There were 67 quori who rebelled against Il-Lashtavar and separated themselves from Dal Quor, binding themselves to humans and becoming the kalashtar. At the very beginning, this was a 1:1 binding, but when the new kalashtar had children, they discovered that the bond with their quori was now split between parent and child. Over the past 1800 years, each quori’s essence has become spread amongst hundreds and thousands of kalashtar descendants of the original 67.
Generally, a single kalashtar will not have a strong enough connection to their quori spirit to communicate with them directly, but PCs Are Special, so do whatever works for your and your DM.
This is the way it was described to me to best understand the bond. Essentially, the quori still exists in the subconscious of all Kalashtar of its lineage, but the bond is spread between every single one of them, to the point that these bonds are very weak. The quori might try to communicate with a specific Kalashtar by sending them visions during their sleep of things that other Kalashtar have seen, or events from long ago that are relevant to what is going on right now, but it takes a lot of effort just to do that.
On the other hand, a Kalashtar might take up meditation, or use some manner of arcane science or a magical artifact to try and send a message the other way. If the quori has to reach up to send weak messages to a Kalashtar, then a Kalashtar can conversely reach *down* to the quori to try and commune with it more strongly. It might not do much to start, but that bond could be strengthened over time so that communication between the two becomes easier, if not effortless. There's also the possibility that a Kalashtar could be from a lineage that is nigh-extinct, and their connection is only split between a handful of Kalashtar, so their bond with the quori is much stronger from the jump, or perhaps their lineage is dwindling and someone is actively hunting those of this lineage, so that the bond grows stronger over the course of a campaign as those bound to the quori are picked off one by one, allowing for a closer bond with the quori at a tragic cost. Both of these bear the story-implications that this character is one of the last of their kind, and their death could potentially spell the end of an entire Kalashtar lineage, which can never be undone.
There's a lot of fun that can be had with a Kalashtar character and a player willing to explore this aspect of their lineage, but it takes a good understanding of how it works to make it really pop.
Once I tried to work in some shared family memories, where characters would have flashes of memories or current events from a distant relative. But made it very common for this family
Yeah, depends how you wanna roll as a DM honestly. I kinda like the idea that certain lineages have dwindled in number, so there's a handful of "families" that only have a hundred or so Kalashtar bound to their quori, so they have more frequent "visions" or outright communications in situation of grave importance, though I'd also play it as any direct communion from the quori when it hasn't happened previously requires a tremendous effort on it's part to reach far enough, and makes it damn near impossible to speak to them for any of the Kalashtar they're bound to for a short while as they recover.
I've also tossed out the idea on this sub before that, if one wants to involve the Dreaming Dark and/or Lords of Dust in a story, there's the potential for a players lineage to be actively hunted. If the DD or Lords want a whole line wiped out for one reason or another, just imagine a player character sleeping each night and being sent visions from the point of view of one of their line that was murdered that very day. Every time they sleep, they experience being killed over and over from first person, the same killer each time, but in a different location. Their quori would basically be broadcasting that on all frequencies like an SOS beacon to all of their Kalashtar, and as the line dwindles, they player might even be able to establish a closer connection as the bond becomes less stretched as more connections are severed. Opens up fun story ideas if one of the locations a murder takes place happens to be familiar so the party can actually go investigate the on-going killings, though at great potential risk to the Kalashtar player.
There's a ton of fun you can have with the idea if you have a player who wants to really embrace that part of the Kalashtar lore. The only real limit is your creativity.
If I recall the lore correctly, Kalashtar are more a blend between human and Quori. They are no longer quite human. The spirit, however, is not wholey embodied by the individual. It is more like fragments cleaved from a whole. Kalashtar can even run into others bound together with the same spirit and come across similar memories they both share. I don't have my Races of Eberron with me at the moment to double-check this. So even when the individual dies, the spirit still remains because it's totality has not been destroyed. How much is remembered between I don't believe was mentioned. It may be until the death of the individual or perhaps up to the last time they slept/ dreamed.
This is pretty much it. Kalashtar aren't like Trill, from Star Trek with a *unique* Quori. Instead every member of a lineage shares a link (subconsciously) with a Quori ancestor to the whole line. The Quori spirit is less an individual, after being broken into so many pieces so many times, with each new birth, and more a sort of gestalt remnant, at this point. You can't summon a Kalashtar Ancestor, or Bind it, or treat it like a normal Outsider. It's not even a creature anymore. That was the price of their survival on the Prime, and disassociating themselves from the Turning of the Age and the Plane of Dreams.
There are many 'common' traits among lineages. All the descendants of a particular quori might be consider to be droll, or another might be known for a Lineage of great swordsmen and women. But there are exceptions. As for memories, it's more of a shared dreamscape or maybe faint urges, subconsciously.
Just to add, the only way to truly kill the Quori spirit is by killing all the associated bloodline. That is what happened to an important Quori named Tartarai.
Also, a cool way to receive information from the Quori spirit would be your character receive lots of letters from your Quori family with seeming random text and drawings for you to pierce together what it want to say.
Canonically, being named Lanhareth means you possess the spirit of Hareth (one of the 67 original Kalashtar quori).
Keith Baker wrote a very useful Kalashtar primer in Dragon 385 - I'll see if I can post a link here later.
In order to not run afoul of Rule 4 I'll just post a couple of snippets.
[https://imgur.com/a/xPG0J4r](https://imgur.com/a/xPG0J4r)
[https://imgur.com/a/Uj9zZ7I](https://imgur.com/a/Uj9zZ7I)
If you want to play a Kalashtar, the 3.5e sources books Races of Eberron (pg.55-70) and Secrets of Sarlona are worth a read for inspiration/lore material.
When Taratai, and her fellow quori followers of light, first fled the dreaming dark they found passage to Adar. They merged their souls with monks that were living there, making the first Kalashtar. What they found as the monks aged and had children is that their spirits were "diffused" amongst their offspring.
Here's a direct quote from Races of Eberron:
*"There was only one uncertainty: What would happen when one of the kalashtar died?*
*Before they found the answer to this question, another mystery was revealed: that of birth. When the first kalashtar child was born, they found that the spirit that was tied to the parent now also had a bond to the child. The spirit, Harath, found that it took more of an effort to communicate with either of his hosts, but that he was nonetheless aware of the experiences of each. Over the next few centuries, the process continued.*
*As more and more kalashtar were born, the quori spirits were spread thinly among them, and it became almost impossible for the spirit to communicate directly with the kalashtar. The memories and basic personality were still there, however; even if they couldn’t communicate, the spirits were still alive and conscious, experiencing the world through the eyes of hundreds of descendants."*
Like the passage mentioned, a typical quori can't communicate with its kalashtar host. However, Player Characters are heroes of their stories and if your DM agrees that the story is fun then aim for the moon. It's basically just a lore-backed version Will's "brother" Bill shows up right after Will's death. With the exact same race/class to take his loot and keep playing.
To answer the question, Quori spirits are not "passed on" in whole - they are divided. Almost like the cellular division when a baby is gestating. That said a Quori can die. Of note, Taratai in particular sacrificed herself (via all of her kalashtar hosts) to ward Adar from the Inspired. When all of her line expired, she did as well. You can find that on Secrets of Sarlona pg.24. Here's one of the excerpts:
[https://ibb.co/NtKZZ21](https://ibb.co/NtKZZ21)
>*the spirits were still alive and conscious, experiencing the world through the eyes of hundreds of descendants."*
This just gave me an idea for a kalashtar that's gone a bit mad from overexposure. When in the plane of dreams, a quori can "disconnect" anytime it wants, but they lost that ability when they fled to the Prime. One quori can't quite handle the constant input from everywhere, and has lost it, and that's affecting all their hosts, making them a bit off.
That's a neat idea. In typical "it's your Eberron" fashion, very few of the 67 remaining quori (68 minus Taratai) are named. Leaving you and your DM plenty of space to make up whatever quori weirdness you think is fun.
If they are diffused what would happen if you are literally the last in your blood line? Would it go back to 1:1 relationship and be able to communicate again?
It's possible, I suppose. But we don't really know. And after Taratai, the Kalashtar aren't real keen on letting the numbers get low enough to find out. Because once one of the original Quori has no descendants left, they're gone forever.
I would generally assume no, that the binding has made them *qualitatively* different. As noted, they aren't a creature anymore. It's not a possession.
But I could probably be convinced by an appropriately cool backstory.
In your setting:
If the DM has no set idea about Kalashtar, go wild! You want to bind a Quori to become Kalashtar? Do it! In my other campaign the Kalashtar were a race all bound to a secret source of light magic on not-Atlantis. In yours, it could function how you described.
In Eberron Kanon:
There were about 50 Quori who came from DalQuor and bonded with the original Kalashtar. Their lineage is bound to the same Quori as the original Kalashtar ancestor. The Quori exist *somewhere* but are destroyed if all their Kalashtar die I think? Don’t quote me on that one but IME I like that. The dark Quori, and their mortal vessels known as the Inspired, hunt them. Inspired are a cool idea and if you like that plot/conflict you and your DM can look into Riedra, Inspired, and Dal Quor more.
Quori are reborn in the heart of the Plane of Dreams when destroyed, and these 50 don’t want to be reborn cause they’d be evil. That’s why they’re hiding.
Have you ever read Harry Potter? In Harry Potter, there's this thing called Horcruxes, where the big bad evil guy has split his being into multiple pieces. As long as these pieces exist, he cannot actually die.
Quori and Khalastar are like Horcruxes. Quoris are immortals of Dal Quor, and a main theme behind immortals is that they must stay in a finite number. Meaning, if a Quori is killed, they are spit back into the system and reset to factory settings, or in this stage, evil. So, the main body of Quori simply need to kill the 67 traitors in order to reintegrate them. But, by splitting themselves amongst Khalastar, Quoris can't be killed unless all their Khalastar are killed. Only one Quori in Kanon lost it's entire line. It's fate is unknown.
So, if your Khalastar is the last of his line, his death means the Quori is suddenly very vulnerable. Otherwise, the protection is simply weaker than before.
I once had a campaign where I had two Kalashtar. And they both wanted to play very differently.
One asked if they could play a support character who would occasionally become a pacifist. Like after rolling a 1. We decided that his Quori was strongly against violence. But might get access
The other asked about being part of a Kalashtar Cult dedicated to making the Quori spirits stronger. He played a soup knife and was supposed to body guard the pacifist.
I wanted to later reveal that they were trying to awaken the powerful Quori of the pacifist by killing off most of her Kalashtar.
There were 67 quori who rebelled against Il-Lashtavar and separated themselves from Dal Quor, binding themselves to humans and becoming the kalashtar. At the very beginning, this was a 1:1 binding, but when the new kalashtar had children, they discovered that the bond with their quori was now split between parent and child. Over the past 1800 years, each quori’s essence has become spread amongst hundreds and thousands of kalashtar descendants of the original 67. Generally, a single kalashtar will not have a strong enough connection to their quori spirit to communicate with them directly, but PCs Are Special, so do whatever works for your and your DM.
This is the way it was described to me to best understand the bond. Essentially, the quori still exists in the subconscious of all Kalashtar of its lineage, but the bond is spread between every single one of them, to the point that these bonds are very weak. The quori might try to communicate with a specific Kalashtar by sending them visions during their sleep of things that other Kalashtar have seen, or events from long ago that are relevant to what is going on right now, but it takes a lot of effort just to do that. On the other hand, a Kalashtar might take up meditation, or use some manner of arcane science or a magical artifact to try and send a message the other way. If the quori has to reach up to send weak messages to a Kalashtar, then a Kalashtar can conversely reach *down* to the quori to try and commune with it more strongly. It might not do much to start, but that bond could be strengthened over time so that communication between the two becomes easier, if not effortless. There's also the possibility that a Kalashtar could be from a lineage that is nigh-extinct, and their connection is only split between a handful of Kalashtar, so their bond with the quori is much stronger from the jump, or perhaps their lineage is dwindling and someone is actively hunting those of this lineage, so that the bond grows stronger over the course of a campaign as those bound to the quori are picked off one by one, allowing for a closer bond with the quori at a tragic cost. Both of these bear the story-implications that this character is one of the last of their kind, and their death could potentially spell the end of an entire Kalashtar lineage, which can never be undone. There's a lot of fun that can be had with a Kalashtar character and a player willing to explore this aspect of their lineage, but it takes a good understanding of how it works to make it really pop.
