Shade

Shades are one of the most common types of ghost in Interlife Earth, second only to the specter. Shades usually arise from people who die by violence; all else being equal, the more violent the death, the more likely the decedent is to arise as a shade, though in practice other factors (such as strength of personality and unfinished business) also come into play.

A shade resembles its mortal form at the time of its death, or shortly thereafter. It wears the same clothing, carries the same possessions, sports the same hairstyle, even still bears the same wounds of the blows that killed it (if applicable). Of course, the clothing and possessions aren't really the same physical objects the shade had in life, but are ethereal duplicates thereof. A shade has only very limited ability to alter its appearance; unlike a specter, it cannot by force of will alter its clothing or hairstyle. While it can, for instance, drop an item in its possession, the item will shortly reappear on its person. The exact time this takes varies by object and shade, the factors influencing it not well understood, but it seems to generally be between a few seconds and a few hours. There seems to be a correlation between the size of the object and the time it takes to return to the shade on separation—the smaller the object, the quicker it reappears—but the correlation is far from perfect.

Appearance

Shades look exactly as they did as mortals at the time of their death—rarely, they look as they did just before their deaths, but more often they look as they did just after their deaths, including the injuries that led to their deaths. How obvious these injuries are depends on their nature: a small caliber gunshot wound through the heart or slashed wrists may be relatively inconspicuous, a staved-in head or a cannon blast that took out half the torso much less so. If the murder weapon itself was left in the wound after the shade's death, it may still be present in the shade; shades are seen not infrequently with knives or arrows still protruding from their torsos, or heavy objects lodged in their battered heads. "Injuries" don't necessarily have to involve blood and gaping wounds; the ghost of someone who died by strangulation may have nothing more than some marks on its neck (though it may also have a puffed and bluish face); the ghost of someone who died by suffocation or poisoning (depending on the poison) may sport no visible injuries at all.

If a shade's death involved its body being divided into two or more parts—beheaded, for instance, or bisected, or having its limbs torn off—then there are three possible results. As with much else about spectrology, the precise factors directing which result occurs in a given case are poorly understood. Sometimes, the ghost simply lacks the severed part. This is the usual case when the severed part is a limb or is relatively small, but can also occasionally occur in the case of bisection or beheading, though it varies from case to case which part arises as a ghost—the ghosts of some beheaded individuals, for instance, arise as headless bodies, others as bodiless heads. In other cases, the shade's life, or unlife, inheres in both or all their parts, making them essentially pleotic. Absent special abilities such as circumvision, however, most parts will be unable to sense their surroundings except by touch and will be relatively helpless; it's not at all uncommon for such a pleotic shade to lose its parts, still able to control them all but having no idea where they are in relation to each other or how to reunite them. Very rarely, each part of a sundered body may arise as a separate shade, each potentially having the full memories and personality of its mortal self (though not necessarily; they may be blissful dead), but having no mental link and essentially existing as separate individuals.

It is not only in its injuries that a shade resembles its mortal (or recently deceased) self. A shade appears to be wearing the same clothing it wore at the time of its death, carrying the same objects, and otherwise outfitted with the same accouterments. This even extends to nonsolid accessories; a person who was wet at the time of their death (for instance, because they died by drowning in a river) may return as a sopping wet shade. In each case, the clothing and accouterments, even the water, are technically part of the shade, not separate objects. In some cases, in fact, these trappings are as sensitive as the parts of the shade corresponding to its mortal flesh; a shade might feel someone touching its coat as clearly as someone touching its skin. In other cases, however, the clothing and other "possessions" are essentially numb; while they may be part of the ghost, it cannot actually feel them. In any case, these ghostly accessories cannot be discarded, except temporarily; they will always return to the ghost later. Conversely, they cannot generally be added to, either; while ethereal clothing exists, it is difficult to find and quite rare, and some shades cannot wear it in any case, even over their other clothing (if any—a shade who died nude may be permanently inhabilable). This goes as well for amulets, backpacks, and other useful wearable items—though a shade that died wearing a backpack will have no trouble carrying new items in it, nor for that matter are shades with pockets in their clothing prevented from carrying objects in those pockets.

Abilities

While the shade's inability to alter its accouterments may be limiting, one advantage shades do have over other ghosts is their resilience. The wounds that led to their death may linger on the shade's form forever, but new injuries they suffer as ghosts are healed quickly; shades knit their wounds and recover from injuries much faster than other types of ghost. This seems to be a beneficial side effect of the shade's otherwise unfortunate immutability; a shade's tendency to maintain the form it had on death extends to quickly repairing any damage to that form. Similarly, shades do not tire easily, and can exert themselves for longer periods of time than other kinds of ghost.

Moreover, though, even the fact that a shade is stuck with the equipment it had on death can present advantages, depending on just what that equipment was. Otherwise expendable objects in the shade's possession will eventually return to the shade, which means the shade's supply of such objects may be effectively endless. Of course, for this very reason, any ethereal copies of money the ghost may be carrying are worthless, since other ghosts, unless they're completely unfamiliar with how the interlife works, will know that the money will just return to the shade in time. In the case of certain other objects, however, this constant replenishment can be very useful indeed. Ammunition is one good example of a useful such object; a shade with a bow and a quiver of arrows need never worry about running out of arrows, since the arrows fired will return to his quiver, possibly as fast as he can fire them. The same goes for a shade's gun and its bullets, or even, say, a ninja shade's throwing stars. Other, more esoteric uses of a shade's indefinite supply of possessions may also present themselves, such as a shade's leaving an object behind to weigh down a pressure plate in full confidence that the object will later return to their possession.

Some shades manage to develop special abilities not universal to all ghosts of their kind. A few shades gain the ability to create temporarily duplicates of some of their accouterments, or parts of their bodies, or even their entire selves. Another ability shades occasionally display is the power to exude large quantities of blood or other fluids, perhaps including the ability to shoot it at high pressures; this shadesblood may burn like acid, or may have other effects. Some shades gain the ability to heal others by touch as well as healing themselves; in some cases this may even extend to the ability to repair inanimate objects. A few shades do, by force of will, manage to permanently part themselves with some of their accouterments, freeing them to, for instance, sell those ethereal objects to other ghosts who might be interested in them, or simply to rid themselves of some unwanted possession. This is, however, irreversible, and not something that should be done rashly.

In ghostly society

A shade's place in ghostly society depends largely on its accouterments. A shade with guns or other useful weapons making it an effective combatant may rise high among the ghosts of the Spirit World; a naked and inhabilable shade with no accouterments to its name will have a hard time winning respect. Weak shades often fall into a position of servitude, and shades, more so than other kinds of ghosts, tend to make up the Spirit World's underclass, though certainly some individual shades do rise above their advantages and attain positions of power. Their tirelessness makes shades attractive as laborers, which also contributes to their exploitation.

Some shades resent their relatively low status and leave the society of other ghosts to join with their fellow shades and make their own nominally independent society. These shadetowns exist scattered throughout the Spirit World, and are often considered sort of ghostly slums, dangerous to any outsider ghost that may happen there, and the more so to those rare mortals who manage to travel to the Spirit World and end up there.

Nonhuman shades

Like other kinds of ghosts, shades are not necessarily human. In fact, shades may be the most common type of nonhuman ghost, more so even than specters. Abused domestic animals often become shades, as do wild animals whose deaths were especially bloody or reasonless. While such animal shades roam the ghost plains of the Spirit World, some, the domestic animals in particular, are also taken in by human ghosts in the ghostly cities. The inhabitants of the shadetowns, in particularly, like taking on ghostly pets, on whom they can lavish the affection they feel they were themselves denied by ghostly society.