Ghosts & Magic

[Ruroc]

I'm considering developing a ghost PC that is somewhat magic oriented, but I had questions that pertain to their interaction with magic, particularly cases with Possession.

1) If a Ghost were also a spiritist, could they create soulmist while possessing another with that person's blood, even if the one possessed is not a spiritist?

2) For disciplines that require modification of the body to function such as Static, would the ghost need to somehow initiate the individual before they could use it effectively?

3) What is the difference between living and dead djed in terms of manipulating it? Is it simply information that says 'this is the djed of a dead creature', or is the djed itself dead?

4) How would the consequence of Leeching overgiving work on a ghost? Would the djed they absorbed still be 'alive' in a sense?

5) As ghosts do not have biological 'brains', in a sense, can they still suffer from mental overgiving?

6) Will a ghost always appear as they were when they died through materialization, or does the ghost have control over appearance?

[Verilian]

I've played a ghost before and have asked these same questions, or similar ones. Tarot is probably the only one who can answer with any real certainty, but here are my thoughts: 1) I think that a ghost could indeed create soulmist if they knew how by possessing someone and putting them through the process, however, I don't think that it would be very cost efficient. The cost in the ghosts personal soulmist of possessing a person long enough to create soulmist would likely use more than they could create, so I don't think it would be worth it. Maybe if they were a master in both skills.. but even then, probably not. 2) This one I am not sure about. I have wondered the same question involving reimancy. With my first ghost I just made it work, but I was a new player, and didn't consider such things at the time. Now I'm not so sure. I don't know if that person would first need to be initiated, that way their body can even produce res.. so I dunno. 3) Dead djed is dead. It doesn't possess the same spark and energy as live djed. Tarot or one of the founders probably has a better way of wording that.. but think of it like gasoline (this is probably also a terrible example.) If you use gas fresh from the pump, it typically works great. If you use gas that you found in a gas can out in the garage that you forgot about from 3 years ago. It might still burn, but it's not going to work very good. Ghost djed is not as good as living djed. It keeps the ghost functioning, but try to make it do something that requires more energy and it's probably just going to sputter and go out. 4) I'm not 100% certain about this. If I remember what Tarot said about ghosts and overgiving, they don't really have to worry much about the physical part of it. The leeched djed would not be absorbed into the ghost, it would be absorbed into the body they are possessing, and so that body would suffer all the negative physical side effects. 5) Again, I'm not 100% certain about this. Ghost "brains" are already really screwed up, so mental overgiving probably wouldn't make much of a difference to them other than to make them more insane than they already are. I'll let someone more qualified answer this one. These answers are just my best guesses. Tarot or one of the other founders are your best bet for a definitive answer. You could also try Mirage. Mirage knows a lot about magic.

[Ruroc]

Thanks Verilian. I'll forward the thread to Tarot/Mirage. You gave me a lot of helpful thoughts on the subject, though.

[Mirage]

This is a little addition to what V said. But ghosts will never make good magic characters. Their djed is dead and in order to use any of their magic effectively they need to have a high level of possession so they can access their hosts djed. To that same effect I've never believed that a ghost could be "initiated" into a new magic because that would require them having living and active djed to make it work right. To initiate at all you would have to possess a host and in the end it would be the host who was initiated in the first place. Ghosts have a lot of freedom and advantages over the other races, so they must equally share some drawbacks. Being pretty useless at magic is what I feel is one of their drawbacks. If another founder says something to the contrary of course go with what they say

[Ruroc]

I'm glad you agree with V, Mirage. He answers things pretty clearly. I suppose you are right that a ghost would have a hard time reliably having enough soulmist to cast spells at a comparable power to a wizard of equal skill, even if they were a master of possession. A few of my questions were aimed at that hunch, to see if a ghost could become a reliable and powerful spellcaster through the use of Spiritism or Leeching.