When a person dies with enough passion, determination, and sheer will to carry on to create a wraith, they emerge in the Shadowlands covered by a gauzy shroud of spiritual energy known as a Caul.

This ectoplasmic wrapping shelters the new Restless during their transition to the afterlife and allows time for her mind to begin processing the fact of her own death. While the Caul is in place, the wraith can perceive the Shadowlands, but her view is distorted, with elements from it blending into her own thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately for many wraiths, Enfants still wrapped in their Cauls are vulnerable to all manner of predators, from slave-taking Harvesters to marauding Spectres to manipulative organizations of all ideologies and persuasions. While it is easiest on the Psyche of a wraith to be gently helped out of her Caul — or find the strength to remove it herself — the unfortunate reality is that there isn’t always time for her to do so.

 

This factor, more than many others, goes a long way towards explaining certain behaviors in the Underworld. When your first interaction with your new existence is one of pain and confusion, it sets a tone that can be difficult to change. A wraith emerging from the Caul must not only cope with the immediate reality of her surroundings and the actions of other Restless in the area, but also her new senses themselves.

 

Lifesight shows flares and flashes of color in the Shadowlands, while Deathsight means that the longer she looks at any one thing the more she seems to see it wither, crumble, and fall into decay. Often, she has an encounter with the Incorporeal state early on as well, as she attempts to interact with the Skinlands out of reflex. Processing her new levels of perception and the mutability of her new body takes time, adding to early feelings of shock and disorientation.   As for the Caul itself, it vanishes in a rush of Pathos as soon as it is removed, making it a difficult subject to study. While there are stories of pieces or even whole Cauls remaining behind on rare occasions — and which supposedly bestow power over the wraith they belonged to — these claims aren’t substantiated. Attempts to study intact Cauls by examining Enfants find it highly resistant to anything other than removal; it is not armor, but does resist being clipped or cut into smaller pieces.

 

Wraiths handling a Caul describe it as cold but also pulsing faintly, like the memory of a heartbeat. If one puts their ear to it, he can hear a babble of voices, too faint and indistinct to make any sense out of.  Seasoned Reapers might describe this as the memories of the Enfant wrapped into the fabric of the Caul.

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We recommend for all new characters becoming wraith to request a scene of their new birth, just to get them used to the ideas of what a wraith is and what a wraith isn't. However that is entirely optional.

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None know how long it was, or what might have caused such a thing to happen, but a great convulsion shook the earth, tearing a rift between the world of the living and that of the dead. This catastrophe forced the two realms apart, erecting a barrier called the Shroud between them. This barrier permanently separated the realms of the living and the dead, allowing only the souls of the newly dead to cross. The lands of the living, or as the Restless Dead called them, the Quick, became known as the Skinlands. The vast and uncharted world on the other side of the Shroud, the realm of the dead, was the Underworld.

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THE SKINLANDS

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In ghostly parlance, the lands of the living are known as the Skinlands. You or I would find ourselves largely at home there; the geography is the same, as is the (official) history, the content of the pop charts and the name of a given street sign. 

 

While many who dwell in the Skinlands choose lives of quiet desperation, there are always those who are determined to burn bright and fast, reveling in every sensation the world has to offer. It is a haunted world, and a dangerous one, both for the living and the dead. Wraiths can cross over into the Skinlands from the Underworld by use of powers called Arcanoi, but by and large they can only do so briefly. Even to attempt to do so is dangerous, for the laws of Stygia forbid contact with the world of the living, and other dangers lurk as well. Some places in the Skinlands are more easily breached by the dead than others. They often acquire reputations as haunted, and are usually abandoned by all but the desperate and the foolhardy. Meanwhile, the living go about their business unaware of the world that moves alongside their own. And on those rare occasions when they are made aware of its existence, they do their best to forget what they’ve seen.​

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THE SHADOWLANDS

 

The Restless call their version of the real world the Shadowlands. This gloomy realm, though physically similar to the Skinlands, lacks the vitality of the living world. Chilling and barren, the Shadowlands mirror the material world from a twisted yet often morbidly beautiful perspective.

Although barriers and hazards are quite real to wraiths in the Shadowlands, mundane objects remain immaterial. Without the use of Arcanos, ghosts cannot even open a door or touch a living loved one’s face. Walls confine wraiths as they would any living thing, although they can pass through them with little effort. The Shadowlands epitomise the tragedy of the Restless; the living world exists for them, but they do not exist for it.

Everything mortals can see, wraiths can witness as well. They watch TV in mortals’ living rooms, attend meetings, and witness deaths. However, wraiths can see what the living cannot - the patterns of death and life in everything living. People and things that are very close to death are marked by it, and wraiths can perceive this.

