Soul Gardens are places of power located within the Void.  These are relatively new constructs of which there are currently thirty two.  They were first constructed some dozen or so years ago and were created by the Necromancer Gill and the Enchanter Tiresias.  These gardens were designed to draw wandering spirits and trap them within; there appears to be little logic of what type of spirits are drawn to specific Soul Gardens.  The strength of a Soul Garden is dependent on how many sprits it contains and the type.  

 
These Soul Gardens are used to power the Agoth experiment, where all the stored power travels to.  The Abomination within the Agoth experiment in turn siphons of this power and uses it to power its creations; dependent on how powerful the creation dictates how much power is used – its most powerful minions, the Vere, generally consume the power of an entire Soul Garden (the Psionic Vere currently resident within the Void is powered by no less than three Soul Gardens).

The Abomination has also created some creatures called Soul Harvesters (sometimes called Void Harvesters) to actively seek spirits to take into a Soul Garden and strengthen it.  Any mortal who dies whilst upon the Void will unable to be restored and their Soul will be drawn into the nearest Soul Garden.  These Souls may be recovered if their Soul Jar is found and broken.

It is possible to enter a Soul Garden, although they all have Guardians who will attack any who approach.  These Guardians constantly regenerate until the Soul Garden they are protecting is no more.  Contained within each Soul Garden will be the various Souls that have been drawn to it and that sustain the Garden.  These Souls are contained within Soul Jars; there appears to be no limit to how many a Soul Garden can contain and vary between a dozen and over a hundred.  It is easy to break a Soul Jar; the act of removing the stopper allows the essence contained within to be released; there is no need to physically destroy the Soul Jar.  

It should be noted that not all Soul Jars contain the essences of mortal creatures, some contain invocations or spells.  Once the Soul Jar is open, then the invocation, spell or soul within is released.  Any Souls released will reform into a physical presence, unless their original body is present, where it will refill the original vessel.  The reaction to suddenly being made mortal again varies and depends on the spirit, its beliefs and how long it has been within the Soul Jar; many spirits go mad whilst trapped within the Soul Jar and consequently how they react will be highly unpredictable.

It is possible to destroy a Soul Garden, simply destroy (or empty) all of the Soul Jars contained within.  Once this happens the power fed to the Abomination will cease.  Anything that was powered by that Soul Garden will become unpowered. This will mean that any items, wards etc will lose their potency and become worthless, any creatures (normally Agothian Undead) powered will simply cease to be or become but physical shells.  A Vere who loses their Soul Garden still continues to function; they are created by many methods, the power of a Soul Garden being but one of them.  However, they are greatly depowered and lose their invulnerability (it is impossible to kill a Vere who is still receiving power from a Soul Garden – they can be driven away but are not destroyed and may quickly reform).

If you depower a Soul Garden that has been powering a Vere, then a Vere essence will be left behind.  This has useful alchemical properties and can be used in many invocations and rituals, not least of which to drive away other Vere.

It is also possible to find a Soulstore within some of the Soul Gardens; these are extremely rare but occasionally manifest within a Soul Garden.  They are generally made of blue tainted crystal and radiate a magical and spiritual aura.  These Soulstores are not part of the Soul Garden and may be removed without any ill effect.  These are very useful items that can be used by mortals to “pool” their spirit strength.  It allows willing mortals to conduct a short ceremony where they place some or all of their spirit strength within the Soulstore for all participants to draw upon (if a participant has no spirit strength they can still place their blood or “essence” within and benefit from this artefact).  The benefit of this is to keep alive those participants with less spirit strength than others.  When one of the participants’ dies, then the Spirit loss comes from the Soulstore rather than the mortal, this will continue to happen until the Soulstore is empty.  It is also possible to depower this item and return any stored spirit strength by simply opening the bottle and leaving it open.  However, if some of the spirit strength has been used then it will be up to the Spheres to decide which participant gets what back.