When you know your life will end, everything else becomes so simple.

The Lost Soul is someone who is guaranteed to die. She knows that her life will soon be at an end, and that this is inescapable.

The most common reason for this is critical illness or old age, and most Lost Souls are quite old. However, this is not necessarily the case. Someone who has made a lethal enemy they can’t escape, for instance, may channel this archetype. So might someone whose occupation is so dangerous that survival is statistically impossible, or someone who has been mortally wounded. So might a newly elected unconnected official in an unstable nation where assassination is a common occurrance.

In this hopelessness, however, the Lost Soul finds a strange form of freedom. A common get-to-know-you question for many inquisitive and morose people is “What would you do if you knew you had only a day to live?” Since her time is close to an end, the Lost Soul simply does not have time for self-deception, overcomplication, or passive nonsense. She must pursue her life’s goals, come to peace with herself, and prepare to leave this world.

The Lost Soul is similar to the Martyr in the aspect of doom and destruction. The Lost Soul, though, isn’t dying for a lost cause. She’s just dying. In the fact that she’s now free of normal social boundaries, the Lost Soul resembles the Flying Woman or the Masterless Man. Lastly, the Lost Soul bears a similarity to the Mystic Hermaphrodite, in that they both represent a bridge between worlds. Just as the Mystic Hermaphrodite bridges opposite forces, the Lost Soul is a gateway between the living and the dead. By being closer to death than a typical person, she can teach us about death, and by being hopeless, she can teach us about hope. Because of this, Lost Souls are sometimes also adepts, almost as often as Mystic Hermaphrodites.

Lost Souls don’t really compete with one another, the way many Avatars do. There isn’t much point, since they are gone so soon. Usually, by the time an avatar becomes conscious of the nature of their archetype, they’re so close to death that they don’t really have much time to seek out other Avatars. The Godwalker position is often left unfilled, and when filled, it is not for long.

Attributes: The key attribute of the Lost Soul is inevitable death. While it’s basically guaranteed that everyone will die, most of us don’t know how or when, and that uncertainty gives us the comfortable illusion that death can be avoided. The Lost Soul has no such illusion, and, without it, can see the world in ways that most people cannot. She may evoke pity or inspiration. She might be in denial, or anger, or bargaining, or depression. Eventually, she may even come to accept her fate, which is a comfort that few of us will ever know. But however she sees the world, she, and everyone else, sees the inevitability of her death.

Taboo: Hope or survival. A Lost Soul must have death at hand for some unavoidable reason. If she survives beyond the expectations of that death, or if that death somehow becomes avoidable, the connection to the archetype is weakened. Cures, extensions of life, reprieves and solutions are the end of this archetype. While the Lost Soul can avoid death from other causes, and can take reasonable measures to prolong life, extension of life past the believed death will end this archetype.

Symbols: The most common symbol of this archetype is the bed. Darkened eyes, black clothes, and consolatory flowers also symbolize this archetype. So does a clock, especially one nearing midnight, and an hourglass running out of sand. Other symbols include livestock and slaughterhouses, wheelchairs, weeping, ashes, and empty attempts at consolation or inspiration.

Suspected Avatars in History: Doc Holliday, the gunslinger dying of tuberculosis, is often suspected as an avatar. Some theorize that Benjamin Franklin, in his final years, was an avatar, though many have suggested he was an avatar of another archetype. Some have suggested Ann Boleyn, in her last days.

Masks: Thor during Ragnarok (Norse), Gilgamesh (Sumerian), Persephone (Greek), Ghede (Voudoun)

Channels

01-50% A doomed person has no time for the strange tides of social compulsion that the people of the healthy world impose on each other. A Lost Soul can ignore any attempt to influence her behavior which rolls under her Avatar: the Lost Soul roll. This includes Charm skills, similar Soul skills, Avatar channels, formulas, and so forth. It doesn’t protect against skills like Lie, and it doesn’t help conceal the actions or motivations of the Lost Soul, and this does not affect abilities which do not require any sort of roll to use. Furthermore, this does not affect Madness Meters. It only protects against effects where someone else is trying to change the Lost Soul’s behavior, and makes a roll to do so.

51-70% A Lost Soul can see the misfortune in others. By focusing on someone for a minute or so and making a roll against the Avatar: The Lost Soul skill, the she knows the worst thing that’s currently in motion to harm the subject. This might be disease, possession, a curse, a powerful enemy making plans, a broken brake line, or a fatally bad decision that the subjcet has made. This power doesn’t quite give knowledge of the future – it gives awareness of things currently happening which may cause future trouble. This information can be quite detailed, depending on the roll, but can only be used on a given subject once, and only gives information about a single misfortune – typically the misfortune that it would be most useful to the Lost Soul.

71-90% At this level, the Lost Soul becomes a bridge to the dead. She can use her Avatar: the Lost Soul to conjure, control or dispel demons, as if she were using an appropriate formula to do so. She suffers the normal penalties for failing these rolls.

91-98% Acceptance. At this point, the Lost Soul will never need to roll a Stress check, but can instead decide on the dice result desired. She can also change her Madness Meters by making an Avatar: the Lost Soul roll, though she still loses access to all channels if she becomes a sociopath. Also, if the Lost Soul knows she has less than a day to live, she loses her Obsession and her Fear Stimulus.