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THE SHROUD

 

During the time now called the Sundering, a barrier of disbelief and fear divided the lands of the living from those of the dead. This barrier, called the Shroud by many Restless, isolates death from life. Because of this Shroud, historians say, the living fear the dead, while the Restless envy the living and their world of sensation and warmth.

The Shroud is strongest in places where life and reason have banished random chance and mystery. Laboratories, factories, and classrooms have potent “walls” against the supernatural, while places strong in passion or mystic faith - séance parlours, graveyards, and homes with small children or troubled adolescents - have thinner barriers. On certain days of the year, the Shroud weakens worldwide. The Restless celebrate their greatest holidays during these times.

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The shroud is what prevents the living, or the "Quick" ,as they are known to the restless dead ,from perceiving wraith.

The Shadowlands should not be thought of as another "Space" or "Realm" but simply as a "Frequency", like  radio waves, you can't perceive them without special equipment, but you may well affect them ((Radio signals bounce off objects and people all the time)) without being aware of their presence. There are some tools Wraiths possess, certain arts ((Arcanoi)) that can make this frequency patently clear to others, especially where the "Shroud" is thinnest.

There is a world of invisible and intangible things we live with everyday, unaware of their presence. Light frequencies, Radio waves and the like.. The shadowlands, and the wraith that reside there are just another invisible and intangible reality that lays atop of ours.

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TEMPEST

 

Tempest is a term used by the Wraith to describe the ocean of the Underworld. The worst, stormiest sea that a mortal ever set sail upon.

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The massive, roiling storm which permeates much of the Underworld is a fairly recent event: prior to the Third Great Maelstrom, the Tempest was a (relatively) sedate ocean called the Sea of Shadows. While each successive Maelstrom whipped up the Sea into a great storm, it always returned to its previous state. The Third Great Maelstrom changed this; the Sea remained in a constant state of disarray, and was renamed the Tempest.

While nowhere near as powerful as a Great Maelstrom (or even a regular maelstrom), the Tempest is nonetheless deadly. Without knowledge of the proper Byways to travel, usage of the Argos Arcanos, or help from a Ferrymen guide, a wraith has no hope of making it through in one piece.

The Shadowlands are "above" the Tempest and thus unaffected by them. Likewise, the Labyrinth and Oblivion itself are "beneath" the Tempest. Prior to the Third Great Maelstrom, traffic between the Shadowlands and the Underworld proper was much easier, but the Tempest cut Stygia off from the Shadowlands, similarly to how the Shroud cuts the Skinlands off from the Shadowlands.

The Tempest does not consist of mere wind, clouds, and water, like the storms of the Skinlands. It is made of broken glass, magma, nightmares, acid, burning plasm, and any other horrific substance one can imagine. Also, unlike essentially two-dimensional storms which sit on an Earthly sea, the Tempest exists in three dimension; to most travellers passing through the Tempest, however, the storm appears to be two-dimensional.

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THE UNDERWORLD

 

A breath away but vast beyond human comprehension, the lands of the dead are collectively called The Underworld. Stygia, the Tempest, and the Shadowlands are where most wraiths spend the bulk of their existences, but the Far Shores, the Labyrinth, and the Void are also part of the so-called Deadlands. Sitting across the Underworld from Stygia, the Far Shores are an endless archipelago of islands in the Sunless Sea. Some wraiths believe paradise can be found here, or Hell; explorers who’ve ventured that far say they’ve found both, lorded over by would-be gods and devils. In truth, no one knows what the Far Shores hold, but the empire has forbidden journeying there. Howling beneath the placid surface of the waters is the Tempest, the eternal storm where Spectres roam free and Ferrymen silently pole their rafts to unknown purpose. Rare islands of stability exist within the endless winds; Stygia is built on one, and other Dark Kingdoms are known to stand against the storm as well. There are also safe paths, called Byways, through the storm. Their locations are known to only a few, and they are jealously guarded. At the heart of the storm is a monstrous, constantly shifting Labyrinth. This is where Spectres dwell and the monstrous Neverborn slumber, dreaming of destruction. Every horrific landscape imaginable can be found here, along with some that defy imagination. And at the very center of the Labyrinth is the mouth of the Void, the sucking maw of Oblivion made manifest and deadly.

