Wraith Rules

The following terms will be used as defined throughout the house rules:
-DRUDGE -- a drudge is defined as any wraith under the long-term employ or compulsion of a Giovanni, represented by at least 1 dot of Wraith Retainers, Spirit Slaves, or Honored Dead. Drudge is not an IC term, merely one being defined here to avoid confusion.
-RESTLESS -- a restless is any denizen of the Shadowlands, from wraiths to spectres, including those both under the control of PCs and the STs.
-SPECTRE -- one of the restless, specifically the shadow-eaten, slaves and initiates to Oblivion, the bane of wraiths and all not yet consumed by Oblivion. They may NOT be drudges and will always be under ST control. The only potential exception to this rule is a drudge that has become a Doppelganger without the necromancer’s knowledge.
-WRAITH -- one of the restless, who has maintained his psyche and resists the advancement of Oblivion (probably). All drudges are wraiths.


Giovanni and all manner of other necromancers use wraiths to further their own power and extent their influence. Wraiths under such long-term employment to PCs (rather than one you merely compel for a specific task) must be purchased using XP in the form of one of the following backgrounds:

Wraith Retainers -- Wraith Retainers are a separate background from Retainers, which represents ghouls. Wraith Retainers are the most common form of drudges under a Giovanni’s control. They are typically cultivated with purpose by the necromancer. The wraiths usually have made some arrangement or otherwise have a reason for working with the necromancer, with only minimal amounts of coercion, although a paranoid Giovanni will likely still place Compel Soul on his Wraith Retainer.

Spirit Slaves -- Spirit Slaves are…more or less the opposite of Wraith Retainers. They don’t like you, they don’t want to work for you, and they are most certainly not your friend. Monster as you are, though, through intimidation, magic, or torture you’ve forced them to work for you. Your skills have ensured the drudges will do as you say, for now at least, but they will likely flee or seek revenge at the first opportunity. Careful how hard you squeeze these ones, they may call on their Shadows if you torture them too much, and while you may have subjugated the Psyche, the Shadow can still lash out or, even worse, they could become a Spectre if they give in to their Angst. In time and with good treatment, there’s no reason these wraiths may not eventually come to like you or find working for you acceptable, but that’s decidedly not their origin.

Honored Dead -- Honored Dead are drudges of the Giovanni families. They are kept around for the quality and value of work they provided for the family, or (although very, very rarely) kept around as a torment for truly despicable failures to the family. While they are wraiths and are here to help you (after all, family comes first), a certain degree of respect is owed to them given the family saw fit to ensure their souls remained for continued diligence and work, which is no small task. As such, the Family strongly opposes a necromancer using his arts on an Honored Dead for the same reason it is assumed a Don has enough respect to not Dominate a member of the family. It’s just not done. On the same token, due to their rareness, know-how of the family business, and that they carry status among both restless and clan (not always positive), they rarely are granted to young or inexperienced Giovanni, and it is also highly unlikely they will be granted to any member of the lesser families, and only slightly more common they will be granted to any of the minor families. A powerful necromancer, an experience don, one of the family Giovanni or Dunsirn, is likely to be granted Honored Dead to assist them and work for them, but some fresh, inexperienced Putanesca or Rothstein will almost certainly not be permitted any in their employ. Note, as stated in the Giovanni packet, your Honored dead may not be double-blooded Giovanni. Also, as stated in the packet, to take this YOU MUST HAVE THE RENDING OF THE SHROUD / TITHE SUB-COORD APPROVAL.

Like ghouls, each drudge will have his own sheet in the control of the STs (in the case of drudges, the Wraith ST will have it). Like Retainers, additional dots of the background may be spent on the same NPC. At base, a 1-point drudge is a sheet that follows the Oblivion rules for character creation. Every additional point in the background spent on the same NPC increases its XP by 5. So, a 5-point Honored Dead is a single drudge with base creation rules as stated in Oblivion plus 20 XP. Spending points of the background on the same drudge limits how many drudges may be under your control until the drudge is killed permanently or otherwise leaves your control. In order to empower your drudges past this point, you must spend your own PC’s XP on them. You must also provide teachers as appropriate or otherwise arrange for them to learn the things you want them to (see below for restrictions on what your drudge is allowed to learn). For example, while most Arcanoi can be learned innately, the Forbidden Arcanoi (Flux, Intimation, Mnemosynis) require teachers. Please also take great care to remember that for every 3 XP the drudge gains, its Shadow gains 1 XP to spend on Thorns, Dark Passions, and other nasty tools.

