Memories are another race specifically unique to Utopia/Dystopia. They are, if anything, the single most unfortunate race of people to have ever lived.

Just like Shades collect in Oblivion and Lumen collect on Dys/Utopia, Memories are born in the in-between realm of Purgatory. It is there that they "live," for the most part. Some Memories do find their way into the living world, but this is fairly rare.

Though they are born and predominately live in Purgatory, Memories are a vast minority compared to other Purgatory naturals. To the handful of people (non-Memories, of course) alive and dead that know of their existence, they are considered an endangered species. This is due to the number of natural predators that seek them out in both Purgatory and the living world, and the fact that they are physically incapable of breeding or perpetuating their own existence. Sterility is one other result of the complex nature of their existence: Memories, after all, are born from exactly that--memories.

One "permanent" Memory, Attis, detailed the circumstances of their existence after years of research, regarding their means of existing, boons, and limitations:

"Conception": Those that die in the living world continue to exist within Purgatory until they are somehow moved on. In general, they are not aware of this, and are in a state of twilight until having passed. Sometimes, a soul will be aware of their existence in Purgatory, at which point they become Ghosts. If they remain unsent for long enough, the soul or Ghost will be threatened by Purgatory's natural predators, creatures that feed on souls. An unsent soul which perishes in Purgatory by any means will cease to exist, but as the Law of Entropy applies even to magical or mystical realms, all which comprised their spirit is broken down in Purgatory and becomes part of it. Strong memories carried by the spirit will remain drifting, albeit invisibly, for years on end before the transition world can break them down. These drifting fragments of lost spirits are not visible to the naked eye, as they take on the same form of fog that pollutes Purgatory.

If there are a large number of extremely similar memories collected together in Purgatory, a Memory will be born.

Attis describes this as a natural act of Purgatory, because raw memories are difficult to break down, taking up to fifty years sometimes for a single recollection to "dissolve." However, the species of people called Memories are easier for Purgatory to break down. They are, as Attis describes, as natural of a phenomenon as blood clots and atmospheric dissolution (the collection of holes in an atmosphere to focus on one particular point).

And unfortunately, Memories are thinking, feeling people. They come to be at a physically predeveloped stage, based entirely upon the fragments of Memories that compose them. This wholly inspires their appearance, personality, boons, and limitations. Example:

Dyss, a Memory composed primarily of recollections of grave injustice, came to be as a budding youth, about sixteen or seventeen, when ideologies of justice and injustice are at their most extreme. Dyss is subconsciously driven by a sense of right and wrong, and generally seeks someone to "blame" for particular wrongs. He is blind and naturally skilled with long-swords.

Memories come to be with a particular appearance and outward physical age, and for their entire lifespan, this does not change. In Purgatory, their bodies cannot grow longer fingernails, facial hair, or more hair on their bodies in general. In Purgatory, if a Memory were to shave his or her head, for example, he or she would not grow that hair back. There was a means of not only fixing this, but slightly increasing their life spans, but it was eventually cut. I'll go over that in a later section.

While all this seems easy to handle, as mentioned before, Memories themselves are easier for Purgatory to break down than just raw recollections from lost spirits. As such, they often times have a lifespan limited to three to five years. That's the average time it takes for Purgatory to dissolve their existence. A Memory which has been dissolved ceases to be entirely. They have no afterlife nor continued consciousness of any sort.

There are a very select few Memories who are theorized to live forever. For this, See: Crepusculum ex Memoria.

"Living Memories": Due to the fact that Memories are in the same class of existence as Ghosts, they are, ideally, dead. This is the same reason that all Memories are sterile. As they, themselves, are not alive, they cannot produce living offspring.

However, it is possible for Memories to cross from Purgatory to the living world--Dys/Utopia. On rare occasions, it's entirely accidental and unexplainable; a Memory wanders for some time after being born, goes to sleep, and wakes up in the living world. For a long time, though, it was mainly intentional. Every so often, a Memory who specialized in magics came along that was able to create "temporary body tags," which were a combination of both glyphic and runic spells that, when placed right on a particularly made scroll, could allow the Memory to temporarily exist in the living world.

A living Memory experiences a temporary life; their organs all function nominally, including the basic needs of eating, drinking, bathing, going to the bathroom, and all the like. By virtue of being spirits, they do not experience those needs in Purgatory.

Because the spiritual environment of the living world is not as harsh as Purgatory, Memories are broken down at a much slower rate there. This is not a direct answer to their plight, however, as even if a Memory can manage to stay in the living world for long enough, it may only afford him or her an extra two or three years.

"Boons": While they are, for the most part, limited to an extremely short life span, Memories are often born with natural abilities best called boons. These boons always have much to do with the recollections that compose them. Example:

One man, Gestahl, was composed of memories of the earth in general--recollections of mountain climbing, digging, mining, surveying, and the like, all of which focused primarily on the earth itself, rather than the act itself. Gestahl, through means beyond magic or spirit, could move earth around him as he pleased. This wasn't a spiritual control, psionic/psychokinetic ability, or an act of magic. Tremors, quakes, uplifts, declines, and rock movement in general that was caused by Gestahl were as natural as other types of seismic activity.