 

Not every Byway leads down. Some instead take the traveler to the Shadowlands, a layer of reality that sits atop the Skinlands of the living like a translucent blanket. Full of memories and echoes given form — destroyed buildings and ancient roads — it is where many ghosts with strong Fetters still dwell. The Shroud, a membrane of fear and disbelief, separates the Shadowlands from the Skinlands. Where it grows thin, wraiths can affect the living more easily and places acquire reputations for being haunted. Of course, this doesn’t match any faith’s view of the afterlife. Stygia is neither Heaven nor Hell, though many of its denizens joke that it just might be Purgatory. Most humans who die never appear in the Underworld. What happens to them, the Restless Dead do not know. But despite its horrors and excesses, most wraiths readily concede it’s better that the visible alternative. And so the streets of Stygia are full of the Restless Dead, born of every age from ancient Athens to the modern day, all holding the line against Oblivion in their own way, and for as long as it takes.

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OBLIVION

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The ultimate enemy for all of the Restless Dead is, simply put, Oblivion. It is the ultimate force of negation, the destruction of all things. It taints everything it touches. It fuels the Shadow and marshals legions of Spectres — wraiths who have given in to its blandishments — as the soldiers in its neverending war on all of reality. Most wraiths believe that Oblivion is the inevitable end of the road, which is why they cling so tightly to the Fetters that anchor them against Oblivion’s pull. But even those Fetters can fade or break, and untold millions of wraiths have been swallowed by the Void over the centuries.

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At its most basic level, Oblivion is the force of passive destruction in the universe. It is the gaping maw of entropy, waiting patiently to devour everything in due time. Those who pass into the Void are gone forever, absorbed into the long dark and removed from this plane of existence. But a little Oblivion goes a long way, and in the Underworld, it’s a far more vital force than one might expect. Not content to simply wait for time to bring it sustenance, it reaches out through its agents to hasten the inevitable decline of creation. It is Oblivion’s touch that turns wraiths into shadow-eaten Spectres, and that gives voice and power to the Shadow inside every wraith’s mind. It’s Oblivion that fuels the nightmare monstrosities of the Labyrinth and that sucks the material of its twisted walls out of the Tempest. And it is Oblivion that belches forth Maelstroms, the savage storms that scour the Underworld and devour the weak and unlucky. Sooner or later, all things must fall to Oblivion, but it would prefer sooner.

 

Physically, Oblivion manifests as the Void, the ultimate emptiness. The so-called Mouth of the Void, the gateway to this ever-expanding nothingness, rests at the heart of the Labyrinth. If there can be said to be an “up” and a “down” in the Underworld, the Mouth of the Void rests at its very lowest point. Nothing that enters its impenetrable darkness ever returns. Surrounding the Mouth of the Void like a particularly warped seashell around a particularly unpleasant mollusk is the Labyrinth, the unending maze of passages stocked with horrors and home to countless Spectres. It’s impossible to say how large the Labyrinth is, as it is constantly shifting in size and even the few stable landmarks are subject to sudden dislocation. The flotsam of reality drifts down here, broken relics and abandoned Artifacts and Shadow-Eaten souls who have no more use for the light. Ancient Spectres, the so-called Neverborn, slumber uneasily in vast temples carved out by their spectral servants, while the laws of physics reverse themselves on a whim from corridor to corridor. Few wraiths venture here voluntarily, and fewer still return.

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Oblivion is entropy itself, a constantly churning force of destruction and madness from which there is no return.

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Oblivion seethes beneath everything: the Labyrinth, the Tempest, the Shadowlands, the Skinlands. It constantly calls to wraiths in the form of their Shadows, telling them to give up and join with it. For every wraith that succumbs to Oblivion, it spreads that much farther, and is growing at a constant, but alarming rate, much to the horror of the wraiths who dwell just above it. Nothing can get rid of it; once it has encroached on an area, it remains there.

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The servants of Oblivion are the dark spirits known and feared as Spectres, wraiths who have become dark and twisted within the very throes of bedlam. Very few wraiths who fall into Oblivion come out again as anything but Spectres. Wraiths who undergo a Harrowing have a very small chance of coming out again, but many become changed by the experience. Oblivion also manages to poke itself through the Tempest and Shadowlands by way of nihils.

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Oblivion is believed to be embodied in the form of Grandmother, but there is some debate as to how accurate this assessment is. Some believe that Grandmother is Oblivion's child rather than the force of entropy itself. This does not make her any less powerful, but may be crucial in finding an answer that will stop her advance or even end her existence.

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Oblivion and the Wyrm

Students of the supernatural have often confused Oblivion and a cosmic spiritual entity named the Wyrm. While the mistake is genuine, the only common aspect both share is their dedication to destruction. While the Wyrm is an active force, seeking to drag down existence by the force of its own actions, Oblivion is the patient, passive destruction that claims everything, even the Wyrm once it has thrashed everything. In this way, Oblivion is the yin aspect of Entropy, while the Wyrm is its yang aspect.

