Approved Species Mephit

[Taeli Raaf]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To submit a new spirit creature summoned through Sith Magic and necromancy
• Image Credit: https://scryfall.com/card/soi/110/farbog-revenant
• Canon: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Links:
  • Sith Magic

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Name: Mephit
• Designation: Sentient
• Origins: Wayland (Site of original summoning)
• Average Lifespan: As they are spirits summoned from the grave, their lifespan would be how long the spell binding them to the material world lasts.
  • Acolyte-level - Two Galactic Standard Weeks
  • Knight-level - Two Galactic Standard Years
  • Master-level - Thirty Galactic Standard Years
• Estimated Population: Rare
• Description: Unlike the translucent blue forms of Force ghosts, Mephits are shadowy echoes of their previous selves. Their forms, unless bound into something, appear as a mass of dark mist or fog that is structured by the Sith magic used to summon them from the afterlife, giving them a vestige of their previous appearance, enough that those who knew them in life would recognize them.

PHYSICAL INFORMATION

• Breathes: As they are spirits, they do not need to breathe and can exist in any environment
• Average Height of Adults: Varies depending on the original height of the deceased individual
• Average Length of Adults: N/A
• Skin color: While they do not have skin, their forms vary between a dark blue to black mist or ectoplasm
• Hair color: No hair
• Distinctions: The most distinctive physical trait of a Mephit is, of course, their misty bodies. Other physical traits that might be identifiable, such as facial features, height, species, etc. are dependent on the spirit that is summoned.
• Races: No other races
• Force Sensitivity: Non-Sensitive

Strengths:

• Mephits retain all knowledge and memories from their time alive, allowing them to access their full skillset if they are bound in a physical form. The physical forms they can typically be bound within are suits of armor or statues, and in some rare cases, even a brain dead clone. If they are not in a physical form, they can still offer advice and information to the person that summoned them.
• Mephits cannot be injured or damaged by any sort of normal weapon or substance. Blasters, kinetic slugthrowers, melee weapons have no effect, and even lightsaber blades will pass through without harm unless a Solari crystal is contained within the hilt.
• While they cannot normally interact with the physical world unless bound into a physical form such as armor, they can still kill individuals by passing their bodies through them multiple times. When they do so, they cause the body to rapidly cool, stealing away the heat of the body and plunging them into hypothermia. After a few passes, ice can even form on the bodies of its victims.

Weaknesses:

• Unless bound into a physical form like armor, they cannot interact with the physical world except by passing through it. Force users can resist the effects of a Mephit passing them easier and it can take far more passes to kill a strong Force user compared to a non-Force user. If the physical form the Mephit is bound in is destroyed, the Mephit will be unbound and forced back into its spirit form and will require a new binding ritual to another physical avatar from their summoner.
• Ysalamir bubbles and void stone fields will permanently banish the Mephit back to the Netherworld, no matter how strong of a binding was placed on it or who it serves.
• Direct applications of Force Light and other purifying light side techniques can banish the spirit back to the Netherworld. Imbued weapons of the light can also severely harm or banish them.
• The more someone is aligned with the light, or if they had a strong will in life, it can be incredibly difficult to raise the spirit (PCs and subbed NPCs need permission).

CULTURE

• Diet: While they do not need to consume anything to survive, they will absorb ambient vitality from plants and animals near them.
• Communication: They can communicate in any language they knew in life, although their voices echo as though they are speaking from a distance.
• Technology level: Unless they are bound into a physical shape, they cannot interact with any sort of technology, although they do have knowledge of what they knew how to use in life and can pass that along to others.
• Religion/Beliefs: The summoned spirits retain any religious or belief system they held in life, although there can be some issues with spirits summoned that believed there was no afterlife. Such Mephits will have a crisis of faith, especially as their very existence is proof against anything they once believed, and these Mephits will turn to essentially mirroring the beliefs of their summoner as a way to build themselves a new belief system.
• General behavior: Their general behavior can be described as melancholy as they have been summoned back from death and bound to serve the summoner against their wills. This, of course, can be altered by the summoner through further Sith magic in various ways to suit their interests, but if left to their own devices when their master does not require them, they will linger in large open spaces such as courtyards or gardens. If they encounter someone they knew in life, they will reminisce with them unless their summoner dictates them to attack the being. Unable to disobey, and if they haven't been further altered by Sith magic, they will let out moans and shrieks of anguish and despair as they attack.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

While usually not one for necromancy, especially for anything involving the creation of zombies, there still does remain a curiosity for spirit necromancy for Darth Arcanix when it comes to the field. In Sith sorcery, there were many ways to summon a variety of spirits, from the evil smoke demons to the spirits of long dead Sith, and while she knew many of these techniques, Arcanix began developing her own repertoire, with a particular interest for herself in mind.

Establishing a new hidden base in the wilds of Wayland, near the site of Mount Tantiss and both the former Sith-Imperial fortress and the stronghold of the destroyed Mandalorian Clan Australis, she and several sorcerers began creating a new summoning and binding ritual to summon forth the souls of those had perished in the battles that occurred in the region. The first soul summoned, emerging from the rune circle with a long cry of despair at being dragged back to the material world, was former trooper of the Mandalorians, a member of the militia and not a true Mandalorian. The spirit, appearing as a black foggy form of how he appeared at the time of his death, was compelled to obey the Lady of Secrets as she questioned it about the experience and whether it still retained its memories and knowledge from before. The soldier, named Maxil Baer, remembered everything he knew, even his death when the mountain was blown apart in the clan's final attempts to deny their Sith attackers a victory.

With a small sinister and vindictive grin, she banished the spirit back to the Netherworld and turned her attention to the true purpose for her necromancy experiment...

 

[The Mongrel]

Under Review Taeli Raaf

A nice, thematic submission. Necromancy seems to be having a renaissance these days... or did it ever really leave?

I do have a few concerns about this one that I'd like to see addressed.

• I'd like to see a way for spirits to resist being called back from the dead as Mephits, in much the way that mind tricks are limited to the weak minded. This is to prevent the ritual that creates Mephits from being used on unwilling player characters, or someone else's NPCs without their permission. I'm sure you wouldn't do that, but once these exist anyone can use them, so we need to be careful.

• I'm concerned about some of the strengths of this submission. As written, Mephits can't be harmed by anything except Lightside energy / weapons and Force-repellent stuff. They can also kill by walking through someone's body. That's extremely powerful. What's to stop a single Mephit from wiping out an entire army of NFUs (or Sith!), simply strolling down each rank in turn, leaving icy corpses in its wake? I'd like to see some kind of limit to the number of people a Mephit can walk-through-freeze in a given timeframe, along with a way to resist being instakilled by a Mephit walking through you, so that this doesn't become an issue for PCs or NPCs.

• Some questions about physical forms. You state that Mephits cannot be harmed by any conventional weaponry. What about the armor / other physical forms they can possess? What happens if those physical forms are struck by, say, an artillery shell or turbolaser blast? Is the Mephit ejected when the form is destroyed, or does it bestow its immunity on its form somehow (which is unlikely to fly, fair warning)? Or is it stuck in the ruined shell unless totally atomized? Can Mephits possess physical forms on their own, or do they have to be bound into them by Sith sorcerers? Can they be bound into / possess droid bodies, and if so, what happens to the droid brain?

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Taeli Raaf]

The Mongrel

You won't be seeing any zombies from me, but sure haha.

Added in a weakness/permission check in the weaknesses to address your first point, added in that it can take multiple passes through a body to kill someone (the idea of the creature was based on how a smoke demon kills someone by entering their body and turning it into smoke). As to the third point, their immunity to weapons is only when they are in spirit form, their physical forms can take damage as usual from whatever material the physical form is in. I added in that if its physical form is destroyed, it is forced back into a spirit form and cannot take physical shape until they are once again bound into one by their summoner.

And I never considered droids as a body, so I have absolutely no idea.

 

[The Mongrel]

Taeli Raaf

Okay, those edits look good to me. Clears things up. Approved.

Here's the usual caution about "don't abuse this or it'll get reported" and all that, as killer NPCs that are hard to kill back can be touchy.