There is no greater mystery than that of the Asmosynes’ origin.
This is due in part to their nature as spiritual beings and the lack of a common history or folklore among them. I hesitate to call the Asmosynes a race, by conventional terms. As far as I understand, they do not procreate, and they are deathless, making their numbers set for eternity.
Many have doubted the existence of Asmosynes, not unlike those who disbelieve in the Guardians. But perhaps if we are willing to believe in a greater, benevolent power, we should entertain the idea of something that exists between our mortal selves and the omnipotence of a god.
The Asmosynes are frequently accused of being demons and spirits, which is a notion I seek to dispel. I have collected the following data on the Asmosynes throughout my life. This is an attempt to organize this data and help future generations understand these beings.
The Binding
Asmosynes do not exist in the physical realm as we understand it. From what I have gathered, there is a spiritual plane that roughly lines up with our physical realm, and they can travel upon it.
But the spiritual plane is unstable, and drains their energy. While they cannot die, they can linger in the place where they lay unbonded, until a mortal happens upon them.
When they find a mortal of an intelligent species possessing an untouched soul in the physical realm at the approximate corresponding location in the spiritual plane, they will bind to the mortal.
As far as I understand, this process cannot be prevented.
At this point, when the Asmosyne binds itself to the mortal’s soul, it undergoes a form of rebirth. All of its memories are archived in some manner, no longer associating them with its own identity, but some past life. The oldest memories are jettisoned from the Asmosyne’s self, which is why we do not have an understanding of the Asmosynes’ origin.
Upon binding and fusing with the mortal’s soul, if the mortal still conscious, the Asmosyne will remove cognition temporarily from the mortal. (Some texts liken this effect to possession, but I have found no data to support this comparison. It is closer to borrowing a book from the library, albeit on a more frightening scale for the mortal.)
The Asmosyne will then inhabit the body of the mortal and, given that the circumstances provide some privacy, shape the mortal’s body into a form it finds appropriate. The form changes with each individual Asmosyne and mortal soul it finds. Often, the combined form will be a larger, more brutish version of the mortal’s original form.
Usually, the Asmosyne will add a few other physical features to the mortal’s body, depending on the personality of both the Asmosyne and the mortal it binds to, including but not limited to:
Obsidian Shards
Horns
Bone-like Spikes
Serpentine Tongue
Fangs
Tusks
Sharpened Nails or Claws
and/or Wings
When the Asmosyne is satisfied with its reborn form occupying the physical realm, it will retreat into the mortal’s fused soul and return the mortal’s form to its usual state.
Once this binding is complete, the mortal and the Asmosyne effectively have two forms that either can switch between, but only the Asmosyne is aware of the trigger to activate the shift.
Awareness and Cognition
At this point, the Asmosyne must communicate its presence to the mortal it has bound itself too and explain the its own nature.
There are many ways that it can do this, from using the mortal’s body while it sleeps to leave notes, to outright speaking within the mortal’s mind. Ultimately, the decision made here will shape how the mortal perceives the Asmosyne and how it manifests.
Those that speak within the mind are often treated as split personalities. Reacting poorly, they can hide the Asmosyne, but will be unable to activate the trigger to switch forms. Mortals with weak willpower occasionally give over their entire lives to the Asmosyne with many questions unanswered, and ultimately expire without understanding what has happened to them.
The Asmosynes that simply leave notes or try to avoid contact with the mortal at all are often explained with some kind of mental disease, such as narcolepsy or sleepwalking. These Asmosynes rarely appear in physical form or speak to others about themselves.
However, if the Asmosyne explains the situation truthfully and the mortal accepts the Asmosyne’s narrative, there can be a beneficial and symbiotic relationship.
(This is my current situation.)
Asmosyne Motives and Desires
The Asmosyne are not evil by traditional thought. They do not seek to tear down the world and rebuild it with themselves as rulers, but in many ways they are champions of the self, often at the cost of others.
My hypothesis is that by their lonely nature, they find no common ground with the unbound mortals that they meet through their hosts, and encourage their hosts to act in a similar manner, or if the host is not conscious, they encourage the other mortals around the host.
Again, some might see this as demonic temptation, but the typical interests of an Asmosyne rarely line up with the ambition we like to associate with “demons”. Asmosynes would rather see mortals take a short term benefit to delayed gratification, and encourage hedonism.
An Asmosyne will usually recommend a certain type of action in the search for self-gratification: Some seek to make their host more intelligent, some lecherous. Usually, they draw upon the weaknesses of the host to strengthen those areas and create either a more well-rounded individual or a specialized expert.
And some might think they condone self-destructive behavior, but as long as their host lives and breathes, they are far better off than trying to find a new host or linger across realms.
Symbiotic Asmosyne Relationships
If the factors line up, and the mortal both accepts the Asmosyne’s nature and desires, a symbiotic relationship occurs. Some Asmosynes and their hosts continue to operate with separate mental states, but the records I have seen indicate that both souls find harmony and fuse together over time.
My own Asmosyne and I do not have separate names. We both answer to my given name at birth, and we both feel comfortable with that. Some other relationships use different names, but instinct wins out and both the Asmosyne and the host will answer to either name.
In truth, it is hard to separate the Asmosyne and the mortal host as individuals once the symbiotic relationship takes hold.
Some untouched mortals might find this uncomfortable. But I can say for sure that there is no recorded instance of a symbiotic relationship taking place followed by regret by any party.
Death and Rebinding
There is only one way to separate an Asmosyne from its mortal host: Death.
Death, if we define it as separating a soul from its physical body, also triggers the distillation of the two souls that were previously fused together. The separation can take anywhere between seconds and days, depending on the time the souls spent merged together.
We have no evidence of what happens to the mortal soul after the mortal’s body dies. But the Asmosyne, back in its spiritual form, wanders the spiritual plane until it can find another mortal soul to bind to.
And the process begins once more.
Orcanist 