There is talk of the spirit trade and what not in Blades. Specifically i’m talking about the Dimmer Sisters. I was wondering what is the spirit trade? What are the different things that you can do with spirits that makes it work capturing (and selling) them, besides being an alternate source to create electricity. I’m assuming you can control spirits and use them as guards? Have them possess people and have them work in drug dens synthesizing the various products for sale while not needing breaks? I’m just spitballing but i’d like to know what other people know/ have come up with?
There is talk of the spirit trade and what not in Blades.
There is talk of the spirit trade and what not in Blades.
A few from the Doskvol Spectral Society game:
We’ve got a lot of students who want to cheat on papers by having a possessing ghost tell them them answers. We’ve also got people who derive powers from them (making custom essences). We also got Dimmer Sisters using them to create spider servants (living Hulls), Lampblacks asking them to shove ghosts inside dead bodies to so that they “body” can do a thing the “person” never would.
One think I like to think of is all the artificial intelligence stories. Putting a brain in a box and then watching what happens. The way ghosts loose their grip on reality is not so dissimilar from HAL.
For one, drugs. You use distilled essences to take a “soul trip” of sorts, riding the emotions and experiences of the dead (think “Strange Days”). Expensive and nearly exclusive to the rich (cheap soul trips are dangerous!) and an illegal but tolerated habit.
Another recreational use is to feel a little death (like bungie jumping, skydiving or any other risky, extreme sport).
The Dimmer Sisters use such essences for many reasons: magical empowerment (think “extra mana”), potions (both vitality and death), learning secrets from individual spirits, curses, blessings as well as a kind of spiritual fishing, where the imbibed essence links a practiced user to the Void Sea across the Black Mirror.
It’s known to scholars of the occult that it isn’t just the spirit that’s left after death, but memories. Locked away, floating deep below the Void Sea on the other side of the Black Mirror, is every thought, tear, cry, laugh…every facet of every soul. If one knows the proper words and forms, they can be found and retrieved. It is exceedingly dangerous and has lead to the phrase, “The Void stares back…” or a variation thereof. If the proper essences are attuned and resonate favorably with the ritualist’s mind, there is almost no limit as to what can be gleaned from the Pale Vaults, but many feel it’s not worth the risks.
I made it known early in my game that the Path of Echoes was willing to pay 4 Coin for occupied spirit bottles, no questions asked. Thing is, that goes both ways. The crew hasn’t had the time yet to investigate exactly what the PoE is doing with the ghosts they buy.
Ben Morgan, that can’t be good.