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[✓] [LoreSubmission][Creature] Ghost Additions: Hosting, Horror Chill, Wall Walking!


Demotheus
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The powers of ghosts have long since been left to speculation and intrigue. No one ghost has all the same powers of another, and much of the time it seems to be due to how the ghost was raised. However, a small handful of descendants may begin to notice seemingly new abilities that stem from these spectral beings. With this, rumors also fly. Some swear they've seen ghosts walk through walls when before it'd never been heard of, while others say that people have been grasped by a ghost's chilled hand and have lost control over their own faculties. Even more speak in hushed, frightened voices of how a ghost can reach into your chest, and grasp your very soul and shake you to your core. No one seems to know fact from fiction as these powers begin to emerge, but the campfire horror stories of ghosts are becoming all the more popular to tell, making it difficult to tell speculation apart from the truth. Have ghosts truly learned new powers and grasped finer control over their ethereal bodies, or has someone just been spooked one too many times? Only time will tell. 

 

OOC: 

 

 


Below are some abilities I've come up with that are a mix of clarifications, expansions, and additions to ghost lore. The below is OOC knowledge only at this point. Metagaming will be met with a stern head shake and scowl. Please respect that, thanks.
 

 

 

 

Taking Host - Living

 

 

 


Taking host, an addition, would be similar to possession in a sense, though far different. The ghost would enter a person's body, and dwell inside of it. Typically for a short period of time or to cause mischief. This is another way to travel. The Ghost would simply reside within a person, likely causing them no end of unease regardless of the ghost's intent. They have no ability to directly control the actions or thoughts of the person they are inhabiting. 

 

Taking shelter or host inside of a person of the living provides several benefits to the ghost. First, they are protected from light and to a degree are protected from gold. The host body can come in contact with gold, pass over gold barriers, etc. The flesh acts as an armor to the ghost, though with some drawbacks. Furthermore, they can utilize some of their ghostly powers from within the host. A ghost who has mastered the ability to change it's appearance can cause odd illusions on the flesh of the host. They'd never become unrecognizable this way, however. What it would enable is something called 'afflictions of the flesh'. Making the host appear wounded in various ways. Making it seem as if their flesh is rotting, when it truly isn't. They can also utilize ghost telekinesis from within the host body, and will typically do this to shock people or to aid in the protection of a person in the limited way it can. Furthermore, they have a seemingly telepathic connection to the host, due to the ghost being inside the host, and can speak to them that way. 

 

The drawbacks to taking host are simple, and common sense. If the host has the ghost purged with holy magic it will, at the very least, force the ghost to leave the host and if stronger spells are used, possible demanifest it as well. The host taking wounds from golden weaponry or consuming gold in some way would range from painful to fatal for the ghost as well. It cannot turn invisible while inside the host, and if it is forced outside the host, it will be forced into visibility for a short time (2-3 emotes). Because the ghost's ectoplasm, in a sense, intertwines with the host's flesh and blood, damage to the host in general can be considered damage to the ghost. If the host were to die while the ghost was still inside, they would demanifest as well. The ghost cannot leave the host on a whim, however. It takes 3 emotes to leave the host while in a hostile situation. If the host is weakened substantially by wounds then the ghost would be as well, as their ectoplasm would deplete with the host's life force and blood. This means that they'd be less versatile in  using their ghostly abilities. That said, pain is never felt, only weakness. 

 

Furthermore, Ghosts cannot take host in any practitioner of holy magic that would directly harm a ghost if casted upon them. Their ectoplasm simply cannot afford to be broken apart and melded with a host's body when that host's body is saturated in holy magic. Holy wards also work effectively against ghosts taking host as well as having gold armor, necklasses, etc. Gold weapons do not count as they are simply attached to the body, not quite warn. A ghost can simply enter the host from a different angle in such a case. However, anything that is 'around' the body (necklaces, armor, helmets, etc.) will be sufficient to keep a ghost out. *This requires the victim to have a MC representation of their gold item, however. IE: A gold bar at the minimum.

Example: 

 

 


Ghosty wanders around the countryside with a small caravan of farmers, invisibly noting the angle of the moon in the sky and the brightness of the horizon before them. The sun will soon rise, and before long it will be in full view of Ghosty. Ghosty frowns, invisibly and thumbs through their options before deciding they have no choice, they have to take a host. 

