*Raises finger.*
Alchemicals have a different soul structure than mortal autocthonians, and their gems are cut in a very distinctive way. A soul gem holds a soul, but not not always the same soul. When a mortal dies and their soulgem is recoverd, it goes through a ritual and is attached to a certain device where the Hun soul is cleaned and receyled and the Po soul is burned for fuel. A gem with a blank Hun soul is implatned into a newborn as soon as possible, because souls just don't float around Autocthonia like they do in Creation. The color, shape, and cut of a soul gem tells you most of a person's demographic information.
An Alchemical's soul is what happens when you throw several worthy Hun souls into a mystic blender set on "Liquefy", because an agent of the state (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM)such as an Alchemical is to important to base on the experiences of one person
Uh. No, this is wrong, in large part. I'm just going to verbatim re post the Ink Monkey article on the subject:
Autochthonia and the Cycle of Souls
Life in the Realm of Brass and Shadow begins much as it does in Creation. An infant is born and draws its first breath, and with this first breath, it receives a soul. The process is similar in either world, but not identical.
Humans in Creation are granted souls by Heaven, according to ancient processes designed by the Primordials. In the First Age, when Creation's total human population was steadily on the rise, infants often received new souls freshly drawn from the Well of Souls, consisting of a joined hun and po. In the Second Age, new hun souls are rarely produced. Instead the quiescent hun of a deceased individual is cleansed by the process of Lethe, bonded to a new po freshly extracted from the Well of Souls, and sent down to grant life to a newborn. This is necessary because upon the death of a mortal in Creation, higher and lower souls separate; the hun passes through Lethe if it does not linger as a ghost, while the vigilant po remains with the corpse until its final dissolution, at which point the animal soul vanishes.
In Autochthonia, souls are distributed by an ancient wonder known as the Radiant Amphora of Celestial Accumulation, more commonly called the Ewer of Souls. This incredible artifact automatically recycles souls in much the same manner as occurs in Creation, save that the souls it recycles have never been split apart; hun and po remain bonded after death, and pass together from life to life. The end of a mortal's life within Autochthonia is as neat as its beginning. Upon his last breath, the mortal's entire soul departs to the Ewer, to be cleansed of memories and given new life again. No part of his soul remains behind with his corpse, and the state claims his remains to be rendered down for the good of Autochthonia. This recycling system is as necessary as it is efficient, for Autochthonia has no way to produce new hun or po souls.
Autochthonian Beliefs
The vast majority of Autochthonians are ignorant as to the intricacies of their world's cycle of death and rebirth. The Tome of the Great Maker states that Autochthon bequeathed the holy artifacts known as soulgems to the people of the Eight Nations, that their souls might be captured and returned to the Radiant Amphora after death. The soul of any human who perishes without a soulgem, the Tome warns, will fall into the Void and be lost forever. Because of this, the Eight Nations implant soulgems into all infants shortly after birth. Thanks to the benevolence of the Machine God, no citizen of the Eight Nations must fear dissolution upon death; the Populat may toil in the secure knowledge that when their life ends and they lay down their burdens, they will soon be reborn to continue their sacred service to state and God.
The Use of Soulgems
Autochthonian religious doctrine is mistaken. The soul of a mortal who dies without a soulgem simply returns to the Radiant Amphora rather than being lost to some mythical oblivion. Furthermore, the most senior leaders of the Glorious Luminors of the Brilliant Rapture are aware of this falsehood. Why, then, do they perpetuate the use of soulgems within Autochthonia?
When an Autochthonian dies and his soul flees into his soulgem, the soulgem imprints a specialized, singular mark upon the soul. This soulmark is unique, corresponding to the soulgem that created it, and it endures until the end of the soul's next incarnation, at which point the mark vanishes. The Luminors know how to read an individual's soulmark, a feat accomplished through a special device known as a Legacy Calibrator. The Luminors jealously guard the secret of how to build and operate these devices. Through this technique, they are able to identify an individual's former incarnation by consulting their enormous archive of citizen profiles and soulmark legacies.
