Ghost

The manifestation of the echo or left over energies from a living being that has died. Typically a ghost is a nebulous image but such an image typically moves in a manner similar to that which it would have moved during life. While the exact conditions to create a ghost upon one's death are unknown it is known that some kind of traumatic event just prior to death is a commonality of many ghosts. Ghosts have a portion or echo of the psychic image from the living person. This image can have feelings, purpose, and even a sense of intelligence but is a remnant of the original living being.

Ghosts are not unnatural in the scheme of the universe, in that sense they are quite natural. From the perspective of the living they are in an unnatural or confused state. The living and dead exist on different planes of existence, the energy from the dead moves out of the material plane but remains a natural part of the universe as a whole. A ghost is by definition tied to the material plane beyond death, this puts its existence at odds with the natural progression of life. Do not confuse this wrongness with that of an aberrant entity which exhibits a deep and pervasive wrongness across the planes.

Awareness / Sentience

Ghosts are not sentient, particularly even a ghost that has retained intelligence and some point of conscious thought they are not self aware. Even though a ghost can appear to be far similar to what it was before death, it is not. Ghosts are formed with finite energy, directly tied to the intensity of purpose, focus, intelligence, and depth of the desire to life that a person had. These are quantities difficult to measure and there is no exact formula for how they coalesce to form the energy of a ghost. Since the energy is finite the ghost cannot renew itself the way a living creature can. Ghosts cannot eat and they do not sleep in the way that the living does to renew itself. Without physical body a ghost continued to erode away at its energy over time.

Absorbing Energy

The only kind of renewal that a ghost has access to is to draw energy passively off of the living or from the environment. There is a demonstrable link between ghosts and the element of Aether. Some theories say that ghosts are formed more easily in the presence of large amounts of Aether and there is statistical evidence to back this up. More hauntings have been reported in areas near wells and close to ley lines. Being near a source of such energy can bolster or even rejuvenate a ghost while the haunting is in a passive state.

A key thing to note here is that while it is easy to conceptualize this as a ghost eating or consuming the ambient radiating energy around them, this isn't the case. A ghost's energy is not the same as magical, psionic, or other forms of energy around it. A ghost does not consume it, it absorbs this energy. Since the energy that allows a ghost to stay and manifest on the material plane is deeply connected to the intensity of a purpose there is a kind of two-way bleedover of this which both effects the ghost and the area around it.

The area where a ghost is absorbing the energy to maintain its purpose will sort of leak its purpose into the surrounding area causing some areas to feel different than others. Feelings that an area is somehow preternaturally cold or contains the scent of death can be the subconscious interpretations of this leaking of purpose. The converse is also true, where a ghost will begin to draw in the emotions and feelings from the world around it as it absorbs the energy present.

Purpose / Fixation

Once a ghost is triggered and the haunting becomes active the ghost will have a purpose or fixation. Fixations can run the spectrum between malevolent and benign as well as complex to simple. Since trauma is a key factor in the formation of a ghost at the time of death fixations are often violent. It is important to note that while rare, a fixation is not always violent and harmful in its intent. Equally important is that even a benign haunting with a ghost cannot be trusted, fixations are echos of the purpose at some traumatic point which has tied a ghost to the material plane.

A fixation is a key part of a haunting can be complex to understand. Case reports show that there are even times when an individual has died and their ghost has attempted to resume their normal life. In almost all cases a ghost will begin to narrow the focus as its energy diminishes. In cases where a benign ghost has attempted to resume the life it had before, the ghost becomes more and more focused onto a narrowing group of specific things. Ghosts cannot retain the full spectrum of purpose they had in life, thus as the purpose narrows even a benevolent ghost that simply wished to continue living after death will become more and more obsessed with a few aspects of that purpose which held the most value when it was living. The narrowing and obsession quickly turns dangerous when challenged.

Diminishing

Even when there is a strong exchange of energy with a ghost's environment (say within a well of magical energy), the ghosts purpose will become more and more diminished over time. Some ghosts last for only a few days after death and others can last for years. The intensity is highly variable and depends on many factors which are not clearly understood. This means that a ghost which begins exceptionally strongly tied to the material plane will eventually lose its connection. While diminishing a ghost will enter a passive state more and more often and the trigger becomes more and more resistant to being set off.

Eventually the energy of a and thus the ghost itself will be absorbed into the surrounding aether, this is not death exactly and there is no true understanding of exactly what occurs at this point in time. Some would say this means a ghost has moved on or found peace while others would say the ghost has experienced a final death. These are conjectures, though a consistent idea is that whatever fixation or purpose has trapped the ghost on the material plane after death is gone and the ghost goes with it.

