Ghostwalk

The central locale for the Ghostwalk setting is a city called Manifest, a mausoleum city built atop a geological feature known as the Veil of Souls. The Veil of Souls leads the spirits of the departed to the True Afterlife.

In the immediate surroundings of the city of Manifest, the ghosts of the dead may cross the barrier into the land of the living and interact with their loved ones as translucent beings forged of ectoplasm. The bodies of these ghosts are marked by whatever injuries killed them, and they are often driven by a craving for some aspect of the living world, such as food or music. A manifested ghost may fairly easily be returned to his body by resurrection magic, so in the City of Manifest, one may die a great many times and be returned to his body with no harmful side effects. The one danger in exploring the other side of death as a ghost is the Calling, an unshakable urge that overcomes ghosts at some point in their afterlife driving them to forsake the world and pass into the True Afterlife. Such a transition is permanent and marks the end of a character

While all sentient races have spirits, only the human and demihuman races (human, half-elf, half-orc, elf, gnome, dwarf, and halfling) can travel to Manifest and live again as ghosts. A great many nonhuman races are jealous of this gift and have sought to destroy Manifest throughout its history. Several times they have succeeded, razing the city to the ground and forcing it to be rebuilt atop its own ruins. This has resulted in an underworld of forgotten catacombs, all that is left of the many cities left behind. Below these catacombs are vast natural caverns and tunnels that increase in size and complexity surrounding the Veil of Souls. All of these are filled with all manner of monsters and villains as well as treasures lost. Hence, Manifest is home to adventurers as well as mourners and the dead.

Among the enemies of the City of Manifest, perhaps the most persistent are the Yuan-ti, snake people who long for power and immortality and thus hate everything the city stands for.

Ghostwalk was published in June 2003, and was written by Monte Cook and Sean K. Reynolds. Cover art was by Brom, with interior art by Thomas Baxa, Dennis Cramer, Michael Dutton, Emily Fiegenschuh, Jeremy Jarvis, David Martin, Puddnhead, Vinod Rams, Wayne Reynolds, Scott Roller, Richard Sardinha, and Ron Spencer.

Sean Reynolds explained the origin of the idea to make it possible to play a dead player character as a ghost: "I think it was just a matter of Monte and me understanding that one of the least fun parts of the game is when a character dies. Not only is there a feeling of loss regarding the character, but also the player doesn't have anything to do until a new character can be brought in. We thought a campaign where a character's death wouldn't be the end of play for that character or player would be a neat twist on standard D&D."[1]

• SF Site[2]

• Ghostwalk forum at The Piazza (largest fan community online)