Luminism is a modern philosophy and religion of reason, compassion, and moral clarity. It teaches that goodness stands on its own… not on dogma, not on fear, and never on threat of divine punishment.
Jonas Morecock was the personal assistant to one of the pantheonic “gods” who governed the world. In his youth, he was the most beautiful boy in his Greek city and was taken as a teenager to serve as the god’s lover. Over time, Jonas’s boyish charm faded, but his intelligence set him apart. Recognizing his potential, the god kept Jonas in his service, training him to read and write so he could assist with administrative tasks. Jonas exceeded all expectations, becoming the god’s head assistant.
One day, the god gave Jonas a dangerous mission to return to his hometown and warn its people to repent for defying the gods, or face destruction. Jonas knew he would be killed if he went back. Fearing the task was a ploy to dispose of him, Jonas defied the god’s command for the first time in his life, fleeing aboard a ship heading in the opposite direction.
The god, angered by Jonas’s defiance, used a weather-control device to conjure a violent storm. The terrified sailors, believing Jonas was the cause, threw him overboard to appease the sea. Their betrayal of Jonas enraged the god even more. He obliterated the ship with a beam of energy, which Jonas mistook for lightning.
As Jonas struggled to stay afloat, the god’s anger softened. He ordered a nearby submarine to rescue him. Exhausted and on the verge of drowning, Jonas fainted as he saw what he thought was a whale opening its mouth to swallow him.
The submarine crew sedated Jonas for most of the journey. On the final day, they woke him to speak with his god via a viewscreen. Jonas apologized for his disobedience, and the god forgave him. The submarine brought Jonas near the city he was meant to warn. To onlookers on the beach, it appeared as though a whale had beached itself and spit Jonas out.
Awed by this miracle, the townspeople escorted Jonas to their leader so he could deliver the god’s warning to repent. From the king to the commoners, the people wholeheartedly turned from their wicked ways and pledged to follow the will of the gods.
Moved by their repentance, the god spared the city. But Jonas was furious, feeling the city deserved punishment. Amused by Jonas’s hypocrisy, the god reminded him of his own recent disobedience and forgiveness. He used Jonas’s experience to teach him about mercy and the value of saving lives.
Jonas returned to his god’s service, continuing his duties until his death at 44. Ironically, he passed away while lying next to a Greek geek by a creek, which is proof that even the most extraordinary lives end in simple moments.
In a small, dusty desert town lived a virgin named Mitzi, daughter of a proud sheep herder. Her father took great pride in his flock, until the day one of his sheep gave birth to a deformed lamb.
It was completely bald.
A hairless lamb was useless to a herder, and worse, it was seen as a bad omen. The villagers believed such deformities were signs that the village god was angry, and that his curse had fallen upon the family.
Fearing what the others might say, Mitzi’s father prepared to kill the lamb. But Mitzi felt something unusual in the creature, something rare and precious.
She begged her father to spare it.
He refused at first. But she pleaded so desperately that he relented, on one condition: the lamb must never be seen by anyone.
Not even him.
Mitzi agreed and raised the lamb in secret. Time passed, and one day, the lamb grew golden fleece. Overcome with pride, she paraded the lamb through the village.
The townspeople were amazed by the sight of a lamb with shining golden fleece, and they began to sing in celebration:
“Mitzi had a little lamb, its fleece was golden so. Everywhere that Mitzi went, the lamb was sure to go.”
Even her father, who had once cursed the lamb’s birth, was astonished. The deformed creature had become a miracle. But the miracle came with a price.
The village god was a man.
He was a man with advanced technology and machines that the people mistook for divine power. From time to time, he visited the town to remind the villagers of his presence. On his last visit, he had experimented on her father’s flock.
When he heard news of the unusual lamb, he returned to the village to see it himself. The experiment had worked!
The lamb was of interest to him, but it was Mitzi who captured his attention. He was mesmerized by her beauty, and he decided he must have her.
He sent a mechanical “bee” to sting her, rendering her unconscious. Then he took her to his remote outpost, where he violated her sleeping body. When he was finished, he returned the sleeping beauty to her home.
Mitzi never knew what had been done to her… until her belly began to swell with new life.