Perfect Storm

As previously discussed, most ghosts will eventually fade away. Either through using up their own energy to the point they can no longer sustain a manifestation to their fixation being diluted to the point that it can no longer be effectively triggered or acted once the ghost is manifest. Cases like this account for the majority of ghosts which appear for a moment, becoming manifest for an image, a sound, or even just a strange scent that is quickly gone. They can even be felt as just hot or cold flashes which have no other explanation. In such cases someone sensitive to their energy can usually feel the presence of the ghost, even get the gist of its purpose, but the ghost quickly goes back to its passive state.

There are some cases that this does not happen. People radiate out energy in many forms. Places become imprinted with this energy in the two-way exchange of aether between a living being and their environment. There are rare cases where a ghost is formed in a location which has a heavy presence of people with similarities to the ghost. As people not only exchange energy with their surroundings but they also generate their own energy as they live. It is possible for a two-way change to take place where a ghost passively pulls in the energy of people around them and instead of diluting the fixation of the ghost, it intensifies it. When the people in a haunted location share a good portion of the feelings and intent which helps to form a fixation with an passive ghost, this can become a kind of feedback loop. The ghost will draw in more of its own purpose, focused upon those shared qualities, and the people will do the same.

This perfect storm results in unusually strong ghosts that can be maintained indefinitely. Since the overall energy exchange with the environment will also impact the surrounding space, prolonged exposure of the same group of people with the same ghost and same environment will inevitably result in distilled kind of purpose creating an extremely potent fixation and powerful ghost. Notable examples of this include areas where continued and extensive trauma repeatedly takes place for both the living and dead such as mental institutions where human experimentation took place, prisons which had long and enduring torture programs, and even a cathedral which has standed vigil for centuries. Since an area is most strongly affected by base emotions eventually an entire area can become tainted with strong feelings tied to people and ghosts which exist there.

Malevolence / Benevolence

It is a fact that malevolence is one of the most common characteristics of ghosts. This is due to the link between the formation of a ghost and trauma Trauma can cause intense destructive feelings, which in a human can be mutated and used or spent on constructive purposes through healthy coping mechanisms. Ghosts cannot do this and thus trauma causes the vast majority of ghosts to be malevolent toward the living.

There are very rare cases where a ghost is not malevolent, that isn't to say a ghost isn't dangerous. There are ghosts whose fixations are strongly tied to what they did and experienced in life and not the trauma they endured. Other cases a trauma endured was done willingly without the destructive feelings associated with trauma. These are extremely rare cases but not impossible. A notable example of this is that of a cathedral in England, where the ghost of a former priest was repeatedly shown to be present attempting to comfort parishioners long after his death. The perfect storm of purpose alignment and strong fixation caused the ghost to lsat for centuries. Records indicate the ghost would manifest itself for people who visited the church alone at night with thoughts of suicide, a mortal sin in the eyes of the church.

That being said, even a ghost which appears to be benevolent should not be trusted, the example above is the exception and not the rule. All ghosts should be treated as being extremely dangerous and unpredictable. Much like a wild animal, even a very smart wild animal or a very compassionate wild animal, the strong fixation can turn violent in an instant. All ghosts want to survive, this is a key seminal feature of what a ghost is -- an intense fixation to continue in the material plane in which it lived.

Types of Hauntings

Active

A haunting is active when a ghost is both present and able to manifest itself. Ghosts that are active can become manifest at any time. Though an active ghost can (an often does) manifest without reference to a trigger, the triggering event will often cause the ghost to become immediately manifest.

Passive

A haunting is passive when a ghost is present but not able to manifest itself. Such hauntings are predicated upon an physical cue or trigger. The trigger both causes the ghost to enter an active state. While passive the energy of the ghost is present but in a resting state or sleeping. In a sleeping state, a ghost is more difficult to detect though the presence and psychic image remain the same, just much lower intensity.

Anchored

Many ghosts are tied to a specific place. The location they are anchored to is relative to a plot of land, area of the ocean, or other point relative to some planetary body or other physical structure. The place is always a point of special significance to the ghost since death is such a powerful event, the location of death is the most common location to be tied to. This is not always the case though, a ghost can become fixed to any significant location throughout the time it was alive. It is exceedingly rare for a ghost to become fixed to a point that is not tied with intense trauma during life. Fixed ghosts are strongly tied to their triggers and will seldom remain active far beyond the immediate area of its fixation.

Object Anchor

It is also possible for a ghost to become anchored to an object rather than a place. A ghost anchored to a house and sometimes become focused on a singular object in a house during renovations as the house changes or as its energy diminishes over time. If a plot of land is developed which has a ghost anchored to it, the ghost can focus its fixation onto a particular object which then can be moved. Records indicate experiments throughout history of forcing a ghost to anchor itself to a specific object, even some in the early middle ages which tried to perfect creating a ghost and anchoring it to an object. These same records lack reliable details on success or failure though they do detail the extravagant (and brutal ) ways in which people attempted to accomplish the goal.

