Fetters and Haunts

Fetters are people, places, and things that continue to link a wraith to the world of the living. When a character is at a Fetter, the difficulty to use an Arcanos is reduced. The player rolls versus the applicable Fetter rating; each success reduces the difficulty of all Arcanos for that scene by 1. The minimum possible difficulty is 4, including all modifiers. Fetters can include the grave or the body of the Wraith, people who were important to the Wraith in life (lovers, relatives, enemies or anyone else to whom the character had a particularly strong emotional attachment), things that were important to her (the gun of a cop or a mobster, the laptop computer of a writer or the shotglass of an alcoholic) or areas (she as where she died). Note that a place cannot be both a Fetter and a Haunt, but a Haunt can contain a Fetter.

For example, Joey's Haunt is the pool hall (a Level 1 Haunt) he visited every Tuesday night, right up to the night a gang fight resulted in his death and the death of his five friends. The pool hall closed as the result of the deaths and has since become Joey's Haunt. If his girlfriend Vanessa (a two-point Fetter) walked into the abandoned pool hall, his difficulty to use Aracnos could be reduced upto three levels (one for the Haunt level, two for the level of the Fetter). If Vanessa wasn't there, the difficulty would generally be reduced by one.

Fetters can be destroyed. If a Fetter is completely destroyed, it no longer functions. For example, it is impossible to start out with a Fetter of "destroyed body: 4" if you were cremated and your ashes were scattered acrossed the Alantic Ocean. While you might not be immediately know what all of your Fetters are, you can find them by using Lifeweb or simply tracking them down. If all of a character's Fetters are destroyed, he will be unable to return to the Shadowlands should he ever leave. Relics are made of destroyed items; therefore, relics cannot be Fetters. It's difficult for a wraith to carry his Fetters with him if he's not materialized.

Note that Fetters can range from one to five points; a five point Fetter is tremendously powerful and has an extream emotional value. Few people in this cynical day and age have anything that they care that deeply about, which is why most Fetters are ranked from 1 to 3 points. Four point Fetters are unusual, and five point Fetters are extreamly rare. Similarly, there are only a few five level Haunts in the world. Most Wraiths will have a one or two point Haunts.

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