Species Guide
After death, souls travel to a place far beyond our reach, the underworld. This world is controlled by Hades, one of the gods of dead souls. Every soul will end up in Hades if they can pay the price. Here they will lie in the Asphodel fields as shadowy versions of their past life, but dreaming of another life if they are being remembered.
But Hades is not the only God of dead souls; he shares that title with Tartarus and Elysian. Tartarus is the most profound and darkest place with boiling lava and madness all around. The most corrupted souls, evil, and cruel will suffer in his world for good—the worst perpetrators, destined to endure punishments fitting their earthly crimes in their heads eternally. Beings who lived a heroically or extraordinary life will be sent to Elysian. Here they can live a restful, happy, and peaceful life for eternity; they can even be rebirthed and have another life on earth.
If Tartarus or Elysian thinks a soul should be sent to their world, they can play with Hades for the soul. Card games, board games, anything as long as one wins. If Hades wins, the soul stays in his fields; if he loses, the soul will travel to the other world. If there is no winner, the souls themselves will play for their life and be judged by their gamemasters.
But some souls can not be judged so quickly. They maybe did acts of cruelty but decided to change their life for good. They did things for which they should be in Tartarus, but these Souls also did amazing things, so they should be in Elysia. It can be challenging for game masters to choose in cases like this. Hades will reincarnate these souls with a new purpose.
They become Theristis - the grim reapers of the underworld.
Theristis are collecting the souls of the fresh deceased. With their weapon, they detach the soul from the body, save in their vessel, and bring it to Hades.
Trait overview
Skeleton
Theristis are reincarnated souls. Their skeleton is build-out of their bones and held together by soul fire out of the rivers from Hades - besides the skull. The soul itself forms the skull. It chooses an animal according to the personality from their past life or one they want to have in this new life. If they’re proud, protective, and outgoing, they might choose a lion or, if they are the opposite, a mouse. When Therisitis fulfill their duty to collect souls, they will show their animal skull and not their face.
In some cases, the skeleton is severely damaged, and it’s not enough to create a whole body. In cases like this, materials from the underground can fuse the remaining bones.
- Can have connective materials from the underworld (gold, crystals, stone)
➢ Variant: materials outside the underworld (plants, fabric)
➢ Variant: liquids and gas
- Can show skeleton body parts
- Must have an open spine or markings
- Must be a mammalian skull
➢ Variant: human skull, non-mammalian skull, or a mask/veil to hide their face
- Can have soul fire all around the skull
- Can be attached or detached from the body
- Can be decorated with materials from the underworld (gold, crystals, stone, paint)
➢ Variant: materials outside the underworld
- Can have skull-like markings/paintings on their face instead of showing their skull
Soul fire
The soul fire keeps the skeleton together, gives the body life and form. The fire can form flesh, skin with moles or scars, and hair, but it can break out if the Theristis is not concentrated. It can then emerge out of the skin, or the hair of the Theristis goes up in flames when they have strong emotions. But they can also use this break-out fire to form new objects, materials, or items like clothes, jewelry, or weapons. If a Theristis uses their fire that way, their skeleton hands will show!
Besides the uncontrolled break-out flames, the soul fire can also be found inside and around the ears and tail.
The soul is the source of the soul fire, so it's not real fire. They can't burn or heat any material!
- Must be found inside and around the ears and tail
- Can have any color and fire-like shape
➢ Variant:non-living, living, and glowing items inside, color changing
➢ Variant: precise shapes (bubbles, stars, flowers)
- Can break out of the skin, hair, or clothes
- Can be manipulated by emotions
- Can be uncontrolled and take over body parts
➢ Variant: Having no physical form but a human silhouette
- Optional can form the Theristis Soul weapon
Animal Features
According to their animal skull, Theristis have animal ears or horns on their Skull and animal feet.
They might even be a hybrid.
