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THE FALLACY OF THE PERFECT CRIME

Something that can really trip you up when trying to create clues is the fallacy of the perfect crime.

For example, let’s say the PCs find an incriminating note that gives them a vital clue.

… but wait. Why would the conspiracy let the PCs find the note? Why wouldn’t they destroy it?!

Well, in some cases it’s carelessness. In others, they’re holding onto incriminating evidence that can give them leverage over their fellow conspirators. Sometimes they’re planning to destroy it, but they just haven’t yet. Sometimes the note has information they need for a job, so they hold onto them until the job is done. Maybe they have a sentimental attachment to the note because it was written by their dead wife. And so forth.

Alternatively, maybe they DID destroy the note and that’s the evidence that the PCs find. Sometimes this is structurally cosmetic (the only information to be gleaned is that the information has been destroyed). Sometimes this can be a consequence of the players’ actions, like in my Dragon Heist campaign where they knocked politely on someone’s door and then waited for them to open it while, inside, the bad guy was shuffling all their papers into the fire. (One of the nice things about the Three Clue Rule is that you can destroy clues with a clear conscience when it’s appropriate.) But often the PCs will be able to pull a clue out of the destruction (they burned the note, but this one enigmatic scrap remains!).

Of course, this logic also extends beyond incriminating notes.

Wouldn’t it make sense for the murderer to wear gloves or wipe away their fingerprints? (Maybe they did and the clue is something else. Or they tried, but missed a partial. Or they’re dumb. Or they panicked. Or they wanted to, but got interrupted.)

Wouldn’t they have disabled the cameras? (Maybe they didn’t spot the camera. Maybe they did hack the cameras and deleted the footage, but left traces from their hack that can be traced instead. And so forth.)

The perfect crime (or conspiracy), of course, would have flawless operational security and leave no evidence. But that’s not how it usually plays out in reality, and doesn’t really make for a great scenario in any case.

As GMs designing scenarios, I think we’re particularly susceptible to the fallacy of the perfect crime: Obviously if the bad guy knew they were leaving a clue, they would destroy it. You just thought of how the criminal could have left a clue, so obviously the criminal would have realized that, too!

What you actually want to do is the opposite: If you’re thinking about the crime and can’t find a clue that gives the PCs the information you need to give them… well, what extra mistake did the criminal make that will let you give them that information?

VARIED CLUES

As you’re designing clues for your scenario, you’ll want to make sure to include a wide variety of them. This is partly about creating a more engaging investigation. (If the PCs are just doing the same thing over and over and over again, that’s just less interesting than an adventure where they’re doing a lot of different things. And a puzzle isn’t really puzzling if the solution is always the same thing.) But it’s also structurally important: If all the clues are fundamentally similar, then it’s not just that the players are doing the same thing over and over again; it’s that the players MUST do that thing. And if they don’t think to do it, then they’ll miss ALL the clues.

The Three Clue Rule is built on redundancy, but clues which are overly similar to each other only provide a superficial redundancy. It’s kind of like monoclonal agriculture: When all the bananas are clones of each other, they’re all susceptible to the same pests and can be universally wiped out by a single disease. Just so with monoclonal clues, which can all fail simultaneously.

For example, if the PCs need to find out that Tony is hiding out at the Silver Rodeo, you might say:

• They can ask Tony’s girlfriend, Susan.
• They can ask Tony’s partner, Silvester.
• They can ask Tony’s mother, Sara.

Those are three different clues. But if the players, for whatever reason, don’t ask the people in Tony’s life where Tony is hiding out — because they don’t want to risk tipping him off, because they erroneously conclude that Tony wouldn’t have told anyone where he was going, or just because they don’t think of doing it — then that one failure will wipe out all of those clues.

Now, the principle of permissive clue-finding means that shouldn’t necessarily get rid of these “redundant” clues. But for structural purposes, they can be grouped together and only “count” as a single clue for the purposes of the Three Clue Rule.

When you’re looking to make varied clues, using clues with different forms is good. But the most important thing is that the clues should be found in different ways – different skills, different insights into how a crime scene should be investigated, and so forth.

As a final note, remember that the problem of monoclonal clues is limited to the clues pointing to a single revelation. It’s fine to design a scenario with lots and lots and lots of clues coming from talking to people, as long as those clues are spread out across a bunch of different revelations (each of which has varied clues of different types also pointing to them).