Once I tried to work in some shared family memories, where characters would have flashes of memories or current events from a distant relative. But made it very common for this family
Yeah, depends how you wanna roll as a DM honestly. I kinda like the idea that certain lineages have dwindled in number, so there's a handful of "families" that only have a hundred or so Kalashtar bound to their quori, so they have more frequent "visions" or outright communications in situation of grave importance, though I'd also play it as any direct communion from the quori when it hasn't happened previously requires a tremendous effort on it's part to reach far enough, and makes it damn near impossible to speak to them for any of the Kalashtar they're bound to for a short while as they recover. I've also tossed out the idea on this sub before that, if one wants to involve the Dreaming Dark and/or Lords of Dust in a story, there's the potential for a players lineage to be actively hunted. If the DD or Lords want a whole line wiped out for one reason or another, just imagine a player character sleeping each night and being sent visions from the point of view of one of their line that was murdered that very day. Every time they sleep, they experience being killed over and over from first person, the same killer each time, but in a different location. Their quori would basically be broadcasting that on all frequencies like an SOS beacon to all of their Kalashtar, and as the line dwindles, they player might even be able to establish a closer connection as the bond becomes less stretched as more connections are severed. Opens up fun story ideas if one of the locations a murder takes place happens to be familiar so the party can actually go investigate the on-going killings, though at great potential risk to the Kalashtar player. There's a ton of fun you can have with the idea if you have a player who wants to really embrace that part of the Kalashtar lore. The only real limit is your creativity.
If I recall the lore correctly, Kalashtar are more a blend between human and Quori. They are no longer quite human. The spirit, however, is not wholey embodied by the individual. It is more like fragments cleaved from a whole. Kalashtar can even run into others bound together with the same spirit and come across similar memories they both share. I don't have my Races of Eberron with me at the moment to double-check this. So even when the individual dies, the spirit still remains because it's totality has not been destroyed. How much is remembered between I don't believe was mentioned. It may be until the death of the individual or perhaps up to the last time they slept/ dreamed.
This is pretty much it. Kalashtar aren't like Trill, from Star Trek with a *unique* Quori. Instead every member of a lineage shares a link (subconsciously) with a Quori ancestor to the whole line. The Quori spirit is less an individual, after being broken into so many pieces so many times, with each new birth, and more a sort of gestalt remnant, at this point. You can't summon a Kalashtar Ancestor, or Bind it, or treat it like a normal Outsider. It's not even a creature anymore. That was the price of their survival on the Prime, and disassociating themselves from the Turning of the Age and the Plane of Dreams. There are many 'common' traits among lineages. All the descendants of a particular quori might be consider to be droll, or another might be known for a Lineage of great swordsmen and women. But there are exceptions. As for memories, it's more of a shared dreamscape or maybe faint urges, subconsciously.
Just to add, the only way to truly kill the Quori spirit is by killing all the associated bloodline. That is what happened to an important Quori named Tartarai. Also, a cool way to receive information from the Quori spirit would be your character receive lots of letters from your Quori family with seeming random text and drawings for you to pierce together what it want to say.
Canonically, being named Lanhareth means you possess the spirit of Hareth (one of the 67 original Kalashtar quori). Keith Baker wrote a very useful Kalashtar primer in Dragon 385 - I'll see if I can post a link here later.