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METAPHYSICS

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If everyone died at peace with themselves and the world, feeling they’d done a good enough job wrapping up their life’s business, there’d be no wraiths. Wraiths exist because many of us die without that sort of resolution. They are, after all, the Restless Dead. And because they have that sort of unfinished business, they’re able to endure, granting themselves the haunted existence of a ghost beyond the Shroud. Relatively few mortals become wraiths. It is the rare soul that combines the drive and the rationale for resurrecting herself in this way. But while the numbers may not be great, they are steady, and the Underworld teems with the newly Restless. And properly fueled by Passions and anchored by Fetters, a wraith can seemingly endure eternally. (Note: Werewolf & Changeling souls reincarnate and so do not become Wraith., Vampires & Mages usually end up Thralls for they are hated in the afterlife)

 

The Caul A newly fledged wraith begins her existence in the Underworld wrapped in an ectoplasmic sheath known as a Caul. Within the Caul, everything’s fuzzy, perception is limited, and movement is restricted. Wracked by the overwhelming emotions of her new Passions, tormented by the voice of her nascent Shadow, and tugged on by both her Fetters and the fearsome gravity of Oblivion, she is experiencing the best and the worst of wraithly existence simultaneously as her soul is reshaped into one of the Restless Dead.

 

The Corpus A wraith’s body in the Underworld is called the Corpus. Rather than having complex biological systems, it’s made of a material called plasm that is, by and large, the raw stuff of the afterlife. In the right hands (such as those belonging to Masquers), plasm is endlessly mutable, allowing wraiths to be reshaped, armored, or otherwise remade. Without a wraith’s guiding intelligence to hold it together, a Corpus can dissolve into a gooey puddle of clear, glistening plasm — or be soulforged into something more permanent and terrible. Wounded wraiths “bleed” plasm, but the Corpus is astonishingly resilient and heals easily from most wounds. And as an added bonus, when a wraith’s Corpus is destroyed, there’s still a chance of escape and return through the process of Harrowings. The original appearance a wraith presents in the Underworld is dependent largely on his deeply held conception of himself. As a result, most wraiths emerge from their Cauls looking like younger, idealized versions of themselves, or as more energetic versions of themselves as they died. This is not to say that every wraith comes out of the Caul looking like a champion bodybuilder, but rather that the wraith’s perception of himself, abetted and hindered by the Shadow, determines (within the rough boundaries of basic human anatomy) how the wraith appears to the rest of the Restless. What matters most is how the wraith feels they should appear — not a conscious choice, but a true one.

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REAPING

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The good news for the new wraith is that older wraiths want to help them, for certain values of “help.” The arrival of a new wraith leaves traces that careful observers can spot several different ways, including various Arcanoi. Wraiths already brought into the fold call the hunt for new wraiths Reaping, and there’s a healthy trade in bringing new souls into the Shadowlands. Reapers find a wraith still in her Caul and cut it apart, letting her emerge into the full reality of the Shadowlands. Once freed, she can sense, think, and feel fully, though it often takes some time to get over her disorientation. The bad news is that many Reapers see the new arrivals as resources. Some of them only want Thralls, laborers bound as slaves or prisoners. Others want new souls as raw material for the soulforges. An Enfant who falls into the hands of one of these Reapers is in trouble from the get go, and unless she escapes, she may find her time in the Shadowlands to be nasty, brutish and short. Other wraiths get more mentoring from their Reapers, and the Legions of the dead are constantly sending out parties of Reapers in hopes of bringing in fresh recruits. These new wraiths are treated relatively well — as long as they behave themselves.

 

THRALLS

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The official Stygian line is that thralls are souls who are too weak to resist Oblivion on their own and thus they were pressed into service at Charon’s behest. Even this feeble rationalization has long since been abandoned. The trade in souls is too lucrative, and the need for raw materials is too great. Now, gangs of Reapers roam the Shadowlands, looking for new wraiths they can immediately clap into irons and then sell as thralls. More enterprising Reapers will ambush travelers or raid Renegade encampments in order to keep their coffles full and their pockets fuller. Anyone can be made into a thrall. The Reapers do not discriminate by gender, race, age, Guild, Legion or anything else — it’s merely a question of opportunity and bad luck. Once the coffle is full, it’s off to the markets and the forges. “Lucky” thralls are picked for hard labor, while others are earmarked for transmutation into soulsteel. Most thralls are worked until they’re worn down. Unable to tend Passions and Fetters, they are ground down to near drones, at which point they’re fed to the forges. This in turn generates a need for new thralls, and the cycle continues. There have been periodic movements to ban thralldom in Stygia. Thus far, they have always failed. The practice is too profitable, and too many powerful wraiths benefit from it. In a few instances. coffles of thralls have worked together to strike down those who’d chained them, and escape. There are also gangs of Renegades who have no love for the chattel slavery thralldom represents, and who strike at Reapers to free their cargos whenever they can.

