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Wraith

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History of Houston's Underworld

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The Houston Necropolis

Coming soon...


The Guild Wraiths of Houston

Coming soon...

Character Creation

Character Creation Rules

  • Open: All Non-Restricted Guilds, Orpheus Projectors (ask Inky first), Risen
  • Restricted: Mnemosynis, Solicitors, Wraiths from other Dark Kingdoms
  • Closed: Heretics, Hierarchy, Renegades, Legionnaires, Helldivers, Ferrymen, Spectres

Age/App Age: Must both be 18+ years old AND appear 18+ years old

Wraiths

Attributes

  • 7/5/3 points distributed in Primary/Secondary/Tertiary

Abilities

  • 13/9/5 points distributed in Primary/Secondary/Tertiary

Backgrounds

  • 7 points
  • Notes Required: Allies, Artifact, Contacts, Haunt, Legacy, Mentor, Memoriam, Notoriety, Resources (by default represents Shadowlands income. When combined with certain other backgrounds, can represent resources at the character's disposal in the Skinlands), Relic
  • Status HR: Represents how trusted your character is with Guild secrets, rather than how high ranked they are in the Guild.
  • Resources HR: Resources, by default, indicates wealthy your character is in the Shadowlands. This will usually represent a mix of Oboli , debt owed to your character, and other favors that can be called in for material goods. If your character has means of accessing money in the Skinlands, Resources can also represent that wealth. This requires prior approval from Staff.

Arcanoi

  • 5 points
  • Restricted: Mnemosynis, Intimation

Passions

  • 10 points (Set in a +note)
  • ST Advice: Keep in mind that your Passions are the engine which will refill your Pathos during a scene. Arcanoi in Wraith 20th are pricey.
    • Example:
    • Observe Halley's Comet (Curiosity) 7 will never trigger in a scene.
    • Study Astronomy (Curiosity) 7 will come up rarely.
    • Pursue Scientific Inquiry (Curiosity) 7 will come up anytime you do science stuff in a scene.

Fetters

  • 10 points (Set in a +note)

Merits/Flaws

  • May take 10 points of Merits and 7 points of Flaws
  • Merits from pre-20th edition books will be reviewed one at a time. If you find a Merit from an online source, please provide a book reference so staff can research it.
  • Restricted: Iron Will
  • Banned: Self-Confidence, any merits or flaws that would make you appear underage.

Freebies

  • 15 Freebie points

Base XP

  • Base starting XP is 75
  • An additional 20 XP is available to spend specifically on: Puppetry, Embody, Inhabit, or Phantasm

Mediums

Attributes

  • 6/4/3 points distributed in Primary/Secondary/Tertiary

Abilities

  • 13/9/5 points distributed in Primary/Secondary/Tertiary

Backgrounds

  • 5 points
  • Notes Required: Allies, Caretaker, Contacts, Fame, Mentor, Psychic Tools

Virtues

  • 7 points
  • Self-Control + Conscience = Starting Humanity
  • Courage = Starting Willpower

Merits and Flaws

  • Up to 10 points of Merits
  • Up to 7 points of Flaws
  • Language Merit exempted from total

Freebies

  • 21 Points
  • May buy Numina with Freebies
  • See Ghost Hunters and Paranormal Investigators books for Merits, Flaws, Equipment, and Numina

Risen

  • Inquire with Staff

Orpheus

  • Inquire with Staff


Plots

Coming Soon

Hauntings

Coming Soon

Important Concepts

The Geography of the Dead

The Underworld

  • Where the Dead go when they can't move on. The Underworld includes The Tempest, Shadowlands, all Dark Kingdoms, the Far Shores, and the Labyrinth

Skinlands

  • This is the world of the living, where the Quick are found. Ghosts are expressly forbidden from interacting with it by the Dictuum Mortus

Shadowlands

  • A part of the Underworld that borders the Skinlands like a dark mirror. For ever location in the world of the living, there is its counterpart in the Shadowlands. The two worlds are separated by the Shroud , which Wraiths may peer across with ease. In this realm, buildings and objects are either burnt, broken, decayed, crumbling, or otherwise found in an advanced state of ruin.

