#ghosts 101

In almost any form they take, ghosts can be described as beings of emotion. Obviously, their fully living counterparts also have emotions but ghost emotions are generally more intense, always dialed up to 11, and drive the ghost to fulfill their obsession. A ghost obsession is the main reason that ghost sticks around on the living plane rather than moving on to the afterlife; for some, it’s because they had “unfinished business” like their murder was never solved or if they died in a particularly gruesome way; maybe they had an intense desire to protect their loved ones from whatever killed them or just generally wanted people to stay away from it; maybe they did move on but something disturbed their rest and they came back to rectify the situation so they could rest again. Each ghost is different and each situation is unique in its own way, even if there are common threads.

No matter what brought them here, ghosts feel intensely about their obsession and literally can’t not fulfill it; if they are prevented or have enough conscious thought to stop themselves, their already intense emotions go absolutely nuts and most will become violent until they can fulfill it again. The majority of ghosts will only have one obsession but it’s not impossible for them to have more or very nuanced obsessions.

A few examples:

My school had a lunch lady that worked there pretty much her whole life, like over 50 years, and that whole time the menu never changed, or at least not significantly. During my early days as Phantom, the school decided to add vegan/vegetarian options and this upset her so much that she came back to haunt the school; she just went by the name Lunch Lady, most likely because she’d been dead long enough to have forgotten her own name. Her obsession was to continue doing what she’d always done in life, serve kids lunch, and the change to the menu disrupted that.

Mine is a bit more broad and involves protecting people; if I see something wrong, something potentially harmful to others, it’s like an itch I can’t scratch if I don’t do something about it. It’s all I can think about and not helping drives me insane. Think of it like someone with really bad OCD that literally cannot help themselves; my sister is really into psychology and said the symptoms I described match. The most obvious scratch for that itch is stopping the bad guys in a dramatic fight to protect the innocent, but it’s hardly the only way; even working at, say, an animal shelter would do, though I would eventually grow restless knowing I could do more.

Which brings me to another point; fighting is not only common in ghost culture but it’s the best way to regulate our emotions since we don’t have a physical form anymore to keep those emotions in check. I’ve helped several ghost move on to the afterlife, and I have tried other methods, but the best I’ve found is confronting the ghost, figure out what’s keeping them here, fight them for a bit to release their built up tension so they can think a bit more clearly, then provide a solution to whatever their problem was.

Another example:

A couple decades ago, there was a kid at my school who was bullied horribly in life and the way they were able to pass on was to stand up to a bully and fight back like they always wanted to but never could. I played the part of the bully and one of my friends volunteered to play the victim for the ghost to stand up for, because no one did for them. Fulfilling that dream allowed them to rest, even if it was staged. Sorry, they were the first ghost I ever helped rest so the story is still kind of emotional for me.

Ahem, uh, let’s see, what’s next? We still have to cover haunts and types of ghosts. We’ll do haunts first, ghost types can get complicated.

A ghost’s haunt is the physical thing that ties them to the mortal realm; this could be an area that meant a lot to them when they were alive, like the school for the Lunch Lady and the bully victim, or maybe the house they lived in or the place they died; or it could be a specific person they had a strong emotional connection to, be it a loved one or several loved ones that they wish to protect or someone who hurt them that they want revenge on. Stronger ghosts have larger haunts and removing a ghost from their natural haunt is difficult at best, and even if they are able to claim a new haunt, they’ll still yearn for their original place. My haunt is pretty much all of Amity Park, whether I like it or not; I’ve been trying to accept Gotham, or at least Wayne Manor, but it’s been hard and I’ve been incredibly homesick since leaving. It’ll probably be easier once I’m allowed in the field and can fulfill my obsession to protect, but until then I’m just going to have to endure. Getting to know you guys and accept you as part of my haunt has helped, though, and talking to Sam, Tucker, and Jazz helps too, since they are very much part of my haunt. It helps me feel grounded, for lack of a better term.

Anyways, ghost types. I’ve been called a protector spirit but that’s not so much a type as a title, like everyone knows what you mean when you say “fish” but taxonomically it’s hard to actually define a fish without including or excluding things that logically should or shouldn’t belong in that category. There’s also a decent amount of overlap between types too, so it’s more like a sliding scale than anything concrete. Or the intersection of a couple sliding scales. Or something. Anyways.

