Ghosts

Throughout history, the fate of the soul has been a well-established truth. At the moment of death, a person's spirit slips the tether of flesh and passes into Beyond, that vast and eldritch realm between the mortal world and eternity. The devout are drawn upward into Heaven, where the might of God in Heaven shields them from all that hungers in the dark. Those who pledged themselves to other, older powers are usually claimed in turn by their patrons - whether for reward, remaking, or ruin.

But countless souls have no such patron waiting. Their souls wander unshielded, exposed to the predations of beings that drift through that place like sharks through deep water. Understandably, mortals have long sought to escape this grim fate. A handful of magicians - rare, brilliant, and often half-mad - succeeded in turning themselves into Living Gods, who circumvent death entirely and linger eternally in the waking world. Yet such transformations are vanishingly rare.

Far more common is the soul that refuses to cross the threshold fully and instead clings to the mortal realm as a lingering spirit. These ghosts haunt the rooms where they laughed, the halls where they prayed, the ground where they bled. Over time, most fray at the edges and unravel, becoming grotesque parodies of the lives they once led. They are as varied as humanity itself - some pitiable, some wrathful, some dangerously alien. The ghosts of the world share only one trait: each possesses the force of will to remain when all natural law conspires to make them go.

Wrath and Woe

For a soul to force itself to remain in the world, it must want to do so and must draw upon a power strong enough to anchor it. This power almost always comes from raw emotion - an immense, all-consuming feeling that suffuses the spirit and grants it the strength to stay. While any emotion may suffice, two are far and away the most common among ghosts: anger and grief.

Angry spirits are violent, dangerous entities. They may be driven by a need for vengeance against those who wronged them in life, by fury at the very fact of their death, or even by rage at how their bodies or possessions were treated afterward. Ultimately, the cause of their anger is irrelevant; the anger itself is what matters. It grants them the power to resist the call from Beyond and drives them to act within the mortal realm. Over time, many lose all memory of why they were angry - but as long as they can cling to their rage, they endure.

Grief functions in much the same way. Woeful spirits are not usually as violent as wrathful ones - though they can be, if pushed. They weep endless tears for lost loves, dead children, fallen homes, or squandered futures. As with anger, the emotion is essential, and the cause is merely detail. Grieving ghosts wail, keen, and brood, often replaying their regrets in an endless loop. Their sadness consumes their identity, hollowing them out until they are capable of nothing but mourning.

Other emotions are far less common. Ghosts bound by love, honor, or duty appear frequently in stories but rarely in the waking world. Such spirits usually find the strength to move on - ideally into Heaven. There are also those who remain through magical means. Some magicians discover spells that anchor them to the mortal realm; others are cursed to linger by their enemies. Spirits bound by magic tend to unravel more quickly than other ghosts. Lacking both a body and a sustaining emotion, they become pale phantoms - forgetful, drifting, and afraid of a world they no longer comprehend. These spirits are sometimes glimpsed wandering the places where they once lived or died, seemingly unaware of anyone around them. They possess only half-memories and fading shadows of who they were.

Moving On

Ghosts are rarely welcomed by the living, and so countless methods have been devised to drive them from the mortal realm. The exorcism of spirits has traditionally been the province of the Church, whose priests are trained in rites meant to break a soul's attachment to the world and send it onward into Beyond, there to meet its destiny.

In recent years, however, magicians have begun to displace priests in this work, claiming their techniques are both more effective and less traumatic to the spirits themselves. A few have even taken a more unorthodox approach - capturing errant ghosts rather than expelling them. These mages insist that a spirit can be safely contained, perhaps even restored to life one day within an artificial body.

Of course, such practices are strictly forbidden, and none admit to having attempted them. Yet whispers persist of those who secretly preserve willing spirits, keeping them safe from the pull of Beyond - waiting for a future in which resurrection might finally be made lawful, and safe.