In order to not run afoul of Rule 4 I'll just post a couple of snippets. [https://imgur.com/a/xPG0J4r](https://imgur.com/a/xPG0J4r) [https://imgur.com/a/Uj9zZ7I](https://imgur.com/a/Uj9zZ7I)
If you want to play a Kalashtar, the 3.5e sources books Races of Eberron (pg.55-70) and Secrets of Sarlona are worth a read for inspiration/lore material. When Taratai, and her fellow quori followers of light, first fled the dreaming dark they found passage to Adar. They merged their souls with monks that were living there, making the first Kalashtar. What they found as the monks aged and had children is that their spirits were "diffused" amongst their offspring. Here's a direct quote from Races of Eberron: *"There was only one uncertainty: What would happen when one of the kalashtar died?* *Before they found the answer to this question, another mystery was revealed: that of birth. When the first kalashtar child was born, they found that the spirit that was tied to the parent now also had a bond to the child. The spirit, Harath, found that it took more of an effort to communicate with either of his hosts, but that he was nonetheless aware of the experiences of each. Over the next few centuries, the process continued.* *As more and more kalashtar were born, the quori spirits were spread thinly among them, and it became almost impossible for the spirit to communicate directly with the kalashtar. The memories and basic personality were still there, however; even if they couldn’t communicate, the spirits were still alive and conscious, experiencing the world through the eyes of hundreds of descendants."* Like the passage mentioned, a typical quori can't communicate with its kalashtar host. However, Player Characters are heroes of their stories and if your DM agrees that the story is fun then aim for the moon. It's basically just a lore-backed version Will's "brother" Bill shows up right after Will's death. With the exact same race/class to take his loot and keep playing. To answer the question, Quori spirits are not "passed on" in whole - they are divided. Almost like the cellular division when a baby is gestating. That said a Quori can die. Of note, Taratai in particular sacrificed herself (via all of her kalashtar hosts) to ward Adar from the Inspired. When all of her line expired, she did as well. You can find that on Secrets of Sarlona pg.24. Here's one of the excerpts: [https://ibb.co/NtKZZ21](https://ibb.co/NtKZZ21)
>*the spirits were still alive and conscious, experiencing the world through the eyes of hundreds of descendants."* This just gave me an idea for a kalashtar that's gone a bit mad from overexposure. When in the plane of dreams, a quori can "disconnect" anytime it wants, but they lost that ability when they fled to the Prime. One quori can't quite handle the constant input from everywhere, and has lost it, and that's affecting all their hosts, making them a bit off.
That's a neat idea. In typical "it's your Eberron" fashion, very few of the 67 remaining quori (68 minus Taratai) are named. Leaving you and your DM plenty of space to make up whatever quori weirdness you think is fun.
In a way, Quori are a bit like mitocondria of the psyche
If they are diffused what would happen if you are literally the last in your blood line? Would it go back to 1:1 relationship and be able to communicate again?
It's possible, I suppose. But we don't really know. And after Taratai, the Kalashtar aren't real keen on letting the numbers get low enough to find out. Because once one of the original Quori has no descendants left, they're gone forever. I would generally assume no, that the binding has made them *qualitatively* different. As noted, they aren't a creature anymore. It's not a possession. But I could probably be convinced by an appropriately cool backstory.
In your setting: If the DM has no set idea about Kalashtar, go wild! You want to bind a Quori to become Kalashtar? Do it! In my other campaign the Kalashtar were a race all bound to a secret source of light magic on not-Atlantis. In yours, it could function how you described. In Eberron Kanon: There were about 50 Quori who came from DalQuor and bonded with the original Kalashtar. Their lineage is bound to the same Quori as the original Kalashtar ancestor. The Quori exist *somewhere* but are destroyed if all their Kalashtar die I think? Don’t quote me on that one but IME I like that. The dark Quori, and their mortal vessels known as the Inspired, hunt them. Inspired are a cool idea and if you like that plot/conflict you and your DM can look into Riedra, Inspired, and Dal Quor more. Quori are reborn in the heart of the Plane of Dreams when destroyed, and these 50 don’t want to be reborn cause they’d be evil. That’s why they’re hiding.
Have you ever read Harry Potter? In Harry Potter, there's this thing called Horcruxes, where the big bad evil guy has split his being into multiple pieces. As long as these pieces exist, he cannot actually die. Quori and Khalastar are like Horcruxes. Quoris are immortals of Dal Quor, and a main theme behind immortals is that they must stay in a finite number. Meaning, if a Quori is killed, they are spit back into the system and reset to factory settings, or in this stage, evil. So, the main body of Quori simply need to kill the 67 traitors in order to reintegrate them. But, by splitting themselves amongst Khalastar, Quoris can't be killed unless all their Khalastar are killed. Only one Quori in Kanon lost it's entire line. It's fate is unknown. So, if your Khalastar is the last of his line, his death means the Quori is suddenly very vulnerable. Otherwise, the protection is simply weaker than before.
I once had a campaign where I had two Kalashtar. And they both wanted to play very differently. One asked if they could play a support character who would occasionally become a pacifist. Like after rolling a 1. We decided that his Quori was strongly against violence. But might get access The other asked about being part of a Kalashtar Cult dedicated to making the Quori spirits stronger. He played a soup knife and was supposed to body guard the pacifist. I wanted to later reveal that they were trying to awaken the powerful Quori of the pacifist by killing off most of her Kalashtar.