The last part of the Ghost Punchers setting I want to explore is its unique creatures — that is, the ghosts themselves.
Ghosts are as widely varied as humanity. It’s not like you can look up a given ghost in the Official Ghost Puncher Monster Manual (“It’s a medium-sized polterspectre that casts spells as a 3rd-level wizard!”). Oh, you can deduce certain things based on what the ghost does, and there are certain patterns of haunting you’ll discover but learning about one ghost doesn’t necessarily help you in your quest to punch the next one.
Ghosts are broadly defined by three traits: awareness, power, and affinity.
- A ghost’s awareness is a measure of how much it remembers of its past life and knows its current situation. A ghost with low awareness may not realize it’s dead, and repeat the actions of its last minutes of life. Those with very low awareness are inhuman shadows of what they once were, driven by alien hungers and striving for nothing but self-preservation.
- A ghost’s power is exactly what you think it is: how much it can directly influence the world around it. It’s always easier to affect the spiritual world than the physical one, but those with lots of power can more effectively “break through” into the realm of flesh.
- A ghost’s affinity is its most nebulous trait. It’s essentially what the ghost is about — or its schtick, if you will. This can be tied to who it was before dying, the manner of its death, or times and places it found important in life. The ghost has an easier time affecting people, places, and objects tied to its affinity. For example, the ghost of a firefighter might have pyrokinetic abilities; the ghost of an axe murderer can levitate and throw sharp heavy things; the ghost of a man who choked to death on a chicken sandwich can possess and animate cooked poultry. Ghosts can still do things outside their affinity, but it’s harder for them to do so. Not every ghost has an affinity, but most of them do.
With this in mind, let’s look at a couple example ghosts.
Jackson Holm
(Low Awareness, High Power, Affinity: Toys and Toy Stores)
Jackson grew up poor down the street from a high-end toy store. He loved the toy store, but could never afford any its products. As a young teenager, he landed a job working in the store and had grand plans for building a toy collection. His first day on the job, however, he got locked in the store’s sub-basement; he wasn’t found for three weeks. Now his ghost haunts the store he once loved, throwing toys at customers and trying to lure employees into the abandoned sub-basement.
Serena Steinman
(High Awareness, Low Power, Affinity: Eyes)
In the 1930s, Serena was a gangster’s moll; it was her job to look good and keep her mouth shut. But she kept her eyes and ears open, and knew more about the criminal organizations than her beau. She knew so much, in fact, the boss had her killed as a liability. Today, Serena runs a network of ghosts and takes a cut of the essence they bring in with their haunting. She has the ability to see any place that has eyes or pictures of eyes; her “territory” is often marked with eyeball-shaped graffiti.
Dr. Coyle
(Medium Awareness, Medium Power, Affinity: Scalpel)
Dr. Anthony Coyle killed his first patient by accident. A slip of a scalpel during a delicate operation was all it took, and then he was hooked. He killed dozens on his operating table, but it wasn’t enough. When he started searching back alleys for new surgical victims, he was arrested but took his own life before he could see trial. Now Dr. Coyle stalks the hospital halls, nudging scalpels and the minds of those who use them, continuing his grand design from beyond the grave.