MULTI-PART CLUES

A common error that I see GMs make when playing around with the Three Clue Rule for the first time is to mistake the Three Clue Rule for a kind of logic puzzle:

• This clue indicates that the killer was wearing a green sweater.
• This clue indicates that the killer was taller than six feet.
• This clue indicates that the killer had gray hair.

If you combine those clues, you know that the only person with gray hair who was taller than six feet and also wearing a green sweater was Peter! So Peter killed Tony’s wife!

These clues can work if each uniquely points at Peter: He was the only one in the green sweater, the only one taller than six feet, and the only one with gray hair.

But if you need all three pieces of information – to eliminate the other people with green sweaters or gray hair or whatever – then this falls apart. Because you NEED all three pieces of information, that means that each piece of information (green sweater, six feet, gray hair) is actually a separate conclusion.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t design mysteries like this, though! Once you recognize that these are three separate conclusions, you can simply follow the Three Clue Rule: Have three clues pointing to the green sweater, three clues pointing to the killer’s height, and three clues indicating the killer had gray hair.

This technique can add a satisfying dimensionality to your mystery scenarios, giving the players a clear sense that their investigations are building towards some central revelation. It can be particularly effective for the Big Truth(s) in X-Files-type campaigns or identifying the location where the big conclusion of the campaign is going to take place. You can see an example of this in my Eternal Lies Remix.

FORMS OF CLUES

Let’s wrap things up by looking at the specific forms that clues can take. This won’t be a complete or encyclopedic coverage of the topic, largely because the cool thing about clues is that they can be virtually infinite in their form and variety, but hopefully I can provide a few ideas.

First, there are some broad categories of form that clues can fall into:

• Physical Artifacts
• Glyphs/data
• Bio-Signature
• Interrogation
• Surveillance

These, too, are not comprehensive. And the boundaries between them aren’t exactly razor-sharp.

Here’s a list of specific examples drawn from scenarios I’ve designed:

• Correspondence (letters, e-mail, etc.)
• Diaries
• Ephemera from a location (matchbooks, theatrical posters, tickets, etc.)
• Official reports
• Tracks
• Surveillance (of a person or location)
• Tailing someone
• Business cards
• Fingerprints
• DNA
• Blood type (including fantastical types like “Vulcan”)
• Graffiti
• Financial records
• Tattoos
• Canvassing
• Video/audio recordings
• Mystic visions/strange dreams
• Shipping information (tracking, postmarks, return addresses, etc.)
• Books (including inscription and marginalia)
• Bureaucratic records/background checks

In the Three Clue Rule, I assert that for each conclusion you want the PCs to make in a mystery scenario, you should include at least three clues. Many people have had a lot of success designing and running scenarios with this advice, but as GMs begin working with this technique for the first time, it can often prompt the question:

How do you come up with all those clues?

So let’s talk a little bit about what goes into making clues and a few of things I’ve learned over the years that you may find useful.

First, check out Random GM Tip: Using Revelation Lists. That article provides an in-depth look at how I organize my clue lists while designing and running scenarios, and that structure is going to be useful as you start laying the clues into your scenario.

Second, don’t overthink it. A lot of clues will flow naturally from the scenario as you’re designing it. I recommend doing an initial “structural pass” in which you’re defining the necessary revelations and assign clues to them. If you can get three clues for every revelation at this point, that’s fantastic. But if you’re struggling to fill in all the blanks on your revelation list, that’s just fine: Start working out the details of the scenario with your revelation list nearby and you’ll often find clues easily along the way. (“Oh! Silvester would definitely know that Uncle Bob used to be in the marine corps!” or “Hey! I could put a matchbook from the Silver Rodeo in Susan’s purse!”) And if that still doesn’t fill in all the clues you need, all this detailed knowledge of the scenario will make it a lot easier to come up with the clues you still need during a second brainstorming session.

SIX TYPES OF CLUES

Conceptually, there are six types of clues.

Static clues are a specific piece of information which can be found in a specific way. For example, a bloodstain that can be found by searching a room.

Flexible clues are pieces of information that you know are there to be found, but which can be accessed in multiple ways. For example, imagine that there’s valuable information in a computer database. The PCs could hack the database remotely, physically raid the building where the server is located; bribe, seduce, con, or otherwise subvert an employee with access to the database; and so forth.

