Questions about Wraith.

[Crowley]

so a friend got me the second edition book as an early christmas present..im starting to read it and i have two questions that might sound stupid

A ) i see some of the art and i see...how to say...Tortured Souls, people with nails through their bodies, or mutilated....What dictates that state on the character? i mean, what dictates if a character looks the exact way that he died , or if he bounded to a wall through razorwire ?
B ) How do the cities look?, i always thought that the underworld would be an exact replicate of our world but fill with black sand and dark skies, with the exact same buildings that we have now a days but destroyed (being the "Ghosts of the buildings." )

Can someone help me?

[atamajakki]

A) A Wraith's Corpus (their 'body') is shaped by their own perception of themselves, albeit altered by how they died; this is what allows Reapers from the Hierarchy to sort fresh Wraiths into their proper Legions. Mental stress or enough focus can reshape ones Corpus, and the powers of Moliate allow the body to be shaped into more outlandish forms. The art is more about evoking mood than explicit accuracy to the game itself; most Wraiths just look like drearier versions of themselves in life, albeit with signs of whatever killed them.

B) The Shadowlands are a reflection of the living world, so you get the 'ghosts of buildings' that you mention; any destroyed building pops up in the Shadowlands. Stygia is different; it exists in the Tempest, rather than the Shadowlands, and has been built from scratch over the ages. It must look very strange indeed, as a hodge-podge of European styles from the past few thousand years.

[Crowley]

Does the player defines the looks of his Wraith, or the game has a "Table." or something stablishing his apparience?

[AkatsukiLeader13]

A) Nothing really. Some wraiths look fairly normal save for their deathmarks while others can look truly horrific and/or alien. Of course there are means to alter wraith's appearance and some intentionally alter their appearance. For instance it's not uncommon for those who die of old age to make themselves look young again while others may be made horrific as a punishment. I remember in Charnel Houses of Europe there was an SS officer who's wraith was captured by one of the Dark Kingdoms of Wire and instead of being destroyed his form was twisted into a pig-headed monster and made a part of a group of wraith who hunt down the ghosts of other Nazi war criminals.

B) The first thing to keep in mind is the layers of the Underworld, which is one of the things of WtO to wrap your head around. I've been a fan of the line for over a decade and I still struggle with it. The Shadowlands (the highest layer of the Underworld) has its own versions of cities in the Skinlands. But they look older, worn out and decaying and there are buildings the Shadowlands that no longer exist in the Skinlands, not all of them mind you just ones that had become saturated with emotions while it existed. For instance if you went to the New York City Shadowlands you'd see the World Trade Center.

[Telgar]

The player decides what his wraith looks like, just as he decides if his Vampire is blonde or fat. It's totally subjective and personal choice. Well, aside from the Arcanos Markings.

[Crowley]

what determines the looks of the wraith?, i mean other than the corpus. iffor example a wraith wanted to wrap his arms in razor wire and have nails through his hands, Would that actually harm him or would be just something like ermm...Fashion (in a Hellraiser kind of way)

my players are currently facing the ghost of Carpenter and i also wanted to know...Do wraiths even have Weaknesses like salt (thanks supernatural), and if all feathers get destroyed, he goes back to the shadowlands and never comes back?

[Telgar]

what determines the looks of the wraith?, i mean other than the corpus. iffor example a wraith wanted to wrap his arms in razor wire and have nails through his hands, Would that actually harm him or would be just something like ermm...Fashion (in a Hellraiser kind of way)

If he uses REAL razor wire, or the deadly barbs from the Concentration Camps? Then, yes, it hurts him. If he just wants to manifest appearing that way? That's fine. Just cosmetic. Wraiths can appear however they want. Wings, horns, tails, extra eyes, whatever, but it never has any mechanical effect.

my players are currently facing the ghost of Carpenter and i also wanted to know...Do wraiths even have Weaknesses like salt (thanks supernatural)

No.

and if all feathers get destroyed, he goes back to the shadowlands and never comes back?

Do you mean "Fetters"? If so, yes. Without Fetters, you can't enter the Skinlands, and really have trouble even appearing in the Shadowlands. You're basically banished to the Tempest.

[Darling_Rose]

Crowley: Feathers? Think you mean Fetters. think those manacles and chains from olden times. I believe How one loses his Fetters determines what happens to the Wraith afterwards. I was under the impression that once their Fetters are all gone, they are released from the Shadowlands. Either leaving for the far shining shores with a Ferryman or they are loosed into the Umbra to do whatever they want.

