Aether and Necromancy: Sight, Cloak, and Sword

I reached out.  The aether came into me.  Necromancy always feels cold.  

Like a chill, I can't quite shake.  It comes into my chest, that chill does.  When I feel it, I use the Aether to push the chill of that necromancy into a spell.  It flows out of my chest into my left arm.  

Down my arm, the chill goes.  The chill grows into a numb static.  Then ectoplasm collects on my elbow, like condensation.  The chill and the aether pour into that bit of ectoplasm.  

They make it expand.  They make it grow.  It flows down to my left wrist, into my hand.  

The ectoplasm drips into my hand with a crackle and a mournful cry.  It elongates into something long.  Tiny faces of the countless lost souls from between realities cover it.  

Purple energy ripples along it.  The ectoplasm took the shape of a longsword in my hand.  A ghostsword.  A blade of purple ectoplasm and necromantic magic.  A weapon suited against both living and not.

Of Aether and Sorcery, the Previous part of this series is here.

Sight of Necromancy

Sobriquets: Ghostsight, Deathseye
Cost: 1 Aether, dulls one sense;
Duration: As long as the caster is conscious

Necromancy first meant to divine future through the dead.  Ghostsight perhaps is the oldest of the Necromancy spells.  The Necromancer dulls one sense.  That sense then is replaced by the ability to perceive death, the dead and the ephemera of the other side.  Eyes blinded then can see ghosts, ears deafened can hear sounds of the other side, and touch dulled can allow you to feel the textures of ghostly objects.

Ghostsight can last for as long as the Necromancer is awake.  This makes Ghostsight of the spells a Necromancer always practices in the morning.  It must be cast anew for each sense the necromancer wants to affect.

A Necromancer can also use Ghostsight to mute their own voice, allowing them to speak to the dead.

Sword of Necromancy

Sobriquets: Ghostsword, Ghostchain
Cost: 1 Aether; Deadens limbs for each ghostsword past the first.
Duration: Last one scene

One of the basic evocations of Necromancy creates raw ectoplasm.  It is shaped by the caster's necromantic power.  Their imagination plays a part as well, shaping the cold glowing ectoplasm into a blade.  The Ghostsword can appear as a sword, or any weapon the Necromancer imagines it to be.  A ghostsword is a weapon.  It can affect the living or the dead, corporeal or ephemeral.

A necromancer can change the form of their ghostsword whenever they wish.  Upon striking a target, most Necromancers will their ghostswords to turn a Ghostchain.  A Ghostchain can bind any entity to one place.  Necromancers often use this to handle the dead.  But also they use it for other entities, from humans to demons.

A Necromancer can only have one Ghostsword active at a time.  They can have more, but at the cost of their own flesh.  This is dangerous, as too many Ghostswords could make a Necromancer too weak to control a ghost.  Each new ghostsword or ghostchain deadens the necromancer's body.

Cloak of Necromancy

Sobriquets: Ghostward, Binding Circle
Cost: 1 Aether and whatever is to be warded must be mark with a sigil
Duration: Until next sunrise

Necromancers use the Cloak of Necromancy in three ways.  The nature of the spell is that it can restrict ectoplasm, creating a field that doesn't allow it to form.  It lasts until the next sunrise.  Patient Necromancers can spend Aether at sunrise to allow it to last another day.

Marking a single living being is the first way to use a Ghostward.  A Ghostwarded person cannot be sensed by any ghost, spirit or any undead.  Nor can a ghost or any form of ectoplasm touch them.  Conversely, that prevents Necromancers from being able to call forth Ghostswords and other ectoplasm.  If possessed by any spirit or ghost, the entity immediately vacants their host once the ghostward is placed.

The second method for a ghostward is to use four sigils to mark an area.  Nothing ectoplasmic or ghostly can enter the warded region.  Like the ward for a single person, it prevents necromancers from using their own ectoplasmic spells.  If a ghost, spirit or anything ectoplasm is inside the area of the ward when it becomes active, they leave the warded area as fast as they can or dissolve.  Once the ward is gone, such dissolved ectoplasmic entities reappear one full night after.

The last method is craft a circle with the warded energy.  This locks a Ghost into a single locale until the next sunrise.  A circle often is the best means to imprison a ghost or similar entity.  Ghostwards only protect against ghosts, the dead or other entities.

A Necromancer can use a Ghostward against planar beings like Fae, Demons or Angels.  But only so long as they know the entity's true name.  Without that name to lock the ward in place, the entity can ignore it entirely.