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DEATHMARKS

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Every wraith’s Corpus is marked with indicators of her death and life. These Deathmarks are present on all wraiths, though the vain and the subversive do their best to Moliate them away. Caused by trauma and the use of certain Arcanoi, Deathmarks offer a roadmap of a wraith’s death and afterlife to any who know how to read them. Deathmarks are also good indicators of what Legion and Guild a wraith might belong to, which is why many wraiths strive to keep theirs hidden. Sometimes, the afterlife is easier if your whole story isn’t literally written on your face.

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THE LEGIONS

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Just as the Roman Legions served as the backbone of both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, the Legions of the Restless Dead form the necessary framework for Stygia’s ruling Hierarchy. Each wraith technically belongs to one of the eight Legions, assigned upon arrival to a particular Legion according to the wraith’s manner of death. Sometimes, when the way in which a wraith died is arguable, the Legions who might lay claim to the wraith may dispute which Legion has the better claim, and then the case is adjudicated by lawyers, combat, or whatever other method the opposing Legions see fit to use that day. Each Legion falls under the control of a Deathlord who holds ultimate responsibility for the actions of her followers and troops.

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The Emerald Legion — Composed of the victims of happenstance, this Legion is ruled by the Emerald Lord, from the Seat of Thorns.

The Legion of Fate — Composed of those wraiths who bear fate’s mark, this Legion is ruled by the Ladies of Fate from the Seat of Fate.

The Grim Legion — Composed of those who died through violence, this Legion is ruled by the Smiling Lord from the Seat of Burning Waters.

The Iron Legion — Composed of those who died of old age, this Legion is ruled by the Ashen Lady from the Seat of Shadows.

The Legion of Paupers — Composed of the victims of mystery, this Legion is ruled by the Beggar Lord from the Seat of Golden Tears.

The Penitent Legion — Composed of the victims of madness, this Legion is ruled by the Laughing Lady from the Seat of Succor.

The Silent Legion — Composed of the victims of despair, this Legion is ruled by the Quiet Lord from the Seat of Silence.

The Skeletal Legion — Composed of the victims of pestilence, this Legion (also known as the Gaunt Legion) is ruled by the Skeletal Lord from the Seat of Dust

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THE GUILDS

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The Guilds of Stygia are each one part trade cartel, one part secret cabal. Formed in the earliest days of Stygian society, they coalesced around the development and perfection of specific Arcanoi. Guild members are the undisputed masters of their respective arts and the gatekeepers of advanced study. Though the Hierarchy relies on their knowledge, it has always been wary of the Guilds’ ambition. Their suspicion is not unjustified: The Guilds attempted a coup centuries ago, and the threat of a reprise always lurks in the background. But time heals some wounds, and while the Guilds are still officially illegal, they’ve quietly — in most cases — crept back into Stygia and set up shop. After all, everyone needs what they have to offer.

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Officially, the Guilds are still outlawed within Stygia. Unofficially, things are a little more complicated. While not every wraith belongs to a Guild, pretty much every wraith knows someone who does, or knows someone who knows someone, or knows where to go to find a Guildwraith if they need. Plenty of Guildwraiths have set up shop hawking their Arcanos specialties in plain sight — every neighborhood has its one shop with a Pardoner’s lantern in the window — but the attitude of the Stygian authorities is, by and large, one of neglect rather than persecution. That’s the rule in Stygia. What happens in far-flung Necropoli can be entirely different. Some cities are known to be Guild-friendly, or even entirely under the sway of a particular Guild’s influence. Others are controlled by Stygian hardliners who see the Guilds as a threat to their authority, and who crack down on any Guild presence mercilessly. And then there are the communities outside Stygian control, Renegade encampments and Heretic communes that welcome Guild assistance, though not too much of it.

