Broadest Cosmology: The cosmos is one that is young and old. Constantly dieing and being reborn across its infinite void. Infinite varieties are born from the Void and while many are simply dark masses others are lit by pinpricks of light. And inside of these lights vibrant worlds flourish, universes of stars and planets. Many of these universes operate by different rules, some are formed by energy and systems that persists after the creation in different forms. Some forms are what we would know as the physical laws, other we can only call magic. The possibilities are infinite.
Nature of Souls: Souls are a form of energy, one with its own rules and networks. Souls are in essence the wild formations of these energies into distinct forms. From these souls information is born. Such a soul will connect to a physical reference, in most cases a living being. Just as the soul gives the vessel form so does the vessel allow the soul to coalesce more. The experiences in the vessel, the 'life' allows the soul to grow stronger and more defined. However a 'death' will strain the soul, in the vast majority of cases such a soul will shatter from the backlash and disintegrate into raw soul energy. Such an energy will mix in the background and reform again into something wholly different with no connections to the original.
However sometimes such a fragmentation will create shards that are stronger. Such shards are not always going to create a form but sometimes the past life will carry on. It could be something as simple as preference for a colour or on the other hand something so complex as a facet for a personality trait. Most of the time such changes are lost again but in rare cases larger fragments are able to coalesce and stay together. Such a soul will by virtue be stronger but not necessarily in a practical manner and the next 'death' will simply destroy it again. But in even rarer cases the soul will beyond most odds continue to coalesce and grow in strength.
The scale of such a natural creation will affect it. In some lives the soul may simply have a stronger and more coherent personality across lives. However sometimes some may hold more, memories and abilities(ie Reincarnation). However not always does such holdovers help, the world the life is born in is just as important. Yet as is always possible some souls grow strong enough to drag more and more through each life. In the path they travel perhaps some form into what we would consider gods and be able to anchor themselves to one particular universe or world(ie RPG Gods, etc). Others may continue to travel the greater cosmos, at mercy or able to divert themselves through the tide such a 'Sea of Souls'.
Others may grow stronger and grow stronger in their understanding of many of the different fundamental systems or even the greatest overarching system of the 'Sea of Souls'. Such beings cannot truly be able to be gauged by mortal minds, Outer Deities(ie Cthullu) whose minds are removed from our own. Such a mind will gain power but at the same time lose its reference of being, too large and too many experiences. It may grow 'wild' in the sense that it is no longer coherent in any form, lost in the sea. Others may be able to anchor themselves like the so called 'gods' to a specific point of reference and regain themselves in this relative harbor. Who is to say what such a being could do to the universe or universes it has attached itself to. Perhaps it can only watch from the outside or perhaps learn to effect those within. All possibilities are open.
To go further on the soul may be understood at the basic layer of three parts. The Animus, Anima, and Persona. The animus is the most bodily oriented portion of the soul, the part responsible for keeping the soul connected to the physical vessel. The Anima is the inner self, the most pure portion of the soul and associated with its raw original form from the sea. The persona is the outer portion of the soul, the one most impacted by the new life. The three are the most basic and are responsible for feedback to each other. Of course those stronger/luckier may form other aspects of the soul-aggregate. One example being the Manamus, the thing responsible for manipulating mana through magic. Gods tend to have larger and stronger parts of the soul but are capable of forming subunits for various purposes. Divines take this to another stage with many many subunits, some of which may be redundant or contradictory.
If a person dies their animus will be the one to splinter the most followed by the persona and then the destruction of ejection of the anima. Of course sometimes things may go differently or be manipulated so. The soul may become separated and thus cause quite a few problems. The soul will likely just disintegrate or revert to just one portion but it may also consolidate its separate parts and be new souls now. Necromancers, priests, and other parties are mostly responsible for such messes/experiments.
Other aspects of such souls and reincarnation could be that monsters in rpgesqe worlds were originally formed by such events. A soul incarnating into something, being sufficently damaged to be manipulated by outside forces into creating something new and 'twisted'. Would put a twist on the normal matters of such things in stories. Reincarnation is not your special schtick, everything has it just you might be luckier in some ways and lost out in others. Lightnovel reincarnators being the guys whose personality/memory part got so wasted yet their souls are just strong enough to wing them through one more time on a fluke.
