Soul Shackles

"Alkanese Rize"

- on the effects of wearing a soul shackle.

About
Soul Shackles (魂の枷, tamashī no kase), commonly referred to as Black Bracelets (黒い腕輪, kuroi udewa), are Enchanted Magical items developed by the dark organization Shepherds to assist it in its mission of spreading despair throughout The Continent.

When worn, soul shackles augment the mind to feel more comfortable sustaining high levels of Soul pollution brought on by negative thoughts. Humans by design begin to lose the will to engage with the world as their soul grows more contaminated, eventually experiencing intense suicidal urges after surpassing a certain pollution percentage to ensure that their life ends before their soul becomes too corrupted to re-enter the Reincarnation Cycle. Through the use of a soul shackle, it is possible to suppress this psychological impulse, enabling a person to continue living even after exceeding the designated threshold. While this is beneficial to the wearer in the short term, allowing them to more easily manage their negative thoughts in their everyday lives, it does nothing to actually resolve their feelings of misery and hopelessness. Even with the aid of a soul shackle, a human whose soul has reached a certain point of contamination is incapable of functioning within society, losing all inhibitions relating to bringing pain to others and redirecting their subconscious desire for self-destruction toward the world around them. Furthermore, soul shackles have the additional effect of passively increasing levels of soul pollution simply by being worn, exponentially shortening the amount of time needed for a soul to become fully contaminated and ensuring that the same individuals who wear them as an escape from their despair will inevitably suffer worse.

Soul shackles were developed over a period of several years by various magic researchers outsourced by benefactors with ties to Shepherds. The process was long and prone to setbacks, relying on trial and error more often than complete understanding. In the early LP Era, a prototype of the soul shackle was distributed to the citizens of the Free City of Caux to test its effects. A flaw in the device's design caused it to convert those that wore it into Undead creatures before their souls could become fully contaminated. The sudden outbreak of undead threw Caux into chaos, destroying the city within days. With development of soul shackles having hit a wall, the famed magic researcher Of Phil was hired to travel to the ruins of Caux and investigate the faulty prototypes. Phil was given no insight into the bracelets' true purpose, knowing only that he was to uncover the reason for their transforming people into undead, and gave them the tentative name of Dream☆Rings (ドリーム☆リング, dorīmu ☆ ringu) as he analyzed them. After weeks of work, Phil was able to discover the source of the zombification, allowing the project to resume.

The perfected version of the soul shackle was finally produced and given to the public by LP0006. Shepherds presented the bracelets to people who had become emotionally cornered as a means of feeling at ease amid their despair, turning them into unwitting accomplices to their plans under the pretense of helping them reclaim ownership of their lives. Though the organization remained discreet in its movements during this period, its actions led to an increase in criminal incidents involving people with high levels of soul pollution wearing soul shackles, which made the devices get quickly identified as the cause. The number of cases involving soul shackles eventually became so numerous that the AL Church, which was in charge of handling all matters relating to soul pollution, administered a request to Adventurers across the Continent to collect any and all black bracelets they could find and give them to their local church in exchange for a cash reward.

Production of soul shackles was eventually stopped when the leading members of Shepherds were defeated by the warrior Rance, destroying the organization beneath them. Shortly afterward, Pope Crook Mofus released an order to the Church's private military the Temple Knights to collect the remaining bracelets scattered throughout the Human Realm, gradually putting an end to their presence on the Continent.

Trivia

 * The name "Soul Shackle" (魂の枷) can alternatively be translated as "Spirit Shackle", likely in reference to the card of the same name in the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering.
 * The name "Dream☆Ring" is a reference to the browser game Ring☆Dream: Women's Professional Wrestling War, which several of Alicesoft's in-house artists contributed character designs to.