IN> Ghost anchors and discorporated Vessels

[Jonathan Lang]

Sorry for the long delay on this response.  For those of you just
joining us, the original question was: what happens when a ghost's
anchor discorporeates with a celestial's vessel?

EDG wrote:
> Jonathan Lang wrote:
> >I'd like to get your opinion on another possibility that your answer
> >inspired: what if a ghost in this situation actually _does_ ascend to
> >the Marches (more specifically, to his dreamscape) until the anchor
> >returns, much like a living human whose body has been Possessed?
>
> I would be surprised if this were to happen.  If I'm remembering correctly
> - I don't have the LU on this computer - ghosts don't actually /have/
> dreamscapes, which makes that proposition difficult.

I can't find anything to this effect, although the section about
ghosts in the Marches is consistent with this position: a ghost who
ascends an Ethereal Tether or follows a celestial to the Marches is
unique in that it is a human in the Marches who is _not_ encased in
its dreamscape.  I say "unique"; I suppose that a Saint could end up
doing the same thing, as the only other kind of human who can assume
something resembling a "celestial form", and thus traverse a Tether or
follow a celestial.

Still, it's entirely possible that the actual issue here isn't so much
"ghosts don't have dreamscapes" as "ghosts don't have _access_ to
their dreamscapes" - the way that a mortal gets into his dreamscape is
to fall asleep while in his body; and ghosts, lacking bodies, can't do
this.

> For that matter, a
> human mind displaced from its body is a fundamentally different concept
> from a ghost whose anchor has been removed from the plane; both involve
> removal of the spirit from a physical object by a celestial, but that's
> about the extent of a the similarity.

However, that might be enough of a similarity to make this option
work.  What I like about this approach is that the ghost isn't
stranded in one spot on Earth without any sort of physical anchor
present (ack!), nor is it rendered completely unplayable while its
anchor is discorporeated.  This also leads to a possible way to turn a
ghost into a dreamshade: if the celestial loses the vessel that has
the ghost's anchor while it is discorporeated (which could happen if
the celestial loses all of its Corporeal Force in celestial combat, or
if it becomes a Remnant and retreats to another vessel), then the
ghost becomes trapped in his dreamscape.  This is, IIRC, the
definition of a dreamshade: a deceased human soul that's living its
afterlife in a dream.

> For that matter, your original question raises some other strange setting
> questions.  What happens when a ghost uses a Summonable artifact as its
> anchor, and the anchor then gets summoned by its owner?  What if the Songs
> of Motion or Castling are used?  Can the Celestial Song of Revulsion sever
> a ghost's tie with its anchor?

I would tend to say that if the ghost's anchor is teleported to
another place on the corporeal realm, then the ghost should
automatically go with it.

The messy questions arise when the anchor is taken out of the
corporeal realm, such as a Talisman or a Relic.  In the case of a
Talisman, I can see the ghost automatically following the anchor into
the Marches; in the case of a Relic, the ghost probably has a serious
problem: on the one hand, he's still anchored to the Relic; so when
the Relic leaves the celestial realm, he should follow it.  On the
other hand, the whole point of a ghost is that he's trying his utmost
_not_ to ascend to the celestial realm.  I'd rule that such a ghost
would be forced to make more Will rolls to avoid losing Forces for as
long as his anchor is in the celestial realm, and that those Forces
immediately get drawn to either Heaven or Hell as the ghost's destiny
or fate dictates; this will almost certainly force him to move on.
Anchoring to a Relic is not a good idea.

-- 
Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang