Aaron, again: after we were obsessed with The Revenant, let's switch to something a little less corporeal. THE GHOST!
This undead was pretty tricky, but I am happy where we landed on them.
A Ghost possessing a helpless mortal
Ephemeral, cold, and grasping for a touch of reality. When you died, your spirit shed the flesh of your previous life, and now you wander the in-between, the nothing that spreads across the desert, while still trapped on the mortal plane, unable to touch and move things like your undead siblings can. They see you as pure, though, undistilled and raw life force, moving and thinking without flesh to hold it back. You are a ghost, capable of taking over the bodies of others and making them bend to your will, experiencing their life and senses, a being forced to live in a shadowed half-existence. Only truly feeling what is around them when they wear the skin of another.
Ghosts are one of the only undead that can be formed even after a body has been burned to char and ash. If the life force holds together even after its container has been reduced to nothing, they still have a chance. Though this is a sporadic occurrence. As high undead, they represent one of the pillars of the black veil church. Ghouls are the body, Wights are control over life force, and Ghosts are life force itself.
Ferality in ghosts comes from the act of possessing too frequently or losing oneself to the hodgepodge of information while trying to fight it and being unsuccessful. The belief that you are one person while fighting to stay another person tears the ghost apart mentally until they are scared, confused, and usually angry, trying to wander into mortal realms to experience a solid identity, if only for a while.
👻Key Attribute: Empathy (+1)
💀 Undead Boon — Possession: You may possess a willing living mortal and use their body as your own (though all your stats remain the same) if the target is unwilling, roll an Empathy check vs the target's Grit. While you are possessing a target, you have access to their memories. If the possessed takes damage, you will take that same Damage. If the possessed entity dies, you may continue puppeting the body, but it will become useless in D6 days, meaning the body will be unresponsive and non-moving.
🌙 Starting Banes: Silver, Salt
🫥 Intangible: While you aren't possessing a mortal, you can't interact with the physical world.
🩸 Healing — Squatters life: Once per new dawn, if you are possessing a living body, heal 1d6 life force (the mortal heals to). If a body you are possessing dies, you may consume their life force and heal 1d6 immediately or heal a critical Injury. You may also kill a body you are possessing to heal 2d6 or a critical injury.
⚰️Post-Mortem Questions:
What most unnerved you about not being corporeal? What was important about a physical body that you lost?
Do you separate yourself from new memories or embrace them? Do you struggle with your identity? If so, what is a touchstone that helps ground you? If not, what gives you such confidence in who you know you are?
What was the first thing you gave to someone else, realizing that your lack of physical body would make this pointless? Was it an elevating feeling being free from the physical bonds of existence, or did it make you miss those sensations?
What was your first possession like? Was it a comfortable fit, or did the body feel wrong and awkward, too strange to control properly?
Have you ever possessed someone who was dying and or died while you possessed them? What thoughts did they scream into the void as they lost what was left of themselves? Did you feel guilty?
Have you ever forced someone you possesed to do something so against their own morals it felt like a split in you? Have you ever used your possession to assist the church or other entities in gathering information or performing clandestine actions? What were the consequences of this?
Aside from the above, ghosts have a lot of unique abilities that alter their interactions with the world and magic. I hope you think the ghosts are cool! Tim should be coming forward with a Special announcement next week or so! Next time we will be getting a little more down to earth.
