Editing Vestige (section)

=== 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>