Ghost

This page is for Ghosts, the supernatural creatures in Special Investigations. You may also have been looking for User:Mike Patrick/Ghost, the Shadowrun character.

Description

Some are vaporous forms of a living human, while some are little more than a cold chill felt down the spine or a stack of books puzzlingly stacked while you were out of the room. Still others are a more corporeal form, sometimes so human-like you almost can't tell the difference, who are created by a particularly strong will.

The Unrealized

Commonly confused with ghosts, Unrealized are not incorporeal or spiritual beings who stick around for a purpose or wander across the veil; instead they are the opposite, the bodies of dead people whose ghosts have left, but who still keep walking about as if they don't realize they're dead. Unrealized can walk about for days, months, or even years until something eventually triggers their actual death, be it a realization on their part that they really are dead or something that destroys their body. When something does cause their death, however, it releases all the potential psychic energy that has been stored: the longer since their death, the greater the charge and destructive potential.

• A person dead for a couple of weeks demolished a room.
• A person dead for a couple of months demolished a building.
• No one wants to think about how much a person dead for 74 years would destroy.

Creating a Ghost

Technically, a ghost is created when someone dies. However, a ghost that sticks around in the real world, rather than passing across the veil, is something else. These ghosts are created when someone dies a particular horrible or unexpected death, or when they are holding on so hard to life that the ghost can't or won't pass through to the other world. A lot of the time, these ghosts don't even realize they're dead. In places where the veil is damaged, ghosts from the other side can even step back in to the real world. These ghosts are generally incorporeal beings who can barely interact with the physical world if at all.

Particularly strong-willed individuals who die with serious unfinished business can come back as a ghost with more substance, as seen in Brothers in Arms. These beings, most of the time, are fully aware that they are a ghost and (again most of the time) aware of what is keeping them here. They may be almost indistinguishable from a living human, although sometimes exhibit some strange other properties, including cold skin, unearthly stares, or the ability to only be noticed by specific people. These solid ghosts can sometimes appear years after the person's original death as a situation meaningful to them arises.

Attracting a Ghost

There seems to be a way to attract ghosts by creating intense emotional distress.

Fighting a Ghost

So far, our heroes have not had to fight any ghosts. However, they have had to deal with a few unrealized, and the only solution to their particularly destructive form of death seems to be an old church ritual as discovered by the team and Father O'Reilly in Breath of Life.

Smoking a Ghost

Apparently, one can smoke a ghost. There seems to be a trade in the New Orleans underworld for them, although what benefits, exactly, one gains from doing so is currently a mystery. At least in the case of Sherman Oaks, they seem to give some kind of longevity and healing ability. Mercedes DuSaad has mentioned that the higher quality ghosts give longer life and keep you in better condition. while smoking lots of ghosts can cause strange dreams, voices in your head, and some of the more disturbing powers (such as the scream of a thousand souls) possessed by Oaks

Encounters

• Ghosts the team have seen at a distance or heard about include:
  • The ghost of Daddy Ungawa was carried off by Sharon Boatman at the end of Boatman.
  • In Grave Dust, the Unit was sent to investigate a dance hall where apparently someone had seen a whole party of ghosts the night before.

• Ghosts the team have directly encountered include:
  • Frank Starke, Leary's old partner, who came back as a solid ghost to help Leary defeat an old enemy of their's, a drug dealer that had gotten Frank killed. The drug dealer had been raised as a zombie by Sheila Governs in Brothers in Arms.
  • Jeff Crooner, a country singer who came back as an incorporeal ghost to propose to his girlfriend and was being hunted by Sherman Oaks and his crew in The Big Score.

• Unrealized that the team have encountered include:
  • A number of different characters in Breath of Life were unrealized, the first time that the team encountered them directly although not the first time they'd been mentioned.
  • An unrealized cat in Hitchhiker.