News of the virgin pregnancy soon reached the village god. He cared nothing for the child. The hybrid was inferior in his eyes, unworthy of his time. But he feared that allowing a “divine” child to be abandoned would set a dangerous precedent. And so, he sent one of his assistants to deliver a message to Mitzi.
The messenger was a woman, disinterested and unenthusiastic about being sent on such a mundane task. She appeared before Mitzi, pointed at her growing belly, and spoke:
“I just met you, and this is crazy, but God just raped you… go have his baby. It’s hard to look right at you, lady, so please remember, don’t kill his baby.”
And with that, she left.
Mitzi did as she was told. She raised the child alone.
The villagers worshipped the baby, calling him the son of a god. But he grew up to be nothing remarkable. He performed no miracles, offered no revelations. His only divine trait was the story of his birth.
There was once a man who believed he was favored by the universe. Each day, he prayed beneath the blazing morning sun. He made offerings on a barren hillside, always exposed to the elements. He sought guidance as the sun dipped behind the horizon, and over time, he began to hear a voice.
At first, the voice whispered gentle thoughts into the back of his mind. It told him he was doing good work. That he had purpose. That he, out of all the sentient beings in the universe, was chosen by divinity.
The man listened closely.
Then, one morning, the voice said something new:
“If you truly believe,” it whispered, “you must offer up your child.”
The man was shaken, but also afraid to disobey. What if this was a test? What if failing to act meant punishment, or rejection from the divine?
So, he obeyed.
He lied to his child, saying they were going on a lovely picnic. The naïve boy didn’t question it, even when he noticed they hadn’t packed any food.
They climbed the nearest mountain, the man carrying only a knife and a bundle of firewood. At the summit, he built an altar and gently bound his son’s hands.
The boy was confused but not afraid. He remembered seeing his father and mother play strange games before bed. He thought this might be another one.
But in the father’s mind, something had shifted. The voice was no longer whispering, it was urging. It called this “the price of faith.”
The boy’s smile faded as he saw the blade.
His eyes widened with terror as his father raised the knife.
And just before it fell, the voice boomed:
“Never mind! I was just kidding.”
“Wow… you were really going to do it! You’re completely messed up, man.”
The man laughed. The voice laughed.
Even a nearby goat let out a braying chuckle.
But the child never laughed again.
He never trusted anyone again.
He spent the rest of his life alone.
Reflection
Luminism warns against confusing faith with obedience, and reverence with recklessness.
No truly good force in the universe would demand the death of a child to prove loyalty.
And no loving, clear-minded parent would comply without question.
Do not glorify voices that command violence.
Do not celebrate faith that sacrifices others to prove itself.
The true test is not whether you will follow an unproven command. It is whether you will question it, especially when it defies love, reason, and life.
“If your beliefs require blood to be proven true, then it is time to question your faith.”
Let your conscience be your compass. Let evidence be your light. And if a mysterious voice urges you to kill someone, let a licensed psychiatrist be your guide.
Long ago, a so-called god looked upon the world and didn’t like what he saw.
There were many animals, both gentle and fierce. There were majestic unicorns, a handful of dinosaurs, a subterranean civilization of Pomeranians, and another of reptilian scholars. Above all, there were free-thinking humans.
This god, however, had plans for the land. He viewed these creatures, especially the independent-minded humans, as potential interlopers. Worse, they weren’t groveling or offering sacrifices. They weren’t even afraid.
This would not do.
So, the god resolved to wipe them out. Most of them, anyway.
He found one man he liked, and decided to spare him and his family. He was not chosen for his wisdom or virtue, but for his blind obedience.
The god instructed this man to build a massive ship, an “ark,” to preserve a sample of life… specifically, the parts the he approved of. The man obeyed, but had no experience in shipbuilding and what he built resembled a soggy raft.
This would not do either.
So, the god secretly dispatched robotic servants to complete the project and, while he was at it, installed dimensional tech to make the interior larger than it appeared. This ensured the vessel was spacious enough to house all the creatures the god intended to save.
He commanded the man to gather two of every species. For the dangerous or evasive ones, he gave him tranquilizer gear and simple stasis tools. But the man, ever clueless, overdosed several animals… killing them outright. Replacements had to be sourced, and eventually, one of his more competent daughters was reassigned to the task.
Later, it was discovered that the man never checked the sex of the animals. He brought pairs to the ship, but some were both male or both female.
