The queen of the Isle of Lost Inch was very queer indeed.
She was very old, so old they thought her fairy, yet young. She took many kings (she preferred sailors; strange men from strange shores piqued her curiosity). And she knew everything about the isle, to the point of synonymy, such that they simply called her Queen Inch.
At the entrance to every mine on the isle stands a queen's idol, gesturing toward the earth. She stood there long ago, gestured so, and said: dig. I have left you a gift, down there. I remember it like it was yesterday.
The men of the isle became fabulously wealthy.
A plague took the isle. Queen Inch soon fell ill. She had five days to live; she suffered for two years, and did not die.
The queen was never the same. She lost an eye to infection. She often jabbered to the air. Where she ordered mines dug, they unearthed only ghosts. She confided to an aide that her husbands -- her many, many dead husbands -- were tormenting her as ghosts, denying her sleep. (The aide would soon abandon her; perhaps he too was possessed of some prescience.)
She eventually emptied her country's coffers into the pockets of sorciers. The great estate of Queen Inch fell to ruin, and she was no more.
All this to say: sometimes a woman is a place, and sometimes that place is a haunted house.
[This class is not so subtly inspired by various works by Carmen Maria Machado; and, by extension, by my fiancée, who recommended said works to me.]
HAUNTED
Start
with: a candlestick; a maid or manservant; a ballgown; long gloves; fainting spells.
A - Trauma Response
B - Guest Room
C - Dream House
D - Renovation
A: Trauma Response
When you are mortally wounded, traumatized, or terrified, a ghost appears. (You, the player, decide when your character is any of these things.)
What is a ghost?
- The Taxonomia Cosmogonic says: a ghost is a spirit of cold air from the depths of Hell (contrast with angels, air spirits from Heaven; and gnomes, earth spirits from Hell). They torment cowards, sinners, and women; for these noble deeds, they will one day ascend to Heaven. (of course they want to go to heaven. everyone wants to go to heaven. churches are very haunted places.)
- Psychology: A Tactician's Guide says: daemons are the psychic building blocks of personality. You have a daemon of happiness, a daemon of sadness, and so on. Following severe trauma, daemons can become dislodged or even displaced altogether. A displaced daemon is called a ghost.
- On Death, and its Sister-States says: those who die without direction -- neither hell- nor heaven-bound, but frozen in-between -- become ghosts. Rendered as spectral caricatures, they flock to the mad, the sick, and the doomed: anyone willing to play along with their delusional unlives.
- Idols of the Anteglorians says: all the earth was infused with the battered and minced scraps of pagan gods (like the homes mortared with pagan blood, as rumor would hold). Fractions of the tutelars dwell in deep stone. When roused to action, they are called ghosts.
- d'Occulte says: a wayward spell is called a ghost. Old mansions teem with them; the more opulent and imperial the house, the more rich and potent the ghosts. A sorcier with any sense will make haste to harvest the haunt (before their rivals do).
- Ghosts prefer the third, first, and second explanations, in that order, unless they are particularly disposed to paganism (very rare). They also hate wizards.
Okay, but what is a ghost?
- Ghosts are intangible. They are the only monsters you can't hit with a rake.
- Ghosts are mute, except to mediums. Slow communication is possible with a spirit board.
- Ghosts are invisible, except in neferotypes, or out of the corner of your eye.
- If you know a ghost's name, you can see and hear it normally.
Besides the above, you know nothing about the ghost (yet). If your GM can't come up with anything, they can click to generate a random ghost.
As a rule, ghosts are bound to people, places, or objects. Roll a d6. 1-3) the ghost haunts the room you are in; 4-5) it haunts the most important item in the room; 6) it haunts you.
You cannot do this again until you sleep, take tea, or self-medicate.
B: Guest Room
You may move a willing ghost from the person, place, or object it is haunting into you. You can accommodate up to [templates] ghosts this way.
You need an exorcism to evict an unwilling ghost.
C: Dream House
You have a door in your stomach. What color is it? Where have you seen it before?
The door is as big as it needs to be to permit entry. Inside, a parlor; a drawing room; guest rooms, upstairs, and their resident ghosts; many locked doors; no windows.
While dreaming, drunk, or high, you can appear here too -- without the door.
The door locks in the presence of the thing you fear most (write this down when you gain this template), and unlocks in the presence of a person you love unconditionally, both with a satisfying ka-klunk. In the presence of both, love trumps fear.
D: Renovation
You find a window in your dream house that leads outside, somewhere in the real world.
If you leave your "real" body unattended in a dungeon for a long time (4+ days), it will grow seamlessly into the stonework. All that will be left is the door.
I think this class warrants an explanation.
The intended play pattern is for your player character to walk around in spooky places and go "I'm scared!" You get rewarded for treating every dungeon like a haunted house.
The first template shits out npcs, all of whom are angry, intangible wizards. This shouldn't be a problem because you (the gm) should have at least 4 ghosts (or devils or minor godlings or daemons) on hand anyway.
In a party with more than two pcs, giving one a button that says "there's a ghost now!" is probably a bad idea. In fact, it's probably lethal to the pacing of the game. The figure-out-their-name minigame hopefully slows the loop down a bit, puts the focus back on exploring the environment (but if its a totally random ghost there's no way they'll figure it out).
The second, third, and fourth templates are all "home-making" abilities. C feels like the weakest, but it does give you a dungeon to explore (the dream house) and a "sense evil" type ability (the ka-klunk of the door).
Don't worry too much about the portal mechanics. The important thing to remember is this: the house is real. YOU are real. And being in two places at once isn't hard when you're two things at once.
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| all the art in this post by Herbert Railton the one at the top of the post is actually called hobgoblin hall! cool! |
