Urban Fantasy Faction – The Haunts

Time for another faction from my upcoming supernatural urban fantasy serial fiction project. This time around, we are looking at the spooks – ghosts, poltergeists, and revenants. As always, my version probably doesn’t match up with standard lore.

First up, ghosts. Ghosts are the spirit of a formerly living person wo are still hanging around this life, even after they’ve died and should have gone on to their next life. Maybe they don’t believe in an afterlife, or maybe they do and don’t feel worthy of moving on. For whatever reason, the spirit is restless, still here, and not going on to their Eternal Reward. If they aren’t going to an Eternal Reward, perhaps the ghost is delaying going to their assigned afterlife.

Most ghosts can’t be seen, felt or otherwise experienced by the living. The ghosts experience the same reality as the living, but they can’t interact with the living, with one exception. A ghost can ‘touch’ a person, experiencing what that person is experiencing. This will usually happen when the living is doing something very sensual – eating a good meal, getting drunk or doing drugs, having an orgasm. The ghosts do this because the afterlife can be very boring. At the peak of the experience, the ghost can impart a communication to the person they are touching. The living may not be consciously aware of this. The communication may not register at all. But if it does, the communication might come across as a sudden inspiration, or the solution to a problem as the living is taking a shower. It’s the little things that keep the spirits amused. Otherwise it is a tedious existence.

Or is it? There might be other entities that can interact with the spirits. Are they gods or demons, using the spirits as pawns in some sort of cosmic game? Or do they torment the spirits for their own amusement? Or maybe they prey upon the spirits, as food, or worse for dark rituals that end up being fates worse than Death.

Some magical beings (like the Covens) or those truly gifted with psychic powers might be able to communicate with ghosts. There are plenty of phony mediums that claim they can contact the spirit world but have no ability to do so. It doesn’t happen often, and the living trying to contact the dead don’t necessarily have the spirit’s best interest in mind.

Some spirits are angry and become poltergeist. For whatever reason, they are pissed off after death, striking out at the living. They may not know why they are so angry, or they may remember the cause from when they were alive. It could be they were just mean while alive, and it is carrying over into the afterlife. They torment the living, making noises at night, or whispers in the background of a phone call. They might appear as ghastly apparitions. If they are extremely pissed off, they might be able to throw things around, usually with intent to cause physical harm or death.

Finally, there are the revenants. These spirits can come back and take physical form. They have one, and only one, thing on their mind – revenge. They were greatly wronged in life, and that carried over to the afterlife. Whether it is out of a sense of justice and righting wrongs, or just plain hatred-fueled vengeance, the revenant returns on a mission. They are out to stop the cause of their injustice. They may come back to change the mind and hearts of those who wronged them, or they may come back to drag those who wronged them kicking and screaming into the afterlife, possibly to continue carrying out their revenge for eternity.

What do you think, my Hordeling? Are the spirits sufficient for these ales, or do hey need to be beefed up a little? Leae a comment and let me know.

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