Death and the Dead

Ghosts who reform after death usually lose an essence point. On our MUSH, Ghosts can never lose the last essence point they have through this process, and they will always reform unless destroyed through an exceptional means which notes otherwise (Such as Ghost-Eating, Spectral attacks or Soulsteel).

Ghosts and Martial Arts 

Martial Arts are the only charms available to ghosts that are also of the living world. Here are the limitations here, which supersede the official errata:

• Ghosts may practice, and learn, the Terrestrial Martial Arts. However, they cannot form combos, and the mote cost of all of their charms is doubled.
• Ghosts may not practice, or learn, the Celestial Martial Arts. However, they retain knowledge of the THEORY of Celestial Martial Arts charms that they knew when they died, and as such, can tutor others in them, even though they cannot learn more.

CRAFTING

In an effort to alleviate the bloated Craft ability, the following changes will be made to some of the traditional Ghost crafts:

Craft (Pandemonium) => Performance

Craft (Moliation) => Craft (Wood)

Craft (Jadecrafting) => Use normal artifact-creation craft methods

Craft (Necrosurgery) => Use Craft (Fire) and Medicine (like Necrotech)

ARCANOI

Ghosts have developed many Arcanoi during the long centuries of restless purgatory. Many of these are too insignificant to merit true detail... a washerwoman might have an Arcanoi for getting spectral whites particularly white, while a stablehand might have an arcanoi that makes rubbing down his spectral charges somewhat less time consuming. Some of these Arcanoi have more pressing relevence, and those that do will be detailed here.

- Common Arcanoi -

Five Chosen's Tears

Cost: 4m

Mins: Conviction 2, Essence 2

Type: Reflexive

Keywords: Obvious

Duration: Scenelong

Prereqs: None

Only the ghostly remnents of Dragonblooded are believed to be able to learn this Arcanoi, which soothes the loss of life with a pathetic illusion that the Elemental gifts of the Five Dragons remain. Many Shogunate Dragonblooded, accustomed to the prestige and respect that Exaltation provided before the Great Contagion, develop these Charms in the hope of preserving the routine and habit which defined mortal existance for them.  In shadowed Necropolii amongst the Valley People, these Dragonblooded rule the same cities they ruled before the Great Plague decimated them.

Five Chosen's Tears allows a Dragonblooded Ghost to display a phantasmal anima banner which is roughly in keeping with the anima banner they once claimed in life. Upon invoking the charm, the anima swells to whatever level the Ghost decides is appropriate, up to a typical totemic discharge. This phantom anima cannot damage equipment or mounts as a true Dragonblooded anima does. Likewise, any living creature can fairly easily discern (with a Perception + Occult roll at difficulty 1) that this is an illusion which does not truly reflect the glory of the Elemental Dragons.

Fortunately for the many Dragonblooded brought to the Underworld via the Contagion, the illusion is more than sufficient to convince ghosts who want to believe. Such dead remember strong rulers and have powerful loyalties to the culture which created them. The faux anima allows the Dragonblooded wraith no mechanical advantages in social combat, though certainly it may make playing on certain intimacies and passions easier when amongst dead who were loyal towards Terrestial Exalted in life. Strangely, the Hungry Ghosts of Terrestial Exalted have occasionally manifested this Arcanoi spontaniously as well.

Similar charms exist that the departed of other Exalted lineages have made use of in the Underworld. Some Ghosts have developed further charms down these cascades to mimic the wondrous powers they held in life yet further, but these sad remembrances rarely provide more than superficial benefits to the Ghosts that employ them.