Sojishari

Sojishari

Overview

Spirit Hunters (Sojivari) or Spirit Assassins (Sojishari) are a force found in Alsivai and Koisha lands as an essential part of the culture. Sojishari perform a role that brings upon them much pollution; like the butcher, executioner, or undertakers, they are seen as impure due to their association with the shedding of blood, dealing with death, and meddling with dark spirits.

Role in Society

Sojishari are often trained in the monastic arts, while also being armed in the way of an Ishtari knight. They are unemployed in the sense they receive no payment, but monasteries associated with the Kirrentai or Alsivai regions must supply them with housing and meals provided they do their duty of expelling bad spirits. A Sojishari often seeks out sources of defilement such as minor blight outbreaks, demons, murders, and bloodshed; upon discovering a source of defilement, they attempt to use magic to purify the land after facing and defeating the nearby corrupted spirits and beings. Without the Sojishari, it is likely that minor outbreaks of defilement could spiral into much worse events such as a murder infesting a whole village by attracting wild hostile spirits that attack or even possess people. It is thought to be a sacrifice of ones life to become a Sojishari, with funerals conducted upon the departure from a monastery; Sojishari souls are believed to be hunted by hostile spirits in the spirit world that werent fully destroyed, and for this reason people believe that the souls of a Sojishari are practically forfeit. Religious experts dispute this however, as a banished spirit loses much of its power and sometimes memory.

History

The first mention of a proper Sojishari is found in a book of Alsivai monastic code from the 600s, where they mention that spirit-hunters are to be kept out of cities except when necessary due to the hostile karma that follows them around due to their banishment of spirits. During the latest years of the Ketsing, some warrior poets from Soranna traveled north to become Sojishari before returning home and introducing it to that region for some time prior to it being lost again. The tradition spread to Koisha by the 300s, where Sojishari were instead tied to individual monasteries and would often kill themselves and be cremated after slaying enough spirits as to not draw further pollution.

Famed Sojishari