This affords the Luminors two advantages. First, because they are the only group capable of determining an individual's incarnation history, they are also the only ones capable of determining the proper disposition of his new life. Senior Luminors review case files and decide whether an infant should be assigned to the Populat, Olgotary, Theomachracy, or Sodalities based on their soul's history of achievement and aptitude. The Luminors occasionally falsify a soul's legacy to give favorable treatment to the reincarnations of friends and allies, or to demote to the ranks of the Populat an individual who has caused trouble for them across multiple incarnations.
Such petty bureaucratic tyranny is merely an incidental bonus, of course. The true reason for the use of soulgems is that without this method of tracking the reincarnation history of souls, the Luminors would be unable to identify souls of repeated heroic character who are potentially capable of Alchemical Exaltation. Even the most cynical senior Luminors take this task seriously, for none of the Eight Nations would still survive without the might of its Champions.
The Function of Soulgems
Soulgems serve three purposes: Social class identification, capturing souls, and imprinting souls for future identification by the Luminors.
After a Luminor review board has consulted a newborn's soul history—a task done with as much haste as possible, since most members of the Sodality believe that a crib death before soulgem implantation will consign the infant's soul to the Void—a soulgem is selected which corresponds to the social class the infant will be assigned to. The majority of Autochthonians are given round soulgems of black, polished onyx which signify membership in the Populat. Those destined for the Olgotary receive rectangular soulgems of orange topaz, while future Theomachrats are granted square soulgems of blue sapphire. Finally, the Five Sodalities all share the same diamond-shaped soulgems of purple amethyst. Estasia's Militate is known by its triangular ruby soulgems. All of these soulgems retain the same metaphysical properties—they mark a soul upon its entry to the gem postmortem, and they will hold a soul indefinitely after death, until it is manually released by the Pious Harvesters of the Hallowed Flesh.
The soulgems of the Alchemical Exalted are a bit different. Alchemical soulgems begin as perfect, many-faceted diamonds. Unlike other soulgems, these gems not only catch a Champion's soul after death, but bequeath the Exalt with a soul and grant him life. Also unlike the soulgems of Autochthonian mortals, Alchemical soulgems are not uniform in appearance; when a Champion draws in his first breath, the flawless diamond upon his forehead shifts in appearance to suit his personality and self-image. The gem of Stern Whip of Industry, for example, is an oval of deep emerald, while Lissome Avid Engineer bears a rectangular soulgem the same color as Creation's sky. A deceased Champion's soulgem returns to its clear, diamond original form once that hero's soul departs; otherwise, it retains its distinctive appearance until implanted in a new Exalt, at which point it customizes to the newly-empowered Alchemical.
The Sodalities believe that it is harmful to retain souls in a mortal soulgem for an extended period of time after death, particularly those of heroes. Though available data is not conclusive, many Luminors insist that they detect a statistical trend among those whose souls linger overlong in such gems between lives—such individuals, they claim, are less likely to be persons of outstanding merit in their next incarnation; as such, they worry that 'warehousing' heroic souls in unsuitable gems may decrease the likelihood that a soul will prove suitable for Alchemical Exaltation. As a result, each of the Eight Nations has a mandatory deadline by which a soul must be released from its gem if at all possible, ranging from three weeks (in Jarish) to six months (in Nurad).
Unlike soulgems intended for mortals, Alchemical soulgems are believed to be capable of holding a soul indefinitely after death without harm. The Eight Nations may retain the souls of their greatest heroes in this manner for years if need be, in order to ensure that when the time is right they will be able to live again in new incarnations. This practice is strongly frowned on by the Theomachracy if there are no plans to empower any new Champions in the foreseeable future, however, as The Tome of the Great Maker claims that it is a great wickedness to separate Autochthonia from its heroes.
Unfortunately, the lack of an automatic-release feature on soulgems means that sometimes corpses and soulgems are lost to the Reaches, and need to be recovered. While the loss of mortal souls is tragedy enough, each of the Eight Nations has a roster of Champions whose bodies could not be recovered, and whose soulgems are presumably still lost in the depths of the Reaches, waiting for some enterprising hero to recover them and return them to their homes and the cycle of reincarnation. Such national treasures are valued above orichalcum and starmetal, and to discover one is the dream of both mortal and Alchemical alike.