What we would normally clump together as “ghosts” are usually the soul of a dead human that hasn’t passed on to the afterlife. They have varying levels of consciousness, memory of their past life, and control over their emotional impulses, from none at all to basically the same as a living person but dead. There are a few subcategories based on, for example, their level of malevolence, like poltergeist ranging between mischievous pranksters and downright evil sadists, and some subcategories can be split into further subcategories, like banshees are a poltergeist that are specifically feminine ghosts who wail and scream, but they all still fit within the broad category of “ghost”.

I could go into more detail, but then we’d be here all day and I don’t really wanna do that.

Amity Park had a higher concentration of people turning into ghosts than most towns, living up to its title of “most haunted town in the mid-west”, and many fall under the poltergeist category, but not all. Amity also has a lot of shades or shadow people, which is more of a psychic imprint of a traumatic event on ambient ectoplasm, but only if the victim doesn’t actually die; if they died, they would absorb the ambient ecto to become a more powerful ghost. Shades aren’t really alive, not in the sense of having a soul of their own, and generally just replay the traumatic event over and over until it runs out of energy. Will-o’-the-wisps, or just wisps, are also common, as a sort of pre-ghost entity; they don’t quite have enough soul power or emotional energy to become a full ghost but they try to stick around anyways, usually only a few days before they fizzle out and move on to the afterlife. They could potentially become a full ghost if given enough outside energy; from ambient ecto or magic to siphoning energy from the living to someone consciously giving them energy for the express purpose of making them into a full ghost.

As for me, I... call myself a ghost but that’s not entirely accurate since I do have a physical body. As far as I can tell, I fall under the category of “lich” which is closer to a zombie than a ghost. I don’t like thinking about what that means. The point is, I died in my parents lab, which was highly saturated with ecto, coupled with the ecto I’d been contaminated with my entire life, and ecto from the Ghost Zone as the portal opened up on top of me, with the bow on top of being traumatically electrocuted to death. I sucked up all that ecto at the exact moment I died, which brought me back to life and gave me a lot of power. I’m not super sure, and I don’t know if there’s any way to confirm this, but I think the power was too much for my body to contain, so it somehow stored the power in an alternate form. I still have access to some of my powers while in human form, but most of it I can only access in my ghost form.

Speaking of the Ghost Zone, it's inhabited by souls taken from Limbo and infused with extra ecto. They didn't have any reason to stay on Earth, which is why they were in Limbo in the first place, but after being supercharged they developed obsessions based on their emotions and what they remember of their past lives. Ghosts that are more powerful than average are called wights and are more on the same level as a lich if we equate an average ghost to, say, a revenant. A revenant is someone who was dead and brought back to life and still has a soul; if they didn't have a soul, they'd be categorized as a zombie, just a reanimated corpse. The difference between a revenant and a lich is the amount of power they have; revenants didn't have any connection to magic before but after being brought back they could potentially learn some, while a lich already had magic and it was usually increased by being brought back. They also didn't necessarily have to die first, so there's that.

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Specific Types of Undead

Lich: a powerful magic user who becomes undead through any means. They still have a soul and access to their magic which, depending on the process, may have been enhanced. One avenue is a living mortal being exposed to the Fountain of Life or substances related to it, like Lazarus Pits or the ectoplasm of the Ghost Zone, though this may cause side effects.

Ra’s al Ghul - Ra’s has been around since at least the 1200s and already knew magic before entering the Lazarus Pit, which enhanced his powers. He will generally bath in a Lazarus Pit every few years/decades and has been doing so for centuries, getting close to a millennia. He has plenty of power himself but prefers manipulation, orchestrating elaborate plans from the background rather than getting his own hands dirty.

Vlad Masters - Vlad was exposed to Lazarus Water/ectoplasm once, for a short amount of time (a few seconds at most). Due to his preconceptions about ghosts and (mis)understanding of what happened to him, most of his abilities developed into what he expected of a ghost. After his initial exposure and recovery, he experimented with ectoplasm more and increased his exposure, though never again to actual Lazarus Water. His powers are comparatively weak but he has honed them to the point of still being a formidable opponent.

Danny Phantom - Danny had constant, but low level, exposure to ectoplasm for pretty much his entire life; he likely would have developed some kind of magic powers naturally, but the lab accident flooded his body with ectoplasm at the exact moment he was electrocuted to death, jumpstarting his powers. Due to his predisposition towards ghosts, most of Danny’s abilities are considered “ghostly”.

