PDA

View Full Version : Sidhelien: After life?



InvictusRex
04-06-2015, 05:39 AM
Has there ever been any details provided on the Sidhelien race's belief in life after death?

(I tried searching for this but couldn't find anything.)

If not does anyone have a good home-brewed idea or theory? (Ideally the theory should permit the use of Raise Dead and Ressurection spells).

Thelandrin
04-06-2015, 09:35 AM
If you take the line that they're most similar to outsiders, then they can't be raised anyway, thought resurrection might be allowed (for all the zero canonical priests who can cast that spell).

AndrewTall
04-07-2015, 04:14 PM
Has there ever been any details provided on the Sidhelien race's belief in life after death?

(I tried searching for this but couldn't find anything.)

If not does anyone have a good home-brewed idea or theory? (Ideally the theory should permit the use of Raise Dead and Ressurection spells).

As BR sidhelien are immortal barring violent death I'm not sure why they would have well developed beliefs on the subject - unlike humans who must constantly live surrounded by aging and death the sidhelien could while away millennia without ever seeing a compatriot die before the coming of humans to Cerilia (which is a current event for the sidhelien rather than ancient history, many sidhe would remember the good old days).

Taking a spirit-taken-on-flesh approach to the sidhelien, I took the view that they simply saw death as destruction of a mortal shell, and would then either need time to reform a body (possibly a treant, pixie, or other sylvan spirit) or would merge into the mebhaighl of the forests around them (giving some interesting connotations to their views on clearing forests for roads and farms). The former approach would allow raise dead, resurrection and reincarnation (particularly) though the latter would be a slightly bigger reach.

Sorontar
04-09-2015, 12:21 PM
Of course, you could take the view that each sidhe is just one side of a being who was broken into two entities when the Shadow World and Aebrynis separated. The other half is one of the Seelie or Unseelie Court.[1] Therefore, when one half dies, the soul may return to the other. How you run that in your campaign is up to you, but it may provide an opportunity for shared memories, or the living half being aware if you spoke to the dead one (using "Speak to the dead").

Resurrection may even have a small risk of raising the wrong soul.

Sorontar

[1] This is a concept that has previously been discussed by the BR.net community, but I don't think it is canon.

LilianH
04-10-2015, 08:20 AM
The novel Greatheart has some limited information if you have access to that. I don't own a copy, but I read it a while ago.

InvictusRex
04-10-2015, 10:38 AM
Thanks for the replies all,

@AndrewTall: While the Sidhelian are ageless, there have taken part in a number of wars even before humans came along against the goblins and even before that King of theirs united them into one kingdom. So I would have thought they would have some belief about the afterlife even if not as developed as humans.

Them ressurecting into treants & such is a thought although I am do prefer the idea of them becoming part of the mebhaighl.

@Sorontar: I have browsed through some of those threads since I joined and they were interesting. The only issue I would have is that some of the Shadow fey would have died and had their souls joined to the Sihelian by now. Also considering the number of Sidhelian deaths since humans arrived the Fey would be going through an upheaval due to the Sidhelian souls merging with theirs. (Stuff I can work with though.)

LilianH: Don't have the novel sadly, although I am always keeping an eye out for them whether in old books stores or *crosses fingers* an Online release.

Lee
04-10-2015, 08:42 PM
I'd stick to the mebhaigl idea, with the possibility of reincarnation (spell) but not resurrection (spell). I think I had an idea once that new sidhe birth rates were affected by the presence of mebhaigl, so that in places with low source ratings, it was near impossible for sidhe to have children*. I may have been influenced by someone else's thought that sidhe should have faster/slower healing rates based on the source rating of a province.

From what I remember in one of the novels (Greatheart?), the sidhe said that the stars were the souls of dead elves. I don't recall if there was any more than that; maybe falling stars herald a (rare) birth of a new sidhe?

*Having half-children with humans is another (more common?) matter, perhaps.