Repeating

Some ghosts repeat a sequence of actions with a varied degree of specificity. In most cases the ghost is unaware that it is repeating actions and behaves as if it is still alive, locking into a cycle. While most often the actions are some kind of traumatic sequence which leads to their eventual death. Less common are situations where a ghost goes through a different set of traumatic events that did not lead to death while it was living. Often if the cycle is broken somehow the ghost also vanishes. The sequence of events is strongly tied to a specific location. Either an exact location (such as a plot of land) or a relative location (relative to an object). The ghost never travels very far from where or what it is tied to.

Roaming

This ghost travels freely and is not tied to a specific place. Such entities often wander endlessly and are seen across a very wide area, even in places they never saw during life. A roaming ghost teeters on the edge of awareness of the fact that he or she is actually dead. They can speak to people and even have limited ability to manipulate the world around them. A roaming ghost can and will also respond to the world around it, these ghosts may or may not be able to speak. When they do interact they do so from within the confines of the perceptions they had when they died. Thus a ghost only has a limited ability to actually understand the world it exists in.

Following

A subset of a roaming ghost are those that become somehow attached to a person. Although they are capable of moving away from that person but choose not to, they often will not. Often the ghost becomes jealous and angry when others try to interact too heavily with the target of the attachment. The ghost will follow this person until it is forced to stop, the only exception is that the ghost will actively try to preserve and protect its connection to the living person. This kind of attachment can also occur with an object rather than a person but it is most often a person. The person also doesn't have to be anyone the ghost actually met while still alive or even came in contact with. A roaming ghost can become attached to any person or object though the mechanisms vary widely.

Types of Physical Manifestation

Ghosts can manifest in two basic types; corporeal and non-corporeal. Most ghosts manifest in a non-corporeal way (lacking physical substance) and there are a number of ways this happens. Few ghosts are able to manifest with a physical form of some kind, though the kind, shape, and texture of the physical form varied widely.

Non-Corporeal

A non-corporeal form has not physical substance to it at all and it cannot directly manipulate the physical world. These forms are picked up by the senses but rarely by technology; though some of the forms have been known to be seen by cameras and the like.

• Sensory

Some manifestation within the 5 normal senses, most often an image or a sound though smells, phantom touches, and even strange tastes in the air have been known to happen. Such sensory information is a kind of mental interpretation of formless energy and thus two people can interpret that energy differently for the same ghost.

• Hallucinatory

Similar to a sensory manifestation but actually manifests inside the mind of a person, it is still not physical in any way but a person's mind will make it feel as physical anything else. This is also paired with reports of a person being "taken back" to something that happened to the ghost during life while never moving.

• Possession

Ghosts can temporarily inhabit a living being as a host body for some period of time, usually not long. The body does not respond well to being possessed and fights the invading force, since a ghost is not alive it cannot truly supplant the person inside their own body either. While fully possessed a ghost can fully interact with the world using the person's body. A full possession is rare, more often the ghost inhabits some subconscious later, especially during sleep, and takes over the body while the consciousness that belongs there is sleeping. To possess a person a ghost has to be not only especially strong but also retain a good portion of its understanding and reasoning abilities from when it was alive.

As a side-note, a medium will induce a kind of partial possession welcoming a ghost to take partial control while still retaining a conscious mind. This is not something everyone can do and is closely linked with the ability to use psionic energy and seldom linked with someone able to use magical energy.

Corporeal

A corporeal ghost manifests through some form of ectoplasm in varying degrees of solidity. Ectoplasm is not matter in a conventional sense but rather it is a substance mostly composed of concentrated energy such as aether. Since ectoplasm does not follow all of the same rules as conventional matter it takes on unique properties depending on the ghost which manifests it. The major property is that these forms can directly interact with the physical world.

• Vapor

A cohesive region with properties similar to a cloud of fog, usually leaves a dampness behind in the air and in clothes.

• Liquid

Some kind of water-like liquid with similar consistency though can be held together into cohesive shapes. The liquid leaves behind residue on things which penetrate its surface tension.

• Viscous

A thick viscous substance not unlike mucus which leaves a thin film on things it touches.

• Semi-Solid

Similar to a cohesive gelatinous form which holds shapes the way a liquid form can but tends to be thicker and have more substance. Rather than leaving a thin film on everything it touches, this form tends to leave very little residue.

• Solid

A fully solid and corporeal form. This can take many different shapes and types, most often in a form similar to what the ghost had in life.

Removing a Ghost

TBD