 

Behind closed doors, the Deathlords are well aware of the Guilds and their power structures: who’s in charge, what their policies are, and how willing they are to make deals. Various Guilds have backroom arrangements in place with the Legions, offering support and training in exchange for protection and the occasional blind eye from patrolling Legionnaires when unpleasant Guild business spills out into the streets. As noted above, many of the Legions have also tried to set up parallel structures to the Guilds within their ranks, with very little success. The most powerful Arcanos variants and arts are the sole property of senior Guild members. They’re also the Guilds’ ace in the hole, something valuable they possess that no one else does, and that would be lost without them. The end result is a precarious balance, where the Legions permit the Guilds to work in peace so long as the Guilds don’t overstep their bounds. Should there be the slightest inkling that the Guilds are looking to reprise their failed rebellion of 1598, the situation would change rapidly, and for the worse. The once exception to Stygia’s laissez-faire approach on Guilds is the case of the so-called Forbidden Guilds. Membership in one of these is automatic grounds for soulforging, as the powers they wield and the uses to which they’ve put those powers in the past are regarded as an existential danger to Stygia itself. Members of the Forbidden Guilds can be found lurking on the fringes of Stygian society or burrowed deep within it, waiting for the moments when the need for their talents outweighs the fear of getting caught making use of them. The Solicitors and Mnemoi in particular may be regarded as the next thing over from Spectres, but there’s still a steady market for their services in the halls of power Within the Compact, the Guilds break down into three rough groups: The High Guilds, the Working Guilds, and the Criminal Guilds.

 

The former includes the Artificers, Pardoners, Masquers, and Usurers, and their talents are by and large necessary to keep Stygia functioning. As such, they get a much longer leash from the authorities, they have greater wealth and prestige than other Guilds, and they aren’t shy about letting other Guildwraiths know it.

 

The Working Guilds, including the Chanteurs, Harbingers, Oracles, and Sandmen, are by and large tolerated and their gifts appreciated, though they’re not viewed as essential to survival. That being said, they can wield enormous influence, and popular Chanteurs and Sandman troupes often find themselves invited into the corridors of powers unasked.

 

The so-called Criminal Guilds traffic in Arcanoi that defy the Dictum Mortuum, and as such they’re automatically on the wrong side of the law. Stygian authorities work very hard at justifying not aggressively outlawing these Guilds — Spooks, Haunters, Proctors, Puppeteers, and Monitors — while still keeping an eye out for egregious violations by individual Guild members. The Criminal Guilds keep a lower profile, are hard to find unless you’re “in the know” and provide services that everyone needs sooner or later, despite what the laws say. Anacreons and other high-ranking Legionnaires are no different, and they know that cracking down on an abuse of Puppeteering one day means there’ll be no help forthcoming if they need that skill down the line.​

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LEXICON

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 New existence calls for new terms with which to describe it. Below are some of the terms used to define Underworld existence.

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• Angelic/Arch Angelic: Moliated souls created by the fishers to police and promote the "False paradise" of the far shores. This is one of the greatest buried secrets of the underworld and certainty not in the purview of common wraith knowledge.

• Angst: The negative mental energy that the Shadow (and Spectres) feed upon and use.

• Arcanos: One of the supernatural abilities that wraiths possess, allowing them to affect the living and the dead. Plural is Arcanoi.

• Arisen: Wraiths who have Transcended.

• Artifact: An object in the Underworld that has unusual powers of some sort.

• Body Snatcher: A wraith who possesses the living.

• Byway: A safe path through the Tempest.

• Caste: The term for the various types of Spectres, ranging from Striplings and Doppelgangers all the way up to the godlike Neverborn.

• Caul, The: The amniotic sac of a wraith’s birth into the Shadowlands. The translucent covering made from ectoplasm into which all wraiths are reborn. Charon: The founder of Stygia and, for centuries, its emperor. He vanished in 1945, fighting the monstrous Spectre Gorool in the Fifth Great Maelstrom.

• Circle: A group of wraiths. They usually share a common goal or interest.

• Citadel: The central building and stronghold of a Necropolis. It serves as local Hierarchy HQ and the last line of defense against Maelstroms.

• Consort: A member of the Quick attuned to being used as a Host by a wraith.

• Corpus: The physical “body” of a wraith.

• Dark Kingdom: General term for one of the many lands of the dead. Stygia is far from the only one.

• Deathlord: The leader of a Legion and member of the council currently ruling Stygia.

• Dictum Mortuum: Charon’s decree forbidding interfering with mortals. It is honored largely in the breach.

• Doomsday: The end of the world. Most wraiths think it means the day Oblivion swallows everything, but any number of Heretic cults would beg to differ.

• Doomshade: A term for Spectre, generally used by older wraiths and mocked by younger ones.

• Doomslayer: A wraith who specializes in hunting Spectres.

• Drone: The shell of a wraith, doomed to endlessly repeat one task over and over again. They are responsible for the majority of ghost sightings by the Quick.

• Demonic/Arch Demonic. Exactly as the Angelic and Arch Angelic.

• Enfant: A wraith just reborn into the Underworld. Enfants are usually encased in Cauls.

• Far Shores, The: The endless series of islands across the Tempest from Stygia. Some wraiths think they host Paradise.

• Ferryman: One of a mysterious group of ancient, powerful wraiths who guide travelers through the Tempest.

• Fetters: Those things that remain in the lands of the living that tie a wraith to her old life.

• Fronds: Powers the Psyche can use to affect the world around it.

• Freewraith: A citizen of Stygia who is not actively serving as a soldier. When a Maelstrom hits, however, everyone is considered part of the reserve.

• Great Maelstrom: A massive Maelstrom, capable of reshaping the Underworld. There have been five so far in the history of Stygia.

• Guild: One of the supposedly banned organizations dedicated to the study of the Arcanoi. Each Arcanos has a Guild associated with it. There are 13 Greater and three Lesser Guilds.

• Harrowing: The nightmare trip through the dark side of a wraith’s subconscious that occurs when they are gravely wounded or otherwise facing destruction. Many wraiths never emerge from their Harrowings.

• Harvesting: The act of cutting Enfants free from their Cauls and initiating them into the Underworld. Not all Harvesting is done altruistically.

• Haunt: A place where the Restless make themselves at home and the Shroud is thin.

• Helldiver: A wraith who voluntarily ventures into the Labyrinth, either to hunt Spectres or to retrieve materials and Artifacts. Most wraiths regard Helldivers as suicidal.

• Hierarchy, The: Officially, the bureaucratic apparatus of Stygia. At this point, the two entities are interchangeable in most wraiths’ minds.

• Heretics: Religious fanatics among the dead. Most Heretic groups are tolerated by the Hierarchy, though a few are outlawed and actively persecuted. Most Heretic beliefs revolve around Transcendence.

• Host: One of the Quick, possessed by means of the Puppetry Arcanos. Isle of Sorrows, The: The island in the center of the Tempest upon which Stygia stands.

• Juice: A slang term for Pathos. Legacy: A very potent Fetter. Largely used by older wraiths.

• Legions: The divisions of the populace of Stygia, defined by how their members died. Each Legion is ruled by a Deathlord. The term “Legions” is also used specifically to describe the armies and bureaucracy of the empire.

• Lemure: A young wraith, generally one who has come to grips with their new existence but hasn’t been around more than a decade or two.

• Maelstrom: Monstrous storms that roar out of the mouth of the Void to hammer Stygia and the Shadowlands. They carry Spectres and other, less identifiable things on their winds, and are generally triggered by horrific events in the Skinlands.

• Mitty: A wraith whose main regret is not having done anything with their life. The Hierarchy is full of them.

• Necropolis: A citadel of the dead, usually manned by the Legions. Often found in the oldest parts of a city or the ones most thickly populated by wraiths. Plural is Necropoli.

• Neverborn: The members of the oldest and most powerful caste of Spectre, who slumber in the Labyrinth. Even other Spectres are careful not to wake them up. (Actually they are the rebel angels that avoided the abyss, transformed and tortured by the whispers of Oblivion, they are to the underworld as the Earthbound are to the skinlands, another buried secret known only to the Neverborn themselves. ) 

• Nhudri: The mysterious smith Charon retrieved from the Labyrinth, whose discoveries set the stage for much of Stygia’s development.

• Nihils: Tears in the fabric of reality, temporary or permanent. Many exert their own gravitational pull, sucking down any wraith nearby when they open. Some, but not all, lead directly to the Labyrinth.

• Oblivion: The corrupting hunger of Entropy to devour all things. It manifests in the Underworld as the Void, which is located at the heart of the Labyrinth. Also known as The Great Unmaking, as well as several less flattering things.

• Obolus: The base unit of Stygian currency, forged out of one soul.

• Onyx Tower: The palace of the lost Emperor Charon, abandoned since his battle with Gorool.

• Pathos: The energy of pure emotion, which wraiths feed upon and use to fuel their existences.

• Plasm: The physical matter of the Underworld. Wraiths, Artifacts, plasmics and pretty much everything else in the Underworld is made of one form of plasm or another. Plasmic: One of the strange, monstrous beasts that dwells in the Tempest.

• Psyche: The brighter side of a wraith’s personality, capable of looking beyond self-destruction. In Spectres, it serves the same role as the Shadow.

• Quick, The: One of the living.

• Reaper: A wraith who removes an Enfant’s Caul.

• Relic: The ghost of an object, made out of plasm.

• Renegades: A catch-all term for wraiths who oppose Stygia. Most exist outside the Hierarchy’s effective zone of control. They range from armed resistance groups to members of independent communities to roving ruffians.

• Restless, The: Another name for wraiths (not Spectres) in general.

• Risen: A wraith who has struck a deal with her Shadow allowing her to reanimate her corpse. Exceedingly rare, they are regarded as urban legends by most wraiths.

