Soul Blade

A Soul Blade is a spiritul tool or weapon used in rituals of death in the Saeric Lands. At first glance, Soul Blades, unlike traditional knives, have no visible blade. They consist of a hilt or handle that must be placed in a special type of holy incense in order to conjure the blade. The blade itsef is made of pure light, although witnesses to death bed retrievals describe the appearance as being similar to dust caught in a ray of sunlight.
Soul Blades play a significant role in society and religion through the death rituals that have grown up amongst the Faithful after the Great Confiscation. The Blades are deeply feared and revered, and can only be weilded by specially trained Saints Servants, known as Soul Servants. They are called to the deathbed of the sick, grievously injured, or elderly, and use the Blades to release the Souls of the dying from their human body. This is considered a great mercy. The special insence that is used to light the Blade is then used to help channel the Soul into a Reliquary Vial.
In the event that a person has died without a Soul Servant in attendance, it is then considered a race against time for the Blade weilder to locate the Soul on the premises and Reliquary it, before the Raven’s Huntsmen can find it and drag it to Perdition. In this way, the occupation of a Soul Servant has become synonymous with the spiritual role of the Phoenix’s Shepherds. These spiritual guardians would help guide lost, trapped or fearful Souls to Her realm. It is believed that in the butchery of the Great Confiscation and the Phoenix’s murder, Her Shepherds were either slain or moulded into the Raven’s Huntsmen.
The hilts and handles of the Soul Blades are typically small, fitting comfortably into the hand of the weilder. It is not known outside the ranks of the Soul Servants whether the Soul Blades are inherited from their peers, or specifically made for each weilder. The supernatural blade is considered a mystery to the Faithful. All that is known is that the method of harnessing that light was developed by Raskvaerii Throwback, Cedomir Ilyuhkin and the Lormontaii Ilusionist, SOmETHING Thevenet.