume that means they are a more powerful outsider sooner. We see two examples of this Bloodriosette the Imp and Mangvhune, the serial killer. Influence from the Soul Anchor let them keep their mind and personalities more or less as they gained new forms. Occasionally, powerful individuals become specific outsiders on death anyway (Taldaris, Arazni) so, this is...a shortcut to that end.

So, at the small cost of blaspheming against Pharasma, you get to enter the afterlife with a level boost. the Soul Anchor is P2W the Afterlife, really.

[Dagnew]

I know about Mangvhune, but I still find it confusing. He needed to find the precise location of the Soul Anchor, bathed in its energies, then was killed in the city above.

I am not sure if Mangvhune needed to stay and die in the city above in order for the Soul Anchor to work... Barzillai Thrune intended to stay the rest of his life in the city near the Soul Anchor, but, in his case, he wanted to become a Genius Loci, and had left his heart behind in the Soul Anchor, so maybe Mangvhune could have left...?

And the way it is described, Mangvhune was sent to the Abyss without being judged by Pharasma... which is weird, because Pharasma is the one who chooses which plane the soul should go... did Mahathallah make it so the soul would authomatically be sent to the plane with the proper alignment...?

I just hoped there was some mention of the Soul Anchor that explains it better somewhere...

By the way, from what book is Bloodriosette?

[zimmerwald1915]

Dagnew wrote:

By the way, from what book is Bloodriosette?

In Hell's Bright Shadow.

[Dagnew]

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

Dagnew wrote:

By the way, from what book is Bloodriosette?

In Hell's Bright Shadow.

Thank you very much!