MONSTOBER DAY 7: POLTERGEIST

For use with Dragonbane RPG.

Description:
A poltergeist is not something you can fight with a sword. It is a disturbance, a ripple in the veil between the living and the spirit world. The air grows heavy, candles flicker, and small things begin to move on their own. At first it feels like coincidence. A cup tips over, a door creaks open, a draft runs through the room though all the windows are closed. Then it escalates.

Poltergeists are rarely malicious. They are desperate. Sometimes they are the echoes of a lost soul, trapped in grief or anger. Sometimes they are the residue of a tragedy that has soaked into the walls of a home. Occasionally they are a nature spirit’s protest, its patience worn thin by the noise and clutter of mortal life. They rarely mean to harm. They simply want someone to notice.

Behavior and Nature

The haunting always ties to a place or a person. Some follow a family line or one individual who carries the ghost’s attention. Others remain bound to a house, an inn, a forest cottage, or a forgotten shrine. A talented Animist, Necromancer, or Witch may use ritual, meditation, or seance to reach across the veil and speak with the spirit. If treated kindly, the spirit may calm and fade. If ignored, it grows louder.

Calming or Ending the Haunting

A Banish or Purge spell ends a haunting immediately, though it may feel cruel if the ghost was only trying to speak. More respectful options include burning incense, playing music, leaving offerings of bread, milk, or silver, or inviting a local Animist to mediate. Every spirit has its story. Listen before you drive it away.

1D8 POLTERGEIST PHENOMENA

1. A painting or portrait lifts itself from the wall and falls face down without sound.
2. A stack of dishes hurls itself across the room, shattering in midair.
3. Hot coals or sparks leap from the hearth or nearby candles, forming strange shapes before vanishing.
4. A chair flips over suddenly, as though an invisible hand yanked it backward.
5. A teapot kettle whistles by itself and tips, pouring scalding water onto the floor.
6. Hair stands on end, and everyone feels the pull of static electricity with no storm nearby.
7. All of the furniture in an unoccupied room is stacked precariously but neatly together.
8. Every flame in the home flares at once, revealing faint handprints or footprints of ash.
9. A door suddenly flings itself wide open or slams shut with no one nearby.
10. Every cabinet door, drawer, closet, or wardrobe in the place begins to open or close on its own.

GM NOTES AND HOOKS

Treat a poltergeist as a living mystery rather than a combat encounter. The fear comes from its unpredictability and its emotional tone. Build tension with sensory details: the smell of scorched iron, the slow drip of water where there is no leak, the feeling of being watched.

Try not to just make it a skill check and done. Let the characters, possibly even the players get a little spooked by this one. Feel free to add in cold spots in the room, mysterious voices from upstairs or downstairs, or have a cup slide off the table under its own power. Maybe one of the characters feels something touch or grab them while they’re alone in the room. Feel free to ask for an occasional Awareness (INT) roll for no apparent reason. If it’s successful, the character gets a creepy, uneasy feeling as if being watched from the other side of the room or at a distance with no watcher visible.

If/when the characters insist on that Myths & Legends check, (Animist, Witch, Necromancer, or Demonologists aside,) make them roll with a Bane unless they have experience with ghosts or non corporeal undead in their background. On a success, they figure out it’s a spirit and there’s no physical way to combat it aside from ducking the flying eggs coming out of the kitchen and hope the blankets don’t get yanked off the bed in the middle of the night. It can however be solved by finding the actual nature of the spirit and quell it by talking it down, appeasing it with a proper burial or some other ritual. Banish and Purge work, but the spirit will return with a vengeance one year and one day later unless Permanence is cast along with it. (Feel free to ad lib with different spells from different casting types.)

If the players investigate, let them find fragments of the story: an old journal, a buried charm, or a rotting doll hidden in the wall. Maybe the ghost was once a child who drowned, or a craftsman who died when his forge collapsed. Perhaps the land itself remembers.

Some might suspect the involvement of a demon. Let them. This is rarely the case as demons normally have to be summoned or pass through a portal. Yes, it could come up, but it’s super unlikely that the spirit in question is demonic.

Whispers speak of trickster fey that stir these hauntings for their own amusement. In some rare tales, the spirit was not angry until a fey whispered lies to it through the cracks between worlds. If you want a twist, let the haunting fade only when the true manipulator is revealed.