Urban Fantasy: More On Spirits and Ghosts

Last time, my post started outlining the ideas on how to handle and stat Spirits (which is to say, generic Spirits and Ghosts) for an Urban Fantasy game in the vein of the Worlds of Darkness (both of them and, yes, I will keep calling the New World of Darkness by that name because it is as worthy of the title as the original no matter what people say!) or Unknown Armies and others of that type. Spirits are endless in their shape, size, nature and abilities but for sanity's sake we can boil it down to something relatively basic.

Total War: Warhammer Banshee concept art by Sandra Duchiewicz

Spirit Limitations and Powers

As previously established, a Spirit is an incorporeal supernatural being: more made of energy, intent and concepts than a tangible body of flesh and bone. When manifested in the material world (or when encountered in a spiritual plane) they can affect the world around them.

Bound and Unbound Spirits

Spirits which are Bound are connected to an object and/or a place. These include spirits of specific trees, spirits of locations and most importantly ghosts which are currently haunting the location of their death or trapped around a cursed object. A Bound Spirit find itself unable to manifest anywhere beyond a specific range of the location or object. In addition, destroying what they are bound to usually kills them: more powerful spirits might become Unbound but will lose a sizable portion of their total HD and might even lose their memories and sense of identity.

Spirit Limitations

There are many Spirits which have a built-in weakness which is part of their nature. These limitations could be a direct vulnerability to something specific which can hurt them even when its physical and nonmagical, such as a tree spirit being able to be cut down with an old wood axe. Sample limitations include:

• The Spirit is repelled by iron, silver, salt or some other physical material. To the Spirit it is always solid and the touch repels and burn. They find themselves unable to cross a line in a doorway which is made from the material. Weapons made from it strike them as if the spirit was real.
• The Spirit cannot attack a certain category of person or certain type of beings, such as an ancestral Spirit being unable to harm its direct descendants.
• The Spirit cannot tolerate the sound or smell of something,which will drive it in a frenzy. It must make a Saving Throw or dematerialize to get away from it.
• The Spirit is weakened on a certain day of the year. This could range from slight penalties to being utterly unable to manifest and engage a foe. This could allow someone to destroy what the Spirit is Bound to and leave it powerless to stop this act.

Spirit Abilities

For all their limitations, Spirits have powers which mortals do not. Some are innate to their nature, as normal to them as a human breathe while others are the result of growing old and powerful, their nature crystallizing into something more potent than before.

• Aura Sight (Passive): The Spirit can see the emotions of others and their general health. This make lying to the Spirit potentially very difficult. Beings with more HD than the Spirit get a Saving Throw to mask their aura. Once they manage to hide their aura the Spirit cannot try again for another 24 hours.
• Binding Perception (Passive): This requires a Spirit to be Bound to an object which can carried by a human. The Spirit see and hear everything the person carrying does. Beings with more HD than the Spirit get a Saving Throw and cannot be affected again for 24 hours.
• Pain Sense (Passive): Any being who has lost HP within 60 feet of the Ghost has its location known instantly. Beings with more HD than the Spirit get a Saving Throw and cannot be affected again for 24 hours.
• Overwhelm Mind (On Turn): The Spirit Commits Effort for the scene. All those who see the Spirit must pass a Saving Throw or either be rendered catatonic or flee, depending on the Spirit type or possibly by its choice. Ghosts tend to usually invoke this effect by instilling fear or vivid images of its death.
• Spirit Strike (On Turn): The Spirit Commits Effort for the scene. It can now attack targets at a range of 60 feet which ignore mundane cover or obstructions. The exact form of these attacks varies from Spirit to Spirit, with Ghosts usually having the ability to cause objects to strike at the living.

In addition to these, Spirits usually have a few minor or 'cosmetic' abilities related to their purpose.

Transformation of Ghosts

Most 'baseline' ghosts are Bound Spirits, tied to the site of their death or an object. They exist as haunting spirits, some malevolent while others mostly-benevolent (in their own twisted way), usually desperately trying to properly materialize and tell others of those who killed or wronged them. Unfortunately this is not the only state a Ghost can exist and, indeed, this could almost be considered the larval stage of ghosts.

When a Ghost become Unbound it means it has grown into its own power and begun to escape the limitations of its existence. This is generally a bad thing because it mean the ghost has developed into a self-sustaining phenomena and very few of them are beneficial to humans. This state is, more often than not, the result of a growing hunger or need and most Unbound ghosts become deficient of the energies which their bindings once sustained. They turn to feeding. These ghosts will haunt the living, suck their life energy or even kill them directly to consume metaphysical energies. In time these wraith-like creatures abandon their humanity, their forms, their identity and everything which made them human. These are the skeletal abominations and living shadows which stalk lonely humans to feed upon, developing strange ghostly powers.

Other Ghosts transcend undeath entirely. What compose them is no longer deathly energies but the collective beliefs of humanity. They become less of a lingering spectre and more of a true Spirit, an Icon of sort. The life experiences and memories of the human become diffused and absorbed into this newborn Spirit of Humanity. These are far more rare than the hungry, vengeful ghost however.