Ghosts and Magics

[Omaru]

What types of Personal magic other than Voiding work on Ghosts? Can Soulmist be mixed with Res? please help me lol

[Perc]

Only projection can harm a ghost (though it can harm your projected limbs in return) and voiding only traps a ghost it cannot hurt it.

If your eally want to have something reliably use spiritism. It's sole purpose is to fight ghosts.

[Raven Nightfoot]

I thought anything magical could harm ghosts...including enchanted weapons. Or am I getting confused with Elder Scrolls laws?

[Elaine Spade]

As far as I know reimancy can harm them too!

[Clyde Sullins]

Anything djed based, would work against a ghost. The only issue here is, what will directly affect the ghost, and what will only affect its soulmist. Hypnotism would work against them, more or less the same as a normal person. I believe leeching would also work, though only on their soulmist, which would be difficult seeing as you need to touch them. Which means in turn you are left vulnerable to there touching you. Projection would allow you to directly affect their soulmist, since it allows you to interact with astral bodies. Ghosts have soulmist in place of astral bodies. It would have the same danger, of your project limbs being touched by a ghost. Reimancy when transmuted, would work against a ghosts soulmist, as it is magical. So in a way you could set them on fire, but only their actual soulmist. Which for a ghost, would be just as painful as it would be for a person being set on fire. Note though that attracted elements using elemental attraction in Reimancy, is a mundane substance, and so would not affect ghosts at all. Only the raw res transmuted into magical substances would work. Finally, the last one that can be used offensively, is voiding. It is possible to void ghosts, there is actually several references to it being done in the lores, to particularly violent or dangerous ghosts. But this would not kill them, and should they ever escape, you would be in serious trouble from a ghost who is mad at you. That is all of the relevant personal magics, I hope that helps out.

[Omaru]

Couldn't a Shield block ghosts?

[Clyde Sullins]

Possibly it could, but I was only listing the personal magics which work offensively against ghosts. Shielding would only work defensively. It would also likely require skill in spiritism, in order to make soulmist, and then imbue the shield with it, by tasking, to keep out ghosts. You could also do more interesting things with that, perhaps even making it so only one specific ghost can pass through the shield, or so all but one ghost can pass through, by interweaving it with their particular soulmist. I actually asked that exact question to Goss awhile back, and this is more or less what she said to me, if memory serves. I am fairly certain I got it more or less right. So you would likely need to be a spiritist, or at least have access to soulmist, possibly from a ghost, in order to use shielding to keep out ghosts. But as I said, it would only work defensively. --- If all you want is defense, then it is also possible to combine glyphing and spiritism, to keep out ghosts. There is actually a location in Alvadas, a graveyard, which is filled with glyphs infused with a spiritists soulmist, to keep in the dangerous spirits. It has to be refreshed every so often, and glyphs repaired, but it manages to keep the ghosts in. So why not keep them out. But that would certainly require you to also know Spiritism, which makes it a bit redundant. Might be easier, simply to use Spiritism alone to keep them out. At least, as long as you are still around. Shielding/Glyphing might work better long term, and if you have to leave. Also, to a lesser extent, you might be able to use malediction, though that would be much more difficult, and uncertain. But possibly, if you found the bones of a Spiritist, you might be able to craft items or weapons that could hurt ghosts.

[Omaru]

Just to clear up, I have Competent level in Spiritism and am just trying to figure out the best backup skill to have. I think Im going to go with Hypnotism and maybe learn some others IC through research...but any advice on that note?

[Verilian]

I would like to clarify something Clyde said early.. because I'm anal that way. There is technically not a difference between a ghost, and its soulmist. A ghost is made of soulmist. That is its "physical" form, as well as it's version of djed. When you harm a ghost's soulmist, you are harming the ghost directly.

[Wil]

Not to take this conversation too far off topic, but it might be worth it to throw in some clarification in the Wiki on the Soulmist thing. It is kind of vague about being Soulmist, at least how I read it. If anything, directly stating that Ghost = Soulmist would help avoid confusion, instead of how it currently sounds to me (Ghost and his Soulmist, like it is a separate thing).

A wounded ghost sheds a part of its Soulmist and experiences great pain. Since Soulmist regenerates very slowly, an injured ghost will usually flee rather than risk losing more of it. Losing Soulmist also deprives the ghost of its powers, making it helpless.

I think the quote above from the wiki is the one that kind of hints that Soulmist = Ghost?