Wisp
Wisps are the immortals associated with the Mother, Sapience's Beautiful Unity. They're a race of mostly psychopomps whose duty is to pick up the souls of the deceased. When mortals die, their souls linger for a few days, when they can be reattached to their own body by necromancers, attached to magical devices like soulstealers or ascension stones, or eliminated.
If they get to their target soul in time, wisps will ferry it over to one of two afterlives; the preferred option of the Mother's Meadow, owing to this being their mistress, or if the soul is unworthy, they ferry the soul to the Sovereign, but are considerably more hands-off about the exchange. Worthiness is based on multiple criteria, including how selfless the person has been, whether the person committed suicide, how kind or agreeable the soul was in life, and even the soul's own choice when elucidated in conversation.
Following this decision, wisps will talk with their soul about their life on the passage to their given afterlife. They have access to the soul's every memory, and act as spiritual counselors of sort in that they work through a soul's issues by discussing their life. This helps the soul move on, accept their death, and prepare for their afterlife. They're imbued with an empathy befitting their compassionate creator, but have one trait the Mother does not: The ability to view others as individuals rather than the sum of their traits.
This enables them to provide tailored experiences, often lengthening the trip to the afterlife to properly engage and work with their souls. This often leads to souls considering their wisp much more of a friend than the generic loving figure represented by the Mother. Alas, their journey is usually where their friendship ends, as wisps are ever busy, always heading to yet another soul lying in wait.
Aside from psychopomp wisps, there are also custodian wisps that serve souls in the Mother's Meadow, as well as nannies for child souls waiting to be reincarnated (as children haven't lived lives long enough to be properly judged). These wisps help children come to terms with their death and prepare for a second life, ensuring they are not corrupted and dragged elsewhere prior to their reincarnation.
Additional Information
Facial characteristics
Wisps lack facial features by default, though as part of their duties as spiritual counselors, they can adopt forms with faces so as to empathise more clearly with their passengers/charges.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Wisps come for all souls of the dead, regardless of where they die. Once dead, a soul will linger for a few days until either bound to a magical device or found by the wisps.
Average Intelligence
Wisps are highly intelligent, as they're partially there to be counselors to the recently deceased to help them move on. They're empathetic, patient, and kind. Most notably, however, they do not treat each case as the same, as the Mother, their creator, does, allowing them to be much more of a friend to their brief passengers than their eternal soul steward, the Mother.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Psychopomp wisps don't normally name themselves, as their role is to be a fleeting helper who helps a spirit move on from its life then disappear from that spirit's afterlife to move on to the next. Nanny and custodian wisps occasionally have names, but only if assigned one by the souls they serve, meaning they could sound as though from any mortal culture.
Major Organizations
The Church of the Mother
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Psychopomp wisps don't have a proper relationship with any given mortal race, as they're only seen in the brief passage between life and afterlife, but are generally agreed to be kind and decent. Meanwhile nanny and custodian wisps are usually beloved by the admittedly already-inclined-to-positivity souls of the Mother's Meadow.
Scientific Name
Deus pendentes
Origin/Ancestry
The Mother
Average Physique
Wisps lack a true physique, and only approach souls. They are similarly incorporeal, and usually it would take an exceptional mortal to cause a wisp to take a visible form to the living, let alone a physical one.
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