New Autochthonian Thaumaturgy
Soul manipulation is an important, secret activity, vital to the Autochthonian way of life. These are a few of the secret rituals used by the Sodalities:
The Science of Bioenhancement
Soulgem Implantation (0, Intelligence, 1, one minute): This exceedingly simple ritual, jealously guarded by the Illustrious Conductors of the Consecrated Veins, grants a soulgem to an individual. It is performed upon every Autochthonian infant within a week of birth, by unanimous order of the National Tripartite Assembly of all Eight Nations, but may also be performed upon captured second-generation outcasts from tunnel folk communities. The procedure is performed within a special chamber found in Autochthonian nurseries and re-education centers known as a Unity Vault; both varieties of room are small, cramped, and dimly-lit by subdued red lights, reminiscent of a mechanical womb; the chief difference is that Unity Vaults at re-education complexes feature a sturdy table outfitted with restraints.
The procedure enough is swift and simple: a soulsteel plate featuring two needle-like prongs is placed against the forehead of the infant or outcast, and driven through the skull with a special starmetal-tipped hammer. The pain of this experience is so all-encompassing that it takes a few moments to register. During this time a soulgem is set against the backing plate, and a live nerve of the Great Maker is drawn down from a special housing in the Vault's ceiling. A spark of Essence jumps between cable and soulgem, fusing the gem to the plate as the agony of the procedure finally sets in, provoking ear-splitting mechanical scream from the patient.
Soulgem implantation, once learned, is so exceedingly simple that characters with a pool of at least six dice succeed at it automatically without need for a roll. Successful execution of this procedure inflicts one level of lethal damage to the target, while a failed attempt inflicts five levels. Botches tend to be ugly, involving skulls smashed by missed hammer swings or electrocution by inexpertly applied live wires—and if the subject is the son or daughter of a high-ranking member of the Tripartite, such mistakes are an excellent way for a young Conductor to discover what life is like among the ranks of the Lumpen.
Soulgem Revocation (3, Intelligence, 5, one hour): One of the most famous procedures in practice, Soulgem Revocation is a punishment reserved solely for the worst offenders of Autochthonia's laws. This ritual requires that the offender be brought to the nerve that was used to implant his soulgem originally. If the original nerve is unavailable, taking the offender to any nerve of the Great Maker which has died will work for the purpose of this procedure. The target must first be given a perfectly calculated dosage of an anesthetic drug, dropping his vitals to nothing and sending him into a near-death state. Once on the verge of death, one of his victims is brought forward. If a victim is unavailable, a representative of the victim—preferably a blood relative but also a significant other, best friend, or someone avowing support—can be substituted. The victim places a drop of their blood on the soulgem, which the thaumaturge paints in a symbol that reflects the crime committed. He then calls upon the soul of the offender, in a manner eerily reminiscent of Creation's Summon Ghost ritual (see The Books of Sorcery, Vol. III—Oadenol's Codex, p. 133).
If the procedure works, the soul of the offender is drawn into the soulgem by attraction to the blood of the victim, which is said to further seal his guilt. This is signified by the blood turning a bluish-white that glows in the dark. At this juncture, the nerve of the Great Maker is pressed against the soulgem and a word of practiced revocation is spoken. There is a distinctive pop sound as a spark travels backwards up the nerve (even a dead nerve), and the setting around the soulgem instantly begins to bleed as the soulsteel posts separate from the flesh and the setting ceases to be an extension of the offender's body. At this point a tool is used to carefully rip the setting (and the soulgem in it) from the offender's forehead. If the blood of the victim does not begin to glow, the ritual has failed to draw the soul into the soulgem, and any application of the Great Maker's nerve to the gem will have no effect. Such a botch may be attributed to a technician's failure to measure the dosage of the anesthetic drug, or it may cause doubt to be thrown on the guilt of the offender.
The ruined shell of a person left behind in the wake of this ritual behaves much like a dream-eaten slave of the Fair Folk. The subject has no Motivation, his Virtues all drop to 1, his Willpower falls to 0, and his MDVs are also permanently set to 0. He becomes listless and pliant, doing whatever he is told. Autochthonians use such offenders as slave labor on dangerous, back-breaking projects for the remainder of their short and miserable lives. The Exalted never respond to this or any other ritual which draws their soul into their soulgem prematurely.
