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View Full Version : Tis the Season - Ghost Stories



Quertus
2020-10-15, 09:10 PM
When did ghosts add something cool, fun, and exciting to your games? Were they strangers, friends, loved ones, former (or current!) PCs? Were they antagonists? Was it a murder mystery? Did the PCs kill them? Tell us your stories of Ghosts done right.

So, this one time, my character died, and, following the running gag of "my characters never get resurrected", they came back as a ghost.

Playing a homebrew (actually "D&D", but so heavily house ruled and modified and added to as to be nearly unrecognizable), party encountered a ghostly "lady of the lake" / moaning Myrtle figure. GM meant this as a potential information and likely combat encounter; my character went full diplomacy / "turn to make friendly" / expend every resource possible. When some phenomenal rolls (and not completely botching the RP) made it "long term friendly", we stayed and talked with her for a while. More good to phenomenal rolls on psychology and magic and such revealed that the ghost was very confused, had a hard time remembering or acknowledging certain facts (especially their own "living impaired" status), and were bound to the "lake" (likely the spot of her death). At this point, my character went *full* expend every resource possible, Edward Elric style, expending every divine resource he had (normally, that would be "spells" and "turn attempts") to consecrate everything that could possibly be a suitable receptacle for the spirit - including his favorite/best magical item, and himself - and threw himself into the lake.

Belatedly, I noticed the seemingly bottomless nature of the lake, and the fact that he couldn't swim.

He just had faith, and kept praying for her deliverance as the darkness took him. Seemed a fitting end to the character, to go out Hardigan style, protecting what he cared about (namely, spirits in general; granted, it would have been "better" for there to be more buildup with this particular spirit).

When the light came for him, I figured it was time to roll a new character. Instead, one of the things spirits could do - especially if you were pumping ridiculous amounts of power into them like I was - was to manifest. Well, apparently, she manifested, and carried my character out of the water. The curious thing was, she never *stopped* manifesting, and she could leave the lake after that.

In retrospect, I have two theories.

The simplest was, she chose to try to save me, and (either that triggered with the past that she couldn't remember, or) she came into contact with a suitable receptacle I was carrying, either freeing her from whatever bound her to the lake, or, as said receptacle was likely filled with lake water and/or "part of the lake" at the time, cheating their bonds, Holo style.

The other possibility is, my character's position was never specified beyond "walking around the lake". Given that I aced a "luck" roll, it's entirely possible that I *happened* to jump in where she died, and sunk down to and came into contact with her body. All that magic flowed into the ultimate receptacle for her spirit, and she possessed her own corpse.

Game didn't continue too long after that. My character continued pumping every spare bit of power he could afford into her (and, of course, kept taking with her), trying to help restore her memories.

That's my ghost stories - what's yours?