When it comes to Dungeons and Dragons, I’m able to suspend my disbelief fairly easily. I see it as part of the price of admission to play; as I’ve said before, the multiverse can be a rather silly place. You have to accept a certain degree of absurdity in a game full of owl-bear hybrids, wands that can make people sprout leaves, and spells that incapacitate people with uncontrollable dancing.

That said, I think that fighting ghosts is ridiculous.

Perhaps it’s a matter of personal bias. When I was a teenager, I went through a brief but intense ghost-hunting phase, because I was incredibly cool. What I learned from all of the shows I watched of people running from their own shadows is that ghosts aren’t something you can fight. That dubious honor is reserved for demons. You can’t swing a sword at a ghost or shoot it with a crossbow and make it disappear. Ghosts are mostly just imprints, echoes of the dead that only have an incidental effect on the world around them. That incidental effect can still, however, be rather dangerous.

Granted, there’s plenty of lore out there saying that ghosts can be intelligent and malevolent. Look no further than Supernatural or The Conjuring. There’s no reason why you can’t play ghosts that way. I just prefer something a bit more environmental.

Similar to my rules for introducing small venomous creatures, I’ve used D&D’s existing trap mechanics to create something similar to residual hauntings: essentially mindless spirits that you can spring on your players as they explore the darker corners of the world. This essentially takes the idea of “ghostly manifestations” in the standard Monster Manual rules for ghosts to its logical extreme. Instead of being an incidental effect that accompanies ghosts, these hauntings are the spirit themselves; as such, they are more specific and more hazardous.

Hunger Ghost

Some people are creatures of appetite from cradle to grave. They are driven by a desire for consumption, be it food, drink, drugs, or pleasures of the flesh. People like this occasionally leave an imprint after they die, a shadow of desire that cannot be sated. Adventurers might encounter these ghosts in the dining rooms and kitchens of old mansions or taverns, stuffing themselves with all manner of long-rotten foods.

Though they have no awareness of anything outside their own gluttony, these ghosts inexorably drain the life force of anything nearby. Any creature who spots a hungry ghost consuming its horrid meal must make a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the creature ages 1d4 x 10 years. Those who succeed suffer no penalty. The dungeon master can decide the additional effects of aging, if any.

Man in the Mirror

Most of us are at least a little bit vain. We take pleasure in cutting a good figure and in being admired. But some people take their vanity to extremes, obsessing over their appearance until nothing matters more than the face looking back at them in the mirror. Nothing can free them from the mirror’s grasp, including death.

These ghosts can be found anywhere that a mirror hangs, but are most common in places where the wealthy and superficial gather: manor houses, ballrooms, and expensive inns. They have no physical presence anywhere except the mirror itself. When a player looks in the mirror, they may see another person just over their shoulder primping and preening themselves. If they turn and look, there is no one there.

The inherent wrongness of the experience is too much for some people to bear. A player who spots one of these ghosts must make a DC 13 Charisma saving throw or suffer short-term madness. There is a full explanation of the different kinds of madness starting on page 258 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, but short-term madness usually lasts for a few minutes and can manifest as uncontrollable babbling, hallucinations, or temporary paralysis.

Spectral Followers

A life of service is a calling for some, but for others, it’s a curse. Upon death, the most obsequious courtiers and servile butlers sometimes leave a piece of themselves behind to haunt their former employers, mindless and desperate to please. These ghosts can be found anywhere with large staffs; the more powerful the master, the more likely these ghosts are to appear.

Unable to differentiate between their former masters and anyone else who wanders into their space, they are drawn to living beings like moths to a flame. They will trail along behind the living like a wake, floating three or four feet behind.

Their obsessive eagerness to please in life has become an energy sink in death. For every hour that a player spends near one of these ghosts, roll a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. On a failure, the player takes one point of exhaustion. They suffer no penalty on a success, but the ghostly hold is not broken. The spectral servants will disappear when the player leaves the haunted location, or if lesser restoration is cast on the player.

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