Editing Vestige (section)

==Abilities==

Vestiges can blur the lines of identity, [[human]] and [[Other]]. For example, [[Blake Thorburn]] and [[Rose Thorburn Junior]] both held different aspects of the role of Thorburn heir at different points, including the ability to [[Practice]]. In some cases, this blurring of identity can be used to bend or break magical bargains.<ref>“Okay, speaking generally then, what advantages are there, to having a vestige partner?”  To making a close copy of someone?  Can you use that to get around contracts?”<br>
“You can.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/category/story/arc-2-damages/2-06/ excerpt] from [[Damages 2.6]]</ref>

Vestiges can count as "real" enough for Others to feed on them as they would humans, without being considered Innocent humans (at least by [[Karma]] and by some Practitioners; there is some debate as to their moral status.) [[Johannes Lillegard|Johannes]] uses them in [[Johannes' Demesne|his territory]] as playthings for Others, who wish to return to the days before the Seal of Solomon, at the admission of gaining power from them. He shores them up with mouse and dog spirits to make them controllable with [[Johannes' Pipes|his implement]].<ref name="2.6e1">The buildings were twisted, the street more winding and narrow, the rooftops changing.  All towards one peculiar, oddly ''cramped'' aesthetic.<br><br>I could see ''people'' there.  Vaguely, from a distance, but they were people.<br>[...]<br>“Yeah,” Rose answered me.  “He said I’d find myself in good company.  Maggie said it was because I was an Other, and this is some kind of amusement park for Others.  But that’s not it.  All of that stuff we’re looking at…”<br><br>“Vestiges,” I said.  “Or it’s ''one'' vestige.  A big one.  How’d he do it?”<br><br>“''That'' is a very good question,” Ms. Lewis said.<br><br>“One that would be very costly to buy an answer for, I’m betting,” I said.  “Right.”<br><br>“He took over an area,” Rose said.  “He made it a demesnes… and this vestige is some kind of reflection of that demesnes.”<br>[...]<br>Rose spoke up, “He took over an area and then ''copied'' it.  But it’s different.  A vestige degrades with attention and stress, so maybe he’s shoring it up with something?  Some kind of power source that would twist it by association?”<br><br>“Or,” I said.  “Like other amusement parks, there’s a cost to visit.  A lot of little power sources.  Each one has a general influence, twisting things in a certain way when it fills in the cracks and gaps.”<br><br>“Oh god,” Rose said.  “''Oh''.  Maggie said it was a place for Others to relive the old days, before mankind got its footing.  I thought maybe it was scaring people, picking off one every few months or so.  But it isn’t.  If the people were copied over too, if they aren’t ''real'' people, then what’s to stop Others from hurting them ''all the time''?  Openly hunting them down and eating them?  Making it a constant, daily thing?  Those people would be ''stuck'' there, like I’m stuck in the mirror.”<br>[...]<br>“What do you think I wanted you to take away from that?”  Ms. Lewis asked.<br><br>“A place can be a vestige,” I said.<br><br>Ms. Lewis smiled, “True, but that isn’t the answer to my question.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/category/story/arc-2-damages/2-06/ excerpt] from [[Damages 2.6]]</ref>

Since the vestige will have some or all of the original's memories, some Practitioners will create them in order to interrogate them for information.<ref name="Demesnes"/>

Consuming human vestiges can be a way to grant an [[Other]] more human qualities (i.e. sapience),<ref name="Demesnes"/> or to heal a human's damaged [[Self]].

