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I'll try to address what I view as the crux of your remaining negative sentiments.
In response to this, and your earlier objection that it limits potentially interesting storylines, I'll reiterate what I said on Discord: literally nothing from Mk. II would have really been affected by the addition of soul decay, which means that the system is far from being overbearing or too restrictive for its own good. Furthermore, I don't think that this is necessarily in conflict with what Foe does.
My (subjective) opinion is that the entire system, and by extension soul decay, adds some interesting implications and storylines for the IC. Others may beg to differ, but many of the loudest voices in that debate don't have nearly as much vested interest in the precise mechanics of souls, or in how soul decay would even affect undead. They should've made a death god if they wanted to enforce their ideal model of souls, and on the offchance that they'd actually given serious thought and planning to an afterlife or to having undead before this conversation sprung up and the revelations of soul decay through a monkey wrench into their plans, all I can really say is 'woops'. That's the downside of planning really far ahead; it makes you inflexible and you frequently get monkey wrenches like this thrown into your secret plans by other peoples' stuff. Anybody whose plans were affected can adapt or change their plans to conform to the now much more detailed model, though in all honesty I doubt most will have to adapt or change their plans in the slightest.
Firstly, I will point out that nobody was even discussing an afterlife on the Discord. Nobody really even made an afterlife in Mk. II. An afterlife existed in Mk. I existed but was extremely vague and not very important for the story. This is something that's always been severely neglected in my opinion, so when nobody else was doing it this time I decided to take it upon myself to make a universal afterlife and codify the mechanics of death and souls.
So I very much doubt that I stomped on (or even altered) anybody's preexisting plans.
Even so, competing afterlives are not prohibited; they're just relegated to a thing that's very difficult and costly in terms of MP, and in the best scenario most such competing afterlives will be like minor exceptions to the near-universal afterlife enforced by Katharsos and the Sky of Pyres. I see no issues with this; he's the god of death and he's devoted his entire Sphere from the beginning to being the afterlife. It should take more than a whim and a couple of thoughts to try altering the system that he's established as the default and as the canon.
Notably, there already is an alternative afterlife as well in the form of Foe's Sphere. I think your objection here is completely unwarranted.
This is a reasonable alternative and it'd be a perfectly fine system if somewhere else were to design a similar Sphere and system; however, I personally don't like it. Katharsos' intense objection to the sequestering of souls is a big part of his persona, even if it's not so evident on his sheet. In my view this does nothing except lower the stakes and prevent a soul crisis, which you've repeatedly expressed dislike for but which the majority of us (myself included) are interested in.
Alternative afterlives and the sequestering of souls are possible under the current system, so really the only effect that your change would have is preventing a soul crisis plotline from ever happening (it's not even guaranteed to happen in the first place) and leaving Katharsos without any real reason to object to the sequestering of souls or the existence of undead that refuse to ever move on. I think that Katharsos' natural opposition to Foe and Anz (the likely culprits for 99% of soul sequestration) is a good thing to have because it allows for story interaction, so I'm naturally opposed to your idea because it'd indirectly remove this and leave me with that much less to write about.
...and as I said in my lengthy multi-paragraph series of Discord posts earlier today, that's the end of this conversation for now. I would have been done with reviews and the IC would have probably been up by now if I hadn't been distracted by debating souls and soul decay for the past three or four days, so for now I'm done arguing. Mutton, BBeast, and myself have talked over souls and we'll soon post an explanation of the broadstrokes of what we've decided in the wake of the debates.
I hope I didn't come across as angry or dismissive of anyone here. At times the debate got a bit heated on Discord, but all remained mostly civil and no harm comes from hearing your ideas and opinions. Thanks to those that weighed in, but for now we need to move past this conversation or we'll be stuck here in the pre-IC mud forever.
I'll try to address what I view as the crux of your remaining negative sentiments.
Take, for example, undead. Even if it only manifests after a very extended timespan soul decay would inevitably affect all of them, as there is no apparent limit to their permanence in that state. The length of that timespan is ultimately immaterial, given the roleplay revolves around immortal characters who operate over entire epochs of the world; sooner or later, we would reach its end. This could only be avoided if were truly extremely great, but, if taken too far, the whole notion would at length be rendered entirely irrelevant to all purposes. Having all undead be condemned to degrade into mindless husks would heavily impair the relevance of undeath as a divine aspect, or at least greatly limit the possible ways in which it could be explored and developed.
In response to this, and your earlier objection that it limits potentially interesting storylines, I'll reiterate what I said on Discord: literally nothing from Mk. II would have really been affected by the addition of soul decay, which means that the system is far from being overbearing or too restrictive for its own good. Furthermore, I don't think that this is necessarily in conflict with what Foe does.
