Van Richten's Guide to Ghosts

And then, abruptly, once more I thought I heard the sound
of that huge, soft tread on the aisle, find this time closer to me.
There was an awful little silence, during which I had the feeling that
something enormous was bending over towards me, from the aisle.... I
had the lantern ready in my left hand, and now I snapped it on,
desperately, and shone it straight above me, for I had a conviction
that something was there. But I saw nothing.

- William Hope Hodgson
"The Thing Invisible"

Ordinary Powers

Calling any aspect of a supernatural being's abilities "ordinary" is deceiving. After all, even the most rudimentary apparition, the lowest of first-magnitude ghosts, can do things beyond the ken of mortals. Thus, the reader must understand that powers I call ordinary are common or typical for ghosts as a whole, as opposed to the extraordinary or unique powers I discuss in the next chapter.

Before I discuss these ordinary powers, I must describe a fundamental truth about our world that will act as a frame of reference for the reader.

It seems our whole world is immediately surrounded by a belt that learned ones call the border ethereal. This border is a transient thing that permeates our land. It is, in fact, as much a state of being as it is a place of existence. It functions as an intermediary between our world and the vast, mysterious, unseen realm called the Ethereal Plane.

Ghosts and other incorporeal beings become nonsolid by entering the border ethereal. Curiously, however, they are unable to take the step from the border ethereal into the Ethereal Plane itself. It seems that some mystical force is at work that prevents them from moving beyond the border. I cannot account for this effect nor even define it clearly.

But enough discourse on the conjectures of sages. The background the reader now has should provide a reference point for the following "ordinary" powers of ghosts: insubstantiality, invisibility, rejuvenation, immunity, racial abilities, class abilities, and creation of undead. Although all ghosts have the first four ordinary powers, the remaining three a dependent upon the individual ghost.

A ghost's best known power is, without doubt, its ethereal nature. Being insubstantial, the ghost is not restricted by physical barriers and can come and go as it pleases. Its movement may be limited in some cases by an anchor or a magical border it cannot cross, but for the most part a ghost cannot be constrained physically.

In its insubstantial form, a ghost is immune to harm from normal weapons. Even the mightiest dwarven ax or the finest elven sword will not cleave that which is ethereal. No, only magical weapons can harm the ethereal creature. In addition, those enchanted weapons effective against a lesser ghost may have no power against a greater one, for the spirit's resistance to attack is directly based upon its magnitude.

I must warn the reader, however, that I have encountered some spirits who seem more resistant to harm than I would have expected from their apparent magnitude. Either these ghosts had some sort of additional protection, or their true magnitude was cleverly concealed.

The ghost's intangible state is, I believe, proof that it exists primarily in the border ethereal. If one were able to enter that mysterious realm and confront a ghost on its own territory, I speculate that it would be as solid as you or I. It might even be possible to battle the creature with nonmagical weapons and destroy it just as one would a mad dog.

As the young woman moved toward Alanik, I raised my crossbow to warn her off. The light of the fireplace danced on the quarrel's silver head. I felt confident in its power and deadliness.

To be sure, it was very nearly impossible for me to believe that so fair and innocent a girl could be responsible for all the deaths in town, but the evidence was conclusive. Then, as she moved nearer my companion, I saw the girl's true nature plainly in the way the moonlight streamed through her body - she was utterly ethereal, a ghost. She reached out in anticipation of taking Alanik in her vile embrace. I tightened my grip on the weapon's trigger and fired. The quarrel cut cleanly through the air, plunged into her breast, and emerged without slowing from her back. As it buried itself in the far wall, my confidence in the silver quarrel was shattered. I knew that no earthly weapon could protect us.

Mutable spirits are able to become ethereal or tangible at will. As soon as these creatures assume a corporeal state, they become vulnerable to attacks using nonmagical, physical weapons.

I would be remiss in my charge to instruct would-be ghost hunters, however, if I did not warn the reader that this is not always the case. On more than one occasion, I have heard of the death of someone who found that his nonmagical blade was useless against a truly corporeal spirit. Similarly, those mutable or semicorporeal spirits - who seem able to become partly corporeal while retaining a primarily incorporeal state - do not become vulnerable to mundane weapons.

As I described earlier in Chapter One, these spirits do not actually become partially solid. Rather, they seem able to focus their energies in such a way that they can affect their physical surroundings without becoming a part of them.

Another power of a typical ghost is its ability to become invisible at will. Creatures moving about in the border ethereal are not readily visible to those who dwell in our world, as invisibility seems to be a side effect, if you will, the ghost's existence in this "realm".

There are numerous ways to detect ghost that is not yet visible, although they are almost all magical. The most common means employed is the use of a detect invisibility or similar spell. I am also told that some persons are able to sense the presence of ethereal creature by means of innate psionic abilities. It is said that the Vistani always sense the presence of the incorporeal, although this may be an old wives' tale.

In most cases, a ghost must become visible (if not tangible) to attack those in our real, solid world. Only the most powerful and deadly of ghosts are able to attack without revealing their presence to their victims.

Nonmagical means of detecting invisible and incorporeal creatures are generally of no use. For example, scattering a fine layer of dust or flour across the floor of a room might well cause an invisible corporeal being to reveal itself through the making of footprints. An incorporeal creature, however, would leave no such sign of its passage. Similarly, attempts to discern the presence or location of an incorporeal creature by making sweeping passes with a weapon or other object will generally fail. An incorporeal spirit can be detected in this manner only if the object or weapon used to probe the area is magical and its enchantment strong enough to actually strike the ghost.

As strange as it may seem, it is possible to drive off a ghost by physical combat. Doing so, however, often requires a magical weapon or spellcasting ability. Those without such tools stand little chance of harming, let alone destroying, any ghost.

