Sorry weird title just more interesting way to think about it lol

Personally I view souls sort of like a player character and the spark of life more or less like the subscription. Your soul(s) will have some stats (you get 3 souls to start from which to choose) and ages. These stats can be used to select which soul you may use for your particular character. Perhaps you can choose a soul more geared towards royalty and ruling, another may geared towards crafting, where another may be more geared towards combat. Some souls may start with a past life or two, even though you may have just started the game. I think the past lives effects the skill ramps in the next life thought not absolutely sure on that.

So you can make your choice of soul based on your vision for your character or if you had an extra $30 a month you could use a an additional soul for a second character for some reason by using a second soul and second spark of life.

Simple put.

Souls work like character slots in other MMOs.

You can only have so many characters to switch between.

Spark of life work like the subscription fee in other mmos in that for that soul to pay for the cpu time it takes. Because even when your not online you character still exists in the world and goes about tasks based on the select OPC script you choose to run on it.

from the wiki "Every PC in Elyria has a soul. A soul is the complete set of memories, experiences, and past lives of a character. When transferred from one character to another (when the current character dies and the soul is passed on to an heir or new character), the soul brings with it achievements and accelerated skill development in skills that previous characters have been proficient in, providing a feeling of continuity and progression.

According to Elyrian lore, souls are said to walk through the halls of the Akashic Records. There, the soul may read the deeds of its past lives and learn from its past successes and failures while also attaining an increased affinity for the skills and crafts the soul's past lives had trained in. This translates to a skill ramp in game, where the player is able to quickly reach the level of proficiency attained in previous lives."

http://chroniclesofelyria.gamepedia.com/Player_Characters#Souls http://chroniclesofelyria.gamepedia.com/Aging http://chroniclesofelyria.gamepedia.com/Death

Also he meant an extra 25$ per year more or less, not month.

the average spark of life should last 8 to 14 months of real world time.

Unless you become famous or just die a metric shit ton.