Origins

Stragglers are not created by any force or being but were rather leftovers that found their own place in existence when existence failed to place them where they belonged. They begin at the death of a living creature on the world. Any soul that would normally go to Soulterian after death is susceptible to this fate.  The body dies but the soul simply fails to be picked up and becomes its own form. It’s not instantaneous though.

From the moment of death, there is a period of waiting before the soul will return to notable existence. This period varies greatly, from hours to any number of years. A soul that died yesterday could pop up at noon or a thousand years from now. It all really just depends on how long the individual process goes on. This process is unpleasant, to say the least.

When a soul first dies, it falls into a state of waiting to be picked up, like a little bundle of energy that is so small and insignificant, so compact that it would go unnoticed entirely. It’s literally below the radar of anything that would be able to sense a spirit. For all intents and purposes it is as dead and inactive as its body. The consciousness of this soul begins to reemerge though, time dependent on completely random chance, and goes through stages of reworking its fundamental structure to make up for the fact that it’s not where it belongs and trying to reform like it would be formed on Soulterian. This begins what many refer to as “purgatory.”

Purgatory is not a real place but instead the process of the actual reformation of the soul. The connections and energy being reorganized creates a sort of illusionary reality and passage of time in which the soul is disembodied and unable to move or interact with their own world, simply trapped as if their “body” were stone. They can see visions or have illusions of feeling, smelling, hearing, anything, but simply can not react to them other than with emotion. No sound, no motion. It’s its own brand of psychological torture. Their time in purgatory always feels like ages and ages, an eternity to some, but is never short. Even a soul that comes back within minutes will have suffered though mental ages of this purgatory. They only come out of it once they’ve regained enough energy and strength to manifest some sort of spiritual form.

At this point, they can be invisible or make themselves known. Many remember purgatory and their lives before it. Many do not. Some remember one but not the other. Most often, the case is that they remember purgatory but their life comes back to them with time.  When they first form, they are like what one would consider a typical, weak ghost. They can’t touch things, interact, or really make much of an impact on anything. From here, they can begin to develop over time into several classes, consisting of Specters, Ghouls, and Kobolds (More on those throughout). At this point, they can now interact with the world of the living once more.

[Side Note: Since the closing of Soulterian, the number of Stragglers has spiked significantly. Complications and all that. ]