The Tempest

  • A transitional space found in the Shadowlands, in the form of an impossibly high storm wall which contains every thunderstorm, poison gas cloud, hail of shrapnel, falling blade of glass, or magma geyser that has ever claimed human life. It is incredibly difficult to navigate, yet Wraiths must do so regularly for the Tempest sits between every point A and point B in the Underworld. Travel within a Necropolis proper usually won't require a trip through the Tempest, but it is commonplace that one will need to enter it to get from one suburb of Houston to another, even in the case where the two border each other in the Skinlands. Similarly, to travel from any location in the Underworld to another, one must cross first through The Tempest. Spectres are quite at home in the Tempest, which makes travel through the storm even more hazardous.

Dark Kingdom of Iron

  • The Underworld of the Western World, including the entirety of North America's Shadowlands. Founded by Charon in ancient times. The Dark Kingdom of Iron is governed by the Death Lords , whose rule is carried out by the faceless bureaucrats of The Hierarchy and the military might of The Legions . There are other Dark Kingdoms throughout the world, with the most prevalent rival to Iron being the Dark Kingdom of Jade .

Stygia

  • The capital city of The Dark Kingdom of Iron is Stygia , and sits on an island in the Tempest, rather than in the Shadowlands.

The Far Shores

  • A string of Islands in the distant corners of the Underworld, The Far Shores were established by Charon as a means to help Wraiths reach Transcendence and move on. That purpose, in his absence, has been perverted and the Far Shores are little more than a mockery of afterlives from various mortal religions. Many have been coopted by either Spectres or cults of personality. What was meant to be Paradises designed to help Wraiths achieve Transcendence have instead become microcosmic Hellscapes.

The Flayed Lands and the Islands of Flint

  • When Europeans came to the New World, they brought their Dead with them. Those ghosts, mostly Heretics looking for lands in the Underworld that Stygia's reach didn't extend to, found instead to their surprise other Empires, equally formidable. The area that would become Texas was bisected by The Kingdom of Obsidian and the Islands of Flint. Anyone who has read a history book can guess the outcome of these encounters. The death of Ix Chel, known to Western Wraiths as the Obsidian Queen, triggered the Third Great Maelstrom. The stars of the Shadowlands fell from the sky, landing as monstrous Spectres that devoured Indigenous and Western wraiths alike. The Tempest scoured the land, and the Kingdom of Obsidian was transformed into the Flayed Lands. The native Dead retreated to the Fifth Sun, a metropolis built deeper in the Underworld.
  • In modern nights, the forces of Oblivion still rule over large swathes of territory in the Flayed Lands, with Texas marking the northern most edge of that blighted place. Stygia has since rolled in and established Necropoli across the Flayed Lands, including the Houston Necropolis. Compared to cities further south, Houston is relatively peaceful, but strange, alien Spectres are known to occasionally wander close to the edge of the Necropolis.
  • The Islands of Flint, the scattered many afterlives of North America's indigenous tribal people, fared a little bit better early on in their history of interaction with the Western Dead. But the Third Great Maelstrom hit them just as hard as their allies to the South. And shortly afterwards, Stygia's Legions landed in New Amsterdam. The indigenous Wraiths of that era have retreated to well fortified islands in the Tempest... Wraith's of European descent who try to make contact have never returned from those Islands. Modern First Nation people have little in common with their the ghosts of their ancestors, and often choose to remain in the Shadowlands, rather than making the difficult journey to an uncertain and unfamiliar afterlife.

Soul Forging

  • The Dead are notoriously hard to kill, as destroying a Wraith's corpus only sends him into a destructive Harrowing. Best case scenario, he falls to Oblivion and becomes a Spectre... worst case, he returns a few hours or a few days later with little physical evidence of his trauma. Similarly, the Shadowlands are devoid of most of the creature comforts Wraiths grew accustomed to in life: money, food, wine, furniture, weapons, armor, etc. are all in short supply. But a sufficiently skilled Artificer can kill both of these problems with one stone. Soulforging is the act of rendering a Wraith's very soul into a physical object, often times (but not always) destroying the conscious mind in the process. Thousands of souls are fed into the Soulforges every year, and while many are, in fact, criminals who have earned the closest thing to a Death Sentence as the Afterlife can afford... many more are simply Lemures and Thralls who are too weak to fight back against the roaming gangs of Reapers that removed their Caul .

