At the beginning of the universe, The Expanse was empty. Dust came to be, alongside the first Inna, Hafei, to fill the void. From dust comes Essence and Souls. These two, along with dust in its pure form, make up the universe. Dust also sparks the powers of Creation and Construction.
Pure Dust is dormant dust, not being used for any sort of creation or magic. It lays inert in the universe, until a being uses it for Creation . This is dust in its default state.
When dust is active and part of a being, it will always become either essence or soul. Beings cannot absorb or hold onto pure dust in its inert form.
Essence creates things with physical forms, but without magic or souls. It is created from pure dust.
Souls give life and sentience using magic. It is created from pure dust, highly compressed. These souls will attach themselves to dust (either in pure form or in the form of essence) and will create a living being.
To be considered “alive”, a being must possess enough Soul to hold themselves together, and support their life. Some beings also have essence to give themselves a physical form, but this is not necessary.
Essence and soul do not mix, so generally the way this appears is with a smaller, compressed Soul core within an outer Essence shell.
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Inna are beings made purely of Soul dust. They contain no Essence, and thus do not have a physical form.
Selhae and Fae follow the most common structure of being. This is a soul, surrounded by essence that provides a physical form and appearance to the being.
Constructs are similar to the Selhae and Fae, except their soul is incomplete. The soul dust within them, on its own, is not enough to facilitate life. So, it is supplemented with Essence. This is unique to constructs, and cannot be done to normal Selhae or Fae souls.
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a diagram showing the dust makeup of different beings. purple - soul, blue - essence
All forms of dust essentially want to return back to this default, inert state, as it is the most stable. Over time, beings will slowly “lose” their soul dust or essence (known as “waning”), as it returns to its stable form as pure dust.
In terms of stability, pure dust is the most stable, then essence, then soul. So, since souls are the most unstable state for dust to be in, the soul will wane/lose dust before essence will.
Other than gradually waning over time, using magic will also cause soul to wane.
When the soul wanes completely, the being owning this soul dies. It has no soul, and is purely essence. Then, as there is no soul to hold the essence together, the essence begins to wane as well. When a being’s essence has completely waned, the being essentially disappears. It has no essence, or soul, and no longer Exists.
In general, the more dust a being has, the stronger it is. This could mean a lot of things - the being may be able to hold itself together better, and would wane slower. Its magic and abilities would also be stronger.