Ghosts cause unease in those who are near them. All ghosts are heavily imbued with msawhat (10), and their touch will drain and corrupt the souls or other metaphysical aspects of a mortal. The corruption of mortal souls causes them to both become susceptible to undeath and to weaken their immune response, making them more susceptible to physical disease. The souldraining and corrupting touch empowers ghosts when they use it.

Their voices (which usually come through indistinctly as moaning or whining, though some more powerful ghosts can speak clearly without a medium) cause fear, depression, or rage. The sight of a ghost can also cause intense fear. Once a year, a ghost may cause intense misfortune to befall someone when they breath one them. The person will feel the change, though they often will not know what happened.

Even the least powerful ghost may appear and disappear at will within their territory.

Existing in undeath often gives ghosts insights they did not have in life. Some can share these as advice or prophecy if they are powerful enough to be able to communicate. Some ghosts cannot communicate at all, no matter how powerful they get, but they gain the power to etch sigils into lead or pottery and place it on a grave and bring death to those they seek to kill. All ghosts can know when someone will die if they take part of their soul.

Ghosts have varying degrees of control of the physical world. A weak ghost cannot move anything and exists only as an image, though they can still interact with mortal emotions, corrupt souls, bring misfortune, and cause disease. A stronger ghost can interact as if they were alive, and a very powerful ghost can warp their environment to be horrifying, taking complete control of it. All ghosts have a territory that they haunt, whether it is a place, person, or object.

If a ghost is photographed or filmed, it will cause a ghost flare, similar to a lens flare, but without no apparent source, which distorts the image of the ghost. Ghosts can appear in peoples' dreams if the person sleeps in their territory.

Powerful ghosts can wield the msawhat that corrupts their souls and unleash it as a blast of corrupted soul energy that will harm the souls of those it strikes. This will eventually cause the ghost to cease to exist if they use up all their energy without replenishing it.

Non-person ghosts (animals, plants, fungi) have similar powers to everything above with some variation due to their different existences. Ghost animals tend to be able to create multiple images of themselves. Ghost plants tend to corrupt aether from the soil, sun, sky, and water sources. Ghost fungi tend to multiply themselves in a more direct manner rapidly.

Sending a ghost varies on how and why they became a ghost. If someone was improperly buried or disrespected after they died, a proper burial with special funeral rites will send the ghost. In some cases, reburying the body bound with special cords will send the ghost. Some ghosts, especially those of one's ancestors, must be shown the proper respect before they are sent.

If a ghost is in control of a person, place, or object, rituals of exorcism by someone with command of spirits, faith, qi, the gates, or heavenly essences can send a ghost, but it might cost the possessed their soul if not done correctly.

Some ghosts can be appeased and even sent with offerings of food and drink if they were traumatized in life; any showing of care might do it. Ritual mourning is also sometimes effective. Prayers to certain Divines can bring mercy to the ghost or simply direct appropriate energies to send it. If someone has a personal connection to a ghost, such as being a former lover, giving formal release from promises or emotional connection can release them, including simply ending one's grief or confessing sins or crimes. Others use ritual daggers to send a ghost, soultraps in which ghosts can be burned, or special mystical medicines.

The invocation of a Name with any heavenly essence, qi, or the gates will also send a ghost. Common names of certain figures (messiahs, offerants, saints, etc.) will do the same if imbued with such energies.

Some communities hold festivals to honor and release ghosts, using offerings, communal rituals, and messages to the afterlife.

Because of the level of soul corruption required to form a ghost, it is very rare a ghost is not malicious. Those that aren't are usually seeking some kind of release and will grow more and more desperate as times goes by and they are forced to live an agonizing existence as a ghost.

Ghosts are usually solitary, though there are some ghosts who exist in groups if they knew or were close in life, or if they all died in the same place and/or time. They wander their territory and seek to drain soul energy from those who enter it so that they can be powerful enough either to complete the task they had in life or to alleviate the suffering they are experiencing as a corrupted soul. When a ghost does not feed for a very long time (usually several centuries), they lose cohesion and become senselessly moaning, writhing phantasms.

Ghost animals usually end up mimicking their previous lives without understanding their ghostly condition.