This is part of a series of posts exploring the worldbuilding of the dark fantasy setting of OROBORO.
Within this setting, the prospect of death is a bleak one: the living know that at the moment of death, their minds are shattered and their soul becomes separated from their bodies.
The soul then undergoes a transformation, taking on a new, often monstrous form. What remains of their old self becomes warped by a kind of madness that reflects and refracts their personality, memories, and passions in bizarre ways.
Esoteric Forms
Ghosts may retain some semblance of a human form, or may take on an abstract shape that reflects some hidden dimension of themselves. No matter their appearance, a ghost’s form reflects something about its nature—what drives it, what it fears, or what defines it.
In this way, a ghost’s appearance is a kind of puzzle, and many necromancers have become adept at divining a ghost’s desires and weaknesses from its form.
Cryptic Behavior
Ghosts can vary wildly in their behavior—some are docile and shy, while others are predatory and belligerent. All ghosts retain their intelligence, but their behavior is often compulsive and esoteric, possessing a hidden dimension that is only obvious to the ghost.
For example, a ghost may attempt to reconstruct the half-remembered events of its life by using a stack of chairs to model the chain of cause and effect, with each chair symbolizing a key event, and become violent if a chair is touched.
An Aura of Magic
All ghosts possess a latent magical ability to change the world around them. This is not accomplished through the normal forms of spellcraft, like graphomancy or audiomancy, but appears to be a product of the ghost’s will, though it is not always conscious.
This means a ghost’s desires and delusions may be manifested around it without it intending to—for example, a ghost preoccupied with violence and torture may cause living beings around it to begin bleeding from their eyes.
Knowledge of the Hidden World
Despite their seemingly shattered minds, ghosts have a deep and intuitive knowledge of the workings of magic and the world. Indeed, much of what is known of spellcraft has been derived from the broken speech and esoteric scribblings made by ghosts, and augurers work with ghosts to glimpse the future.
Mages that have been tutored by ghosts remark that their teachers see hidden connections obscured from the living, such as the ringing of a blacksmith’s hammer and the music of a stringed instrument.
Eternal Servitude
Most ghosts are bound to the service of family or lord upon death, becoming laborers, guardians, or scribes. In return, these bound ghosts are given regular offerings of blood and a place to abide.
Most ghosts are adept at simple, repetitive tasks, such as bricklaying or weaving, but their work must be closely supervised by the living to ensure their erratic minds do not cause chaos. Some ghosts rebel against their servitude and escape their family estate to become ‘wild’ ghosts.
Want to see how necromancers hunt ghosts?
Read “Debts Unpaid” on the Occult Triangle Lab or on Kindle.
Summary:
After disgracing herself by losing her first, pivotal duel, a young swordswoman named Ryna is forced to serve as a bodyguard for an unscrupulous necromancer called Sozu to pay off her own ransom.
As Sozu introduces Ryna to the wondrous city of Senkaku and its wild ghosts, Ryna realizes that she will have to choose between holding onto her honor as a vysora or embracing Sozu’s cruel path to pay off her debts.
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