:Are dead souls - conscious at all ever -:

They can be. Spirit guides, which the Star-Eyed makes use of, experience and remember, though they perceive time differently when not speaking to a human on the god's behalf. Most dead souls are not spirit guides, though.

:And those are just in storage not having experiences?:

More or less, yes. Occasionally there are living humans with the skill to find and interact with them in the spirit world, but lacking a body, or other scaffolding such as what spirit guides have, they are not fully conscious and do not form memories.

:I've been wondering if I could make bodies - not Companion ones, probably modified monkeys - for souls to go into, to bring people back, would that work?:

Pause, a distant sense of concepts being manipulated.

Yes, souls could be placed in bodies. I do not think a human can directly call a particular soul, but - perhaps something could be done with the Shadow-Lover avatar. It would require setup. 

:What kind of setup?:

Some of it I can figure out, I think, if you tell me how you want it to work. And I might wish to speak with Leareth, if something needs to be built on the end for humans to talk to.

:I was imagining modifying monkeys to be human-like - I have a population of those started already - and making them look approximately like someone in particular, which I may teach more people to do, and then putting in a request to you that a specific monkey should be installed with a specific soul:

More sense of thinking.

Yes, I think that is feasible and will not be a large resource expenditure. Other gods might not wish to cooperate and give you their souls, though.

:What governs who has a soul?:

Physical location, usually, for territories. Though dedicated worshippers of a particular god will go to them even if they travel elsewhere, and any peoples with a pact to a god, such as the Shin'a'in and Tayledras, will always go to them no matter what.

:And having a soul is mostly useful so they can be reincarnated later at key moments as a lever of influence?:

Yes. Or used in other kinds of system, such as the spirit guides or Vkandis' Suncats, though I suppose one could also count that as a reincarnation.

:Interesting. Do you store - higher fidelity memories than what Companions have access to, in some or all cases?:

Not higher fidelity, exactly, but more. Companions will usually only be given memories of one past life, if there were several.

:From a human perspective it would be a lot better if when I start asking for souls to stick in monkeys they remember as much of their life as possible, if that's something you can - prep for at all? Human memory fidelity isn't great either but missing tons of it like Companions would be really disappointing:

It would be possible but somewhat resource-costly. Can you describe to me from the human perspective why this is important?

:I'd be wanting to put people back in their original contexts as much as possible, not starting them over like Companions. We don't tend to like it when people die and the less it can be like somebody died the better, in most situations - my monkey has wings and a tail but I'm not expecting those to be universally popular, I think most people will want to look the same and go back to what they were doing. Leareth handles this with notes when he doesn't remember stuff but most people don't take as good notes as he or I do and they take time to re-read that would be more preferably spent doing other things. Uh, also ideally if you're putting back Heralds or their Companions they should be able to come back fast, before their partner's spent too long with a broken connection, and should be able to slot right back into the bond - that worked eventually for my lifebond when Leareth came back but I don't know if Companion-bonds are normally the same way in that respect:

Noted. Thank you. I will consider the tradeoff here, but probably some better fidelity can be implemented.

:Thanks. Uh, are substantial numbers of souls from your territory going elsewhere - Kernos, Astera, they have lots of worshipers locally -:

Pause, thinking. 

I do not think more than one-tenth of the population are sufficiently dedicated worshippers of other gods to go to them, and Kernos and Astera both pay relatively less attention to the souls of the dying, since They do not have avatars for it.

:One-tenth of the population is still more than ideal - where are those going, typically?:

Vkandis, in the southern regions that were once Vkandis' territory, where He still has some committed worshippers. Some near the border with Hardorn go to the Sky-Father and Earth-Mother. Kernos gathers some people in the north where it is less centrally my territory and where He has the most serious worshippers.

:Are any of those gods going to be... mad or anything in a way I should care about... if I put out an advisory noting that it will likely make people harder to resurrect if they're particularly devoted worshippers thereof?: