| Species | Gwisin |
| Order | Phantasm |
| Classification | Undead |
| Dominion | Raesian |
| Sphere | Undeath |
| Origin | Early mortals dying with a major task to complete. |
| Lifespan | Until they have completed their unfinished business or inmortal. |
| Habitat | Abandoned buildings, houses, cemeteries, forests, schools, ancient villages, mountains |
| Food | None |
| Description | Gwisin are transparent phantasms with no legs. They float in mid-air. Women who become gwisin will find their hair (if their species/nation had hair) is long, black, drooping down. Some gwisin are faceless. Men who become gwisin are rarer. They appear with mist surrounding them and always face anyone who can see them, |
| Corruption | A gwisin is a mortal who dies with something significant to finish. Sometimes they can be formed from a mortal's soul being corrupted by msawhat at a minor level (7). |
| Esoterica | Gwisin are beings of msawhat. They have access to some of the energies they could wield in life, though weakened and deeply corrupted by msawhat, except for qi, the gates, and heavenly essences. |
| Special Powers | Gwisin cause unease in those who are near them. They are visible to any mortal they are near, but they can vanish completely at will. They can move through solid matter if they so choose. When they are near someone, a cold wind blows and the temperature drops. In order to gain attention, gwisin can appear in reflections, photographs or films, and in the dreams of people they knew. They are able to move things in the physical realm as if they were there, though sometimes when they are new it is difficult. If they can pick something up and hold it for an hour, it will vanish with them. Gwisin gain strength over time, becoming more able to interact with the physical world. As they gain strength, they gain the power to manipulate things near them without touching them. Very powerful gwisin can resist moving on to the afterlife if they do not wish to. |
| Necromancy | Users of msawhat can cause someone to become a gwisin either by corrupting their soul or by killing them before they can finish something important. The latter is harder to socially engineer than simple necromancy (7), however. Controlling or summoning a gwisin requires the same level of msawhat if the gwisin is relatively new. Older, more powerful gwisin can be more difficult (up to a 19). Captured gwisin can provide necromancers with the power to manipulate or move objects nearby without touching them, phasing through solid matter, invisibility, presence of unease, cold presence, the power to appear in images or reflections or dreams, and the power to resist death if they are strong enough. The stronger the msawhat, the more power can be drawn from them. Mediums can usually safely channel a weaker gwisin, but as they get stronger, it is more difficult. However, a calm or gentle gwisin will willingly not take over a medium, especially if it means finishing what they need to complete. |
| Sending | Helping a gwisin finish its business will usually see them move on. Qi, the gates, and heavenly essences will also send a gwisin. |
| Weaknesses | Gwisin are especially weak to light of patience. |
| Behavior | A gwisin is compelled to complete the task they left unfilled. This can be anything from revenge to finishing school, from telling family they love them to assuaging their own guilt, from wanting to see something they had waited their whole life for to wanting to finish being born. Some simply have some major job to finish. Gwisin love attention. They will pull on or play with a mortal's hair, knock over objects, pull small pranks, steal objects and hide them, raise or lower the volume of things, turn on the tap and leave it running, pull on a mortal's clothing, or other minor, mostly harmless actons to get attention. If this fails, they will often resort to something more extreme. Some gwisin are still kind and gentle in their undeath and stick to minor pranks, but eventually, they get too strong and accidentally harm someone. Other gwisin are wicked and will harm people intentionally. They retain the personalities they had in life. |
| Dominion Culture | In the Raesian Dominion, gwisin are considered commoners, phantasms that dwell everywhere. They are not enslaved, nor are they rulers. They simply come to exist and remain there, seeking to finish their business. If they grow powerful enough, they can become part of the ruling class. |
| Other Dominions | Gwisin show up in almost every Dominion without being intentionally created and dwell as common phantasms. In the Srisian Dominion, they are always malicious. Among the Kaanian Dominion, unborn children often show up as gwisin and become terrifyingly powerful as they have no agency to be properly born. In the Durosian Dominion, suicide is the commonest source of gwisin, and in the Fellwood and Agikaani, it is the need for revenge. The Godless Dominion often sees gwisin come back for personal matters, and in Qhanuum Dominion, it is for research or study. In the Dun and Wapek (where they have much stronger cold presence), lost travelers seeking a way home often become gwisin, and in Campionese, those seeking something they lost. In Sangarian, gwisin are often starvelings, and in Pandemonian, they are those whose voyages were never completed. |
| Mortal Interactions | Gwisin often interact with mortals in order to seek to finish what they needed to in life. Mortals know of them as dangerous phantasms (usually seen as ghosts) to be avoided or appeased. |
| Afterlife | Once a gwisin is sent or finishes their tasks, they move on to the in-between, waiting to be purified enough to go on. If they were malicious or malevolent, they will sometimes end up in the Grey Lands. If they were kind or gentle, they often go on to a normal afterlife. Those that refuse to move on but get sent anyway always end up permanently in the Grey Lands. Qi and heavenly essences can purify them quicker. |
| Notables | Eomeoniui Salm, Gwisin Manifest; Bin Peiji, Ungraduated Avenger |
| Special Classes | Commoner |
| Sample Stats | PRO 8 ATH 8 STR 8 AWA 8 WIL 8 ROG 8 Vanished 22 Unease Presence 7 Cold Presence 6 Imaging 11 Telekinesis (after hundreds of years) 9 |
Topic revision: 26 Sep 2022, SallyJaneBlack
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