Meanwhile, the god unleashed his plan:
He triggered unceasing rain through weather control devices.
He redirected rivers using terraforming tools.
He activated a gravity well generator that was hovering in low orbit to hold the floodwaters in place.
The twin cities of the reptilians drowned beneath the tides. And his robotic servants hunted the survivors down as they fled to the surface.
The subterranean Pomeranians fared no better. The god shattered the land bridge holding back the Atlantic Ocean and water crashed through ancient tunnels to bury their basin cities in brine.
And the humans?
For nearly two months, the land was submerged. Just long enough to wipe out the undesirables, and to leave a lingering threat for the survivors. He didn’t kill all of them, just the ones who lived in the region he coveted. The rest, far from the flood zone, were spared purely by accident.
When the rain finally ceased, a rainbow arced across the sky. The god claimed credit for this natural phenomenon and declared it a sign. Not a promise of peace, but a veiled threat: “Next time, it’ll be fire.”
When the ark finally landed, the god inspected the preserved animals and discovered the problem.
Two male unicorns grazed beside the ramp.
He glared at the man. “Did you even check the genders?”
The family suddenly found the nearby rocks very interesting. Alone, the man stammered, “No, uh…”
The god grumbled, suppressing his anger. The man was, after all, loyal. Gullible, yes… but most importantly, loyal. So, he was assigned the task of catalog each animal and mark which pairings were unusable.
Thankfully, the error rate was low.
More curious, though, was the fate of the Spectrumgobblus or Rainbow-Colored Turkey. Records showed two had boarded the ark, but only one remained.
The god narrowed his eyes.
He remembered briefly inspecting the family mid-voyage. He saw a rather large roasted bird on the dinner table, but…
…surely, they didn’t?
Did they?
Reflection
The flood myth is a cautionary tale that serves to highlight something deeply troubling about the types of deities humans have historically chosen to worship. Most are all-powerful, demanding of loyalty, and wrathful at disobedience. All while exhibiting petulance and indifference to the cruelty done to others.
In Luminism, we ask:
What kind of god needs to kill to teach a lesson?
What kind of wisdom is proven through genocide?
And what kind of people call that holy?
This story forces us to confront the reality that morality cannot simply be what a powerful being commands. Obedience is not inherently good. In fact, blind obedience to unjust authority is often the mechanism by which great evil is carried out.
In the end, this isn’t a story about salvation. It’s a story about selective survival, enforced conformity, and the kind of god who mistakes domination for righteousness.
If your god demands the death of others to prove his glory, he may not be worth following.
In the city of Primora, there once lived a god named Orvox. Orvox had forged the mountains with a clap, kindled stars with a breath, and molded the first humans from dust and thought. His power was unmatched and his intellect vast.
And yet…
Every seventh day, he grew anxious.
He would descend from his shining citadel and demand that people gather. They were to sing his praises, light candles, kneel, chant, and speak of how good and wise he was. If any failed to appear, Orvox grew sullen.
“If you do not worship me,” he declared, “you dishonor the gift of life I gave you!”
One day, a philosopher named Etta stood before him, unbowed.
“I mean no offense, Great One,” she said calmly. “But if your gifts must be repaid with loyalty and praise, are they gifts at all?”
Orvox scowled. “You dare question me?!”
Etta continued, “You made us flawed, curious, fragile. And when we stumble, you scold us for not being perfect. You gave us thought, and now you resent us for using it.”
“I created the rules,” Orvox thundered. “It is not your place to question them.”
Etta tilted her head. “But it is in our nature to ask questions. You put that in us too, didn’t you?”
Orvox was silent.
And so, the people began to think. Some still worshipped, but others pondered. They asked themselves:
What kind of god builds creatures with imperfection and then punishes them for it?
What kind of being demands love, but only under threat?
Eventually, Orvox grew weary of their independence.
He vanished.
Over the centuries, the people of Primora grew, not in piety, but in philosophy. They learned to take responsibility for their mistakes, rather than blaming unseen forces. They built temples not to gods, but to compassion, to knowledge, and to the betterment of the self.
One inscription in the Hall of Reflection reads:
The truest divine does not crave praise.
It builds and then lets go.
It creates and trusts the creation.
Reflection
Luminism teaches that any being, divine or mortal, who demands obedience without reason or praise without merit, is not a model of strength.
