Vessel
A soul cannot cast itself free; someone else has to want it back
Vessel puts a soul that has no body into a body that has no soul.
A soul without a body cannot act on the world and cannot cast—not even the spell that would end its condition. Vessel is therefore always cast by someone else, on someone else. It is the way back that does not require the original body, which is the thing a stranded soul has usually already lost.
The body must be genuinely empty: no mind, no sleeping owner, no second claim. A living creature is never a vessel. An alchemical clone is the clean answer, since it was grown without a mind in the first place; a fresh corpse serves while it lasts.
The Censors convert no necromancy (see Using Classes), and they will not convert this one. Whoever brings a mage back this way is a criminal in the Ark before the hour is out.
Compatibility
| Level | Body |
|---|---|
| 8 | Compatible—the soul's own size and rough shape, with senses and limbs it already knows how to use. |
| 10 | Any body that can hold a soul at all, including a dragon, a giant, or something with the wrong number of limbs. |
A human soul takes a human body without having to think about it. It does not take a body built for another kind of life, and at level 8 the working simply fails to catch.
At level 10 the fit is never clean. Reflex Saves and dodges in an incompatible body take a permanent 25% penalty. The soul learns the body; it never stops translating.
What Crosses Over
The soul brings what was always its own: memories, mental statistics, Will Save, caster level, and every formula it learned. It leaves behind whatever belonged to the flesh—Strength, Vigor, HP, senses, and any power that lived in the body—and takes up the new body's instead.
Red mana follows the body, not the soul. Rehoused in a body that makes mana, a mage casts again. Rehoused in one that does not—an alchemical clone, an undead—they keep caster level and formulas and cast nothing, exactly as after Undead Resurrection.
Finding the soul is the hard part, and Vessel is no help with it. The soul must be present at the casting, and there is no dependable way to go looking for one.