My (subjective) opinion is that the entire system, and by extension soul decay, adds some interesting implications and storylines for the IC. Others may beg to differ, but many of the loudest voices in that debate don't have nearly as much vested interest in the precise mechanics of souls, or in how soul decay would even affect undead. They should've made a death god if they wanted to enforce their ideal model of souls, and on the offchance that they'd actually given serious thought and planning to an afterlife or to having undead before this conversation sprung up and the revelations of soul decay through a monkey wrench into their plans, all I can really say is 'woops'. That's the downside of planning really far ahead; it makes you inflexible and you frequently get monkey wrenches like this thrown into your secret plans by other peoples' stuff. Anybody whose plans were affected can adapt or change their plans to conform to the now much more detailed model, though in all honesty I doubt most will have to adapt or change their plans in the slightest.
Another concept that has been mentioned various times is the possibility of competing afterlives. Beyond having plenty of plot potential in itself, something like this could give a whole new dimension to an eventual soul crisis arc, making it a much more personal matter for any gods who engaged in it. However, once again this would be stymied if all souls were destined to crumble regardless of what happened to them. A variety of afterlives is meaningless if all their inhabitants are featureless shells without thought or memory. Remedying this by making them impermanent would somewhat defeat the concept of an afterlife proper.
Firstly, I will point out that nobody was even discussing an afterlife on the Discord. Nobody really even made an afterlife in Mk. II. An afterlife existed in Mk. I existed but was extremely vague and not very important for the story. This is something that's always been severely neglected in my opinion, so when nobody else was doing it this time I decided to take it upon myself to make a universal afterlife and codify the mechanics of death and souls.
So I very much doubt that I stomped on (or even altered) anybody's preexisting plans.
Even so, competing afterlives are not prohibited; they're just relegated to a thing that's very difficult and costly in terms of MP, and in the best scenario most such competing afterlives will be like minor exceptions to the near-universal afterlife enforced by Katharsos and the Sky of Pyres. I see no issues with this; he's the god of death and he's devoted his entire Sphere from the beginning to being the afterlife. It should take more than a whim and a couple of thoughts to try altering the system that he's established as the default and as the canon.
Notably, there already is an alternative afterlife as well in the form of Foe's Sphere. I think your objection here is completely unwarranted.
@Cyclone I been holding this back, but I think it is important to just propose an alternative instead of simply dismissing the opposing idea. My idea to square the concept of having infinite souls and giving Kath an important role is fairly simple, have it so that the burning process is what increases the sum total of soul-energy. So the soul stuff that originally went into that person breaks down into ash, but so does their memories, experiences, etc.
The reason I suggest this alternative is that it pull the focus away from no soul should ever leave the cycle, and allows for competing afterlives, while also maintaining Kath's afterlife and refocusing it on ensuring the cycle as a whole continues, rather than making sure that there is zero loss.
This is a reasonable alternative and it'd be a perfectly fine system if somewhere else were to design a similar Sphere and system; however, I personally don't like it. Katharsos' intense objection to the sequestering of souls is a big part of his persona, even if it's not so evident on his sheet. In my view this does nothing except lower the stakes and prevent a soul crisis, which you've repeatedly expressed dislike for but which the majority of us (myself included) are interested in.
Alternative afterlives and the sequestering of souls are possible under the current system, so really the only effect that your change would have is preventing a soul crisis plotline from ever happening (it's not even guaranteed to happen in the first place) and leaving Katharsos without any real reason to object to the sequestering of souls or the existence of undead that refuse to ever move on. I think that Katharsos' natural opposition to Foe and Anz (the likely culprits for 99% of soul sequestration) is a good thing to have because it allows for story interaction, so I'm naturally opposed to your idea because it'd indirectly remove this and leave me with that much less to write about.
...and as I said in my lengthy multi-paragraph series of Discord posts earlier today, that's the end of this conversation for now. I would have been done with reviews and the IC would have probably been up by now if I hadn't been distracted by debating souls and soul decay for the past three or four days, so for now I'm done arguing. Mutton, BBeast, and myself have talked over souls and we'll soon post an explanation of the broadstrokes of what we've decided in the wake of the debates.
I hope I didn't come across as angry or dismissive of anyone here. At times the debate got a bit heated on Discord, but all remained mostly civil and no harm comes from hearing your ideas and opinions. Thanks to those that weighed in, but for now we need to move past this conversation or we'll be stuck here in the pre-IC mud forever.
