Wraith

Wraiths, are beings created or evolved from Ghosts.<ref name=":0">“Angry ghost,” Johannes commented.

“Wraith,” Andy corrected, thinking of the books.  “Eva and I have dealt with a number of ghosts lately.  She wasn’t one.”

“The difference being?” one of the younger Behaims asked.

“A little more unpredictable,” Andy said. - excerpt from Interlude 10</ref><ref name=":1">Ty threw salt at the wraith closest to us.

It smoked, staggered back, blinded, but it didn’t perish.

Superficial damage at best.  A momentary setback.

“Said it wouldn’t work,” Fell commented.  “It’s not entirely a ghost anymore.” - Excerpt from Void 7.2</ref> A wraith has taken in foreign energies, echoes and spirits, changing it's nature, but making it less prone to fading<ref>“Wraiths,” Fell said.

Wraiths.  Ghosts twisted by negativity and spirits.  Some, like Leonard, faded with time.  Others found sources to tap to fuel themselves, but became twisted.  More like the Mary Francis summoning that was keeping Rose company right now.
[...]
The wraiths seemed to be getting stronger, feeding on the negativity and violence. - Excerpt from Void 7.2</ref> and more unpredictable.<ref name=":0" /><ref>It was like the kid with the stupid hat had been training Verona for this.  Echoes tended to stick to human limits and the Wraith part of them really juiced them up.  More power, pushing boundaries, more unpredictability.  Sometimes the nugget of something inside operated the echo by pulling on the levers of certain triggers or making events play out in certain orders.  Other times they weren’t that intelligent and intensified or ‘flavored’ the wraith.

[...]
There was a chicken and egg thing that went on with wraiths, or something cyclical.  Strong events combined with an Other physiology that was very fluid and ‘plug things in’ drew in spirits, other echoes, and just about anything receptive to being plugged in, which empowered it, which made it more active, which made it more prone to drawing things in.  Sometimes they found a balance, roughly even to the echo’s predisposition to dissolving over time.  Sometimes they even steadily grew until something happened.

Sometimes they became too juicy and another Other devoured them for power.  When they weren’t especially cognizant of reality but packed a lot of power, that left avenues for the canny Other or practitioner to prey on the vulnerabilities of a badly programmed robot with a nuclear power core.  Easy power source.  No special terms for that that Verona was aware of, but the books had talked about it a lot.  Books written by practitioners with practitioner motives.

The individual pieces and power sources that made them them could promote loops, especially when the wraith had a lot of individual echoes driving it, and a loop could become a vortex or storm.  In echo-heavy areas that was a danger, the edges of the ‘storm’ having lots of edges that encouraged having stuff plugged into it, which drew more echoes into it, until the entire thing burned out or something exploited it.  Some grew so large that they were hard to deal with.

And then there were the situations where a wraith picked up some brains along with the power, or got power of a sort that scared others off and wasn’t easy prey.  In those situations, they could get very big and they could start to get heavy.  Same idea as the Carmine Beast, same idea as a god.  If they got big and heavy enough that the fabric of reality started to crater below them, then that crater could fill with power, and the wraith got its own little pocket demesne or pocket dimension with its own rules.  Wraith Kings.

Or queens? Verona thought.  But that might be its own thing.  They were princes if the pocket reality was temporary or conditional and there might’ve been something about wraith princesses, but that was weird when she mixed it up with Goblin Princesses like the Tedds.  Stupid gendered language…

Wraith Kings could sometimes spawn or control Echoes, sending them out on errands or to spread influence.  Which really felt like it could be a Wraith Queen schtick, if terminology split, but she’d have to look it up and man she really wanted to write a textbook one day, and get this garbage right. - Excerpt from Dash to Pieces 11.6</ref>

Description

They can be tainted by negativity and other factors, because they've taken in aspects of others and different qualities, have gone 'off the rails' so to speak.<ref name=mft>“Then, um, let me see here, I’ve got it in one of these books, I color coded the bookmarks.  Except I didn’t have a bookmark for the sixth, so I used a sprig of herb.  Here.  First option.  She’s Mary Frances Troxler.  Origin unknown, but she may have been a wraith, a ghost that took on other qualities.  Mediums used to call on her to help women find their husband to be.  The ritual was tainted, too much negativity, maybe it got blamed when the marriages didn’t work out.  Calling her a demon or a thing of darkness, and the label starts to become true, in a roundabout way.  She started showing up when she wasn’t called, was eventually bound, and she remained a minor tool of diabolists for some time.”
[...]
We’ve got a Bloody Mary,” Rose said.