Pariah - As the first resident of the Ghost Zone, Pariah was exposed to the Waters of the Fountain of Life until it was corrupted into ectoplasm and has had constant exposure to ectoplasm for a long time, which flows differently in the Zone than on Earth or other pocket dimensions. He had no natural magic but had been touched with power from both Monitor and the Great Darkness, which influenced his power’s development.

Revenant: a non-magic user who becomes undead through any means. They still have a soul and have the potential to learn magic if it was used to restore them, even if they had absolutely no potential for it before. Exposure to the Fountain of Life or substances related to it, like Lazarus Pits or the ectoplasm of the Ghost Zone, is one way to bring a dead person back to life, but they can only become a revenant if their soul is also restored, otherwise they’ll become a zombie or ghoul. There will be side effects depending on the method, but dying is a traumatic experience on its own. A draugr is a type of revenant with the body of a giant. A Scandinavian term for basically the same thing is genganger. A kukudh is basically an Albanian revenant. A langsuyar is specifically a female revenant of Indo-Australia.

Jason Todd - Jason had been dead for a few months before Talia al Ghul managed to secure his body and submerge him in a Lazarus Pit, however Jason was angry and stubborn so his soul was still hanging onto his body by a thread and that was just barely enough. He was more zombie-like at first, but thanks to Talia’s magic and some less than gentle coaxing, Jason regained his mind. His trauma from dying in the first place was compounded by how slowly his mind was restored and the training of the League of Assassins of both his body and mind, once it returned enough to be trained.

Ghoul: an undead being with no soul connected to the restored body, and therefore no mind to direct them, regardless of method. They are easily susceptible to mind control but otherwise run on instincts and emotions, though they may or may not have memories from their time being alive. They are generally very violent and will attack pretty much anything that moves. The Turkish name for such a creature is orek.

Zombie: a reanimated corpse, possessing little-to-no free will or memories of their former life. If left alone, they just kind of stand around, maybe shamble a little, until given some kind of directive. Tibetans called them ro-langs and ancient Greece called them vrykolakas, somewhat crossing over with the old concepts of vampires.

Vetala: a ghost possessing a reanimated corpse; the ghost and body are usually unrelated.

Ghost: the disembodied soul of a once living creature (usually human but not always) that cannot or will not cross over to the afterlife. There are many subcategories and sub-subcategories based on a number of factors, like level of consciousness and malevolence. Ghosts have many names in other cultures that are basically synonymous with the general idea of a ghost, including bhoot, hortdan, hupia, shiryo, and yurei. They generally don’t have a physical form of their own but can possess humans, animals, plants, or objects to interact with the physical world.

Poltergeist: a catch-all term for ghost that range from mischievous pranksters to pure evil sadists, sometimes called a Vengeful Ghost. Poltergeists with vampire-like abilities or attributes are called strigoi.

Wight: a powerful ghost, usually fully cognizant even if they don’t remember their past life. Most of the souls pulled into the Ghost Zone became this when exposed to ectoplasm.

Will-o’-the-Wisp: a sort of pre-ghost entity that wants to stay in the living realm but doesn’t quite have enough strength to stay for long, usually lasting only a few days after the person’s death. Often shortened to just wisps. They can “graduate” to full ghosts if given enough energy from an outside source (even if that source is ambient magic/ectoplasm). Other commons names are jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern, or hinkypunk, and are generally called hitodama in the East.

Shadow Person/Shade: they appear to be roughly humanoid masses of black material or literal shadows without a body to cast it. They are not a soul, they are the psychic imprint of a traumatic event that didn’t cause an actual death. The shade would basically play out the scene over and over again until the residual energy ran out.  

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Undead entities common enough in folklore to have a particular name

Ayakashi: a ghost that appears above the surface of a body of water. Why they’re there and what they do varies from luring sailors to join them in death to helping them avoid the hazard that killed the ghost. It may or may not fall under the “poltergeist” label.

Funayurei: an ayakashi specifically of the ocean.

Banshee: a generally feminine poltergeist associated with screaming and wailing.

Chang: the trapped spirit of a person who was killed by a powerful magic being, like a demon or vampire, and must “serve” the being by luring someone else to be killed and take their place, at which point they are released to the afterlife.

Dybbuk: while sometimes confused for the rare possession by a sex demon, a dybbuk is a human ghost that possesses a living human in order to have sex, either possessing the desired person or possessing someone else to have sex with the desired person. La Sayona is a specifically female version of this, potentially overlapping with a Virgin Ghost and Mavka. Hone-onna is a dead wife that appears to her still living husband, who looks like a skeleton to anyone but her husband.

