Back to my PS Page.
I have travelled many planes, worlds, and even strange dimensions, in my study of the superstitions of man.being an excerpt from the Memoirs of the late Baron Karl Mellks
Factor of the Athar and Investigator of Superstitions
I believe gods do not exist, and the beings many call powers are just impostors who have understood the ways of the multiverse and who take advantage of the small little spark of memory which stays in the mind of all petitioners: credulousness.
I believe the souls of the deceased do not head to their resting plane according to the belief they had held in life, but according to their actions. Yet there are men and women so restive to leave their beloved and to go to some plane in the company of beings they despise that they manage to stay in the Cage after their passing.
A proof of what I write was given to me -- though unwittingly -- by a barmy
bard well-known in the most notorious parts of our city, one Brother
Expiral.
He had managed to visit a place in Ligis called the Soul Cage where he
believed dwelt the spirits of those who had died with no inclination to
leave the City of Doors.
These spirits inhabit all kinds of minerals and objects, but seem to prefer stones for a reason I shall explain later. They are divided into three antagonistic groups, but they actually must act together to arouse the attention of the Shamans, for without the Shamans these spirits would fade into nothingness, the very nothingness upon which Sigil is built and that the barmies rejoin when they jump out of Sigil.
The Shamans are the keepers of the Soul Cage. They are the priests of those folk too desperate to believe in anything or too asocial to adjust to Sigil's political hypocrisy. They live amongst the branches of the trees of the Petrified Forest, and collect the most rare herbs that grow between the cracks in the rocks. They boil, simmer and filter these herbs so as to obtain strange brews that allow their spirit to drift and travel to the Soul Cage. However, they are not fully aware of their role, and fulfil it almost unwittingly, driven by the moans of the spirits which the petrified trees somehow transmit -- the roots of these trees being perhaps connected with the stones and the bricks of the Soul Cage.
Not unlike those primitive Clueless I met on many prime worlds trying and attaining an imaginary Spirit World, the mere reflection of their collective superstitions, the Shamans of Sigil are able to convey messages from the living to their ancestors in the Soul Cage or to retrieve a piece of advice from particular wise spirits acting together. This also brings morsels of belief that sustain the spirits -- for a spirit without some memory of the Cage just fades away.
Whether all this is a put-up by some morbid sect, an ancient secret of Ligis best not dealt with lest the Lady maze me in, or a true manifestation of some spiritual power (oh how I hate this word!) -- I don't know -- and I don't know if I'll ever continue my research.
Back to my PS Page.
Get your own Free Home Page