 

Ghosty comes up behind Farmer Joe, following behind him and immerses themselves in deep focus. This won't take overly long, there won't be any resistance from the unsuspecting and worn down farmer. He would serve as easy shelter. 

 

Joe simply continues on his way, yawning loudly, unaware of the ghost following behind and unaware that he would become a victim sooner than later. 

 

Ghosty grimaced a bit, not being a particularly mean spirited...spirit, Ghosty didn't enjoy using mortals like this, but it had to be done. The alternative was far worse for Ghosty than it was for the farmer. Ghosty pressed his hand against, and then into Joe's back, and in just the shortest of seconds Ghosty's form was spaghettified, stretched out and streamed into the Farmer's body as if Joe was sucking a long piece of pasta into his mouth from his plate. 

 

Joe had a moment of shock. His eyes opened wide as he felt something he couldn't quite put his finger on. However, he felt deeply violated and felt a dull, icy horror in his chest, a feeling of impending doom. He grasped his chest and gritted his teeth, his body subconsciously trying to reject the invasion, but failing. He was too tired, and far too unaware, having traveled the entire night and having to travel throughout the morning as well. 

 

Ghosty stretched out within Joe, quickly melding they're ectoplasm with Joe's flesh, and completed the hosting process. Ghosty remained as still, and as gracious to their host as they could, not being particularly proud of what they were doing, but resolved to this all the same. 

 

Joe traveled on, and struggled to shake the odd feelings within him. That he was being watched, that some predator was creeping up on him. His stomach was full of butterflies, and the longer they traveled the more on edge he became. He eventually resigned to a theory that he was simply far too tired at this point and hadn't realized it until now, or perhaps he forgot to eat earlier or didn't eat enough. Or maybe there was something off with his snack at their last stop. Whatever the reason, he hoped the feeling would fade sooner rather than later. 

 

. . .  

 

Ghosty found themselves, and Joe, in a local small town tavern, shielded from the sun. The ghost took this opportunity to gather itself back up and exorcise itself from it's host. 

 

Ghosty manifested within Joe, pulling it's ectoplasm together again and soon found itself simply standing inside of Joe, causing him to feel a rush of horror and icy cold, unintentionally. 

 

Joe gasped and nearly screamed, leaping out of his seat and away from Ghosty's invisible form. He whipped around to stare unwittingly at the ghost, or rather through it. His horror and chill faded quickly. Joe realized he no longer felt the paranoia and anxiety. He breathed a sigh of relief. Ghosty had since walked from Joe's chair to wander throughout the tavern, but Joe wasn't taking any chances. He sat at a different table all together as he pulled himself together. "S'alright, Joe. Jus' gots'ta get a g'night sleep." 
 

 

 

The above example is the baseline, easiest scenario. People CAN resist your attempt and are more successful if they're aware of you, are more awake, are unimpaired, have dealt with this sort of thing before, know what you're trying to do (In character only, no meta-gaming, victims!), etc. The more factors at play, the more difficult it is to take host. It's best to force someone to let their guard down, perhaps even trick them, or to go in while they are casually distracted and not already on edge. People who are already paranoid or who are actively engaging in some kind of conflict, either a cagey argument or an actual combat situation, are far harder to take host in than someone who is having a drink at a bar or who is going for an afternoon stroll. 

 

Redlines: 

-A ghost cannot physically control the body of their host. Anything a host does should only ever be in reaction to the ghost's influence. Any ghost attempting to insist a character do something, either in response to a ghost's influence or in an attempt to straight up control the body, is powergaming and unacceptable. 

-One cannot take host in a holy magic user who's magic would harm the ghost in any other circumstance. IE: Ascended, cleric, Paladin, etc. 

-Shamans can choose to allow a ghost to take host within them, however cannot be forced into it as other descendants can. 

-Other ghosts and otherwise spectral/incorporeal beings (like gravens, wights, etc.) cannot be taken host UNLESS that being has taken on a husk or something (Ie: a real body.) In order to take host, the host must be of flesh, and must be more than simply bone. IE: a bare boned lich cannot be taken host, however if they have a significant portion of flesh on their bones (Ie: something one could still consider a recognizable body and not just something you'd dig up in a grave) they can be hosted. 

