04. The Curse, Souls, Phantoms and Warping

Every living being in this world possesses a soul, a mind and a body. Normally, one would lose all three upon death; however, those affected by the curse only lose their soul, their body remaining with some small fragment of who they were. As they die again and again, their memories begin to fade until the mind is lost. This leaves what is known as a blank, a hollow shell of who they once were. Sometimes a blank is violent and attacks any living thing it sees, and sometimes it just shuffles about without purpose. Either way, they eventually rot and fall to pieces, losing the body.
Because of the curse, those affected have an affinity with souls. Killing a living thing and taking its soul will stave off their mind loss for a while. There are certain beings that possess powerful souls; when used, these souls could be used to recreate an ability or an object that represents the being. There are a handful of entities in Rin that are powerful enough to grant what is called an Immortal Soul. Unlike other powerful souls, these will bring great power to those that consume it, taking a little of the being's soul into themselves.
In game terms, many bosses will leave a soul which can be transformed into a unique item or skill, which could just be an interesting weapon or could potentially be important later on in the game. The alternative is to consume the soul and have the party gain a single Soul Point. At 3 Soul Points, the party will gain a single skill point they may spend as they wish. Particularly powerful bosses will not grant a unique item or skill point, but will instead grant one class or racial skill for free. Multiclass skills can also be taken, but only if they come from whatever class the player chose (eg. a Tracker couldn't take a Monk skill, but they could take a Monk/Tracker multiclass skill). Consuming too many souls may have consequences.
In addition, if a PC dies they will be presented with two choices; they can either retire their character (and introduce a new one at a later date), or be resurrected with a wound missing permanently. A character will not be eligible for resurrection once they lose all their wounds and must be retired. Retired characters have a chance of being encountered as blanks at some point later in the campaign. In addition to losing a wound, PCs will also lose some of their memories upon resurrecting.
With use of a certain item, PCs can recover lost wounds by "invading" another cursed one through use of magical artifacts known as Spectre Fragments. This means they vanish from their location and reappear someplace near their target as a red phantom. Their goal is to attack and kill the target, being rewarded with the curse being staved temporarily and the missing wounds being restored. This can also be used as a means of recovering from injuries, although it is not recommended. This red phantom form can only attack the person invaded, and while others can see it they cannot attack it themselves unless they use a certain item. The PCs are also vulnerable to invaders.
On their travels, the party will encounter several strange structures known as monoliths. These serve as warp points to move across great distances almost instantly. They can only be used twice a day, however. The following locations are known to have monoliths:
>Lunemark
>Serpentine Keep
>The Dreaming Spring
>The Heart of Jevel