Even if one has the physical ability to harm an incorporeal spirit, however, the task is only half completed. Most ghosts are able to strike down a mortal with but a few blows, thanks to their special powers. Conversely, it usually requires a great effort on the part of many individuals to inflict enough harm to one ghost to drive it off or destroy it. I have heard tell of apparitions that were beset by teams of adventurers and managed to not only survive the attacks, but completely annihilate their mortal opponents.

This resilience is partly due to a ghost's ability to heal itself, though ghosts do not regenerate in the way that vampires and certain other creatures do. This is not to say that a ghost that is badly injured in a skirmish today will be whole and hardy on the morrow. Rather, there is an important difference in the ways in which a ghost is able to heal itself of injury as opposed to the ways in which other creatures recover from harm.

To heal themselves, ghosts are able to employ a process I call rejuvenation. Unlike regeneration, which implies a healing of wounds at a greatly accelerated rate, rejuvenation allows the ghost to absorb the essence of the Ethereal Plane that surrounds it, thus restoring itself to full vigor.

This process is taxing and demands the ghost do nothing for some time after the assumption of ethereal matter, rendering it vulnerable should it be forced to rejuvenate during a combat situation. As a rule, a first-magnitude ghost can heal any injuries sustained at any time, but it is then helpless to act for an hour afterward. The duration of this "resting time" lessens with the power of the ghost until, at the fifth magnitude, a ghost need only rest for 10 minutes after rejuvenation.

As a word of caution, I must advise the reader that I have, on rare occasions, encountered ghosts that seemed able to heal themselves more rapidly, perhaps by a process I can only liken to regeneration.

Being undead, ghosts have a natural resistance to many forms of magical attack. As one might expect, this is a characteristic that they share with many other undead creatures. In the text that follows, I shall examine each of the most common spell immunities.

From time to time, a ghost hunter may encounter spirits that are immune to all forms of magic. As a rule, the more powerful a ghost, the more resistant it is to spells and spell-like powers. In general this is manifested as a blanket resistance to magic of all types. More information on this broader, more powerful, type of spell immunity is found in Chapter Three.

The very nature of the ghost as an unliving creature makes it immune to all manner of spells that depend upon the processes of life or life's own essence for their effects. Perhaps the best known example of this resistance is the natural immunity that all undead have to every form of sleep-causing spell.

The list that follows was compiled with the aid of an anonymous ally of mine, a powerful magician in the land of Barovia. The reader will find all other spells she has ascertained are useless against the undead because of their unliving nature.

Wizard Spells Useless Against Ghosts
   Avoidance/attraction *
   Blindness
   Cloudkill
   Contagion
   Deafness
   Death
   Death fog
   Energy drain
   Hold animal
   Hold monster
   Hold person
   Irritation
   Magic jar
   Otto's irresistible dance
   Polymorph any object
   Polymorph others
   Power word, blind
   Power word, kill
   Power word, stun
   Sink
   Sleep
   Slow
   Vampiric touch

Priest Spells Useless Against Ghosts
   Animal growth/shrink animal *
   Cause blindness
   Haste
   Cause deafness
   Cause disease
   Finger of death
   Hold animal
   Hold person
   Regenerate/wither *
   Restoration/energy drain *
   Speak with monsters

In some cases, a spirit's resistance to magic is based upon its origins. For example, I have heard tell of the ghost of a young woman who died when an avalanche of snow swept away her mountain chalet. This ghost was immune to harm from all spells that do not employ cold, ice, or the like as a part of their magic. Normally, spirits who are immune to some type of magic are more vulnerable to others. In the example presented above, the apparition of the alpine girl was more greatly affected by a spell such as cone of cold than would normally be expected. In extreme cases, it might be impossible to drive off or destroy the spirit unless magic to which it is vulnerable is employed.

Seeing that my quarrel had not slowed the phantom, Alanik Ray backed away pulled his leather satchel to him, and he began to rummage through it in search of something unbeknownst to me. The phantom beauty turned toward me, confident in the impotence of our attacks and defenses. Its slender, pale hands reached out for my throat, and I found myself unable to look away from that angelic face. Suddenly, Alanik Ray shoved me roughly aside. I slipped and fell. As I watched from the floor In stunned silence, the ghost spread its arms and took my companion into its deadly embrace. To my surprise, the great detective seemed unharmed. Indeed, it was the ghost who threw back her head and let out a scream of agony. Alanik Ray had impaled her on a shaft of gleaming crystal.

Although ghosts acquire new abilities from their undead status, a number of spirits also retain the natural abilities of their racial origin. The ghost of a dwarf, for example, might retain its natural infravision as well as its resistance to spells. Not all spirits retain such racial abilities, but enough do so that it is important to note this possibility. Racial abilities most likely retained seem to be those intrinsic to an apparition's new life.

The knowledge that a ghost possessed when it was a living being is seldom lost to it in the transformation from life to unlife. Thus, many ghosts retain the abilities of whatever profession they pursued in life. In the least of these cases, this might include such common skills as cooking or carpentry, both of which have little importance to the incorporeal apparition. Far worse, however, are spirits that retain their knowledge of formidable magic, innovative battle tactics, or the mysterious powers of the psionic mind.

In approximately half of all cases of ghostly haunting, the apparition has the ability to cause a person it kills to rise up again as some form of undead, though not necessarily in the form of another ghost.

If the ghost also has the ability to command undead, these newly created assistants fall instantly and totally under its control. The type of undead spawned by a given ghost differs from ghost to ghost, but the new undead almost always shares something of its creator, notably certain of its considerable powers and abilities.

In general, a ghost is able to employ this power only when it slays a person using its primary special attack ability. Thus, a ghost capable of draining life energy might be able to bring to unlife anyone who died from having his or her life energy drained away, rising again as a lesser form of undead.