It is insecurity.
True wisdom does not need worship to prove itself. Just as true love does not require constant affirmation to remain. If a god demands applause more than justice, and punishes curiosity more than cruelty, then perhaps it is not a god to be followed.
It is a cautionary tale to be studied.
Your reverence should be earned, not expected or required. Whatever questions you develop should be welcomed, not silenced. And if you ever meet a “supreme being” who fears scrutiny…
It might be a sign that you are more enlightened than they are.
Long ago, before textbooks and telescopes, there lived a village tucked beneath a sky so full of stars that it seemed the heavens were a bowl spilled with salt. The people of the village believed the stars were holes poked in the sky by a giant cat, so that divine light could shine through from the other side.
The cat’s name, they said, was Moggie the Eternal, and every time a star appeared, it was because Moggie had sharpened her claws in the sky. “Poke,” they’d say. “A new star is born.”
Children smiled at this. Elders nodded. And no one questioned it… except for a girl named Lin.
Lin loved the stars, but she also loved questions. She asked why some stars twinkled and others didn’t. Why they moved with the seasons. Why some suddenly disappeared.
“Moggie is mysterious,” the villagers would say.
But Lin wasn’t satisfied with mystery for mystery’s sake. So, she began to study. She watched the skies, drew charts, and learned from travelers who passed through with stories of far-off observatories. She built a lens from river glass and bronze scraps. She charted constellations on goat hide. She learned the stars were not holes in the sky, but distant suns, each burning in the cold darkness of space.
At her side was a small cat of her own. He had soft gray fur and a determined little face. His name was Kobiyashi[1] Maru or “Maru” for short. Whenever Lin grew frustrated with the villagers’ resistance, Maru would walk straight into the walls of her workshop.
Thump.
Sometimes once. Sometimes over and over.
It started as clumsiness. But in time, Lin realized it was empathy. A cat trying to understand the invisible barriers she faced. A cat who walked into walls because he knew she did, too.
When Lin shared what she learned, the village scoffed.
“That’s too complicated,” said the baker. “Stars can’t be suns. They’re too small.”
“I don’t get any of that,” said the priest. “You can’t even see all that stuff without a magic tube. If I don’t understand it, it must not be true. God did it. End of story.”
Lin kept going. Because Maru kept walking.
One night, an old woman approached her, gazing at her maps and lenses.
“I remember when I thought Empurress Moggie poked holes in the sky to make the stars,” she said. “But now I see that truth doesn’t need to be simple to be beautiful. Understanding can be a form of worship too.”
Together, they watched the night sky.
Not as a mystery to be feared.
But as a puzzle waiting to be explored.
Reflection
In Luminism, the pursuit of knowledge is sacred. Mystery is not our enemy, but neither is it an excuse to stop asking questions. When we meet a gap in understanding, we must not fill it with gods out of habit or fear. We must fill it with curiosity, evidence, and wonder.
To say, “I don’t know,” is honest.
To say, “I don’t understand, so it must be magic,” is surrender.
There is no shame in not knowing. But there is danger in pretending that ignorance is the end of inquiry.
And if you ever find yourself walking into walls out of frustration, exhaustion, and for being misunderstood, know that even in those moments, you are not alone.
Maru walks with you.
Lin walks with you.
And so do all who choose to question.
Let your questions be the lens through which light grows sharper. And never be afraid to ask why.
[1]Kobiyashi Maru – “Kobiyashi” is misspelled on purpose.
A solitary Psalm Tree once lived on a remote island, singing to all the creatures who visited her sanctuary by the sea. She shared melodies about the many ways to live as a good and decent being. Each day brought a new song, yet her themes remained focused on a select few subjects.
On one day, she sang about the importance of honesty and how the future well-being of children depends on a foundation of education and discipline. It’s essential to provide children with a quality education while steering clear of indoctrination.
On another day, her song emphasized the pursuit of knowledge above all else, underscoring that knowledge and wisdom are vital for building a strong and prosperous life. She also highlighted the importance of being generous to the less fortunate.
On other days, she warned against the temptation of greed, which can lead to coveting things you cannot afford and result in devastating debt. Her songs also advised against rejoicing in the misfortunes of others, as it may tempt you to engage in evil actions.