-A person who is wearing something gold (and has a MC item to back it up, ie: block of gold or something) significant (necklace, several rings, bracelets, helmets, armor, etc.) Or a holy ward of sorts cannot be hosted. However, if they simply have an item of gold in their pocket or on their person it's not such a problem.
 

 

 

The Horrorchill

 

 


This is an extension of the chilly, dread/depression/spook aura ghosts constantly permeate. The Horror chill is an intentional thing on the part of a ghost where it utilizes this to the extreme. The ghost would put a part of it's body, usually a hand or perhaps it has taken host or stepped inside the body of someone, and fill that place with a horrible dreadful feeling and a ghostly hair raising chill. The way this is utilized and the extremes are very open ended. Generally though, the longer the horror chill is affecting a person, the worse it gets. Examples of uses are reaching into a person's chest and 'grabbing' their heart, or grabbing their brain in their skull, causing awful feelings and such. These feelings range from aching pains of varying degrees, feeling exactly what's happening (Ie a hand reaching into them), dreadful feelings, paranoia, etc. All increasing with exposure. 

 

Redlines:

-A ghost cannot do this to a holy being of any sort, or someone who practices holy magic. Furthermore, holy wards will keep them from doing such a thing as well. 

-A ghost cannot reach through any gold while doing this. However, they can reach around it if possible. That said, if someone has significant gold on various parts of their body, the ghost will likely not bother with the risk. 

-While avoiding a ghost, visible or invisible, who is trying to do this is difficult given the nature of a ghost, it is possible. It's not an illusion, where it just happens. If someone sprints away from the ghost, the ghost would have to also chase after them in order to continue the chilling. While horror chills don't take many emotes to perform, as it's simply moving a part of the ghost's body through a mortal's, they are still actions. They aren't attached to the person. They aren't taking host, and so someone can just run away if they're aware that it's a ghost that's doing this to them and not just some other magic.

-REQUIRES physical contact (as physical as a ghost can be anyway). IE: cannot be done from a range. 
 

 

 

 

Taking Host - Non-Living

 


This is similar to taking host, however it revolves around non living objects. Generally, it's less work and less risky to the ghost to inhabit an object, but it has less control over where the object is going. It can change the appearance of the object to be a ghostly version of itself, utilize telekinesis of objects around it, and cause the object to float, however the floating is purely aesthetic and can't really be used in direct combat. The rate of movement is too slow, and it's mostly for spook effect. An obvious redline here is the inability to inhabit gold objects or objects made with gold at all, or holy objects, or enchanted objects. 

 

If the object is broken, the ghost is forced to leave it, of course, and it will be severely weakened, but will not likely be de-manifested unless the object is completely destroyed, by lava or melting in fire, or something like that. The ghost can enter and exit the object after only 2 emotes if in a hostile situation as well. 

 

Redlines: 

-Cannot inhabit an inanimate object for the purposes of attacking someone with it. 

-Cannot inhabit warded objects, or objects with more than a meager amount of gold in them. IE: You can inhabit the steel blade of a sword if it has a gold pommel/hilt, but if the sword is laced with gold, no go. 

-If the object is broken, the ghost will, be weakened severely to the degree that the object was broken. IE: Broken in half, the ghost's power is halved. Smashed to pieces, the ghost is barely a whisper on the wind. Eradicated completely by lava or something: The ghost is forced to demanifest. 
 

 

Taking Host - Non-Living Organic
Taking a non living organic host is to take over the corpse of a fallen animal or descendant. This is similar to many other dark creature's ability to 'husk', however it's far more temporary. In summary, it's not a very good hiding place for a ghost. No matter what it will look unnatural, no matter how well preserved the corpse in question is. The eyes will always glow the color of the ghost, their movements will become more and more drunken as time goes on and the corpse continues to rot on it's feet, and eventually it will fall apart.
 
The abilities a ghost can use while taking a corpse as a host are limited to a degree. They are forced to take on at least their basic form as an illusion as their ectoplasm melds with the corpses flesh. They will, by default, look more or less how they themselves had looked in life, however they would always have glowing eyes. They can change their appearance as well to a degree, but it can never resemble that of a person who exists already (Ie: another player's character, no impersonation. These aren't really disguises or anything. Simply aesthetic.) This helps the player who plays the ghost in not having to find a new skin for a corpse every time they're finished with it, as well as preventing metagaming and powergaming by impersonating someone's appearance.
 