Stygian Society

The Hierarchy

  • The many faceless bureaucrats who are necessary to keep the day to day operations of the Kingdom going. High ranking members of the Hierarchy frequently wear masks that signify their station, and help protect their identity when they are 'off the clock'. The original model for the Hierarchy was based on Greco-Roman political structures, and has evolved over time. The Hierarchy is monolithic, in that it is the sole government structure, and it operates without any formal checks and balances (other than the Deathlords' scheming against each other). The only formalized separation is that between the government and its military (the Legions ), and even that line can be blurry at times. Ranks in the hierarchy consist of: Clerks, Adjustors, Inspectors, Ministers, and Chancillors . Anacreons are the highest ranking member of the Hierarchy in a given Necropolis, and the title gives one authority over both the military and administrative wings of their Legion; and thus Anacreons may arise from either branch. The Anacreons of the Necropolis will rule jointly in a Council, with most of the Legions having an Anacreon in Major Necropoli. Smaller Necropoli may have fewer Legions stationed at them, and thus a smaller Council of Anacreons. Anacreons answer directly to their Deathlord. Because Stygia is so far removed from its Necropoli in the Shadowlands, so long as the Council of Anacreons keeps taxes in the form of forged souls flowing to Stygia, they have a fairly free hand in how they administer the city... and how strictly they enforce the law.

The Legions

  • Following Charon's Breaking of the Guilds (see Timeline), all newly deceased souls were funneled into a different Legion based on the way they died. In this way, the vast majority of newly deceased souls (who are fortunate enough not to be Soulforged ) are technically members of a Legion. Likewise, the Legions themselves are a part of the Hierarchy, acting as its military, law enforcement, and often Intelligence apparatus. However, those with in demand clerical talents, or who show skill in an Arcanoi that is valuable, often are kept off the front line and funneled into less martial roles. Ranks within the Legions consist of: Legionnaire, Centurion, Marshal, Regent, and Overlord. Just like with the administrative wing, the Anacreon is considered the highest ranked Legion official in a Necropolis. The Legions have two primary purposes: to protect the citizens of the Dark Kingdom of Iron from Spectres and other forces of Oblivion ; and to oppress those same citizens to keep the Hierarchy and the Deathlords in power. The Legionnaire that saves a Wraith from a marauding Spectre one day may be the one that drags the same Wraith to the Soul Forges the next. It is all in a day's work.

Heretics

  • Members of a dizzying array of Heretic Cults , whose belief systems all have one thing in common: they disagree with Charon and the Hierarchy's opinion on how best to shepherd the souls of the dead towards Transcendence . All Heretics are fervent in their beliefs, which are often at odds with the Dictuum Mortus . Some are merely spiritual dissidents, but many Heretics are, just like mortal fanatics, quite dangerous to both the Quick and the Dead.

Renegades

  • For the more recently deceased, the virtual Feudalism of The Hierarchy has a tendency to strike a certain rebellious nerve. While most of the Dead are too focused on surviving the horrors of the Afterlife or taking care of their unfinished business in the Skinlands; Renegades look at the inherent injustice and medieval attitudes of The Hierarchy and decide to do something about it. Some are freedom fighters trying to end Thralldom, shut down the Soulforges, or bring democracy to the Afterlife. Others are just trying to replace one corrupt system with another, one where they sit at the top. Still more are simply eternal anarchists and troublemakers, unwilling to live in the stifling confines of Stygia's rigid society.

The Guilds

Originally, The Guilds began their existence as just collections of Wraiths with the same knack for certain Arts. Over time, these loose groups began to formalize their associations: first into Colleges, with each promoting and offering instuction in their individual Arcanos. But over time their skills grew to be in demand, and with that demand came prosperity. What started as a purely academic venture became more like trade unions: training fresh Wraiths in the use of Arcanoi, regulating that usage, and profiting from all of it. With their services being so essential to making the Underworld more hospitable to the Dead, the Guilds soon grew in both material wealth and political power. Soon, they came to rival Charon himself. In 1598, the Guilds revolted against Charon. A variety of petty jealousies, rivalries, and outright betrayals meant that the Guilds' revolution was doomed from the start. After the failed coup, Charon outlawed the Guilds and set the Legions to round up all Guildwraiths, sending them to the Soulforges. The very existence of most Guilds was made illegal in The Dark Kingdom of Iron.