- Must have animal ears
- Can be any mammalian ears
➢ Variant: non-mammalian ears (fish, insect, bird)
➢ Variant: mystical beasts (dragon)
➢ Variant: feathered or bat-wing stylized ears
➢ Variant: different from the animal skull
- Must have mammalian feet
➢ Variant: non-mammalian feet (fish, insect, bird)
➢ Variant: mystical beasts (dragon)
- Can be a hybrid (dog ears, hooved feet, sheep horns)
- Can have mammalian hands
- Can have up to 4 mammalian horns
➢ Variant: other materials (crystal, soul fire)
- Can have fur on their body
➢ Variant: other (scale, feathers)
➢ Variant: no animal features
Tail and Soul-vessel
Connected to their spine, Theristis have a long, demon-like tail with a decorating tip. This tip works as their soul-vessel. Theristis are soul collectors, and they need to store the collected souls in vessels. The souls will fuse with the unearthly material and can’t escape. These vessels will be emptied over the boats of the soul river in the underworld.
- Must be connected to the spine
- Must be demon-like
➢ Variant: animal tail
➢ Variant: not demon-like
➢ Variant: multiple tails
➢ Variant: no tail/soul fire tail
- Can be made out of materials from the underworld (gold, crystals, stone)
➢ Variant: materials outside the underworld
- Must be located by the tail
➢ Variant: no soul vessel or different location
- Can be any kind of vessel, any shape, size, and form
➢ Variant: living vessels, elements as materials (water, ice, fire)
➢ Variant: vessels with additional functions (lightbulbs, watering can, water boiler)
- Can have more than one vessel
Optional traits
- Can have up to 4 extra limbs
➢ Variant: more than 4
Can have halos made out of their fire
➢ Variant: other materials, more than 1
- Can have vampire/werewolf/similar behaviors if they were born/turned that way in their past life
- Can be giant or tiny
- Sclera can have a different color
- Can have markings, tattoos, patterns, and plates on their skin
➢ Variant Skin: other materials like crystal, stone parts, or overgrown
- Can have a feral form
- Animal the Theristis uses animal features from
- Visual traits have to stay the same
- Can have a human form
- living beings will see the Theristis w/o their main traits
- Can be viewed as humans or kemonomimi
Item traits
You need to own an item from the Death Shop
- wings of any kind in any place (flying sandals)
- human ears/feet (herakles mission)
Special traits
- Can have a non-humanoid head or body (anthro, centaur, mermaid, mystical or mixed beasts)
- Can have other elements (ice, earth, water)
- Can have living body parts (living hair, living tail)
- Can be made out of different materials (candle)
- Can have a body vessel (doll body, robotic body) if they can’t control their hellfire
- Can have modified traits
- Can hide their hellfire (no visible hellfire on the outside of tail and ears, for example)
- Can add any kind of wings w/o the item!
- Can add any of humanoid ears w/o the item!
Soul weapon
If you want to follow the Theristis lore, the Theris can have a soul weapon. They can form the weapon with their soul fire to collect the essence of the deceased - their soul.
When a Theristis collects souls, they can climb up the Ranks, and with each rank, the weapon can get a new unique ability. The weapon could split into multiple pieces or be put together out of various parts. It could gain a unique attack ability or a new look.
- Can be any type of weapon
- Can be decorated with materials from the underworld (gold, crystals, stone, paint)
➢ Variant: materials outside the underworld (plants)
➢ Variant: two weapons
➢ Variant: living weapons (animal, plant)
➢ Variant: other items repurposed as weapons
(instrument, paintbrush)
- With a golden Hephastus Blessing they can own up to 4 weapons
When two undecided souls are declared as Theristis simultaneously from the same person, they will become partners. One will be the collecting Theristis; the other will become their soul weapon.
- Being a Weapon-Theristis (special slot)
Corrupted Theristis
Considered a threat capable of destroying the world, a corrupted Theristis is created when they manage to consume an excessive number of souls. They can become mighty and insane. Their new purpose will be to overrule the world as it is and bring madness into it.
- Can use all variant traits
- Soulfire must turn inky and greasy
- Soul-vessel must be broken in some way
- Eyes must glow
- Can have eyes on their body and inside their hellfire
- Can have mouths on their body and inside their hellfire
- Can have unnatural skin colors
- Can have a mutated look (enlarge body parts)
The corrupted Theristis is a separated slot rarity! If you have a Special Slot , you still are not allowed to create one!