Wraiths - How do they Attack and Die?

[Vagabond]

I bought these Wraiths from eBay I know they are something from GW but for me they will be Wraiths so it's not my painting and the background is off the net and not my work (don't know where sorry) but I thought I'd share the photo and ask a question.

I've set up a horror table and intend using these Wraiths in it so I'm making up character cards for them. This is the sort of card I use for a Ghost.


I wondered what thoughts any one might have, on how Wraiths would attack and do damage and also how you would kill or disperse them. Ignore the blades they are carrying, it's the horror aspect of being attacked and somehow fighting a Wraith that I'm interested in.

So for ghosts when they get close, they try and terrify you (Awareness indicates how frightening they are), and you fight that force with your mind (Brains).

My thinking is that ghosts don't exist, we just think they do and if we can convince ourselves that the apparition isn't there it just disappears. Of course if we can't convince ourselves then we get frightened and can do any amount of irrational things. Terrifying Gaze means it's a mental attack and Con is Constitution and represents mental as well as physical abilities.

So for Wraiths I was thinking they might attack along the lines of a cold icy glare that chills the heart and makes you run away rather than kills you. Or maybe a poisoned stare that weakens your life force slowly killing or turning you into a gibbering lump of nothingness. I'm looking for Folk Horror realism rather than Dungeons and Dragons fantasy so any better suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

As far as killing them I don't have any reasonable thoughts. I sort of think of Wraiths as being similar to Ghosts only more deadly and I don't think just not believing they are there is going to hack it. How do you kill something that isn't a corporeal being is the question.


This is another alternative creature, it is a physical being and can do normal physical damage but in addition it is Horrific. A character takes a bravery test and if failed then I use a Horror Deck to determine its response to the Horror. This ranges from them becoming Steadfast through to Running away Gibbering. The one I like the best is Kneeling and Praying to their God or Gods for the Horror to go away, it never does and eventually they realize that. I'm not sure if I think a Wraith is Horrific even if it is Terrifying.

Any thoughts on how a Wraith would fight and die will be greatly appreciated.
Cheers

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Non-corporeal, so normal weapons are of very limited utility, maybe even immune.  Magic or blessed weapons would be needed for full effect. Passing  Fear and horror checks should required to even allow one to attack the wraiths.

Wraiths themselves when attacking, depending on your rules, could instill fear or “draining” of spirit and body.  For Fistful of Lead, I give wraiths extra “shock” effects when they are successful in attacks.  (shock is a form of cohesion or morale effect rather than physical damage).

[Tactalvanic]

along the lines of a more solid ghost, rather than just an apparition, a shadow of fear and doubt given visible form by the victim, its a force able to at least  slightly  to manifest physically - eg ectoplasm.

So although its physically very fragile it is tangible - physically "there".

Similarly it can cause chilling/cold damage along with an aura of fear to test against so both a physical and mental damage vector rather than imagined/self inflicted harm.

eg terrified and frostbite/frozen extremities from contact.

To fight against - pass fear tests then test against dispersing the physical ectoplasm of the manifestation?

eg "I am not afraid, lets spread their frosty snot all over the walls" so risk of cold damage, but at same time dispersing the ectoplasm at least dissipates the phantasms/wraithes for a short time and reduces their effect?

so maybe really susceptible to flamethrowers but basically immune to small arms, but hand weapons/bats/pingpong paddles to disperse it are more effective?

full exorcism or whatever needed later?

Fail the initial fear tests and you cannot fight against it/damage it much so its got more time to chill/freeze a victim to death/drain body heat/life force.

" its the hight of summer, how is it people in the hotel sauna look like they died of fear while being frozen solid?"

They basically frighten you into standing still long enough to fully drain your body heat until you freeze?

[jon_1066]

You want the wraiths to be different to the ghosts?  If so then easiest is make them like a ghost but add your terrifying/horrifying mechanism.

If you want them super deadly then allow them to reach into their victim and stop their heart (think Judge Death from 2000 AD).  Perhaps holy water or at least a crucifix might repel them.

[fred]

One thought - as you have quite a lot of models you perhaps don’t want to make them too deadly (unless you want them to be player killers!)

[Vagabond]

Aethelflaeda, Tactalvanic, jon and fred

Thanks for your thoughts, so for attack I'm happy with fear, draining and I like the cold frostbite idea. So maybe fear is effective at a short distance and it has to be in base contact to touch and cause draining and or cold sufficiently severe to cause damage.

How to kill or disperse it is obviously more problematic. Wraiths apparently first appeared in Scothish folklore around 1500 as malevolent recently dead people.

Magic is a possibility but doesn't really fit wuth my idea of folklore although I'm happy to be proven wrong. However things with magical powers such as holy water,  silver etc may work. Maybe some protective charm might alleviate the damage.
Ping Pong bats  brilliant idea to disperse them, I wonder when they were invented?

If I can't defeat them, maybe tie them to a location, so they must remain within a certain distance of a spawn point, for want of a better word. Eg 12" from that grave etc. So if the character needs to examine the grave it has to withstand attacks from the wraith, before achieving the objective of examining the grave, rather than fighting just for the fun of it. Once back out of its sphere of attack they are safe and maybe can recover slightly. I quite like that.

The game I refered to was set in Japan and because I couldn't make my mind up about how to treat wraiths I added a Sorcerer who summond the wraith. One of the characters killed the Sorcerer and the Wraith dissapeared. Not what I originally envisaged but it worked.

Any more thoughts still gratefully received.
Cheers

Oh.....why was Aethelflaed framed?

[Silent Invader]

This is very inspirational for a horror addition to my 17thC Scottish project

[Tactalvanic]

Was thinking along the lines that "magic" isn't necessarily a thing in your game world, moreover - unknown powers, the psychic manipulation of matter etc, so effectively different spirits are really inter our other dimensional beings drawn in and manipulated by the "gifted/twisted" (ooh we edging towards.. chaos?)..

eg some people are born with the ability to partially manipulate resources or attract them that exist in alternative plains/dimensions, where the laws of reality are different.

maybe they have been genetically manipulated (probed) in the past or their ancestors..  by outer beings to help them eventually take over other dimensional spaces..

So the "servants/entities" they draw into our dimensional space are limited in their access/connection/interaction ability with our "space" .. for now.. depending on how "powerful those summoned/drawn forth entities are/or how powerful the psychic is ?

So gradually you can ramp up the power levels or intrusion of the entities until they fully manifest in our world?

Therefore concentrators such as faith or religious devotions or elements such as holy water that are interpreted and invested with a concentration of physic energy from others (holy water stores it like a battery etc) lending power to normal people to combat the extra dimensional intrusions?

eg normal people have only a small psychic footprint but if dozens or thousands or more of them add their tiny bit of "faith" its a big game changer helping the warriors of whatever utilise that to combat the interdimensional threats?

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

It’s a play on “Eve was framed” one of my lesbian mum’s fav lines. Aethelflaed (Alfred the Great’s daughter, the Lady of Mercia) rarely gets much credit for the military victories over the Danes but there are few out there who think she was the real military leader that took back the Danelaw and not her brother or husband.

[Vagabond]

This is very inspirational for a horror addition to my 17thC Scottish project

Excuse me but have you finished your 17C English project yet, I've been waiting patiently for the Mad Lord to buy it from you because I'm really keen to devise and play a game over it. Now you're off to Scotland......I do seem to remember something about the colours of blue bonnets, was that you?

I really can't keep up but that's probably my age.

[Vagabond]

Tactalvanic this is fascinating stuff, on a much higher plane than I normally operate at I'm afraid. Although it's got a lot more grounding than the normal magic that emanates from D and D in my humble opinion. I've always thought that magic is possible but needs to be based on something solid rather than just casting a spell because the rules writer said they could.

Aethelflaeda, I'd certainly agree that Eve got short shrift, it takes two to bite the apple, but that's ever the case.
I'm aware of Aethelflaed from the Uthred stories but not so much from the historical record, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle seems to have given her short change but maybe that's churchmen for you. Everyone has their own agenda and it's not necessarily the truth.
Having said that I'd always understood that it was her and her brother, together, who contributed to pushing the Norse and Danes back, not that she took a back seat in the enterprise, but as I said I'm not well versed in the period.
Does the 'a' on the end signify a female name, everything I've seen doesn't have the 'a' but I know very little about Anglo Saxon naming protocols either.

Back to my original question, does FFoL allow you to kill Wraiths? and if so - how?
Cheers

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

I have seen it spelled with an “a” and without.  Without is probably more correct but Old English isn’t my expertise. 

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

In the toolkit of FFoL I believe we gave them an armor rating of high if attacked by normal weapons, and lower if they were attacked by a blessed weapon or relic.

[Tactalvanic]

like you my take is magic has to come from somewhere and depends really on the game environment/type

as with D&D - clerics draw their magic supposedly from their faith and God/s

similarly wizards must have a "source". Made for some interesting sessions based around magic running out or not available in some situations, having to restore sources and so on.

Its not just "wizards can because they are wizards".

As with Arthur C Clarke classic statement about tech/magic/primitives. To someone less versed its "magic" to someone who "knows" its just a battery powered watch.

and anyhoo - looks like yer having a fun discussion 

[Vagabond]

Thanks again for your input, I used the Wraith in a game set in old Japan, he didn't do well. 

I posted the game on the Oriental board if you're interested.
Cheers