[Crowley]

So, the fetters work like the earthbounds on DtF....Interesting

[atamajakki]

Does the player defines the looks of his Wraith, or the game has a "Table." or something stablishing his apparience?

Player defined. Most Wraiths appear largely as they did in life (although sometimes more or less attractive, depending on a Wraith's self-esteem), though with the signs of their death upon them. Such aesthetic things like you describe would fall be too unnatural to do without Moliating their body.

(While there are no tables, excessive use of a certain Arcanoi does change one's Corpus slightly; you can find descriptions of these changes in the descriptions of each Arcanoi. Excessive use of Argos changes the eyes to a solid black, for example.)

[Telgar]

Naw, once a Wraith resolves his Fetters he also have to resolve his Passions. Just losing your Fetters doesn't qualify you for Transcendence. Plus, losing your Fetter isn't the same as resolving your Fetter. It's actually a really bad thing to have happen. That's why Wraiths protect their Fetters like mad.

[AkatsukiLeader13]

No, it wouldn't harm them, the same as their deathmarks if it were things like bullet wounds, a cut throat, etc.

I'm pretty sure salt does nothing to wraith but I can't remember completely. Certainly there are magical ways of warding off ghosts. As for the destruction of fetters, every time one is destroyed the wraith goes into a Harrowing which can stop a wraith for some time. Destroy them all and they'll go into a much more severe Harrowing where if they fail it they'll either become a Spectre or become utterly consumed by Oblivion and cease to exist. If they do managed to survive that Harrowing they become largely limited to the lower levels of the Underworld as they can only survive in the Shadowlands for a short while. The oldest of the wraiths no longer have fetters and passions as they've become lost to time, restricting them from the Shadowlands.

However with Carpenter who's a Risen there is one other thing you have to keep in mind, in the process of becoming a Risen one of their fetters becomes a conduit. The conduit is a special fetter must maintain regular contact with or else their body will deteriorate until they cease to function, sending them back to the Underworld. As such they keep them either on their person or somewhere nearby, safe and hidden. If it is destroyed it won't stop them instantly but it will ensure that once their body rots away they will no longer be able to come back as a Risen. Of course if you manage to destroy the Risen's body (not an easy feat to say the least) it will achieve the same thing with one added bonus, the conduit will still possess a measure of power within. In fact HtR's The Walking Dead references this in one of its stories. A hunter investigating a company has a run in with a Risen out for vengeance against his former boss and messes up the hunter cause he got in the way but ultimately fled the scene when the places security proved to be too much. A couple days later the hunter finds the Risen lifeless (well no longer functioning) corpse. The hunter puts the body in a nearby lake but takes the old cap it was wearing, noting that their was something odd about it. After he posts the story on the hunter.net Carpenter explains that Risen must have mortally wounded his boss before fleeing and once the boss died the ghost had fulfilled it's passion and no longer needed it's body, leaving it. The Risen's conduit was that cap, likely a treasured possession in life and Carpenter recommended the hunter hang on it cause it still had some power.

Of course I doubt a conduit would be all that useful to most hunters but necromancers are always looking for things like that.

[Crowley]

ok, next question.
I saw that the Wraiths can walk throgh walls and such, Does this also applies on the Underworld or they are physical beings over there?

[atamajakki]

ok, next question.
I saw that the Wraiths can walk throgh walls and such, Does this also applies on the Underworld or they are physical beings over there?

Wraiths can walk through walls in the Skinlands because they aren't really there. I believe anything in the Shadowlands/Tempest is as solid to a Wraith as a normal structure is to you and I.

[Froggy711]

ok, next question.
I saw that the Wraiths can walk throgh walls and such, Does this also applies on the Underworld or they are physical beings over there?

A wraith can become incorporeal, but only to things that exist in the skinlands. Also, it hurts, is temporary, and costs them a point of corpus to do so. Shadowlands things aren't affected by incorporeality. For example, if a wraith were locked into a room in the World Trade Center, he would not be able to escape (without bashing down the door or picking the lock, etc.) but could move about unhindered in the Empire State Building.

what determines the looks of the wraith?, i mean other than the corpus. iffor example a wraith wanted to wrap his arms in razor wire and have nails through his hands, Would that actually harm him or would be just something like ermm...Fashion (in a Hellraiser kind of way)

The Moliate arcanoi could do this, if the wraith wished. He could even have the nails be useable as weapons, like claws. The razor wire is probably going to be purely cosmetic though. If it's sharp enough to cut someone else, it's probably sharp enough to cut himself as well.