Goryo/Onryo: the ghost of a noble or otherwise accomplished person who lost a power struggle shortly before death, or were killed so someone else could take their position. They are often resentful and angry at whoever succeeded them and generally fall under the “poltergeist” label, focused on whoever has the position they lost. A specifically female version is sometimes called a Kuchisake-onna. A similar concept was used in Harry Potter, where no one could teach Defense Against the Dark Arts for longer than a year after Voldemort was denied the position.

Virgin Ghost: a person who died before they could have a family of their own, generally young women but not always. They usually fall under the “poltergeist” label, targeting their still-living family members or those that fall into the same social category they were in when they died, which usually means young women.

Lemures: ghosts who are restless specifically because (they felt) they didn’t receive a proper burial, especially if specific funeral rites were important to their culture’s customs. They are sometimes called lietuvēns or lietonis, which are said to have been killed before their time and forced to wander until their allotted time would have been otherwise run out. They are sometimes called myling if they are just trying to convince someone to bury them properly, usually by leading someone to their body, which may be counterintuitive if their body is somewhere dangerous; they may act malevolently in order to gain attention but they generally don’t want to actually hurt anyone, they’ve just been stuck like this for a while and are frustrated because nothing else has worked.

Mononoke: a ghost that specifically causes their target to become weak or ill.

Drekavac: a catch-all term used in “South Slavic” areas that could refer to any number of undead-adjacent entities, including ghosts and zombies.

Some ghosts have specific forms that usually relate to how they died but are consistent enough to have been named in folklore. While their form is consistent, their temperament varies just as much as any other ghost. These include:

The self-explanatory Headless Horseman.

The Kuntilanak, Pontianak, or Yakshi of a pregnant woman who died in childbirth, sometimes called ubume.

Mavka or Nyavka appear as beautiful women to lure men to their deaths.

Noppera-bō are faceless humanoids that may or may not have others forms as well.

Pocong look like humans wrapped in funeral cloth; mummies are specifically ancient Egyptian variants. They are also different from zombies because they don't have a physical body like a zombie does.

Some ghosts possess animal as a host body for an extended period of time, like the Inugami that specifically uses a canine host body.

Yuki-onna are generally attractive female ghosts associated with snow and ice.

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Non-undead entities often mistaken for them

Vampire: a demonic being that feeds on the life force of mortals. They may have been human at some point but that is not always the case. A similar creature is the jiāngshī in china, a lugat in Albania, a wurdulac in Slavic folklore, and an upiór in ancient Eurasian areas.

Wendigo: a (technically still living) human either possessed or cursed with a demon-like body that grows in proportion to what they eat, leaving them perpetually starving. This may or may not have anything to do with cannibalism, like folklore suggests, but this was often a punishment for being selfish and greedy. Slightly more humanoid versions are the jikiniki, the bal-bal, and preta.

Batkaak: demons that hunt hunters, or other warrior-like humans.

Dullahan: a demonic fairy that fits the description of the Headless Horseman.

Succubus/Incubus: sometimes confused with a dybbuk if the sex demon possesses a human.

Ikiryo: another name for the spirit of a still living person sent to “haunt” a target person or area, often via astral projection and generally leaves the body in a coma until the spirit returns.

Moroi: vampires with ghost-like abilities rather than typical vampire abilities.

Pricolici: vampires with werewolf-like attributes and abilities rather than typical vampire abilities.

Shikigami: demon-adjacent entities used by “onmyōji” (basically someone who does eastern astrology for a living) or witches/other magic users to carry out blessings and curses; another name might be anichimayen. They may or may not be related to Familiars, which includes a wide variety of creatures.

Sluagh: a group of fairies that “kidnap” humans, often appearing like a classic ghost to scare people.

Chupacabra: a demon that drinks the blood of animals, usually livestock, but specifically named after draining goats of their blood. They may or may not be related to vampires.

Deildegast: a demon-adjacent entity associated with boundary stones.

Dhampir: the offspring of a human and a vampire, sometimes called a demi-vampire.

Gashadokuro: a demonic entity that takes the form of a giant skeleton.

Nachzehrer: a demon often confused for a revenant. They generally try to drag the living to the afterlife before their time, sometimes claiming to be a loved one of the victim who just wants to be close to them again.

Qutrub: a demon that prefers to feed on human corpses.