In 5E, I've seen that becoming a mindflayer or vampire robs you of your soul, yet everything about you seemingly remains, at least until/unless an elderbrain or vampire lord ensnare your free will.

At the same time however, devils and even some demons are hungry for mortal souls, making deals and the like to gain them.

I guess my real question is, if your body can exist without your soul, then what even is it? If not your mind or self, if not your spirit that goes to one or more afterlives, then what the heck is it?

P.S where does it go if you become a vampire or mindflayer? Surely it doesn't just cease to exist.

>uh, I dunno anon. But could you get in the closet already? Me and Mrs. Anon are ready to go.

>>96086644
Can't cuck with a Mrs. That doesn't exist.

>>96086600 (OP)
>In 5e
Irrelevant to the mechanics of the game, because yes those exists, no matter how much the theater kids and youtubers want to convince you otherwise.

>>96086600 (OP)
Your soul is you. Quite literally its what constitutes your actual consciousness and who you are.
Now take that sentence and compare it to how 5e did mindflayers, its a clusterfuck of idiocy, much like all of 5e.
Before 5e, becoming a mindflayer was literal death. You died when the parasite consumed your brain and became the controller of your body, inserting it own soul into the flesh. It might retain some of your memories but it wasn't you and would never be you. There were a rare few mindflayers that would retain far more of your memories, thinking themselves the person they came from, but really weren't (as the persons soul had gone to the afterlife).

And then there are the incredibly rare ones where the person and parasite merge, staying themselves but still a mindflayer. These individuals were resistant to the Elder Brain. They still retained their own souls and were still themselves but with mindflayer powers and flesh. And I must repeat, incredibly rare.

5e decided that all mindlfayers should be like the super rare version, destroying decades of precedent and introducing a fuckton of idiotic and stupid lore issues.

And now having read up on 5e mindflayers, what the goddamn fuck are you talking about? Is this some idiocy introduced by BG3? Or is this the type of idiocy thought up by midwits? Where the fuck did you get any of these ideas of how mindflayers and souls work?

>>96087115
BG3 yeah. They never give an explanation beyond, "Mindflayers don't have souls and you lose it if you turn, per pretty much every npc in-game. Same with vampire, per Astarion.

>>96087256
>BG3 yeah.
Of course.
>"Mindflayers don't have souls and you lose it if you turn, per pretty much every npc in-game.
Man I hate 5e. Mindflayers have souls and they worship a god called Illsensine.
>Same with vampire, per Astarion.
WTF. Vampires have souls, its part of their whole schtick that they are cursed souls trapped in undead bodies forced to eat blood to sustain their existence or else become feral monsters. God, I fucking hate 5e.

God I hate the tweaks 5e did to lore which fucks things up and has carry-on effects to other lore.

>>96086600 (OP)
Go read the 2e stuff. That's where most of the flavor and specifics are.

Doesn't Planescape go into a bunch of detail about "soul ecology"? Since it's supposed to be a hub for all the other continuities, presumably FR works the same.