Broadly speaking, PCs will learn about people, places, organizations, events, or other scenes where they can investigate whatever it is that they’re investigating. In the terminology of node-based scenario design, these are nodes, and static and flexible clues are placed within specific nodes.

Proactive clues, by contrast, come looking for the PCs. I talk about them at some length in the Three Clue Rule and also The Secret Life of Nodes, but Raymond Chandler provides the classic example: “A guy with a gun walks through the door.” In other words, instead of the PCs identifying a node and going to investigate it, some nodes (usually people) will come to the PCs and bring clues with them.

Reactive clues, on the other hand, kind of exist “in the cloud,” so to speak. They aren’t assigned to specific nodes and they don’t come to the PCs. Instead, these are clues the PCs will find through holistic investigation techniques that they can frequently use without specific prompting. Typical forms include canvassing, research, and divination spells. Rulings in Practice: Gather Information dives into these types of clues in greater depth.

(This terminology can be a little weird. You can think of it like this: If the clues are proactive, then the PCs are reactive – i.e., the clue walks through the door with a gun and the PCs have to react to that. If the clues are reactive, then the PCs have to be proactive – nothing is going to specifically prompt them to go looking for these clues.)

Because reactive clues are more-or-less totally dependent on the players spontaneously thinking to go looking for them, they can be very unreliable when designing an adventure. On the other hand, if looking for a particular type of reactive clue becomes a standard operating procedure for a particular group, then the exact opposite can be true!

For example, over the past couple of years I’ve spent a lot of time running the same Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu scenarios for different groups. Groups with players who have read the rulebooks or have a lot of experience with the game will almost automatically go to the library or research the local newspaper morgues for references to whatever they’re investigating because the rulebooks establish this as a standard operating procedure for investigators. Groups without that experience just… don’t.

The Technoir roleplaying game is actually mechanically designed around the default action of “hit up one of your contacts.” If the PCs don’t know what to do next, they should go ask one of their contacts (and the game is designed so that the contact always has a clue or a job or some form of lead that gives them something to pursue). The first few times I ran the game, this worked flawlessly. Then I ran the game for a group that hadn’t read the rulebook and didn’t know to do this and the game turned into a grind for a couple of sessions until I realized that I just needed to literally tell new the players: If you’re stuck, do the noir thing and hit up a contact!

In other cases, you’ll find groups spontaneously developing their own standard operating procedures.

Dynamic clues are what the PCs find when they take an investigative action which should logically provide information despite the fact you didn’t specifically prepare a clue for it. This is what the Three Clue Rule refers to as permissive clue-finding. For example, the PCs decide to look around outside the house. You didn’t specifically anticipate them doing that, but you know that the killer ran into the tree line at the far end of the property, so you conclude that the PCs could potentially find the killer’s footprints.

However, not all dynamic clues are the result of you being blindsided during a session. In some cases, they can actually be designed into the structure of a complicated scenario where you can be fairly certain the PCs will take a particular class of action, but you can’t really sure exactly what form that action will take. For an example of this, check out the Dragon Heist Remix, where, for example, the PCs might choose to research a particular faction:

If the PCs want to find a faction by doing general research, point them in the direction of one of the faction’s outposts. (Each outpost will contain clues that point to Lairs, which are generally their ultimate goal.)

And similar guidance is given for what happens when they track or interrogate bad guys. (You could also think of dynamic clues as being flexible clues that are flexible to the point of formlessness.)

Unassigned clues are basically what happens when you go whole-hog on permissive clue-finding: Instead of prepping specific clues, the GM only preps a revelation list. In some cases these revelations will be assigned to specific scenes (i.e., the fact Tony is hiding at a lake house can be found at the Silver Rodeo). In either case, the GM waits for the PCs to propose any investigation action, then looks at their revelation list and improvises an appropriate clue for that revelation.

I tend to be fairly skeptical of this approach:

• It puts A LOT of pressure on the GM’s ability to improvise during sessions.
• It often produces wishy-washy scenarios, that tend to lack texture. (A good mystery scenario is often as much about what you don’t find as what you do, and this technique tends to miss those beats in the story.)
• As mentioned above, many clues will tend to emerge naturally from the details of the scenario as you design it. So this technique usually goes hand-in-hand with underdeveloped scenarios.

I’ve run mystery scenarios that were entirely improvised, so the technique certainly can work. But I think you will almost always get better results by having a robust, reliable foundation and then improvising on top of it.

