Records: Scream of the Spectres

Around the world, especially on recent battlefields, ghosts are witnessed. In the daytime. *By everybody*. Places with a lot of history – and recent death – are particularly subject to this rise in hauntings. There were plenty of references to the dead rising in the bible, but most of that was resurrection, not angry ghosts.

Archbishop of Canterbury Simon of Sudbury postulates that it's due to magic, but Arundel, site of a massive battle (essentially a massacre), experiences somewhat *fewer* ghosts. That may be because the old castle was already torn down and dumped in the sea, but the lack of ghosts overall tend to clear magic rather than impugn it.

### **The Curia's Questions**

The increased ghost sightings have been noted since 1365, but that was before the Rise of Magic or anybody known to really be a practitioner of it. The ghosts are a massive issue for the Church as they are, by definition, lost human souls – and the Church has no [unified] answer for it.

Magic, however, would be a *convenient* answer.

Sudbury is recalled to Rome to answer the papal inquiry regarding the state of the ghost events in England. After frantic travel, Archbishop confirms they're happening there, too, but likely at a lesser rate than other places he's passed through even on the trip to Rome.

This leaves the Curia at a loss to explain things, but Sudbury is retained for further inquiry.

### **The Roman Inquisition**

Hitting a lull in the supernatural inquiry, the Curia turns their attention back to Sudbury and an inquisition regarding the overall heretical posture of the English crown. Much of *that* began with Avignon in the pocket of France during the wars with the English. The Curia promptly regrets asking the question, especially in light of papacy's recent guilt by extension with the massacre at Cesena.

More specifically to the current English regime, there is word trickling in of the Vernacular bibles. John Wycliffe has been the English Crown's liaison. The English gold in Florence completely nullified the interdict and eventualy forced an unfavorable truce. English printing presses are in Rome, stirring up the Protestant movement. They'd brought Milan to heel, but only with the threat and help of Naples and Hungary – and now with England there spending seemingly bottomless gold – *something had to change*.

For individuals like Cardinal Robert of Geneva, "change" clearly meant destroying England (or at least its Royal family). The bluster played well with some of the French cardinals, until Archbishop Sudbury reminded the Curia of two important points:

1. England, the Royal family specifically, has experienced healing miracles (and seem to be able to do them quietly *at will*). There are no human sacrifices, there is no fire or sulphur or brimstone, but there is power beyond human capacity – *so watch it*.
2. Also, the Regiment of St. George just annihilated an invading Franco-Castilian force three times their size in Arundel. But for the restraint of Prince Richard, Child of the Epiphany, King Edward would likely lay waste to France itself, much less Avignon, on a march straight to Rome. *Choose your words carefully*.

### **Strategy for the Future**

With the resurgence of England in Aquitaine, the papacy sees the possibility that even if they fled Rome (again), newly-empowered England could just tear across Southern France and reach Avignon. That has Pope Gregory XI and his cardinals thinking strategically.

While Sudbury himself had no desire to live a life in pious poverty, he understood the reaction of the Jesuits, protesters and reformers. The pendulum had swung the other way after witnessing men of god living like emperors at the expense of the people.

*Moderation was the way of the future*.

Sudbury was dismissed with little more than a prayer and a command to mitigate damage to English souls.

### **World Variation**

One of the keys was that the *Scream* wasn't simply a spike in hauntings, it was an episode of *angry* hauntings, with emotional carryover from the circumstances of death. Murders and battles were particularly subject to the reactions of the recently deceased.

With little more than minor skirmishing in most of Europe, that area didn't realize the intensity reached lethal levels for the living where there were major incidents. Areas where death was prevalent focused and magnified the *Scream*, with the density and intensity of the emotional state elevating hauntings to lethal levels.

* In the Aztec areas, the *Scream of Spectres* manifest with their regular human sacrifices refusing to die. What should've been an alleged "joyous occasion" turned grislier when the half-dead used the bones of the recently dead to kill the priests trying to kill them – as well as most of the jaguar warriors sent to put a stop to them. Word spread both north into the Coahuiltecan cultures and especially east into the Mayan city-states, who suffered similar phenomena.
* In the Ming campaign areas, particularly recent battlefields in Qinghai, the dead become mass-lethal to the living. Afterward, the "Mandate of Heaven" claimed by the Hongwu Emperor was widely called into question. While he vigorously defended the claim, the supernatural complications demoralized the army and largely fractured his campaign to unify China.