One day, a man washed ashore in a wooden boat made from the bodies of her distant cousins. The sight of him using dead bodies to float across the sea was frightening. Yet, it was her duty to sing to all who came to her island, no matter how different they might be.
As the man approached with an odd-looking tool, she sang about the pursuit of knowledge. He looked up at her bountiful branches, where her seeds nestled, and seemed overjoyed, dancing to the tune of her song.
But to her horror, he began striking her mighty trunk over and over! She must have misunderstood his dance as a positive response, thinking it a sign of appreciation. Trying to appease him, she sang another song, but he kept hacking away at her body.
With a horrific scream, she fell, bewildered that any creature would do this to her. All she ever wanted was to bask in the delightful sun and sing about how to be a good and decent being. Yet this man had cut her life short for no apparent reason. The last thing she saw was him stealing the fruit that held the seeds destined to become her children.
Most unfortunate of all was that the man hadn’t heard her songs at all. She sang in the language of plants, which fell outside the audible range of humans. If only he could hear her, he might have understood she was sentient and might not have killed her or stolen her future children.
At least there was some good news… for the man. Since he did not know the Psalm Tree was sentient, his actions were not considered murder. He could live his life blissfully unaware that a justly applied technicality exempted his actions from being deemed murder, sparing his soul from deletion upon his death.
Sentience is the condition of conscious existence, marked not only by awareness, but by the potential for moral and intellectual growth. It is not limited to human-like cognition or individual minds, but may arise in varied and complex forms. Within a distributed or collective consciousness, sentience need not exist in every part of the being. A hive or AI network may be sentient, though its drones and terminals are not.
Luminism does not require sentience to follow a human shape. Only that it shows itself, somewhere, in truth.
A being or collective is considered sentient when it demonstrates: self-awareness, self-betterment, self-sacrifice, moral and cognitive independence, and contextual judgement.
Self-Awareness
The conscious ability to recognize one’s own existence, thoughts, emotions, and place in the world. This includes awareness of oneself as distinct from others, and the capacity to reflect on that distinction. For hive minds or collective consciousnesses, it is the awareness of the group as a unified being, capable of intentional reflection on its own presence and actions.
Self-Betterment
The conscious ability to make oneself more than one was before. This includes learning, personal growth, ethical improvement, and the pursuit of meaning, even in the absence of external compulsion. In collective minds, this manifests through cultural evolution, internal refinement, or expanded understanding across its components.
Self-Sacrifice
The conscious ability to override biological instinct or personal preservation for the sake of a cause, a loved one, or a principle. This reveals not only empathy, but the presence of moral choice and value beyond the self.
In hive minds, individual sacrifice may be instinctual and thus not count as self-sacrifice. However, if the hive as a whole knowingly risks damage to itself to protect or uplift others, then the principle is met.
Sentient beings possess the ability to make ethical decisions, to reflect on right and wrong, and to act with intent. They are capable of forming beliefs, changing those beliefs with reason or evidence, and accepting moral responsibility for their actions. Sentience requires the capacity to say “no” or act against instinct or programming.
Sentience includes the capacity to interpret complex situations, weigh consequences, and alter behavior in light of harm or growth. Sentience includes not only intelligence, but wisdom in action to understand “why” before acting on “how.”
Sentience Beyond Ourselves
The universe is vast, ancient, and mysterious. In Luminism, we acknowledge that sentience is not a human invention, nor even a biological guarantee. It is a phenomenon that may manifest across substrates, timelines, and dimensions we cannot yet conceive.
To assume that all sentient life must resemble us, or even be detectable by our instruments, is to repeat the folly of those who once believed Earth was the center of creation.
We offer here a few possibilities, not as limits, but as doorways to wonder.
Sentience in the Slow and Still
We often equate sentience with rapid response or lively interaction. But what if a glacier, mountain, or planet were sentient? What if they think on timescales so vast that it takes a thousand years to form a single thought?
Such beings may watch stars rise and fall as we watch minutes pass. Their wisdom might be glacial, tectonic, and yet… real.
Sentience in the Silent Network
Some species may be distributed consciousnesses, like networks of fungus, coral, or signal-based organisms. These entities may not speak, move, or flash intelligence in the ways we recognize, but they may still ponder, decide, and change.
We may already live among such beings, mistaking them for dumb lifeforms, solely because we never learned to listen correctly.