The loss of a drudge does not cause the dots to vanish off of your sheet (you won’t have to respend them), but you will lose all additional XP that was spent on them. A 10 XP drudge that came about by being a 3-point Spirit Slave will have no XP lost on the vampire’s account, but if it was a 1-point Spirit Slave and the PC then sunk 10 of his own XP into, that XP is gone.

CRUNCHY BITS ON RESTLESS:

TRAITS: Drudges have a base trait cap of 10, +1 for each dot of the background Age (see below), +1 for every year they have been on the sheet of an active PC, to a wraith’s maximum cap of 20 traits. For example, a Wraith Retainer has been on the  sheet of a PC since creation and has Age x2. The PC was active for 22 months, then took a break for 12 months before returning. When returning, the drudge’s trait cap is 13. In two more months, it will be 14.

BACKGROUNDS: Age is a restricted background, and is taken based off of how long it has been since the wraith was reaped:
1 = 50 years old
2 = 100 years old
3 = 500 years old
4 = 1000 years old
5 = 2000+ years old

In addition to the XP cost, to represent the slow grind of Oblivion each dot of Age also costs one of the following:
-The addition of a Permanent Angst.
-The loss of a Permanent Corpus.
-The destruction of a Fetter.

Most drudges are unlikely to have Age above 2. Requests to the coord of buying Honored Dead should include the intended age of the Honored Dead and information of how Trait Caps and the Age background functions in our game.

ARCANOI: Drudges may only have 1 Advanced Arcanos. Forbidden Arcanoi require teachers (don’t forget, most wraiths aren’t thrilled to help wraiths known to work for necromancers). Arcanoi and Dark Arcanoi will retest with the following Abilities:
Argos -- Survival
Castigate -- Meditation
Embody -- Empathy
Fatalism -- Fortune Telling
Flux (Forbidden) -- Repair
Inhabit -- Science
Intimation (Forbidden) -- Subterfuge
Keening -- Performance
Lifeweb -- Awareness
Mnemosynis (Forbidden) -- Psychology
Moliate -- Crafts: Soulcrafting
Outrage -- Brawl (defensive retest is Dodge)
Pandemonium -- Occult
Phantasm -- Enigmas
Puppetry -- Intimidation
Usury -- Finance

Contaminate -- Subterfuge
Corruption -- Intimidation
Hive-Mind -- Empathy
Larceny -- Torture
Maleficence -- Theology
Shroud-Rending -- Awareness
Tempest-Weaving -- Occult
Tempestos -- Survival

Drudges may not take Alternate arcanoi arts.

To fix a contradiction in Oblivion, at creation wraiths get 5 free dots of Arcanoi. In this manner, none of the five Arcanoi can begin above second basic. For the purposes of these 5 free levels, the innates are automatically acquired. From that point forward, including with freebie points spent when creating a Drudge, innates must be purchased with XP before the basics.

ABILITIES: The drudges may not take the following abilities: Helldiving, Labyrinth Gear, Crafts: Soulforging.

PASSIONS/ANGST/PATHOS/HARROWINGS: As drudges are largely in the control of the STs (mechanically at least), we will handle fluctuations of Pathos and Angst, as well as the outcomes of Harrowings. Your PC likely has no innate way of knowing how much Pathos or Angst or Willpower your drudge has (similar to how your PC cannot go “I have six dots of blood left in me,” but rather, “I don’t know…I’m getting a little hungry, sure, I could use a snack.”). RP will let you figure out a ballpark.

Aside from taking a direct interest in their Pathos and Angst, it will fluctuate under the assumption that sometimes things go wrong but otherwise your drudge is maintaining these things as much as possible on its own.

Yes, your drudge can enter Catharsis or become a Doppelganger. No, unless you have means to ensure you find out or it can’t happen, you won’t necessarily know. In fact, the Shadow will likely do everything it can to ensure you DON’T know until it’s too late…

DAMAGE: When a Restless takes damage from a non-magical source in the Skinlands, they take 1 level of non-aggravated Corpus damage and become Incorporeal for one round per permanent Stamina trait. Incorporeal wraiths cannot be damaged by any further source in the Quick while Incorporeal, but may still be affected by damage in the Shadowlands. Magical items and abilities such as Devil Sticks and Sepulchre Path; Torment allow the Restless to take more than one and not necessarily lethal damage. While they will still become Incorporeal, they can continue to take damage as well.




Like all things in this game, HST has final say and veto power, but otherwise all things related to your drudges are at the approval of the Wraith ST (Matthew). If you repeatedly try to do something silly, your name will likely come up at an ST meeting.

UPDATE:
The Age background has an additional mechanic effective immediately.

Arcanoi update to fix Oblivion contradiction.