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| Species | Spectre |
| Order | Phantasm |
| Classification | Undead |
| Dominion | Raesian |
| Sphere | Undeath |
| Origin | Early mortals who stalked other mortals. |
| Lifespan | At least as long as their targets still live, sometimes longer, up to inmortality. |
| Habitat | Near to their targets. |
| Food | Fear resonance |
| Description | Spectres have two forms: a translucent version of their living selves floating in an inky darkness or a form that is completely in shadow. |
| Corruption | Spectres form from mortals who die with an intense obsession in someone or something. Moderate msawhat power (9) can corrupt someone's soul enough to make them a spectre if they meet other conditions. |
| Esoterica | Spectres are beings of msawhat. Spectres can use deeply corrupted and slightly weakened versions of what they used in life, except for qi, heavenly essences, or the gates. As time goes on, they gain power over emotional resonances. |
| Special Powers | Spectres cause unease in those who are near them. They also have a terrifying presence that gets stronger the longer they are near someone. They can move through shadow, appearing anywhere near their target. If a spectre finds the target of their obsession, they can attach to them metaphysically and terrify them, feeding off their fear. They can cause nightmares in their target by whispering in their ear as they sleep. Spectres gain enormous power as they gain more power over their target, eventually becoming able to control them, then consume them entirely. When this happens, the spectre moves on unless its will is strong enough to resist. Before this moment, however, spectres have many powers over mortal emotions. If a spectre stays on beyond the loss of their target, there is a period of lucidity in which they can wield their powers to whatever they please; eventually, the loss of their obsession will eat at them and shift them into a dangerous state of obsessive violence against any who even remotely remind them of their target. |
| Necromancy | Necromancers can instill obsession in a living target through use of msawhat to corrupt emotions (9+), then use msawhat (9) to damage the souls of those targets to create a spectre. To control or summon a spectre, one can use msawhat (9), but it requires a constant battle of wills against the phantasm's obsession. The more common method is to use tactics to control the target of obsession so that the spectre is forced to comply. Spectres are often wanted by necromancers who seek to wield their emotional or stealth powers. A captured spectre will give a necromancer not just all the powers a spectre commonly has, but often, a power that lingers even after the spectre is used up, as use of their powers often teach necromancers the skills needed to command emotional resonance. A medium may find a spectre more difficult to interact with than even some more powerful phantasms because of the strength of their obsession. Spectres will almost always try to use the medium's body to seek out their obsession. |
| Sending | The target of a spectre's obsession, if the target is sentient, can confront and send the spectre through a variety of means: an act of pure forgiveness or love (though this has major risks), a banishing ritual involving an act of violent rejection and self-sacrifice, or use of a special mirror made of silver and lignum vitae to see the spectre while it is behind them. |
| Weaknesses | Love resonance and dumaqu can send a spectre. Qi, the gates, and heavenly essences work as normal against them. |
| Behavior | Whatever they were obsessed with in life is what they obsess over in undeath, and this obsession drives them to find their obsession and torment it/them. They stalk their obsession if it is a person; if it is a place or an object, they obsessively control it. They seek to control everything about their target's lives, if possible. Eventually, they drain their target of all emotion and power, turn them into a pawn, and consume them after a period of slavery. If a spectre stays on after the consumption of their target, they slowly become an uncontrolled source of violence. |
| Dominion Culture | Spectres are used as slave-masters in the Raesian Dominion, being manipulated and created for the purpose of commanding small groups of pawns. They are targeted and closely monitored, and eventually, they are unleashed from their targets and sent as acts of terrorism against the Dominion's enemies. They are often treated like low-ranking members of the ruling class, but they are all being used. |
| Other Dominions | Spectres occur in every Dominion. The Fellwood Dominion uses them to terrorize targeted individuals. Their terrifying presence is much stronger there. In the Srisian Dominion, their obsessions are very neatly controlled to keep the spectre growing in power and building a small army of puppets, but instead of letting them ever consume their targets, they are trapped in a constant state of middle management enslavement. Their shadow powers are stronger in this Dominion. Among the Agikaani, the torment they cause is amplified, and among the Durosian Dominion, they are more powerful in their emotional control, though they move on quicker there. The Qhanuum see them as useful for targeting specific objects, and the Godless use them to target certain religious folk. In the Kaanian and Pandemonian Dominions, they are able to warp the waves into terrifying images instead of a terrifying presence, and in the Wapek and Sangarian Dominions, they have stronger emotional draining powers. In the Dun Dominion, their target sense is more potent, and in the Campionese Dominion, their shadow walk is more stealthy. |
| Mortal Interactions | Mortals, who often view spectres as ghosts, view them as beings of terror, undead beings that are problems, plagues to be avoided. |
| Afterlife | Spectres are usually too damaged and corrupted by the time they move on to go to any afterlife save the Grey Lands. If they are sent via purifying powers like qi, heavenly essences, or love resonance, they have a chance of something else, spending upwards of 100,000 years in the in-between. Those sent via the gates usually end up in the Grey Lands, their souls unsaveable. |
| Notables | Farley Dickinson, the Obsessive; Mardaspan, Spectre Manifest |
| Special Classes | Stalker, Slave-Master, Terrorizer |
| Sample Stats | PRO 8 ATH 8 STR 8 [if substantial] AWA 8 Sense Target 14 WIL 11 ROG 10 Shadow Walk 17 Unease Presence 8 Terrifying Presence 14 Nightmare Whisper 11 Emotional Manipulation 14 |
GrandGuignol
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