The Dresden Files: Portland
Ghosts are usually invisible; when they do appear, ghosts are typically transparent, insubstantial, and shaped like the original person they came from, though their ability to reshape their ectoplasmic form can lead to exaggerated or unnatural features.
What We Know
Mortals have everything inside them to make a ghost—all they need is the right set of circumstances. Ghosts are beings that live in the spirit world; they are the impression left by a personality at the moment of death. A strong imprint—due to either the strength of the personality or the situation around the person’s death—makes a strong ghost. While they appear to be self-aware and capable of feeling emotion, they are not.
Ghosts’ home turf is the Nevernever, though they often skirt the borders of the mortal world. Shades tend to linger in graveyards more than anywhere else—especially in older cities. The boundary between the mortal world and the Nevernever is thinnest on Halloween; ghosts formed at this time of spiritual turbulence are often more impressive. Strong ghosts can have their own demesne or bailiwick in the Nevernever, where they make the rules and are more powerful.
While ghosts don’t usually inhabit a construct or magical body, they can manifest one if desired.
If they don’t acknowledge you, you can’t affect ghosts in the mortal world. Requirements for getting acknowledged: the speaker must possess some for of magic, now the ghost’s identity, and speak its name aloud.
Exceptions to the magic requirement can do exists, usually via a personal connection with the deceased.
Ghosts are strongest just after the sun goes down, at the witching hour, and just before the sun comes up. Spiritual turbulence between the mortal realm and the Nevernever not only gives rise to the formation of stronger ghosts, but also tends to increase the powers of existing ones.
Common ghost abilities include:
- Causing enchanted sleep
- Reforming their ectoplasmic shape
- Manifesting visually or materially through an ectoplasmic construct
- Cold spots
- Sound generations
- Weather control
Ghosts can also possess a mortal, though this takes a tremendous amount of power.
Ghosts are usually limited to a certain time, place or event, most often related to their death. Ghosts are not people or sentient spirits; they do not change or grow, they simply exist, experiencing whatever feelings they had when they died. They are not terribly observant—indeed, ghosts barely notice the mortal world except in how it relates to their purpose or existence. That being said, old spirits are often attracted to objects related to their nature—this might be possessions they owned while living, their mortal remains, or items of great personal importance.
They can usually only move thing in bursts—the average ghost doesn’t seem to have much of a magical “reserve tank”. Perhaps due to this, ghosts can only cross the weakest of thresholds without being invited.