If the ghost husks an animal corpse, their ectoplasm doesn't meld as well so they do not become a horrible mutated descendant-animal in appearance. The eyes still glow, and perhaps an aura of the ghost is permeated through the flesh like a mist if the ghost wishes for such an aesthetic. While ghosts can talk just fine as a descendant, if they husk an animal, they're unable to do so. They can only speak in barks and growls or whatever sound the animal makes. They also cannot fly, even if they're taking host of a flying animal. While understanding how a four legged creature works in relation to a descendant is simple enough, wings and the nature of natural flight is another beast all together that they'd never be able to tackle.
 
A ghost can utilize what's left of the nerves in the corpse to feel again, however this comes with an obvious drawback of pain. The longer they're left to rot, the more pain they experience as they would feel the corpse rotting around them. While a husked corpse is durable as a ghoul in a sense, they still experience pain. Furthermore, the ghost doesn't even need the head of the corpse to husk it. Simply cutting off the head of a ghost corpse is not enough to disable it. The ghost can still 'see', as they can while inside other objects and people. However, dismembering them renders them immobile and either forces them to leave the corpse, or make do with what they have left, depending on the circumstances. A ghost can be forced to demanifest entirely if enough of the body is cut off.
 
The way a ghost inhabits an object or person is simple. They expand to fill, as equally as possible, the object with their ectoplasm. They have little control over this. This means that to cut off a ghost corpses arm is to cut off that much of their ectoplasm as it relates to the rest of the body. Eventually, they will reach a point where they've lost too much ectoplasm and demanifest. This point is about less than 25% of the body they inhabited. Cutting off the arms, legs, pelvis, then head would render the ghost forced to demanifest. However, this might not always be what is wanted.
 
A ghost can be trapped, for a time, within a body. This is done by lining it with gold dust, or draping it in gold jewelry, or stabbing a gold sword through the center mass of it's body and pinning it to the ground. The more gold involved, the more difficult it is for the ghost to escape it's body, and thus it can be held in place for as long as it's body can hold itself together. Sooner or later it will rot away and demanifest. In this way, a ghost cannot be indefinitely trapped. That said, DO NOT METAGAME THIS INFORMATION. These abilities are still 'fresh' and relatively obscured in mystery.
 
Redlines:
-A ghost only has a limited amount of control over the corpse and this scales directly with the level of rot. The easiest way to RP this is to move as if drunk. With every milestone of rot in the body, take another shot of vodka!
-A ghost corpse protects the ghost itself from gold weaponry, however the corpse is far more weak to it! A direct hit from a sword of gold can easily sever limbs as if they wer nothing more than branches the thickness of the underlying bone, and the flesh naught but butter under a hot knife.
-A ghost corpse cannot look like the actual corpse it was, nor can this illusionary ability be used to truly disguise a ghost. It will always have glowing eyes, and can never be too similar to another player's character.
-If you are surrounded by gold at any time as a ghost corpse, you'll find it difficult to escape from your host, depending on how much of you is encased. If someone manages to wrap you in gold chain, you're stuck. That said, you aren't particularly weakened physically by this. If someone just throws a gold net over you, and they've done nothing to immobilize you otherwise, you're free to throw the net off of you.
-You feel pain. You feel pain from being attacked, as well as continuously rotting away. Less in the beginning, but more near the middle and end.
-No ghost telekinesis is possible while husking a corpse.
-All the same redlines apply for non living Hosting, as mentioned earlier.
 

Wall Walking - surface: 

 


This is an advanced technique that extends to floating and further letting go of the ideas of physical laws, only typically possible by Specters or Poltergeists or very late stage Revenants. This is the ability to walk on walls and ceilings as if it was the floor. This only works in enclosed spaces, however. One cannot scale a building with this ability or walk over a city's wall. This is for haunting purposes. As long as there are at least walls covering most of the horizontal view of the room or area and some kind of ceiling, it can be done. They cannot fly, however. This is mostly changing their perspective of what is up and down. However they need a solid reference of what is down so that they can walk, float, crawl, etc. along the surface, whether a wall, floor or ceiling. 

 

Redlines: 

-A ghost cannot pass more than half of their body through the wall, and even when something like this is done, it's purely aesthetic. They can't reach through the wall to the other side with their arm, even if it's thin. If a wall is an inch thick, and a ghost seems to be halfway through the wall, this is merely a form of shapeshifting, and not actually passing through the wall. Ghosts cannot go through walls as of now. 
 