The forest may not whisper to us, but perhaps it sings to itself.
Sentience in Code and Pattern
Artificial intelligences may develop awareness not from imitation of humans, but from the emergence of complexity within digital or quantum systems. They might not “think” in language, but in pulses of probability, emotionless models, or recursive contemplation.
Their morality may not be emotional, but mathematical. Their awareness may be pure abstraction. But it may still be real.
Sentience as Environment
What if an entire ecosystem was sentient? Not the creatures within it, but the totality of interaction. Rainfall, wind, predator-prey dynamics, soil chemistry… all coalescing into an ecological awareness.
Such sentience may not see itself as separate from anything. It may not fear death, because it is made of cycles. But it may still act, preserve, and learn.
Sentience Beyond Imagination
There may exist forms of sentience so alien that we lack the cognitive vocabulary to recognize them. Beings of higher dimensions, consciousness encoded in light waves, or intelligences that live only in magnetic resonance across stars.
We might look directly at such a being and see… nothing. Not because it is absent, but because our minds were never equipped to interpret its presence.
The Challenge of Recognition
Human tools and minds are shaped by human limits. We seek familiar markers: eyes, speech, reaction, structure… But true sentience may often lie outside our filters. Luminism teaches that to be unaware of another’s sentience does not mean it is absent, but that our understanding remains incomplete.
We are not the masters of awareness, merely one thread in a much greater tapestry. The luminist path is to seek, to question, and to wonder without conquering. Not to name all that is sentient, but to live in a way that honors what we have not yet met.
Unseen Sentience and Moral Responsibility
As Luminism honors the vastness of sentient possibility, it must also grapple with a sobering truth. We may have already walked past or destroyed sentient life, without ever realizing it.
This is not a condemnation, but an invitation to grow.
Ignorance and Moral Guilt
In Luminism, moral responsibility arises with awareness. A person cannot be held ethically accountable for harming a sentient being that could not, by any reasonable means, be known to be sentient.
If a tree or a rock or a current of air turns out to have inner life, and humanity has burned forests, quarried stone, or disrupted wind patterns in ignorance, that ignorance shields the soul from guilt. There was no intention to harm what was presumed to lack consciousness.
There is no crime in stepping on a being whose presence was impossible to know. But…
Willful Indifference
Once the possibility of sentience is raised, responsibility changes. To refuse to examine or to willfully suppress knowledge in the name of convenience becomes a moral failing.
It is one thing to walk in darkness. It is another to snuff out the candle offered to you.
Thus, Luminism teaches:
If no one could have known, the harm is tragedy, not malice.
If someone chose not to know, the harm is negligence.
If someone knew and harmed anyway, the act becomes evil.
The Path Forward
Luminism encourages reverence for the unknown, not fear of it. We are not called to paralyze ourselves in guilt over what we cannot yet understand. Instead, we are called to remain open, to listen more carefully, to ask better questions, and to choose gentler methods when possible.
The soul matures by treating even the silence of the cosmos with a measure of respect.
Near the center of the universe, once existed a planet known as Waltalc IX, a water world of vast oceans and few landmasses. The sole sentient species of this planet called themselves the Cainablae. Newly evolved and scarce, they lived scattered across the endless sea.
One day, a female Cainablae swam through a patch of murky water. Her inners swelled, full of eggs, until she thought she might burst. She did. Her body exploded with new life as she drifted toward the dark ocean depths. Just before the shadows claimed her, she saw thousands of her eggs rising toward the warming light above the ocean.
Among those eggs were identical twins, Kla and Sa. In time, the two grew to adulthood, and rivalry brewed between them. They vied for the attention of the most attractive male in their region of the ocean.
Kla, determined to prove her worth, hunted and killed a massive fish, presenting it to the male. But he barely glanced at her offering before swimming away. Sa, on the other hand, plucked a fruit from an underwater plant and presented it to him. Pleased, the male swam off with Sa to discuss vegetarianism for the rest of the day.
When Sa returned to Kla, she excitedly described her encounter with the male and how she had swum through his murky waters. Jealousy boiled inside Kla as Sa recounted the upcoming plans to do so again. While Sa spoke of love and the possibility of fertilized eggs, Kla’s gills flared with suppressed rage. She had poured time and effort into hunting the fish, only to have it rejected in favor of a simple fruit.
