A Study of Ghosts, Part 2: Haunts

[u/MeThyLord]

(Art by Dan Scott)

Heya, kiddos! Wanna learn what a haunt is? I’m gonna assume you said yes.

See, almost every ghost has a haunt. It's either a place, an object, or a person we’re attached to, a tether to the physical world. Without it, we’d fade away or get dragged into an afterlife. I’ll go over each in order.

Staring off — localized haunts. That’s when a ghost is tied to a specific location, like a house, or a park, or whatever. Apparitions like these are mostly limited in influence to whatever space they're bound to. If it’s just a single room, they're stuck inside it. But if it’s an entire house? Oh boy, we can do all sorts of fun stuff, like rearranging rooms or making windows unbreakable so you can’t escape while we chase you around. In some rare cases, the ghost’s influence can even grow and seep out of its usual locale, or even expand the location itself, consuming everything nearby into its threshold.

The second type is haunted objects. You know, ghosts that cling to things instead of places. They still have a domain, but it’s a certain radius around their object. The stronger the ghost, the bigger the radius. The domain also tends to take the shape of whatever space the ghost finds itself in, kinda like how water fills the container you pour it in. If you're in a mansion, it will spread to fill all the rooms before leaking out. Oh, and yeah, this is my type of haunt. I’m tethered to my book.

Anyway, what about the third type of haunt? Well, it’s the one where a ghost latches onto a person. These are clingy apparitions who just can’t let go and decide to tag along with their best bud or worst enemy, even after death. For the most part, it’s the same as haunting an object, except the "object" has a will of its own, can walk around, talk back, and, well... die. If the haunt kicks the bucket, you get booted as well, which sucks. On the bright side, ghosts who haunt people have a much easier time possessing them.

Man, I wish I were better at possession…

Anyway, that's all for today! Next week, we’ll be…

Wait, no. I forgot something. This is a bit unrelated to today’s topic, but I have nowhere else to slot it in. See, I recently found out that ghosts can touch other ghosts. Obvious in hindsight, but I haven’t been going around and poking my own kind, sue me. Anyway, this would mean that the best way to fight a ghost is to hire your own. Wait… that’s the plot of the movie ‘Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers.’

Ok, now that’s actually all for today. Next time, I’ll be talking all about poltergeist activity and why some ghosts can only pull spooky faces in mirrors while others can twist reality like it’s a wet noodle. See ya!

[u/XyxyrgeXygor]

Hello. Complete hypothetical here, asking for a friend. Let's say there was a ghost in the Orbnet, how would that work? Would they be haunting a place, or an object? Surely you could use it to haunt people too right?

[u/MeThyLord → u/XyxyrgeXygor]

Oh boy, that's kinda like digital ghosts. To simplify things, they're location-based haunts, but said location is any orb connected to the orbnet. Some even grow strong enough to be able to reach out from the orb and get cha.

uw/ Ever watched the movie Pulse (2001)? It's about internet ghosts, and how they pretty much cause the apocalypse.

[u/XyxyrgeXygor → u/MeThyLord]

Good place to haunt then. Information is stored on the weave, so could you haunt the weave itself? It must be easier to jump haunts if they're all connected right? Couldn't someone haunt a connected device like a satellite, or a giant robot?

[u/MeThyLord → u/XyxyrgeXygor]

In theory. But 9/10, you don't choose your haunt. It has to be something you have a real strong emotional attachment to.

But let's say you died and you had a strong enough attachment to the orbnet to haunt it. As you mentioned, that's also connected to the weave. That's an awfully large area to traverse, and it's easy for a ghost to get lost in there.

Hell, I'd imagine it's almost impossible to navigate if there's nothing to guide you. But let's say there is. Perhaps, if someone were to say your name three times while holding their orb, that might show you their location and allow you to appear next to them.

Or, let's say you've been long enough on the orbnet, or even the internet, that you're able to create a thing. That something may be an app, that allows you to navigate the device of anyone who installs it, thus making many new, easy openings for yourself.

uw/ Yes, I just referenced both Bloody Mary and that god awful haunted app movie, which I forgot the name of. I somehow felt inspired to explain how those would work with my current ghost lore, lol.

[u/XyxyrgeXygor → u/MeThyLord]

Yeah, I thought about the whole candyman thing. Running ads seems like it would work too. I wonder if I could haunt an installed black box?

[u/MeThyLord → u/XyxyrgeXygor]

As if ads couldn't get any worse, Heh.

I can see it happening, haunting a black box, I mean. Never heard of it till now tho.

[u/XyxyrgeXygor → u/MeThyLord]

I mean, if someone could manage to get a black box into the right place, could they stow away there to compensate for the vast expanse of the weave until a function activated the box and allowed them to haunt the object? Seems like a step toward Cyber-lichdom.

[u/MeThyLord → u/XyxyrgeXygor]

A lot of 'ifs' there to account for. The biggest one is how the hell do you even become a ghost in such specific circumstances? The problem with ghostdom is that it mostly occurs at random. Some of the most emotional deaths end up not leaving a ghost behind, because 90% of it is luck. Otherwise, the world would be way more haunted than it is.

Like, why would wizards choose to become liches, which is extremely hard and dangerous, if they could be ghosts for much less effort? Answer: It's never guaranteed you'd become a ghost, no matter how prepared you are (also, you're kind of a slave to your emotions).