Untethered Souls | Graves of the Lost

LORE & BACKGROUND

Wandering lights drift through the grave-choked fog, pale and cold as moonlight on bone. These are the Untethered Souls, fragments of the dead torn loose from rightful slumber. Flickering orbs of balefire, they hover weightless through tomb-cities and wargraves, anguished faces half-formed in the flame, mouths parting in ceaseless wails and broken mutterings. They remember, but only in pieces.

Born of trauma, dark magic, or sheer sorrow, Untethered Souls are not, in themselves, malicious. They drift like will-o’-wisps through haunted ruins, drawn to remnants of what they once were. Their presence brings unease, and their keening is said to sour milk, crack mirrors, and chill even the fiercest bonfires.

When gathered in number, or driven to fury by trespass or pain, they become dangerous. In such moments, their collective anguish ignites into lashing flame and hateful noise. Worse still, they are easily manipulated. Necromancers prize these spirits for their malleability, binding them as fuel into cruel engines of death. It is not uncommon to see Untethered Souls caged within bone lanterns, tethered to animate husks, or fused into macabre constructs, granting motion to the lifeless.

They are not ghosts, not truly. They are animus unmoored, bitter memory, rage without direction.

Untethered Souls | Graves of the Lost

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