In the intervening centuries, the Guilds have slowly been rebuilding, both in the heart of and at the edges of Stygian society. Some Guilds like the Artificers and the Pardoners , owing to their necessity for the continued prosperity of the Kingdom, have been allowed to operate more or less openly in most Necropoli. Most others, Chaunteurs, Sandmen, Masquers, Harbingers, Usurers, and Monitors all exist as a kind of open secret. Everyone knows their local Masquer, but she'd never refer to herself as one. Those whose very trade violates the Dictuum Mortus , such as the Haunters, Proctors, Spooks, and Puppeteers are all highly illegal. In most Necropoli, these Guilds are constantly dodging Legion patrols. Despite this, their ability to interact with the Skinlands is still greatly in demand; and it is not unheard of that high ranking Hierarchy officials might seek out a Spook or a Puppeteer to help them take care of some unfinished business.

The Forbidden Guilds, consisting of the Mnemoi and Solicitors , practice Arcanoi that are a threat to the very things that make a Wraith who they are: their Passions and their memories. For this reason, even most other Guildwraiths will gladly throw members of these Guilds into a Nihil. The Alchemists are similarly persecuted for their Arts, but this has more to do with the Artificers considering them a threat to their (near) monopoly on creating everyday objects in the Shadowlands.

The Oracles are another special case. When Charon broke the Guilds, he went to the Grand High Oracle to meet with her. No one knows what was discussed, but when Charon left the meeting he declared the Oracles exempt from his order to see all Guildwraiths Soulforged. As such, they continue to practice their Arts entirely out in the open.

The Dictuum Mortus

  • The Dictuum Mortus or Law of the Dead is the primary law of Stygian society. It strictly forbids the Dead from entering the Skinlands or interacting with the Living in anyway. As one might suspect, the law is violated as frequently as it is followed. Wraiths are driven and sustained by their passions, and if that means going into the Skinlands, even the threat of Soul Forging will not stop a determined Wraith. In fact, even in the act of attempting to enforce the Dictuum Mortus, Hierarchy agents are frequently forced to violate the law themselves, in order to pursue law breakers.

The Underworld, Wraith Anatomy, and Metaphysics

  • The Afterlife is an inherently metaphysical place, and Wraiths are inherently metaphysical creatures. Memory, intention, and emotion dictate what is 'real' in the lands of the Dead. A ruined church might ring out at midnight, despite no longer having a bell hung in its crumbling belltower. Ghosts cry tears, wail, feel their hearts beat thunderously, break out in cold sweats, and sometimes even bleed... all this despite no longer having the anatomy to support it. This is subconscious, and has more to do with how a Wraith expects their Corpus to respond. It is important to remember that a Wraith's Corpus is made entirely and uniformly of Plasm ; and a Wraith's sweat, blood, and tears will eventually reabsorb into their Corpus.
  • Items with a certain threshold of emotional resonance, when destroyed in the Skinlands, become Relics . Relics sometimes are items of immense cultural value, like famous paintings or an item belonging to a celebrity. Other times they are simply very important to their individual owner, and soak up that emotional energy. Thus, there is a significant over abundance of wedding bands, teddy bears, and other precious personal items in the Shadowlands, while also a significant scarcity of guns and ammunition.
  • Related to Relics are Artifacts , these are items of tremendous power in the Shadowlands... often either Soulforged by the Artifacters Guild, Moliated from the corpus of strange plasmic beasts that stalk the Shadowlands, or created through even stranger means. The difference between a Relic and an Artifact is that Relics tend to be everyday objects that sometimes perform a second function (a relic pen that allows the user to literally pour their pathos into the written word), while Artifacts tend to be objects whose mystical functions are its primary ones.
  • Artifacts and Relics can be either fueled by, or power sources which produce, Pathos , the pure emotional energy which Wraiths use to power their Arcanoi. Relic guns often require Pathos to be imbued in them in order to fire, while an Artifact firearm might have built in pathos generation (such is the skill of the Artificers guild, if you don't mind their questionable methods.)
  • What would a good ghost story be without a Haunt ? These places where the Shroud wears thin are often created because of an existing association with one of the Restless Dead. This could be the location of their death, their workplace, a childhood home, or any other location that was important or significant to them in either their life or their final moments. Haunts provide Wraiths with a place to Slumber, can more easily make use of their Arcanoi, and is a sanctuary from the dangers of the Shadowlands. Wraiths can and do occasionally share Haunts; but this requires a large amount of trust as they are equally capable of jumping another Wraith's claim on a Haunt. Haunts tend to be perpetually run down because of the slow leaking of Oblivion through their thin Shrouds.
  • The Shroud is the barrier which keeps the Shadowlands and the Skinlands separated. Far from a impenetrable wall, Wraiths can both see through the gauzy film of the Shroud with little effort or training as well as (with more effort and the right Arcanoi) reach through the Shroud and effect the Quick. The Shroud in a given area does not have a fixed rating. Rather, it fluctuates based on a variety of factors... but what all those boil down to is this: The more likely an area is to be the setting for a scene in a horror movie, the lower the Shroud. Thus the same location might have a Shroud of 10 during a sunny afternoon, and a Shroud of 7 at night. Histories of supernatural activity and murder (or even just tales of them) can also lower an area's Shroud.
** Shroud Ratings **
Number Example
10 A busy shopping center on a sunny afternoon.
9 A well-lit subway station in the morning.
8 A tidy, well-kept home with no sinister history.
7 An empty shopping center parking lot late at night.
6 A remote country crossroads lit only by the full moon.
5 That old mansion where all those murders took place.
4 Abandoned cemetery at midnight of a new moon.