The Science of the Dead
Hope Starts Here (2, Charisma, 3, ten minutes): The ritual that transfers the spirit of a destined hero from a mortal soulgem to an Alchemical soulgem is both quick enough to be efficacious and spectacle enough to evoke awe. A Luminor takes the soulgems to a small room where the wall has been stripped away to reveal a network of the Maker's Essence-conducting arteries. At this point, all witnesses are asked to stand still and silent and to think thoughts of the Maker's greatness and of the dire need for a new Champion. Banishing light from the room, the Luminor takes hold of a pre-selected cable, which has been ritually severed for the purpose of this ritual. This cable has a soulsteel clamp on one end, and an orichalcum clamp on the other. Carefully placing the mortal soulgem in the soulsteel clamp and the Alchemical soulgem in the orichalcum clamp, the Luminor invokes the presence of Autochthon, bidding him attend the faithful in their hour of need, then makes a final invocation bidding the future Champion within to bring light to the darkness of their world. At this point, the Luminor touches the soulgems together, completing the circuit. As the power flows through the soulgems, both glow softly. Then, as the spirit of the hero rises within, the mortal soulgem begins to glow brilliantly for a moment before going completely dark, at which point the Alchemical soulgem glows even brighter and briefly shines with enough force to light up the room, before dropping to a simple but unmistakable ethereal radiance. At this point the soulgems are parted, removed from the clamps, and the procedure is complete.
Winding the Amphora (1, Manipulation, 2, fifteen minutes): This procedure releases the spirit within a mortal soulgem into the Ewer of Souls. This procedure can only be enacted ten minutes before or five minutes after the hour. The soulgem is taken to the lonely, low-traffic end of a sector, where there is a station containing the Psychopomp Gears of the Transmodal Essence Recombinator. The Harvester places the soulgem on a dais close to the frightening mechanisms of death and makes a ward of salt around it, leading to a massive series of interlocked moonsilver and soulsteel plates that form a gigantic gate. He then draws a curtain around the salt ward. Pretending to be a parent, lover, or other person significant to the deceased, the Harvester calls her forth and her silhouette can be seen rising behind the curtain. The spirit may even call out to the thaumaturge (for this reason, many Harvesters wear earplugs during this ritual), but it cannot pass through the curtain due to the line of salt. At this point, a single rivet on a bulkhead begins to unscrew itself, and the dead gears that flank either side of the machine each make one fraction of a turn, from smallest to largest, and the layered moonsilver-soulsteel gate behind the curtain slides open. A wind blows in, and sometimes there are sounds in it, and sometimes there are voices. Then a number of articulated tendrils appear, moving behind the curtain, wrapping around the startled spirit before dragging it back through the gateway, which slides shut with a bang, cutting off all noise and wind from the other side and draining the room of its sense of presences.
A Hero's Goodbye (2, Charisma, 3, twenty minutes): Sometimes it becomes necessary to release the soul of a Champion back into the Radiant Amphora so that it might spend a few lifetimes aggregating mortal experiences. When such an Alchemical dies, the procedure to return her soul to the Ewer is often performed as part of a state funeral. This ritual is performed by a high-ranking Harvester at an amphitheatre called the Cradle of Returns. The soulgem is carefully placed into a setting atop an altar that rises from the superstructure, and the Harvester says an emotional prayer to Autochthon, giving thanks for the Champion while they were allowed to have her, and summarily giving her back to the care of the Great Maker. She then presses down on the soulgem with a gloved hand bearing the seal of the Machine God, and a number of multicolored Essence tubes light up around the circular borders of the amphitheatre, displaying images of the Alchemical's past incarnations, while a single column across from the Harvester is illuminated with a shaft of pure light, in which the spirit of the deceased Alchemical appears and begins to slowly ascend into the dark upper reaches, accompanied by a chorus of voices from deep within the Cradle singing the hymn of Autochthon, while a monitor reads out the data of the Champion's exploits, even going so far as to display some of her fondest memories as they flee her for the last time. During this time, each image of her past selves slowly winks out, the Essence tubes darkening as she ascends, until finally she is gone and the whole Cradle is dark except for the soulgem, which glows with the initial radiance given to it by a Luminor so long ago. Then, it too finally goes dark, and the ritual is complete.