“What’s that?”

“A boggart or a wraith, not sure.  A ghost loaded with enough negativity that it went off rails.  Built with echoes that aren’t its own.  Lurks in mirrors, carves up women if they spend too long looking.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.7</ref> They are usually quite hostile and dangerous compared to what they once were, driven by echoes different than their own.

A wraith can feel forces flooding into them, and their instincts tell them to inflict it on others, such as those who wronged them in life.<ref>“I’m filled with so much awfulness, and there’s more every minute.  I know it’s not me.  Every instinct I have is telling me that the awfulness is for you.  That I should make you  feel it.  Make you hurt and angry and frustrated and hopeless.” - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.4</ref><ref>Molly was dealing with a whole mess of negative emotions, some legitimate, others from being a wraith and absorbing the emotions and impressions around her. - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.5</ref>

Powers

Wraiths can be capable of possession.<ref name=":2" /> They could be capable of touching and moving solid objects.<ref>Molly changed course, toes barely touching the ground as she moved to keep about two arm lengths away from Mags and me.

Her hand took hold of the same branch that one of the goblins had been plucking twigs off of.

She lifted it.

“Fuck me,” I said.  “How much power did you give her?” - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.4</ref><ref>Laird held up his implement.

How?

The Wraiths had tossed the thing to him? - Excerpt from Void 7.4</ref> Their blood might be usable to power workings, like a human Practitioner's. If given blood, they could keep drawing power through that connection.<ref>The wraith swung the branch at Mags, who caught it relatively easily.  Molly had strength, but that didn’t mean she was necessarily strong.

Molly let go, and raised her hand.

A gaping hole in the middle, one finger broken.

A dribble of ghost-blood fell on the rune.

“No way,” I heard Mags, as if she were barely in earshot.

Wind stirred, and blew at my hair.
[...]
“Ugh,” she said.  “She tapped my  power for the rune there.  She’s right.  I can’t fight her, not really.  I’m getting more calls.  Same people, and it’s getting more insistent.  If they accuse me of not doing my job…”
[...]
“Balls,” Mags said.  She leaned against the window, bringing her head back hard enough to make the glass rattle.  “She’s a practitioner, but any power she draws on is going to be mine, because I established a connection.” - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.4</ref>

They are often violent and tend to act within a criteria even at the urgings of a practitioner.

Weaknesses

They are much more resistant to salt than a true ghost, but still somewhat vulnerable.<ref name=":1"/><ref>Molly was here.

She lunged.  Mags threw down a  line of salt.

The wraith retreated. - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.4</ref>

Natural wraiths tend to burn through the power that spawned them, leading to their own self-destruction.<ref name=":3"/>

Like a ghost, they can be subdued by resolving all the aggression they have that serves as their echo, much like any other ghost. This usually involves getting their revenge.<ref name=":3"/>

They can intermingle which creates its own problems,<ref>“Not the wraith lord.  Wraiths intermingle and mesh together.” - Excerpt from Let Slip 20.z</ref> presumably a similar situation to what happens when Fleshmonglers meet.

Creation

A ghost might absorb negative emotion through connections to those it knew in life.<ref name=":2">“Give me yours,” Molly said.  “Give me that body.  It doesn’t make up for it, but it’s close.”

Mags shook her head.  “I can’t do that.”

“She’s a wraith,” I said, my voice low.  “She’s… fuck.  She absorbed the negativity from me, and the Thorburns, because they’re connected to her.  And-”

“-She probably absorbed it from me too,” Mags said, without flinching.  “Stupid of me.  Selfish.”

“I don’t think it was selfish at all,” I said.  “It was a sacrifice, the blood you gave her, to keep that memory alive.” - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.4</ref><ref>A line from Molly’s bubble in the middle to each of the bubbles ringing it.

Each line came out with a different strength.

The strongest, oddly enough, was ‘extended family’.

