Ephemeral

ghosts, spirits, demons and such

Mortals can interact with ephemeral entities in many more ways than as simple victims to Urge, Possess, or Claim, both for and against an entity’s interests. Characters with an Unseen Sense for ghosts, spirits and angels can sense those beings’ presence, even if the entity is in Twilight. Mystery Cults dedicated to serving particular entities attempt to assist their master in creating the necessary Conditions — often unwittingly. An angel doesn’t need to explain to the mortals it forces to carry out strange actions that it is building Infrastructure, let alone explain why the God-Machine needs it to. Of course, faced with humanity’s fate as a resource for alien intruders, some mortals fight back.

### Research

Most deliberate interactions with entities — summoning, exorcising and abjuration — rely on as much knowledge of the entity in question as the mortal can get. Research rolls to determine bans and banes are handled as extended Intelligence + Occult rolls for the most part, but many entities in the World of Darkness are protected by deliberate secrecy, obscurity, or don’t often take interest in human affairs and so haven’t had their details recorded. The target number of successes for a research roll is determined by the entity’s type and Rank, as follows:

Rank Successes

1 5

2 7

3 10

4 14

5 20

Researching a ghost reduces the target number of successes

by 2, while researching an angel increases it by 4.

Reaching the target number reveals the entity’s ban or bane, while an exceptional success reveals both. Partial successes should reveal increasing information about the entity, as the character learns more about their nature, habits, and history.

Resourceful investigators find other ways to learn the weaknesses of an ephemeral foe — many entities are willing to sell out their fellows’ secrets in exchange for something. Many bans are also rather obvious, especially for low-Rank entities;

a mortal might simply try to use the right thing by chance.

### Contact

Faced with a haunting, or what appears to be a haunting, many occult investigators’ first course of action is to attempt to make contact with the entity involved. Unless the entity actually has the Image or Materialize Manifestations or the Signs Numen, this is a slow process of trial, error and research that takes up several actions, each roll relating to one tested attempt to understand what the entity wants. Supernatural equipment (p. 241) can help the character in his endeavor. Some mortals, however, are true mediums, able to make it easier for an entity to contact them. Doing so opens them up to the risk of being used for the entity’s own ends; see the Medium Merit on p. 173.

### Summoning and Exorcism

For a solitary occultist attempting to force a ghost to appear, or a shaman inviting a spirit to Influence an area, occult libraries are filled with summoning rites. None of them, strictly speaking, actually work, in that without supernatural power it’s impossible to compel an ephemeral entity to appear, but the rituals and practices of a summoning can often, by accident or design, create the Conditions an entity would need to appear if it were so inclined.

A summoning is made up of several research actions (Intelligence + Occult rolls, with bonuses and penalties for access to proper literature) that narrow down the requirements for the rest of the rites. The remaining actions serve as alternate ways to cause the Influence Conditions in the desired location.

By acquiring a ghost’s bones, or researching his Anchor and using it in the rite, the summoner sets up the Anchor Condition. By burning rare materials, the area is made Resonant with a fire-spirit. By gathering people who can see the gears and following the God-Machine’s instructions, Infrastructure begins to build. Using the fruits of their researches, the Cultists customize Conditions for their intended guest, advancing the Condition to Open… and allowing it to Manifest. Summoning rituals involving bringing an entity forth from another world must include a step where the gateway is opened — summonings for spirits must be performed in locii, and those for ghosts near a gate to the Underworld. These are even more difficult to pull off and apt to be interrupted by meddling investigators, but are the only way to allow truly powerful entities access to the world.

Occult literature is full of proposed ways to control summoned entities. These usually consist of banes and bans, which the summoner can use as leverage. Some spirits really are bound via their bans to serve mortals that raise them in the correct manner, while others will Blast anyone presumptuous enough to try.

