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Author Topic: War Spirit ideas needed...  (Read 876 times)

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Offline Cheka Man

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War Spirit ideas needed...
« on: March 20, 2007, 05:46:10 PM »
my idea is ghosts that rise from the dead killed in the fantasy equivilent of Vietnam or the Iraq war, wars with no proper end. And if killed in a conventional war they rise soon after. Any ideas?

Offline manfred

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Re: War Spirit ideas needed...
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2007, 06:03:55 PM »
You give us little fuel to burn on, but let's see...

...why don't the ghosts rise commonly in any violent conflict? One ingredient is of course dieing without proper burial, but that is still not enough.

Now, what if some conflicts are so intense (particularly by sides that hate another), that they just continue their war even after death - and the afterworld belonging to this spot is filled by the conflict. That of course confuses the many souls that were "produced" in the original battle - and many of them, instead of passing on, become ghosts.

And so you can get literal droves of specters (and possibly other undead) arising after some battles, and not by others.


How's that?
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Offline Scrasamax

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Re: War Spirit ideas needed...
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2007, 02:32:21 AM »
The first thing that came to mind was the nature of the war in question. Vietnam and increasingly Iraq are both unpopular wars with the conflict removed from dynamic action toa bogged down guerilla war. This could equate similarly to the trench warfare of the first World War. Why is this of any interest? A righteous war, one with great victories and against a great foe I would imagine would produce few restless dead. While death is not often desired, falling to combat a worthy foe is not seen as dishonorable, so their shades would be less inclined to linger on. Against a low and mean emeny without clear paths to victory, and with poor morale, those who fall are not filled with sense of pride, duty, service to family, country, and god, instead they are angry and bitter about fighting what they feel is a pointless war.

So start with a meat-grinder war, the sort that consumes men and material with no real progress other than the tripe spewed by the politicoes on both sides. The soldiers are disenfranchised, dissatisfied with the war, and they die. This fuel of spiritual angst in a proper magical setting should be enough to produce ghosts driven to fight and fight without sense or purpose, without end as this was the mode of their life at the moment of death.

I hope that helps.
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Offline Cheka Man

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Re: War Spirit ideas needed...
« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2007, 04:40:14 PM »
Thank you for the ideas.