“More negativity to feed on,” I said.  “More connections to her soul and her Self.” - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.4</ref>

Feeding it blood on a neigh daily basis was known to help one ghost to become a wraith.<ref name=":2" />

A Necromancer like the Shepherd could infuse a ghost with spirits, helping to shape it into a wraith.<ref name=":3">“She’s a wraith, she’s shoring herself up and storing strength by feeding on negativity.  It’s going to twist her into something else.”

“How do you stop a wraith?”

“Mostly, I think, wraiths stop themselves.  They burn through whatever power made them.  Maybe if a practitioner is skilled, they can infuse it with more spirits, and shape it, like the Shepherd in Toronto did.”

“I wasn’t in Toronto, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.  Uh, the other way they stop is the way any ghost can theoretically be put to rest.”

“Yeah?”

“Help them resolve the issue that made the echo in the first place.”

“Great.  How do we resolve hers?”

I paused.

“What?”

“For a wraith, that’s usually venting all that negativity at a person or a group of people.  Getting revenge.” - Excerpt from Mala Fide 10.4</ref>

Variants

Wraiths can gain in strength until they become power onto themselves able to create little pocket realms, even able to challenge gods themselves. They can take numerous seemingly foreign elements into themselves, such as things Elemental or Incarnate.

Current convention names wraiths who can only temporarily do this 'princes' while those who are more permanent are called 'kings'.^{[citation needed]}

Chacaph

When an dead body is entombed away from the reach of a Psychopomp or Typhlotics, the echo left behind is safe in the Vessel of the body and the resultant Wraith becomes Solid, using wat happened to it against others, has all the powers of a Wraith while being Solid.<ref>The typhlotic denizens of the Ruins will stalk and kill echoes, and psychopomps will handle spirits, echoes, and souls with a more deft, intelligent hand. But in some circumstances, an echo may be trapped or bound in a situation or place where certain forces cannot reach them. Given pattern (repeat killings/entrapment in the same manner), any sort of pliable material, and a trapped echo of this manner (which inevitably becomes a wraith), and a Chacaph may form. Clay is the default material, a sealing material that was said to lock in tombs. Those sunk to the bottom of a river bed with chains a psychopomp couldn't break, those buried in concrete in construction sites by the mob, and those kept prisoner in filthy, inaccessible locations by kidnappers have created Chacaph in the past. The clay hardens and the Wraith takes on a solid, visceral form. The individual is hollowed out, the circumstances of death become part of the Chacaph's definition, appearance, and tools, and it waits- until the river gets dammed, the foundations of the construction site are cracked, or the vault where prisoners were kept is found and opened. Then it emerges with the pent up fury and stored power from years, decades, or centuries of waiting.

Fast moving despite being clay, the Chacaph physicalizes many Wraith powers like the ability to throw objects around and rapidly relocate to other spaces- but it will do these sorts of things with seaweed, roots or cables grabbing objects in a flash, and brief accelerations of movement. Its howls can shatter windows and break eardrums, and with so much of itself gone, it will use violence and crude symbols (painting with blood and clawings into surfaces, or any other materials at hand) to communicate. Care should be taken because a Chacaph does not quickly burn through its own power like a Wraith does- its vessel gives it staying power, and its spree will feed it power that it's slow to burn through - it will take in materials and use each killing to swell in power, up to a certain capacity allowed by its physical dimensions (at an extreme, smoke or fire may burn from within the hollow clay shell). Discovering its origins helps a great deal in slowing its momentum (even speaking to it and recognizing what happened) and binding it.

Once a Chacaph stops or is stopped, it tends to go dormant, waiting to be provoked before attacking again, and can safely be bound or walled in- albeit often from a safe distance, with a big circle. Necromancers may be able to stop a Chacaph in its tracks and mark it with instructions, names, or additional symbols while it is stopped, but this requires advance notice that isn't often had when the tomb is cracked open... unless the necromancer creates the Chacaph intentionally. - Wildbow on Discord</ref> Something like an Egyptian mummy could not become a Chacaph, while persumably a bog body could.

Notable Wraiths

• Mary Frances Troxler (aka Bloody Mary)
• Molly Walker
• The Thorburn Bogeyman was comparable to a "Wraith-Vestige"<ref>“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.” - Excerpt from Histories 9</ref>
• Evan Matthieu was essentially an "anti-wraith", to use approbatory language, having taken in spirits of air and freedom.
• Willie Koehn<ref> - Excerpt from Vanishing Points 8.4</ref>
• Impulse Wraith King

References

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