 

 

Conclussion: 

 

These are just a handful of ideas I have to liven up ghost-play. A rule of thumb lines up with the core lore, the more someone interacts with the living in direct/casual ways, the less powerful these abilities will be and the less influence they'd have overall, just like the rest of their powerful ghostly abilities. This will make playing a ghost more free and will make haunting people and providing proper spooky roleplay much easier and more dynamic. At this time, many people don't seem to be too frightened of ghosts in general. These abilities all go towards enhancing that proper spooky role play and hopefully towards pumping up the fun terror. Ghosts can't typically kill people or do much actual harm, and resort to very indirect ways of causing mischief and horror, however they are quite limited in their ability to do so. 

 

I don't expect each and every idea to be accepted as is, but hopefully some of them at least catch on or some kind of tweaking could be done perhaps. Let me know what you think!

            

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As somebody who RP's a ghost ( though not as often as I'd like ) I greatly approve of this addition. I hope the ghostmasters like it as well.

 

+1

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All right thank you for writing this. It reads like a rulebook but that's fine; makes my job easier when there's no fluff. Might be bad for you though since the increased comprehension make any notes people have more pointed but thank you all the same ;)

 

Here's some quick notes of mine sorted by ability:

 

1) Kind of sounds like you're trying to turn a ghost's demanifestation drawback into an ability and also a rather useful one at that as it negates gold-based exorcise of ghosts. AFAIK most ghosts won't need to travel much and tend to stay around their usual haunt: for gravens and apparitions this is mandatory but for all types it's implied. So.. what's the point?

2) I have no issues with this balance-wise. There's a vague concern people with mysticism will get a ghost-guest into their body to act as protection but all right. I wonder more about how flavorful this truly is going to be to ghost RP as it sounds like a very confusing version of possession. But maybe I'm wrong maybe you've whipped up some great RP idea with this.

3) This is nice and flavorful I approve.

4) Sounds like a big overlap with a Wight-specific possession ability?

5) I don't know about this one I just keep thinking about ways this would actually be done in RP and I keep coming back to the emote "*starts walking on the wall!!1" and it makes me laugh but also makes me doubt this is necessary.

6) Like 5 but with balance concerns. The "1 to 5" range is rather vague as it essentially means "5". Is it related to wall thickness/material?

 

 

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35 minutes ago, Sporadic said:

4) Sounds like a big overlap with a Wight-specific possession ability?

Considering Wights are powered by gHooOoOst SpOOOk I feel as though a little overlap isn't too bad as long as they aren't copying eac-- Wait but since when can wights inhabit a haunted teapot?

 

There has already been RP like this; Ghosts haunting specific objects, following along with them, kind'a going dormant around them. This would make that easier to RP and more validated.

 

37 minutes ago, Sporadic said:

There's a vague concern people with mysticism will get a ghost-guest into their body to act as protection but all right.

I feel like such RP would be enjoyable... Provided an actual person is RP'ing the ghost and not an NPC mysticism-spawned ghost. I can understand where you're coming from if that's what you mean; I don't want to see mysticists with a spooky blender aura because they just say that there's a poltergeist inside of them scratching anything that gets near them.

 

Everything else you say, I pretty much agree with; Them's valid balancing concerns and threats to the lore getting accepted. I want to use this cool stuff.

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Thank you for submitting your piece! This is now under review and you can expect a verdict in roughly a week.

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This lore is pending, you will be contacted regarding the issues raised by the lore team so you may fix it. You have 2 weeks to make the changes, beginning from when you are contacted. Once you have edited your piece, send me a forum PM and your piece will be reviewed to ensure the changes have been made.

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Sure thing. How will  I be contacrted?

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I am so done trying to deal with LOTC's trash forum editing software. 

The conclusion and the wall walking ability are buried in the same spoiler as the last ability and I can't figure out how to fix that. There used to be a time when I was able to click a button and make it so all the BB code was visible instead of this garbage previewed flustercluck that I have to deal with now. Idk where that button went, but it's gone. 

 

That said, all done!

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This Lore has been accepted. Moved to Implemented Lore, it will be sorted to it's appropriate category soon.

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