Nehrim:The Soulsmith
The Soulsmith
Documentation about the Soulsmith
In this sword I documented my research about the Soul Blades, weapons full of ancient magic.
The Soul Blades were forged in the Iron Fire Halls. A council of Aeterna, Starlings, and humans together developed a magical technology that enabled the storing of souls within a weapon. The council was commissioned by the Soul Blacksmith. He was the first Shadow God of Vyn – or the first one recorded in history. After the weapons were created, the Shadow God died for unknown reasons.
Allegedly, the Soul Blades are the greatest achievement of mankind. They were the last chance of a civilization that had destroyed their predestination. But what exactly is the problem of predestination? Predestination is a construct of control that humanity should reflect on their grotesque mask. The belief in self-definition and self-rule. It controls the man but leaves him the illusion that he can end control and rule himself. That is not possible.
When I was a young, naive, deluded fool I thought I had myself under control and could achieve, with enough willpower and dedication, any goal that a man could have. But does mankind know in our hearts that we have no power, neither over our lives nor our destiny? We can try, and with enough effort we may be able to achieve some things, if we are lucky enough – but underneath, we know that anything unforeseen can ruin all our plans and hopes in moments. The fear makes us do the opposite; we do anything we can to escape fate. The creators of predestination knew that very well. They knew the unstable qualities of people. There were those people who felt their powerlessness and persisted in it so as not to provoke any setbacks. They choose to do nothing because of the fear that they could fail. Those are people who lose this game. Shadow Gods are usually different. They chose the active form of coping. The pursuit of brilliance, glory and domination. Man fought with all his might to be powerless. Do not give up. As if that would release you from a curse… The answer had been so simple all along. You could have just accepted not always being able to be the master of your destiny.
These characteristics and the Soul Blades seem to be directly related. This urge for self-perfection could, on closer inspection, prove to be self-destruction, which is only really unleashed after the end of predestination. Supposedly, the Soul Blades prevent the urge for perfection and keep humanity from their perfection, so that it’s order does not lay in ruins. The first Shadow God in history broke through the perfection of humanity. I’ve just no idea what that means. How can weapons save a civilization from perfection? And why should they? The Soul Blades can save souls, but what else? When I went sitting through ancient records, I repeatedly stumbled upon myths about ancient, all-devouring soul collectives that want to bring all civilized beings to their ultimate goal – what does that mean? A kind of collective consciousness of humanity? And how do that Soul Blades protect against this? Are they our guardians or do they just prevent us from achieving our ultimate perfection? Or do they protect us from ourselves? Why?
Because man was too cowardly to surrender to control…
Because man needs something to fight…
Because humanity defines life through sorrow and suffering…