MAKING CLUES: STRUCTURE

When making clues, the first thing I do is think about what the PCs need to know structurally for the adventure to work. This is why I start with a revelation list: There may be a lot of other information that the PCs discover in the course of their investigation (that the villain beats her husband; the particular effects of the poison the killer is using; the cult’s beliefs on the wisdom of cats), but I really want to keep my focus on that essential structure.

Then I look at what I know about the crime – or whatever it is that they’re investigating – and think very specifically about what in the specific node I’m looking at could indicate the thing they need to know.

This may seem obvious, but I can get lost a surprising amount of the time floating around in a, “What clues are there?” haze. You really want to flip that around: Instead of thinking about what clues might be in this scene, focus on what you need the current scene to tell the PCs and then treat that as a puzzle or a problem to solve.

For example, the PCs are investigating a cabin on the lake. If you start by saying, “What clues would be in the cabin?” that’s too broad. It’s too vague.

But if you instead say, “I need a clue that points the PCs to Cai Lijuan,” that’s far more actionable:

• There’s a crumpled up envelope in the wastebasket addressed to Cai.
• The property owner can identify Cai as the person who was renting the cabin.
• There’s a box of cold pizza in the fridge. Cai’s name is printed on the delivery label.
• The family vacationing in the next cabin down the lake met Cai and knows his name.
• Cai’s car is still parked at the cabin; you can run the license plate or VIN numbers.

And so forth.

MAKING CLUES: THE SKILL LIST

For inspiration, look at the skill list in the game you’re using. Pick any skill. How could the PCs use that skill to get the information they need?

For example:

• Cryptography? Cai’s left his diary, which he writes in a personal code, in the bedside table.
• Locksmith? There must be something Cai locked up here. Let’s say there’s a safe hidden behind a picture frame with documents identifying Cai inside.
• Photography? There’s a USB stick with photos. Nothing identifying in the photos themselves, but you could check the EXIF data.

Obviously not every skill will be relevant to every piece of information. But if you have a particular piece of information in mind, running down the skill list will probably make specific skills jump out and provide ideas.

Go to Part 2

Go to Part 1

Let’s consider the Nine Hells as an exemplar and object lesson in how the Outer Planes make use of mortal souls.

Asmodeus is the original architect of Hell’s soul engines, having constructed a massive engine for waging the Blood War and containing the existential threat of the tanar’ri. However, Asmodeus himself is no longer engaged in the soul trade: He merely imposes a quota upon the Archdukes and Archduchesses who rule the other eight layers of Hell (and, by the extension of a fiendish feudalism, all of the devils who serve beneath them).

Zariel, Archduchess of Avernus, is perhaps the most direct example of Asmodeus’ war machine: Evil souls crawl out of the Styx into Avernus as lemures; they are then raised as devils to serve as troops on the front lines of the Blood War.

Dispater, Archduke of Dis, seeks secrets and covets souls which possess them. Having gained these secrets from the souls he controls, he uses those secrets as a temptation to corrupt mortals who, like him, crave secrets. (Or, in other instances, blackmail them into performing evil acts.) For Dispater and the devils of dis, souls are a memetic web of corrupt lore, the acquisition of which fuels its own growth.

Mammon, Archduke of Minauros, is the financier of Hell, profiting from the trade of souls in Hell. His soul-mongers “harvest” unencumbered souls from the Styx and see them either sold through the soul markets of the Sinking City (little different from the slave markets of the Material Plane) or forged into soul coins, the most literal manifestation of the soul economy of the Outer Planes. The regulations and valuations of the soul-monger guilds are managed through The Accounting and Valuation of All Things, a vast mass of ever-shifting regulations which govern the trade of all souls within Hell (and often beyond it).

Fierna and Belial oversee the pleasure places of Phelegethos, where their servitor souls are used as brothel stock, satisfying the terrible perversions of Hell with dark delights.

Levistus, the imprisoned prince of Stygia, is an example of what happens when a scion of the Outer Planes is unable to pay their debts. Levistus has a very limited portfolio of potential souls he can attempt to recruit, having been blocked from more lucrative markets by the decrees of Asmodeus. He is a prime example of how quickly a god’s fortunes can wane if their access to the soul-wells is cut off.