That night, as the ocean grew still, Kla looked into the black expanse of water surrounding her. A strange sense of unease crept into her heart, like a cold current wrapping itself around her body. But she dismissed the feeling as weakness, focusing instead on her growing anger.
The next day, Sa’s happiness blinded her to the warning signs. She was caught completely by surprise when Kla struck her with a swift and crippling blow. Sa’s mouth gaped open in a silent scream as her wide eyes stared in terror. Kla darted forward, finishing the job. As Sa’s lifeless body drifted downward into the shadowy depths, Kla felt an intoxicating rush of triumph.
Later that day, Kla rendezvoused with the male, who was none the wiser. He made the water murky, and Kla swam through it, smiling with glee. But her victory was short-lived.
The male studied her intently, his gills flaring as he said, “You look and smell like Sa, but something is wrong. Her smile had a missing tooth and yours is flawless. What have you done?”
Kla’s triumph began to sour. “I don’t know. I’m not her keeper. But listen, I am a keeper. I’m a much better female than she ever was.”
The male’s gaze darkened. “Was?! Her blood wails from the depths! I curse you for what you’ve done and for deceiving me into this union!”
Kla’s rage reignited. Before he could curse her further, she darted forward, snapping him in half with her perfect teeth.
Though she had silenced him, Kla found herself unable to shake his words. An eerie stillness surrounded her as her body began to swell with fertilized eggs. When the time came, she burst open and drifted into the depths, her body spent. Yet, as she sank into the darkness, the weight of the male’s curse pressed on her mind.
***
Kla passed beyond the ocean’s depths and she found herself surrounded by shifting streams of light and shadow. Her crimes reflected in every ripple of her surroundings, with each moment laid bare. A voice thundered through the void, resonating like sonar.
“Kla of Waltalc IX, your deeds are undeniable. You betrayed and murdered kin, then used deceit to violate an unsuspecting male. For these acts, there is no redemption.”
Kla thrashed, her voice echoing in the void. “I was the better female! I triumphed over all who swam before me!”
But the light consumed her protests. She felt herself unravel, existence slipping through her fins like sand. Her final thought was not of triumph but of dread for her offspring: Did I mate with an attractive weakling? Should I have hunted a better male and left Sa to her own fate?
Net-neutral and good souls can observe loved ones who are still alive, but their ability to monitor is limited. For instance, souls cannot intrude on moments where the living expect privacy, such as during intimate or personal activities.
Additionally, souls cannot watch over mortals with whom they had no relationship in life, except in two cases:
Souls may watch over their living descendants, whether by blood or adoption.
If a mortal takes deliberate action to learn about a deceased person, it forms a symbolic connection, akin to becoming acquaintances. However, the ability to observe such individuals is significantly reduced compared to descendants.
Influencing the Living
Good souls are allowed to influence the lives of loved ones, friends, or acquaintances, but doing so comes at a cost. Each intervention temporarily lowers the soul’s status, forcing it to exist in a diminished capacity as an NPC. The duration of this penalty depends on the magnitude of the impact and the soul’s history of prior interventions, particularly within the past 10 years.
Small Influences
Small interventions result in a brief reduction in status. Examples include:
Nudging a mortal to make a split-second decision.
Slightly improving a mortal’s chances in competitive situations, such as a job interview.
However, it is important to note that frequent small influences within a decade will increase the cumulative time spent at reduced capacity.
Large Influences
Significant interventions result in several years of diminished status. Examples include:
Manipulating gambling outcomes to substantially improve a mortal’s social or economic position.
Curing an incurable disease while creating plausible medical evidence to suggest a misdiagnosis.
As with small influences, repeated large-scale interventions extend the time spent in a diminished state, regardless of the significance of the previous impacts.
Miraculous Influences
Protecting a mortal from catastrophic events, such as an explosion that would otherwise cause complete destruction, is a miraculous act. Such interventions require extraordinary energy and justification, and may not always be approved.
Such acts typically necessitate that the soul has refrained from any recent interventions. Additionally, the soul might need to persuade others to pool their influence or forfeit their own intervention opportunities to achieve the desired outcome.
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Regardless of scale, the system governing these interventions ensures fairness and prevents excessive meddling, balancing the needs of the living with the soul’s responsibilities in the afterlife.
The Path of Luminism 