The Arthumar-Bellarion Theory

The theory behind Soulweaving and souls is everchanging in Iron and has gone through many interpretations and will likely do so again. Originally, it was believed that there were two types of matter: Light and Dark. They represented good and evil, day and night. This was established by the ancient philosopher Cephalos. Nicknamed the Shadow.

Then Makarios the Elementalist came up with the theory of the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Each made up the physical and metaphysical world and were divided into what was hot, dry, wet, and cold. Each of these four elements were pure nature and assigned to different aspects of souls. Souls were made up of these four elements, same with everything in the known world.

Then, recently came the scholarly duo of Arthumar Glore and Alchemist Bellarion who brought forth the theory that there was a fifth element. The fifth element was the power of the Gods, the arcane or Aether, that connects the other four. It is this fifth element that explains what the prior scholars always pondered: the nature and purpose of all things and everything unexplained. The four elements were pure and unchanging, raw power in each of their own ways. The fifth element is what held them together in a human body, making a soul. The Alchemist Bellarion expanded the metallurgist assignments of the five elements to metals during the great Iron boom in the Iron Empire that brought forth the mass production of steel and other metals to vastly improve the Iron infrastructure. Metals were assigned to specific elements, and each metal was given a symbol of Alchemy. Initially, all he could find were the three prime substances: Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. Blood was a unique exception, which released air. With the Alchemist's running theory of a fifth element, Arthumar surmised that there must be a fifth component to draw it out. He searched long and wide, and eventually found Aether in the depths of the Ember volcanoes.

The Alchemist argued that the practice of transmutation in metals that was the Alchemy practice was the same theory as Soulweaving, as a Soulweaver simply transmutes the soul itself with a component. This is the current theory in Iron and what they teach at the Thorn. Alchemy symbols are used for each of the elements to transmute the soul into the element as it is expelled. Now, Alchemists argue about the ever-expanding list of elements that they find, including Iron, but the Soulomancers do not accept any of these new elements as ‘true elements’ since they don’t have the power to transmute souls. They have agreed to call the elements in Soulweaving true elements, and the others lesser elements. Alchemists always pondered why blood was a Soulweaving component when all their experiments returned that blood was made up of several lesser metals. It was this theory that eventually led to the theory of the fifth element: Arcane. The arcane power in blood is what made it tied to air. The initial theory of Light and Dark were brought back under the umbrella of the Arcane element.

The Makarios view on elements was often represented in a diamond. Fire was hot and dry. Its opposite of Water was cold and wet. Connecting the two was Air of hot and wet and its opposite was Earth of dry and cold. Arthumar’s theory holds the five senses alongside the five elements. Earth is the basest element can be perceived by all five senses: heard, felt, seen, tasted, smelled. Then came Water which could be heard, felt, seen, and tasted, but not smelled. Then came Fire which could be heard, felt, and seen, but not tasted or smelled. Air can be heard and felt. Then finally, Arcane, is beyond the senses except for feeling alone. The Arcane is an element that touches the soul, touching your inner self and avoiding all other senses. It can be felt on the skin, causing goosebumps, it can be felt touching on emotion, spinning thought.