Ghost Council and Thanatomancers.

 THE GHOST COUNCIL OF WINNIPEG

Formed out of necessity to resist the influence of the Yama Kings, the Ghost Council is a resistance movement against the malevolent forces of the underworld. Their purpose is twofold: to safeguard the delicate balance between the living and the dead, and to thwart the insidious schemes of the ancient Yama Kings and their thralls. This assembly serves as both a sanctuary and a fortress for those who have transcended the mortal coil. Leading the Council is a group of individuals who have experienced various stages of death.

Adrian Montgomery: Once a powerful thanatomancer who mastered the four major paths, Adrian can freely transfer his soul between different living beings. However, only individuals with a high affinity for him can host his soul for extended periods. He understands the threat of the Yama Kings more than anyone else and founded the Ghost Council.

Gallagher Bates: An entrepreneur who sees death as an opportunity for profit. He possesses the ability to control technology and runs his tech company from beyond the grave. He frequently makes trades with necromancers and other ghosts.

Peyton Levtel: He and his lover, Nora, were cursed by the Yama Kings for opposing them. Peyton is cursed with eternal life, his soul trapped in a body that cannot die. Nora is cursed with eternal death, doomed to be born and just to die over and over again. Each time the reborn Nora meets and falls in love with Peyton, she will invariably meet her demise exactly 72 hours later.

J(oker): A gambler who bargained with a Yama King in death to remain in this realm. He found a loophole in his contract, avoiding becoming the King’s puppet. Now, he seeks to end the Yama Kings to gain true freedom. J is "living" proof that the Yama Kings can be outsmarted.

Julia Bosenvich: A former victim of a Yama King cult. She was transported to the underworld as an offering, but the ritual went awry, fracturing her soul. The Julia in the council is the largest fragment, containing about half of her memories and identity. She constantly searches for the other pieces of herself in the underworld and the living world.

Myrtle O'Donnell: A deceased mnemomancer and mortician who created her own brand of memory magic. She specializes in people’s remembrance of the deceased, strengthening her ties to the living world by reinforcing her community’s memory of her.

Hope Hathaway: A navy woman who died overseas. She shares a powerful bond with her twin sister, Destiny Hathaway. By drawing on this connection, Hope solidifies her ties to the living and can superimpose herself onto Destiny to protect her. This differs from possession, as both sisters can act simultaneously.

Julio:Julio, a young cyberpunk street samurai who was sacrificially killed in Leyak witchcraft and now harbours a strong association with Kiyoshi and the Leyak family, being a sort of ghost husband to Kiyoshi. Julio is basically an excitable, rambunctious, exuberant, and wet behind the ears ghost, he was only 18 years old when he died, a typical high-on-'life' teenager. Likely manifested as a chaotic, noisy poltergeist. The rest of the Ghost Council usually view him as silly and goofy, yet keep him around only because they are so short on numbers and help. Julio is absolutely terrified of the Yama Kings on a visceral level. One could describe Julio as plucky yet naive. The Fool archetype.   

Here's a picture of him:

 Julio 2.jpg

THANATOMANCERS (aka necros, murder-mages, liches, soul stealers, graverobbers)

Domain of Magic: Thanatomancy encompasses a vast domain, leading to its practitioners specializing in different areas. This school is divided into distinct paths:

- Path of Bones: Focuses on corpses and remains.

- Path of Soul: Deals with ghosts and ectoplasm.

- Path of Ash: Centers on the entropy, the process of dying and decay.

- Path of Obol: Explores the connection between the underworld and the physical world.

Medium: Acts of destruction and harming, ashes, blood, bones, mementos, remains, sacrifices and offerings… etc.

Curse: Thanatomancers often accumulate necrotic resonance, or death energy, the type that souls discharge normally by going through the cycle of death. Such accumulation is unhealthy to death mages, wearing down their mental, emotional and physical faculties. Thanatomancers tend to assume a pallid visage and an obsession with death. Their normal moral inhibitions fall away in favor of a desire to associate with and understand death energy. As a result, they slide into a study of necromancy, becoming gaunt and sociopathic, eventually degenerating into little more than killers. Most of them, sooner or later, try to bring down the barrier between life and death.