  • The Fog is the terror inducing effect that exposure to The Dead, the Shadowlands, and other aspects of the Afterlife, has on the living. Reactions are based on the witnesses Willpower rating. The Fog does not affect most Supernatural creatures such as vampires and werewolves, as they are already hardened against terror equal to the presence of a ghost. Mediums are also immune (somewhat by necessity), though not Sorcerers and Psychics unless they have been exposed to repeated Hauntings.
** Fog Ratings **
Willpower Reaction Description
10 No Reaction Rarest of the rare, these mortals have no particular reaction whatsoever.
9 Righteous Anger These mortals absolutely refuse to give ground, no matter how terrifying the wraith might appear. While retreat is still an option, they show no fear.
8 Curiosity Though not without fear, mortals at this level are more fascinated than anything else. Their interest can border on obsessive and intrusive.
7 Controlled Fear Scared but able to completely control its influence on her actions. Will make good judgements and execute complex actions normally.
6 Concillatory The terrified mortal attempts to bargain with the wraith, offering whatever he thinks the Wraith might want.
5 Terror Deeply scared but still in control of herself, the mortal makes a reasoning retreat from the Wraith's presence as best they can without endangering themselves.
4 Berserk The mortal lashes out with whatever's at hand to destroy the source of their fear. If such attacks seem to have no effect, the mortal will smash objects.
3 Disbelief The mortal is in utter denial. Attempting to convince them otherwise just increases the fervor of their denials, potentially to the point of violence.
2 Panic The mortal shrieks and flees by the most direct route possible that is not immediate suicide.
1 Catatonic Fear Terrified into near paralysis. Capable of little more than whimpering softly and crawling to a hiding place.

Oblivion

  • Oblivion was once merely the passive destructive force in the universe. What some Mages would call Entropy. However, the Dead know that Oblivion has grown hungry, and long ago stopped waiting for time to deliver its meals to it. Rather, Oblivion is an intelligent force that has, in the Shadowlands, marshalled an unfathomably large army of Spectres to do its bidding. Additionally, each Wraith carries a seed of Oblivion inside themselves in the form of their Shadow
  • Death splits a Wraith's mind into distinct pieces. The Psyche is more or less the same personality and identity as the Wraith had when they were alive. The Shadow though is something very different. A dark seed of Oblivion, upon death the Shadow blooms into a distinct personality. A version of the Wraith where the worst of her impulses and cruelty come to the forefront. Twisted by Angst and Dark Passions the Shadow becomes something separate from the Wraith, but still residing within her head. And its only goal is to make the Wraith suffer as much as possible. To torment it into submission. Whether out of sheer sadism, or because it believes this is for the Wraith's own good... it hardly matters when your Shadow is rubbing your nose in everything you hate about yourself, killing your best friends, or turning your allies against you.
  • Some Ghosts never stand a chance when they enter the Shadowlands... their fight with Oblivion is over before it started. For others, it might take years, decades, or centuries... but they lose the fight to their Shadow all the same. No matter their genesis, these Spectres are hate filled soldiers for Oblivion. Some are little more than mindless beasts, attacking anything and everything on sight. Others are cunning hunters and tormenters. They infiltrate Stygian society, form Heretic Oblivion cults, and so much more... all in an attempt to drag as many Wraiths into Oblivion as they can.
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