This applies to most inherent skills of Memories. There is very little that can restrict the potency of their skills beyond their own natural environment. Unnatural methods rarely effect their abilities.

Likewise, most can experience the memories (similar to what composed initially composed them) of living people. Sometimes these occur to them in dreams and sometimes just by touching or being nearby living people.

"Limitations": As mentioned before, Memories have an extremely limited life span (in Purgatory). Also mentioned was the fact that their personalities are largely based on what sort of motif they represent, which leads to the most troublesome limitation of all:

Memories often have mental/emotional/physical issues based upon what they represent. Examples:

-- Emil, who was originally composed of memories of learning, is afflicted with an incessant, almost obsessive drive for knowledge. Although he prefers to be outwardly friendly and moral, he is easily manipulated by promises of education. He can, unconsciously, justify distant cruelty for the sake of learning from it. Interrupting said cruelty can instill him with a mind numbing guilt for a lost opportunity.
-- Akizetsumei, who was originally composed of memories of vertigo, heights, and the sky in general, is incapable of carrying one single train of thought for any length of time, and forgets most details in minutes. Although preferring to be cheerful and calm, she can become progressively violent and hateful or progressively depressed and still. Mood changes are not immediate and take a period of time to take effect. She is afflicted with an incessant wanderlust, and becomes agitated if restricted to one location for any length of time.
-- Illorex, who was originally composed of memories of self identity, is incapable of making immediate decisions on even the most minor of details. He will second guess himself up to twenty times, and internally debate even the want to blink. This is so frequent and painful for him that he prefers to make no decisions for himself, and takes the route of doing only as he is told.

Perhaps just as worse is something most Memories are not aware of. Those that make their way into the living world and contact normal, living people are even further subject to the idea of a temporary existence. When a Memory dies, it is only a matter of time before living people that knew them or knew of them forget that they ever existed. Their minds will fill the gaps in their memory after awhile with mundane, everyday events, as they can no longer recall the Memory that no longer was. No matter how hard the living might try to cling to thoughts and feelings for a passed Memory, they will inevitably forget about them.

"Memoria": Memoria is a hidden city within Purgatory in which most Memories are collected. There is a particular group (see: Crepusculum ex Memoria) that runs the city and organizes the search and collection of other Memories lost in Purgatory following their conception. Memoria is a walled safe haven from their natural predators. It is built to house at least two thousand, but even in its prime it only held less than one hundred.

"Spiritual Sustenance": At one point in history, it was discovered that ingesting raw spirit, Qi, could greatly increase a Memory's quality of life. Not only are their mental and emotional disorders quelled, but they can experience more physical sensations in Purgatory, and even experience some biological activity within Purgatory, such as hair and fingernail/toenail growth.

For some times, a marketplace was kept in Memoria, which doled out a weekly ration to each Memory that lived there. These rations were replicas of real world foods, created as sustenance from raw Qi. Although Memories do not experience things such as hunger and thirst in Purgatory, spiritual sustenance could be consumed for the sake of a somewhat more enjoyable life.

Between five to three years prior to the End, however, the marketplace was mysteriously shut down.

"The Flicker Effect": When a Memory is in the process of dying, they will visibly fade away, presumably no longer reachable, and generally believed to be dead at that very moment. This, as Attis documented, is untrue. After a Memory fades, they become what Attis calls a "flickering Memory." A flickering Memory is in the final stages of dissolution, when they no longer have a tangible body, but retain an altered, delusional consciousness. Flickering Memories suffer various brands of madness until their consciousness, too, dissolves, and they cease to be. The final stage of dissolution can take anywhere between a few days to a month. Only under extremely special circumstances does it take longer.

"Crepusculum ex Memoria": This specific elite group of Memories are rumored to live forever. Six months prior to the End, Attis remarked to a fellow Memory that he and the rest of the Crepusculum had been around for twenty-three years, nearly six times the lifespan of the average Memory. Out of hundreds of Memories that have, in that time, populated Memoria, there have only been four members of the Crepusculum ex Memoria, with Attis as one of its founders.

At some juncture in time, however, Attis left the Crepusculum. Attis once described his reasoning to fellow Memory, Dyss: that while the Crepusculum was initially established with the best intentions, to guide and protect their fellow Memories, they had at some point been warped into destructive obsessions, to the point of wishing to rend Purgatory of Reapers--a natural predator of Memories, but the only ones capable of passing and protecting spirits in the transition world, which keeps Memories from coming to exist. This, Attis explained, was contrary to his goals, which entailed finding a method of giving Memories full and complete lives without sacrificing lives of any kind.

The current status of the Crepusculum ex Memoria is undisclosed.