Factions: Each Path of Thanatomancy functions as its own faction, with practitioners sticking together and collaborating to further their practices. They also closely monitor each other, preventing anyone from succumbing to death resonance. Death magick is a slippery slope to oblivion. The very few “sane” thanatomancers must adhere to a strict set of rules, lest they lose their humanity. Those who are lost to entropy, however, often isolate themselves and go on killing sprees. Some even join forces with the Yama Kings, wishing to advance their masters’ desire to disrupt the balance of this world.

Spells by Paths

☠︎︎ Path of Bones

• Reanimate: Make a corpse move and obey. Higher degrees of success let the user animate larger/more corpses for longer

• Rotting Curse: Cause flesh to decompose. Can be used on a corpse to get rid of it, or used on living beings to inflict damage and disable them.

• Flesh Like Clay: Modify dead flesh and bones. Make weapons/armors/tools out of corpses. Fuse many corpses together to make bigger abominations.

• Gift of False Life: Temporarily bring a corpse back to life by reanimating their brain. If nothing further happens, the revived corpse is slow and emotionless, but is otherwise responsive. However, the zombie is open to possession (by the person’s soul or something else).

• Witch Fruit: Grow a plant from fresh corpses that bears fruits. When consumed, the fruits cause paralysis and hallucinations.

☠︎︎ Path of Soul

• Bind: Bind a ghost to a being/object/place. If the target is a person, they have a chance to resist.

• Compel: Force a ghost to perform a task. Need to have the ghost’s fetter for the spell to work.

• Fray: Directly attack a ghost or soul. If used on living  beings, cannot by dodged or reduced by armor, but can be resisted by Will

• Mark: Put a mark on a person that attracts ghosts to become hostile to the target on sight.

• Reap: Remove a soul and trap it. Soulless bodies lose all self-preservation instincts and are open to possession. A person with strong Will can fight to free their soul.

☠︎︎ Path of Ash

• Decay: Speed up the rate of decay for matter and living being around the user. Matter breaks down, becomes spoiled or oxidized, rendering tools useless and food toxic to consume. Creatures start aging, becoming hungry and weakened, any open wounds immediately worsen and become infested.

• Entropic Sight: Perceive how close something is to its destruction. When used on living beings, can see their terminal diseases, misfortune, weaknesses, curses, future deaths…. When used on material objects, can see flaws/weak points in their structures, or their expiry date.

• Entropic Dispersal: Cause energy to decay. Disperse heat to create coldness, mute sound to create silence, destroy light to make darkness… etc. Dispersing momentum can cause objects and creatures to grind to a complete halt.

• Reverse Entropy: De-age living beings, restore matter to brand new, prevent devices from losing energy. Higher degrees of success cause the spell’s effects to last longer, but never permanent.

• Curse of Ruin: Curse a target. Living creatures around them turn sick, their material possessions decay quickly, relationships break down… etc.

☠︎︎ Path of Obol

• Reaching: Enchant a being or object to be able to interact with ghosts and the underworld. Can also be used to retrieve ghostly objects back from destruction

• Mend/Split the Veil: Increase/decrease the strength of the barrier between two worlds. When the Veil is thin, thanatomancy becomes easier to use and ghosts can manifest. When the Veil is thick, ghosts have trouble affecting the living.’

• Descend: Enter/exit the underworld. Higher degrees of success allow the user to bring objects or people with. Convert the whole physical body into ectoplasm, leaving nothing behind.

• Stygian Gate: Open a gate between the living world and the underworld. This spell messes with the laws of nature where it is cast. The genius loci of the land would likely try to shut it down immediately.

• Call of the Abyss: Cause a subject to become obsessed with the Underworld. The target begins seeing visions in their dreams, unconsciously creating artworks of death and ruins, and seeking out the nearest location where the Veil is thin. Anyone viewing artworks by the target has a chance to be affected too.