Vestiges serve as excellent vessels for [[Elemental]]s and other things, creating a whole which is stronger and more stable than either part was alone.<ref name="8.4e1">These are other excorporate Others, vestiges, echoes, spirits, and even a cracked cherubim. [...] We were talking about hallows and homes for elementals.  Others can be that point of residence.  A vestige can be the broken jar that hold most of it.  Even a hazy echo can be the structure an elemental maps to if it has the right anchoring points.  The elemental becomes the beating heart of the Other. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/01/19/vanishing-points-8-4/ excerpt] from [[Vanishing Points 4.8]]</ref><ref name="5.de1">These three were vessels.  Like Edith was, but these ones were too neat, when he looked at them with the Doom’s eyes.  Closer to the space he’d carved out for his Doom, but… a much, much bigger hole.<br>
There were practices that asked for high prices.  Practices like the Heartless practice his father had conducted.  Blood magic, host magic, cultists… and many preyed on innocents, or counted innocents among the collateral damage.  When too much was taken out, there could be vestiges.  Just enough of a person that it could stand, walk, and breathe, but something integral was gone and wouldn’t come back.  A house with an exterior and little in the way of rooms or furniture, if it had anything at all.  A practitioner could put ''anything'' in that space, really.<br>
Someone had probably done that to these four. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/back-away-5-d/ excerpt] from [[Back Away 5.d]]</ref>
=== Weaknesses ===
Though their nature makes them flexible and capable of being molded and altered, they are impermanent. Given time and external pressures they started to degrade and the degradation grows worse over time, to the point that it takes more and more effort and energy to keep them intact. Eventually they break down, but they can be shored up with other spirits and [[power]] sources, much as a [[ghost]] can become a [[wraith]].<ref name="R1.1">Vestiges can arise naturally. In fact, you could make the argument that ghosts are a subset of vestiges as a whole - they're just really reinforced by the ongoing and complicated [[pattern]] of life and [[death]], arising from things that push beyond the boundaries of that pattern.<br><br>You're otherwise right, though I'll note only some vestiges have a [[self]]. Vestiges are essentially the equivalent of tracing existing work, creating mock replicas of some or all of something already in existence, or taking the stuffing out of X and leaving only the husk. They resemble the original but something is missing and they're often very fragile. They're not all alive.<br><br>A faerie using glamour and trickery to steal your shadow and create a shadow you would be creating a vestige. A mockery of you shored up by expectation, by spirits, by the fact it's acting like you and getting away with it (the wheel is still spinning but the hamster is long gone). Depending on how that situation played out, the shadow could gain strength enough to become something else while depleting you, and you'd be the vestige instead.<br><br>Curses and magical attacks that hit you on a level beyond the physical and the real could also leave you on the brink of... not death, because your heart beats and you breathe, not being emotionally or mentally dead because you think and feel, but being so less that you're barely not there. The effect might be like Bart when he sells his soul or Gollum with the one ring. Practitioners might put too much personal power into a created item or demesne and lose the power to affect the real world, making them very close to being that husk.<br><br>Most don't stay in that state for long. It's either the last phase before utter destruction or other things will jump on it or capitalize on it, because a vestige is a pretty valuable resource, a nice home for something parasitic, or a 'stock' that could quintuple in value in a matter of days, as things return to normal.<br><br>It's like taxidermied animals, sculptures, or those models of people with the guts and internal organs on display, but its practice that gets them there and practice that keeps them going, playing off of the fact that you can look at them and you can say "that's a human" or "That's clearly Chad", but they're not, there's obviously something missing or gone. - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/7hcydi/pact_what_are_vestiges_and_how_are_they_created Vestige suff]</ref><ref>“Glimmers.  Almost-people, like shadows come to life.”<br>
“Vestiges.  Good.  Keep going.”<br>
[...]<br>
“One… wraith-vestige?” the middle Ibix brother suggested.  “It smells like rotted branches, and birds, and the ''abyss''.  It doesn’t smell very big, but it passed by here not long ago.” - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/histories-9/ excerpt] from [[Interlude 9]]</ref><ref name="8.4e1"/> 

They function best in enclosed spaces, places with a [[connection]] to them, and places with few [[Innocent]] [[human]] eyes.<ref>"Ghosts, like any vestige, don’t hold up that much to poking and prodding.  [...] They function best in enclosed spaces, especially any enclosed spaces they have ''connections to''.  Houses, houses with bodies still in them, lurking near their murder weapons, and so on.  But that’s not the key bit.  They also function in places with very few humans to mess with them.  The wilderness. [...] There aren’t many places where you find intact ghosts, and they aren’t really sought after, because they’re unreliable to work with and they tend to burn out if you draw on them for power.” ''Like a vestige does.'' - [https://pactwebserial.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/damages-2-3-2/ excerpt] from [[Damages 2.3]]</ref>

This weakness can be removed if the vestige is made into a [[Familiar]], filling in the gaps with the Practitioner partner's humanity, although the details complete person that is created may be influenced by the Practitioner (consciously or unconsciously).<ref>It can be another kind of domineering relationship.  Picking a familiar with no true mind of its own.  Often, the familiar will be raised up, rounded out, until it is on a roughly even keel.  An echo or ghost could develop a full personality, instead of being a stuttering replay of events.  A vestige, or a broken shadow of an existence?  It could patch itself up.  What it pulls in is often consciously or unconsciously influenced by the practitioner, who has the power in the relationship. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/09/08/leaving-a-mark-4-7/ excerpt] from [[Leaving a Mark 4.7]]</ref><ref>When an Other is incomplete, it may be elevated ... Elevated Others can include vestiges, dull echoes, creatures from the dreaming places, and the varied Hounds of War.  Some like the echo are stable in how unfinished they are, while others like the Hounds of War or dopplegangers will gain faces and names as they take lives.  The shape or nature an Other takes as it is elevated to something ‘complete’ can be controlled, but this kind of control requires more power, and may make the familiar weaker in the end.  Incomplete Others that have been Elevated tend to be decent repositories for power. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/10/29/6-1-spoilers-famulus-text/ Famulus Text]</ref>