Glasya, Archduchess of Malbolge, is the warden of Hell’s prisons. Here Devils who have broken Asmodeus’ laws or Mammon’s regulations are sent for punishment. Thus the feudalism of Hell is enforced. (Glasya also secretly operates the Coin Legions, which are the thieves’ guilds of Hell.)

Baalzebul, Archduke of Maladomini, oversees Hell’s courts. Here devils are convicted and sent to Glasya’s prisons, but, more importantly, this is where all contracts forged between fiends and mortals are recorded, copied, and filed. If Minauros is the slave market, then Maladomini is the stock market.

Mephistopheles, the Philosopher King of Cania, maintains vast storehouses of lore and focuses his acquisition of souls on those arcanists who can help his laboratories delve deep into the mysteries of the multiverse. What is less known is that Cania is also home to the vast arcane machineries which ensure that the Nine Hells remain aligned with the soul-wells which form the foundation of Hell’s existence.

THE LORE OF LATTER DAYS

You may have noticed that much of what we have built here is based on lore developed in the earliest days of D&D. This lore remained largely self-consistent up until the end of 3^rd Edition.

So what about 4^th Edition and 5^th Edition?

The 4^th Edition of D&D fundamentally overhauled a lot of the game’s lore and metaphysics. The biggest change is the introduction of the Shadowfell, which, according to the 4^th Edition Manual of the Planes (2008), was “the definition of soul loosed from their bodies. It is the domain of the dead, the final stage of the soul’s journey before moving onto the unknown.” Souls linger for a time in the Shadowfell before passing through the Raven Queen’s maelstrom and the “final veil beyond which nothing is known.

… except there were also a bunch of souls scattered all around what were once the Outer Planes. Plus damned souls in Hell. And also damned and exalted souls in the Astral Sea. And also… Well, there wasn’t really a coherent metaphysic here.

In 5^th Edition, what we find (as we often do) is mostly just a tattered palimpsest of the lore which came before. The concept of drift is reiterated in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Monster Manual contains the familiar lemure and larvae as entry-level souls in the lower planes. The Monster Manual also suggests that will o’ wisps and a number of other creatures are mortal souls which have “failed to leave the Material Plane.”

Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (2018) actually contains quite a bit of planar lore. Some of this is contradictory (for example, demons “generally have no regard for mortal souls and do not solicit them,” but elsewhere we find that exactly the opposite is true), but there are also some interesting tidbits:

• With the Shadowfell no longer serving as the domain of the dead, the Raven Queen has been revamped: She now kidnaps souls from other planes, bringing them back to the Shadowfell to serve various purposes. (This rather delightfully ties into our vision of planar power resting upon the soul engine, with the Raven Queen as the mischievous robber baroness of the planes.)
• Elves have a cycle of reincarnation, harkening back to the original soul vs. spirit cosmology.
• Abishai are specifically identified as souls which have been transformed into servitors of Tiamat: “Each abishai was once a mortal who some how won Tiamat’s favor and, as a reward, found its soul transformed into a hideous devil to serve at her pleasure.” This is superficially similar to the lore of abishai in previous editions, but can be tantalizingly interpreted as Tiamat having a personal channel of souls separate from those normally employed by Hell. Is it possible that there is a soul-well housed within her citadel?

In any case, the cosmology of 5^th Edition is broadly compatible with D&D’s original cosmology, and fits in quite snugly with what we’ve created here.

This post was requested by Alexandrian patron Glenn Rollins.

I’ve created an Alexandrian Discord server!

If you’re a patron of the Alexandrian and your Patreon account is linked to Discord… well, apparently that apparently automatically adds you to the server (much to my surprise), so you’re already there. But with your account linked you get access to the Patron-only chat channel(s)!

But everybody is welcome to come hang out! Which you can do by going here.

Go to Part 1

Deities & Demi-Gods is, in fact, the more or less definitive treatment of what happens after death in D&D.

AD&D assumes that the anima, that force which gives life and distinct existence to thinking beings, is one of two sorts: soul or spirit. Humans, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and half-elves (those beings which can have a raise dead or resurrection spell cast upon them) all have souls; all other beings that worship deities have spirits.

The term “anima” didn’t catch on and the split between soul and spirit didn’t last much longer. (It’s somewhat present in the original Manual of the Planes (1987), but by the time Planescape (1994) rolled around in 2^nd Edition the terms “soul” and “spirit” were being used interchangeably.)