• Shadow, The: The self-absorbed, self-destructive, sentient side of a wraith’s personality bent on eventually dragging him down to Oblivion

• Shadowlands, The: The ghostly realm just across the Shroud from the lands of the living.

• Skinlands, The: The level of reality where the Quick live. It is difficult, but not always impossible, for wraiths to affect.

• Slumber: A deep sleep that wraiths can use to heal.

• Soulfire: Crystals of concentrated Pathos, used for soulforging.

• Soulsteel: The substance made from the transfigured substance of wraiths. Very durable and very expensive, but not always comfortable to be around.

• Spectre: A wraith who has given into Oblivion. Their Shadow is now dominant, and they work to serve Oblivion’s goals. Also known as Shadow-Eaten.

• Stormrunning: Taking a shortcut directly through the Tempest. It is considered extremely risky.

• Stygia: The colloquial name for the Dark Kingdom of Iron, the largest group of wraiths in the Western world. Stygia is also the name of the capital city, called “The Eternal City,” which is scavenged from the destroyed monuments of history and sits in the middle of the Tempest

• Tempest, The: The endless storm that rages through the Underworld. It separates the Shadowlands from the Far Shores and Stygia. Only the bravest wraiths dare sail it regularly.

• Thorns: Powers the Shadow can use to affect the world.

• Thrall: The term for a wraith bound in service to another.

• Tithe: The amount of Pathos a wraith draws from a Fetter or Haunt.

• Transcendence: The moment when a wraith moves on to a higher plane of existence. Considered legendary by many, it is thought by others to be the moment when a wraith reconciles their Shadow and Psyche, creating a unified whole.

• Underworld, The: A catch-all term for the lands of the dead, from the Shadowlands to the Far Shores and encompassing Stygia and the other Dark Kingdoms, the Labyrinth, the Tempest, and the Void.

• Veinous Stair: The winding stairwell that runs from the heart of Stygia to the depths of the Labyrinth. Its exact location is a secret.

• Void, The: The abyss at the center of the Labyrinth.

• Wraith: Also known as the Restless, a ghost with such strong attachments to the land of the living that she is bound to this level of existence.

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DICTUM MORTUUM :THE CODE OF THE DEAD

In the wake of the wraithly abuses during the so-called Dark Ages, Charon created a code formalizing the separation between living and dead. These laws dictated that no wraith was to penetrate the Shroud under any circumstances. There was to be no contact with the living, no attempt to impart what the future might hold for them or to harass or threaten those still living in any way. Finally, wraiths were forbidden to suggest or compel the Quick to take a life, whether their own or any other to facilitate passing over into the land of the dead.
As one might expect, the Dictum Mortuum was immediately honored more in the breach than in the observance. To this day, the Legions spend an inordinate amount of wraith power policing Dictum Mortuum violations, pursuing everyone from heartbroken wraiths seeking to reach out to their loved ones to hardened poltergeists-for-hire. Although it is volumes long, its essence can be summed up in the preamble, of which a portion is reprinted here.

I, Charon, Emperor of Stygia, by the power of the
words of the Lady of Fate, do hereby set these laws
down that they may serve to bring order between this
world and the forer; that no wraith under any circumstances
for any reason is to penetrate the barrier that divideth
the Land of the Dead from the Land of the Quick; to engage
in congress with those that have not yet passed over, or
speak to the Quick of events yet to come; or in any way,
shape or form harass, threaten, injure or otherwise compel
those in the Land of the Quick to do the bidding of those
in the Land of the Dead; or impart upon those in the Land
of the Quick any desire or compunction to take a life, be it
their own or that of another, in order to effect the passing
over of one or more to the Land of the Dead, be they friend or
foe, parent, child or lover...
-From Q.A. Macaulay, ch. 7, ibid.

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From the preamble we can deduce those things that are certainty against the Dictum Mortuum.

• No wraith is to cross the shroud.

• No wraith is to meet with those still living.

• No wraith is to tell those still living of future events.

• Wraith are not to harass, threaten, injure or otherwise command the living to do their bidding.

• Wraith can not encourage the living to take any life, be it the livings own, or another's.

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Of these rules, there are degrees of flexibility, for one MUST cross the shroud to tend to their fetters , however rekindling old relationships or visiting and conversing with loved ones is definitely a breach of the Dictum Mortuum.

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Risen are an obvious breach of the Dictum Mortuum and rank as one of the highest possible crimes a wraith could commit.

Some use of arcanos, in fact a number that have effects on the living side of the shroud are considered breaches of the Dictum Mortuum too.

There is absolutely nothing preventing a wraith from breaching the Dictum Mortuum, but if a wraith is caught breaching it, then punishment can be rather severe.

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