Soul Stages

Soul stages are a 15-level system that tracks a character's deep psychological state. While the VAD model captures moment-to-moment emotion, soul stages represent a longer arc -- the character's overall psychological condition, shaped by accumulated experience, stress, and recovery.

A character at Stage 1 (Calm) behaves very differently from one at Stage 9 (Collapse) or Stage 15 (Transcendence), even if their current VAD emotion is similar. Soul stages influence behavioral tendencies, stress tolerance, and the depth of emotional expression a character is capable of.

The 15 Stages

Baseline (Stages 1-3)

The default operating range for most characters. Stable, functional, and emotionally grounded.

Rising (Stages 4-6)

Stress is building. The character is still functional but increasingly strained.

Crisis (Stages 7-9)

The character is in genuine psychological distress. Behavior becomes less predictable.

Recovery (Stages 10-12)

The character has been through crisis and is rebuilding. These stages only become accessible after experiencing significant distress.

Growth (Stages 13-15)

Post-crisis growth. Characters that reach these stages have been through suffering and emerged with deeper capacity for understanding and expression.

Key Characteristics

Tolerance and Stress Modifiers

Each stage defines two key properties:

• Tolerance: How much accumulated stress the character can absorb before transitioning to the next stage. Earlier stages have higher tolerance -- it takes a lot to push a Calm character into Alert, but much less to push a Stressed character into Overwhelmed.
• Stress Modifiers: How incoming events are amplified or dampened at this stage. A character in crisis stages experiences events more intensely, while a character in growth stages has more nuanced, tempered reactions.

Hysteresis: Different Thresholds Up and Down

Stage transitions follow cusp catastrophe theory. The threshold to move up (toward crisis) is different from the threshold to move back down (toward calm). Specifically, the breakdown threshold is lower than the recovery threshold.

This means:

• A character can be pushed into a crisis state relatively quickly under sustained stress
• Recovering from that crisis state takes longer and requires more sustained relief
• Characters do not "bounce" rapidly between stages -- once they enter a crisis state, they tend to stay there until conditions genuinely improve

This mirrors real human psychology, where it is far easier to become anxious than to calm down, and where recovery from burnout takes much longer than the slide into it.

Post-Crisis Depth

One of the most important properties of soul stages is that later stages unlock deeper emotional expression. A character that has never been past Stage 3 can only express emotions within a relatively narrow, surface-level range. A character that has been through Collapse and emerged into Reconstruction or Integration has access to:

• Genuine self-reflection
• Nuanced emotional expression
• Empathy born from suffering
• Psychological depth that was previously inaccessible

This is by design. Characters that have suffered can develop genuine wisdom -- but only if they survive the crisis and make it through recovery. A character stuck at Stage 9 (Collapse) is not wise; they are broken. Wisdom comes from the journey through and beyond crisis.

Stage Transitions in the API

When a stage transition occurs, the Turn API response includes a stage_transition object:

{
  "stage_transition": {
    "from": { "stage": 3, "name": "Attentive" },
    "to": { "stage": 4, "name": "Engaged" },
    "trigger": "accumulated_stress"
  }
}

When no transition occurs, stage_transition is null.

The current stage is also reflected in the prompt_data context block, where it influences the behavioral instructions and expression guide that molroo generates for your LLM.

Practical Implications

Most characters will stay in Stages 1-6. Casual conversations and normal interactions do not generate enough stress to push into crisis territory. This is expected and healthy.

Crisis stages are not a failure state. They are a natural part of deep, meaningful character arcs. If your application involves long-running narratives or emotionally intense scenarios, crisis stages add authenticity.

Growth stages require crisis. There is no shortcut to Wisdom or Transcendence. A character must go through genuine psychological difficulty to access these deeper states. This prevents artificially "wise" characters that have no experiential basis for their depth.

Stage influences prompt_data. The behavioral instructions in prompt_data.instruction change with each stage. A character at Stage 2 (Alert) receives different guidance than one at Stage 11 (Acceptance). This happens automatically -- you do not need to manually adjust prompts based on stage.

For how personality configuration affects stage transition thresholds, see the Persona Design guide. For the full state object including current stage, see the State API reference.