Ghostly Questions for Starting

[Theia]

Just some questions before starting, any answer or direction would be awesomesauce! 1.) Ghosts cannot learn physical skills but can they learn mental without a host? The wiki says they can only learn other skills by possession so I wasn’t sure if those would be included. I searched around the Q&A but haven’t really seen a straight answer. 2.) Also, this seems obvious, but are Ghosts completely invisible unless using Materialization, right? Because when I read the description I was thinking more along the lines of a window, you can see through it but it’s obviously there. Which would mean anyone can see them? 3.) Since age stops a person’s ability to properly absorb Djed until they cannot absorb it, does this mean a person a using magic would die if they use all their Djed or does the body naturally continuously pick up small streams until stopping the person from using it? Or am I looking at it the wrong way? Is it because the Djed dies because the body cannot absorb new Djed? Like cookies going stale? 4.) Are Ghosts affected by magic or strictly Spiritism (aside from Materialization)? The Ghost wiki said so long as they interact with the world the world interacts with them, so if they are using Soulmist projection to push something and someone throws something at them would it make contact? I feel awkward asking but how exactly does possession work (the wiki was straight forward but I’m not sure how its done), do they have to want to possess the person or can they just walk through a person and get ‘stuck’ if said person doesn’t fight it? Also, how does a Ghost ‘release’ or leave a willingly host, wait till their Soulmist depletes or do the just walk out? Or does the human have to expel them? 5.) The Possession wiki says: “At this level, it can use his pre-death skills with only a slight penalization.” Is this referring to Soulmist, penalization to the host or overgiving? Does using the hosts Djed for magic in a host affect both parties or only the human (setting aside the Soulmist it would eat up what it possession and such). 6.) In the Spiritism wiki it says: “High-level Spiritists can make even better use of Soulmist: they can imbue it with a part of the skills and powers of the blood's owner. A ghost eating this Soulmist will then acquire these skills and abilities as long as the effect lasts (which is a few days).” 7.) This meaning they have knowledge of the skills or that they can actually do something like a magical skill or that they can know use a sword with Soulmist projection or that now with Soulmist projection they know how to use a sword on their own? 8.) What exactly is blinking? It says a Ghost can travel from one point to another instantly, with physically moving. To what distance does this work, a few feet, shorter, longer? I’m assuming it depending because they can ‘blink’ to any place where a Spiritist summons them or is it a skill? Okay, some of these might be answered in the wiki or I confused myself, feel free to just shove me in a direction and say ‘read more’

[Aello]

1- As far as I know, yes. You can develop skills like philosophy, and rhetoric, as well as your ghost abilities, (ie. soulmist projection), while not possessing some sort of entity. However, you can't advance in martial skills like... sword or reimancy, since your djed is I don't want to say dead exactly, but it isn't viable. So you can't use magic on your own, you kind of have to leech it off a living being for a lack of a better phrase. I think, as far as martial skills go, something like acrobatics or unarmed may be an exception, since you can move those limbs and such, but with a sword or something it's just a materialized projection of such. I AM NOT POSITIVE ON THAT FRONT, SO PLEASE DON'T QUOTE ME THERE.
2- Again, as far as I know, unless a ghost materializes and wants to be seen, they can't be. Also, if their soulmist is depleted too much, they can't be seen until it forms up again. However, in this state someone who knows of them, say a spiritist, will be able to sense their presence. And perhaps an aurist could pick up on their presence if they are strong enough in their magic.
3- I will leave this to some other mage to explain.
4- As far as I know, objects, (any solid object or liquid), passes through a ghost. UNLESS it is coated in soulmist. From what I understand, the only way to truly interact with a ghost, is to have a strong spritist touch them, or to have an item imbued in mist. Otherwise, like I said before, it can go through them. (Say if a mage hurled a fireball at your pc, it would just pass by, and perhaps you'd feel a tingling, but it wouldn't hurt you, because well, you're already dead. Now, if said fireball was mixed with fire and mist, that may be a different story). And as for soulmist projection, you can push things around, and throw things at higher levels. I wouldn't call it true interaction per se, but that's likely only me and one's speculation.
5- I have seen it happen a few ways. Usually, a ghost will just walk into the thing they want to possess and either, fail to possess it and basically just pass through, or they kind of, learn the shape of the object and become one. Or enter the object, (namely humans), and just stay. If they find a spiritist however, things can be a little tricky, because if the spiritist has a higher skill lvl then the ghost does in possession, they can either expel it, or trap it in their system. At which point, they can share skills and memories, although, the stronger person, (the spiritist in this case), would have more control over what is shared than the ghost, this tends to be somewhat random a happening.
6- From what I understand of possession, the ghost gets tired, but not in a traditional sense. It doesn't actually use up its own djed if practicing magic, so it won't tire from that. But its mist will deplete from having to fight to stay in the body and maintain some level of control over itself and presumably the host. The host is taxed however by the whole thing, so the ghost should take care not to actually kill them by overusing their strength/not letting them rest, etc etc. For although it may not feel tired, since a ghost doesn't need to sleep, etc. etc. its host will. Also, say you want to practice reimancy, but your host doesn't know it, your "skill" is likely to fall somewhere between the two hosts. Basically, it's likely to be more sloppy than when your pc was still living.
7- I asked Tarot this recently actually, and am still waiting to hear back. But um... you'd gain some of the skills of the entity whose blood was used to make the soulmist. But only temporarily. So I know it wouldn't bolster your own skills/knowledge. (So you wouldn't be better in possession lets say after having the mist), but you'd be better in other things. I just don't know the details of such. Like if I gifted you with mist, which of my skills you'd gain if I had used Aello's blood. If it's random or if we get to choose or w/e. But I will find out and keep you posted! I don't think however, you'd gain enough to really be good at much of anything, but I could be wrong.
8- As far as I know, blinking isn't an actual skill as much as it is an ability per se. Um... I think, and I may be off, but if your pc were to look ahead and see a tree, it could blink to that spot. And by that, just appear there randomly. It's a very confusing concept to me, likely better explained by Tarot. As for the last part. A spiritist, WHOM YOU HAVE GIFTED YOUR MIST, can summon you that way. Um... Aello is the only pc who can do that right now... but yeah, free travel?

Hopefully that helps a bit. Happy playing.

Aello

[Theia]

First, thank you so much for your detailed answers, they helped clear up a lot of questions and second, I did not realize it came out as such a wall of text! So another thank you for reading through it!

[Rayage]

Hey there,

Some of your questions can be answered in this thread as well. Straight from Tarot. I hope Tarot bumps in and answers some of the unanswered questions here.