Upon death, both souls and spirits travel through the Astral Plane and are drawn towards either the plane associated with their alignment or the plane in which their chosen god resides. (If these are not the same thing, Deities & Demi-Gods and the Manual of the Planes are, at best, vague and contradictory about which one takes precedence. There are also other considerations to consider, like soul-selling contracts signed with devils.) In the 3^rd Edition Manual of the Planes (2001) this process became known as “drift” – the soul drifts towards their aligned Outer Plane.

Drift is not instantaneous. It takes days or weeks for the soul to arrive, and this is the reason raise dead can only work on the recently deceased for a period which increases as the cleric gains levels (1 day per level in 1^st Edition): the more powerful the cleric, the farther they can reach through the Astral Plane to pull back the dead soul.

The powerful resurrection spell, by contrast, can reach all the way to the Outer Planes and pluck the soul back from its “final” resting place. This can anger the gods from whom these souls are “stolen.” For example, there is a 20% chance that Anubis will force an offending cleric to perform a quest, a 1% chance that Tuoni will actually show up in person and forcibly claim the raised person’s soul, and so forth.

What is this journey actually like? According to Deities & Demi-Gods:

The road through the Astral Plane to their destination is clearly marked for the dead, but it is not free of peril. Some monsters roam the ethereal and astral planes at will, which is why burial chambers often include weapons, treasure, and even bodyguards to protect the soul on its journey.

To simplify this, you could perhaps say that souls drift through the Astral Plane in a state of quiescence, which is why characters returned to life with a raise dead spell have no memory of events after their death.  We could formalize this as:

• Souls take 3d10 days to drift from the Material Plane to the Outer Plane they are aligned with (either by their personal alignment or the god they keep faith with). Only souls still traveling through the Astral Plane can be affected by a raise dead
• Souls are not necessarily safe in their journey. Disturbed souls will be roused from their quiescence and able to defend themselves against Githyanki soul-marauders and similar threats with the equipment they carried with them in death and also any resources found in a properly sanctified burial chamber. (Let’s say a 1% chance of an adventurers’ soul being so accosted.)
• Once a soul arrives in the Outer Planes, it can only be returned to life by means of a resurrection Such an individual will carry back with them the memories of what they experienced in the Outer Planes.

If you wanted a more traditional “journey of the dead” to reach the afterlife, then you might have the spirits of the dead arrive through the soul-wells of the plane of Concordant Opposition (also known as the Outlands or Godslands). The soul’s drift will have carried them towards the soul-wells near or controlled by their intended plane of destination.

At some of these soul-wells, gods like Yen-Wang-Sheh catalog and sort the spirits, sending them to their final destinations. In other cases, the dead must continue their journey towards the afterlife (the Egyptian Book of the Dead was basically a how-to guide for this journey). Around others, fiends patrol, capturing the evil souls who emerge near the Abyss or Nine Hells or Grey Wastes and shepherding them to their final punishment.

You can imagine that some souls emerging through the soul-wells instead escape or find themselves diverted from their “intended” destination, perhaps traveling across the Outlands to the legendary city of Sigil or even fighting all the way back to the Material Plane. (If your group has suffered an unfortunate TPK, maybe they find themselves crawling out of an ill-used and little known soul-well, ready to begin the next chapter of their adventure.)

BEYOND THE FINAL FRONTIER

According to Deities & Demi-Gods, the key difference between a soul and a spirit is that the soul will remain in the Outer Planes for the rest of eternity, but a spirit will eventually be sent back to the Material Plane and reincarnated. This is rather difficult to square with other aspects of the cosmology, though, so it probably makes sense to follow the official product line’s lead here and just ignore it.

So what does happen to a soul when it arrives in the Outer Planes?

It’s reincarnated into an extraplanar entity.

We’ve seen this already with demons, devils, and archons. As Deities & Demi-Gods says, “The servants, functionaries, and minions of some deities (demons, devils, couatl, ki-rin, titans, and others) are actually spirits put into those forms for the purposes of the diety.”

Some of these entities closely resemble their mortal forms, like the einheriar of Valhalla and similar “eternal warriors” or those enjoying the changeless paradise of Elysium as a reward for their good deeds on the Material Plane. Others, of course, are completely transformed.

As we’ve seen, these servants, minions, and even the deities themselves can be slain in their home planes, in which case their souls are permanently lost and cannot be restored or raised by any means.