Exorcism is the opposite of summoning, but works in exactly the same way — a series of actions that interact with the Conditions an entity is relying on to Manifest or feed. The classic image of an exorcism, priests sealing themselves into a room with a possessed victim who drive the entity out with prayer, confrontation, and willpower, is a combination of exorcism to chip away at the entity’s conditions, bindings and wardings to keep it from escaping or summoning aid, abjurations to provide a spiritual kick, and the use of as many banes and bans as the exorcist has been able to research.

(see also Summoning write up)

### Abjuration

While exorcism is an attempt to tackle the Conditions underpinning an entity’s presence by mundane means or the use of bans and banes, abjuration fights the supernatural with the supernatural, pitting the users’ soul and Resolve against

the entity he is attempting to force away.

Although many exorcists (and therefore many people knowledgeable enough about the ephemeral to attempt abjuration) are religious, abjuration does not require religious faith to work. It’s a consequence of the human soul; by stilling and focusing the mind, concentrating on the higher self, a skilled abjurist can cause his soul to affect Twilight, forcing ephemeral beings away and clearing an area of Influence.

The abjuration effect must be performed as a meditative exercise that helps the user stay calm even in the face of a rampaging Materialized spirit. Religious abjurists use repeated prayer, while more secular occultists rely on incantations learned from their researches. Anything that instills the proper calm and reverence will work, though — a soldier might attempt to abjure a ghost by reciting the patriotic oath of his country.

The abjuration itself is a Resolve + Composure roll contested by the entity’s Power + Resistance. As Abjuration channels the higher self, working the ritual by a means that matches the abjurist’s Virtue provides a +2 die bonus to the dice pool. A strong psyche is also useful — characters with Integrity 10 receive a +3 bonus, Integrity 9 characters gain +2 dice and Integrity 8 +1 die. Conversely, if the abjuration calls on the abjurist’s Vice, the dice pool is penalized by 2 dice.

Low Integrity characters suffer a –1 dice penalty per Integrity dot below 6, –1 for Integrity 5,

–3 for Integrity 3, and so on.

If the abjuration is successful, all Conditions tagged by the entity in the abjurist’s Willpower in yards are suppressed for one day. On an exceptional success, the abjurist also becomes

an extra bane for the entity until its Conditions return.

### Warding and Binding

Occult lore is full of references to sealing locations from spirits and ghosts, either to bind them inside or keep them from entering. Chalk circles, protective charms in windows — even a simple horseshoe above a threshold. Most of these tales have nothing substantial to them. Some are half-remembered references to bans or banes, or the weaknesses of supernatural — but still physical — creatures. A few, though, describe true warding or binding rituals. Warding and binding are a combination of abjuration and an entity’s bane, empowered to create a temporary ban that prevents the entity from crossing into or out of an area defined by the ritualist.

Instead of confronting the entity directly as in abjuration, the ritualist marks the boundary she intends to protect with the entity’s bane. She doesn’t have to mark a complete boundary — her concept of the area she’s protecting is what’s important. Marking doors and windows with lamb’s blood to keep out a spirit that can’t touch it will prevent that spirit from simply floating through the wall while in Twilight, and carefully drawing a sigil on the floor will serve to trap the angel whose name it is.

If the ritualist doesn’t have the proper bane for her ritual’s subject, it fails automatically, so the most important part of warding is getting that detail right. Once that’s done and the area has been marked, the ritualist performs whatever abjuration method she knows, focusing on suffusing the area with the essence of the entity’s bane. The ritual is a Presence + Occult roll, modified by the ritualist’s Integrity as per an abjuration and further penalized by the entity’s Rank. A further modifier depends on the size of the area being warded.

Area Modifier

Small area within a location, up to a six-foot area +1

Single room or vehicle 0

Two-story, suburban building –1

Larger structures levy increasing penalties; an additional –1 for every equivalent of a family home. Most superstructures, like skyscrapers, trains, government buildings, and hospitals are too large to be effectively warded.

If successful, the entity described in the ritual treats attempting to move into or out of the warded area as though it were against its ban. The effect lasts for successes in days or is broken if the marking of the boundary is disturbed — a determined entity can suffer the injury from touching the bane material marker in order to break the ward.