More specific to my own quest
In my own quest I am running I have a deity known as Silida. This deity is a mix between a 'God' and an 'Outer Diety'. As in it has the scale similar to a 'Outer Diety' but has a mindset and state of reference more akin to 'Gods'. Contact with 'mortals' is not recommended but possible. The specific setting is that our for now I will use the term 'Divine' to shorten things has managed to place herself as the deity to be worshipped by different tribes on a massive scale world. Think mega planet. Our divine has managed to hash out a way to communicate with her devotees to a degree. Direct contact is impossible now and for the discernible future. However through mediums she can make hers will known. People with strong souls may be able to withstand direct contact for a certain amount of time(ie Oracles).
Of course this is not perfect and contact is still more difficult but possible. However with the help of one of the races with stronger souls known as the Eldarine(ie elves) created a different method. She has basically created her own pantheon of gods and their servants to facilitate contact. Now with the blood/soul price from this initial contact she has struck deals. Back to earlier with the fact that souls will face backlash in death. Stronger souls are more capable of facing such an event but at the same time start running into coherency problems. If they die so much and reform are they truly the same soul. Sometimes the damage keeps the personality intact if in a state of constant agony that carries over. Such a thing has been found out by the elves through their own knowledge seeking.
Now the Divine has been informed of this fact and has made a deal to help with this. Essentially assuming a position as a deity of death she now helps out with figuring this issue out but for now harbors their souls in a temporary safe harbor. Of course naturally strong souls have their issues with managing to come into worlds. Strong enough to retain features but not enough to know how to make their traveling easier if they are even capable of thought while in the Sea of Souls. This has a feedback effect on birth rates for the Eldarine. Thus while Silida can help with this she is not exactly a finesse person. Her early work with the soul harboring is not easy and mistakes are common. Adding on another facet would perhaps not be a good thing. So the Eldarine figure out about the earlier wild visions streak and find that those touched are those of 'weaker' races.
Thus they help one group out with surviving and expanding and now have over the centuries formed a large empire known as the Silidari Imperium. Such a new source of labor and a new perspective has helped the two previous researchers to figure things out a bit more and fix earlier problems. Now they are wishing to cultivate the group to not only make the mortal side of things easier but also get more helpers for the whole learning thing. Now they have figured out ways to improve the whole pantheon thing to facilitate matters. More and more 'God' level creatures are being made along with lesser servants (angels, etc). At the same time this diluted formation needs its own facilitation. Boiling the eyes, senses, and minds of the Eldarine Elders/Oracles is not really something they find sustainable and are now able to do something about it. So they start creating different 'languages' in the sense that they are 'words'. In reality it is something more akin to a '4D' scale language(Cthullu speak lite, props to Morphic Tide at Inheritance of Man thread for the idea).There were quite a few trials and errors(Death, death, major madness, etc) before over the centuries they boiled things down to five stages.
True
Elder
Enlightened
Young
Holy
This is in chronological order with the last one being something that one can actually speak in close to normal life(barring vulnerable children, mental/soul weak etc). Of course it still may cause problems and is thus not meant to be used without precautions/specific circumstances. The stages above that are added in complexity going from a language that expresses things with more complexity than the mortal mind is normally capable of to interpretive dancing causing 'magic' to occur and finally enough strength to being able to literally start bending physics and souls over. This sort of complexity and potential puts magic into some perspective as an older form of such efforts created by natural trial and error. Of course there are also such magic languages formed but having something like the elves and an Outer Deity really allow things to be developed.
Of course such fuckery with the fabric of the planet they are in attracted the attention of the locals who did not like the look of this. Besides this which is really more about what my quest itself will be dealing with there is the universe they are in. Other existences closer to Silida are starting to realize what is going on. Some like it, others don't, some just want to steal it, some want to fight, others can't be parsed. Regardless now there is starting to be competition and conflict.
More on the world itself
Right now on the mega planet I am having a cultural/technological setting taking elements of High Medieval, Renaissance, and a few others. The presence of magic has gone from a wild and ill formed thing like that of most RPGs to a consolidated and academically studied thing(like the emergence of scientific theory). Science itself of course is also progressing and the dynamics between the two are interesting. This is roughly what I have as an overall thing. Might put out more but for now this is what I can come up with. Just asking for any comments and ideas to expand, plot holes, etc.