Thus we discover the fundamental soul cycle: The soul lives a mortal life on the Material Plane, then passes to the Outer Planes and lives a second life, which usually features the ability to ascend through many different forms. When that second life is complete (one way or another), the soul either comes to an end or passes on to some other form of existence utterly beyond our ken.

What about the other end of things? Where do souls come from in the first place?

Well, there are a few references to gods “creating” the souls of their worshippers. Moradin’s soul forge, for example, supposedly creates dwarven souls. But even if these tales are true, they don’t appear to be the primary source for the creation of new souls. Perhaps they are a wholly natural creation. Or perhaps the Inner Planes have been created as a vast engine specifically designed for the creation of mortal souls, funneling elemental, positive, and negative energy into the matrix formed through the procreation of mortal life.

Because if we read between the lines here, we can intuit (create) the great hidden truth of the multiverse: The gods are not in control.

THE SOUL ENGINE

Gods are, in fact, merely mortal souls which have ascended. They occupy the highest rungs of the hierarchy to which all beings of the Outer Planes belong, but they are still part of that hierarchy, not separate from it. This is rather brazenly understood in the lower planes – where lemures and larvae ascend to ever higher ranks of devils and demons – but it appears to be true in all of the other planes, too, even when its form is obscured in practice.

Once you understand this, it becomes clear that the economy of the Outer Planes are built entirely around the soul engine: Mortal souls pass from the Inner Planes, across the Astral Plane, and arrive in the Outer Planes. In the Outer Planes they drive towards primordial, ideological compass points — like shards of metal which have been “magnetized” towards those ideological poles by their actions in life.

As these mortal souls arrive in the Outer Planes, they are transformed into servitors or harvested for their power. Once again this is seen most clearly in the lower planes, where souls are transformed into the vast, endless armies of the Blood War and gods like Urdlen, the Crawler Below, eat the souls of its gnome followers when they arrive at its feet. But, once again, the same truth underlies the strength of the upper planes. What difference is there, really, between the devilish soul markets of the Sinking City of Minauros and the Exchequer of Souls in Yetsira the Heavenly City where the virtues of every archon are carefully weighed in a vast bureaucracy which controls the elevation and demotion of the heavenly ranks?

Souls are the labor and fuel of the Outer Planes. In some places they are literally the currency itself. They are the foundation of all immortal power.

Which means that the gods who control the flow of souls into the Outer Planes control that power.

From this, it follows that souls are not cosmologically drawn to dimensional coordinates because the planes are there; rather the planes are there because that’s where the souls are drawn.

Go far enough back in history and you’ll discover an epoch in which the Outer Planes were a primordial morass of demi-planes and proto-planes. As these planes (and the deities which controlled these planes) struggled for dominance, they warred one upon another.

How do you win a war? With soldiers.

And how do you get soldiers in the Outer Planes?

By controlling the soul-wells through which mortal souls are reincarnated.

Each of the eight major soul-well fields became the focal points for conflict. As the wars raged on, the winners slowly grew larger and more powerful. And as they grew, the nature of the conflict began to shift: Whereas previously there were a cluster of planes and powers primarily struggling over the Lawful Good soul-wells, another cluster of planes and powers struggling over the Lawful Evil soul-wells, and so forth, now some of the larger planes began launching assaults on more “distant” soul-wells.

This is, ultimately, why the major planes are aligned into layers today. This is not the result of some natural order: They are the result of planes and powers with like interests forming alliances of mutual interest against the other major powers of the cosmos.

Why layers? Well, each of the major planes is “aligned” with clusters of soul-wells that make up their base of power. Once upon a time, a soul-well could only “belong” to a single plane. By aligning into layers, however, the flow of souls could be directed through all of the aligned planes together. The soul-wells themselves are also the binding agent, which tends to weave them into the fabric of the planes themselves in disparate ways – thus, for example, souls flow into the Nine Hells via the Styx.

Mount Celestia, the Nine Hells, and Mechanus all claim to have been the first to master the cosmological complexities of aligning planes into layers, although some scholars suggest that it was based on lore first perfected by the baatorians, or possibly some antecedent civilization which gave rise to the baatorians.

The Averniad tells one tale from towards the end of this era of history, in which the final major planes were being aligned with one power or another and the Great Wheel as we know it was taking form.

Go to Part 3: On the Use of Souls