Consecution

Consecution is a ritual practiced by the Kryn Dynasty that enables a form of reincarnation.

Description and significance

The ritual of consecution takes about one day. The ritual involves attaching a soul to one of the beacons of the Luxon. When a consecuted creature dies within one hundred miles of a beacon, their soul does not move on to the Outer Planes, but rather relocates into a newborn infant within one hundred miles of the beacon in question. Around adolescence, the creature carrying the relocated soul begins to remember their past life, strongly drawing toward Xhorhas and the source of its returning memories. This process of anamnesis can be accelerated with meditation practices perfected by the Dynasty. When a soul is reborn, it doesn't replace an existing soul, but becomes the original soul of the infant. The state of consecution carries through subsequent lifetimes and the ritual does not need to be repeated.

According to Essek Thelyss, "There is an expectation of advancement within the faith to be consecuted", though he claimed being born into a prominent enough Den allowed him to evade that requirement; however, Essek was not actually consecuted.

A consecuted soul can eventually reach a state known as Umavi, indicating perfection. Very old Umavi can be overwhelmed by being unable to reconcile too many lifetimes' memories, causing a kind of madness called typhros that the Umavi keep a closely guarded secret. Among the duties of the Umavi is to direct others through the soul-binding process of consecution.

Consecuted individuals may come to believe they have learned all they can from their current life, a state of lucidity called achess. They may then request a ritual termination of their current life, under the guidance of an Umavi and within range of a beacon, so that their soul can be ushered on to the next life.

While there is no way to "unconsecute" a soul, a condemned person can be executed outside the range of the hundred-mile range of the beacons to ensure that their soul isn't reborn.

Source of tension and use in conflicts

Though nomadic orcs in Xhorhas welcome the city-folk of the Dynasty to join their clans, they become angered when Kryn souls are reborn in orc bodies. Although it is not widely known, the orcish curse of ruin is actually used by the Dynasty as a tale to make people fearful and more willing to go through consecution, since the process does protect goblinoids from the Curse of Strife.

Around 822 or 823 PD, there was a localized but bloody conflict between forces of the Kryn Dynasty and the Dwendalian Empire in or near Nogvurot, one of a long string of skirmishes between the two powers since before 806 PD. According to a later account on the Dwendalian side, a secret "sect of Kryn missionaries" had been discovered in Nogvurot, leading to a confrontation that cost many lives on both sides and sharply escalated tensions going forward. As Essek Thelyss told it, a Luxon beacon had been brought in range of this great battle, so when consecuted soldiers were slain, their souls were reborn into local children. In 835 PD, Nogvurot was plagued by several supposed child abductions, with Xhorhasians as the suspected culprits. This news spread through the Empire; town criers hundreds of miles away in Zadash told townsfolk to seal their windows and doors while they slept. Indeed, starting years after the first open conflicts with the Kryn began, the number of Dwendalian people, mostly children of adolescent age, who disappeared in the night steeply grew for a generation. The Empire blamed the Kryn for these "abductions".

In 836 PD, Ludinus Da'leth, then one of the most politically powerful wizards in the Dwendalian Empire, cited the Dynasty's religion and its attempted "escape from the cycle of death" as obstacles to peace between the powers; the Matron of Death is one of the six deities who can be worshiped legally in the Empire.

Consecuted individuals

• Bright Queen Leylas Kryn
• Quana Kryn
• Caelestis Kryn
• Abrianna Mirimm
• Deirta Thelyss
• Olomon
• Thuron
• Irvan Wastewalker
• Idrin Shadowstep

Trivia

• While the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount and Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep each specify in one place that the consecuted souls in a Luxon beacon only incarnate in humanoid babies, the Explorer's Guide also says that souls were reborn in "various intelligent creatures", and thus non-humanoid beings like ogres (which are considered giants) are a part of the Kryn Dynasty and can be born with the soul of a consecuted individual.
  • When the Explorer's Guide was published in March 2020, all the official playable races were humanoid, so the more restrictive rule would not have affected player characters' origins.
• The Aevilux (a splinter group of followers of the Luxon) have access to a beacon, and (allegedly guided by the Luxon) have developed a form of soul manipulation, by which they split a mortal soul in half, giving each of the parts the chance to live in an independent body and learn about the world on their own, before eventually reuniting to be a complete soul again.
  • There is at least one case of an Aevilux woman, Paloma, giving birth to twins who are, by themselves, Aevilux, and connected to each other as two halves of the same soul would be.
• Even a powerful Modify Memory spell is unable to completely repress the memories of past lives when a consecuted soul goes through anamnesis.