[Runequest] Ghosts and Spirits

[Lev Lafayette]

I've recently been running my Sunday afternoon group through Dyksund
Caverns (Shadows on the Borderland) so I've had plenty of opportunities
to look up ghosts and spirits. Especially since one of the PCs became
possessed and another insisted on consuming large quantities of hazia in
order to engage in more direct negotiations (and threats).

One of the things that became clear however is that some of the details
for ghosts is pretty slim throughout all editions of RuneQuest; the are
tied to a place or item, they are frequently mad etc. But how does a
character become a ghost?

One method, noted in Dyksund Caverns is that ghosts are the result of
Thanatar severed heads that have gone mad and are thus of little use for
the cultist controlling them. This may be a common method, but is
certainly not the only one. In RuneQuest II (Griffin Mountain, Cults of
Terror) Cadodaemon and Vivamort cultists can create ghosts from victims
as well.

A further method, I would suggest, is those poor individuals who have
become covertly possessed by Madness Spirits turning the living body
into an obsessive-compulsive (it really doesn't matter what they're
obsessive over), and with a behaviour that continues after death. Such
people would make up approximately 50% of the ghost population and
almost the entirety of the non-chaotic ghost population. Something like
Second Sight would indicate that the convert possesion.

Another typical characteristic of ghosts is that they are attached to a
particular object. Sometimes this is given in absolute terms, for
example in the Vivamort Shrine in Dyksund Caverns the ghosts will attack
anyone who approaches within twenty metres of the Shrine. However, in my
opinion, this limits are a guide, not an absolute. A mad ghost host
possessing a body may indeed wander more than twenty metres from his
head with no ill effect; but after a while the desire to collect his
head will become too strong. Likewise an adventurer cannot stand
twenty-one metres away from the Vivamort shrine and play tease the
ghosts. They can and will give chase, but the possibility of doing so is
lessened after the twenty metre mark.

For those who know the scenario referenced you would also know that one
of the likely opponents (and I'm not giving too much away here) is a
Rune Priest that has an allied spirit bound to an object. Now the PCs
have managed to kill the Priest. My question is, what does the Ally do?
Play possum? Can the ally attempt possess whomever touches the object
(I've currently ruled that it can't)? Or is it released with the death
of the priest and makes its way back to the spirit plane?