Rounding things off with my final Mighty Nein AU (for now), we've got the Ghost AU! Rejoice!
For those of you who aren't familiar with the various iterations of Ghosts, I'll give you a quick summary here---a couple inherits an old house and they decide to try and convert it into a hotel, but the house is full of ghosts from different time periods who aren't thrilled with this idea. The woman has an accident not too long after they move in, and she wakes up with the ability to see and interact with the ghosts. It started out as a British TV show, but since then, it's had American, German, French, Australian, and Greek adaptations, all of them changed either slightly or dramatically from the original due to the different histories of each countries. And not only is it a very mutable format for shows in different places, it's a very mutable format for fanfics!
SO:
Beau and Yasha, of course, are the couple in question. Yasha's from Scotland and has lived in the U.S. for a while now, while Beau's lived her entire life in New York... which means it's a bit of a surprise when, while she and Yasha are busily house-hunting for a new place now that they're married, she gets a call saying that she's inherited a house in England from a distant great-aunt. (Usually, it's because she's the only living relative, but I decided that her great-aunt specifically left it to Beau in order to spite Thoreau.) Since both of them are sick of apartment-hunting in New York---and the U.S. in general---the two of them move to the foggy seaside village of Cobalt Cove, and into the creaky old halls of Thornwood House... but, of course, their house comes with eight undead roommates. After Beau takes a tumble and wakes up from a small coma with the ability to see the ghosts, she and Yasha realize they've got a lot more to deal with than just the typical old-house issues.
And, as always, the other characters (not just the ghosts!) are under the cut (because oh my god this is long):
Ghosts
Caleb: The oldest ghost in the house (at least, the oldest ghost who actually stays in the house), Caleb was a witch who was burned at the stake in 1629. His affinity for fire and flame got him noticed by the Catholic Church and taken from his parents, but rather than being killed outright, he was then raised to be a witchfinder himself after going through some pretty severe torture in order to "remove" him of his magic. Caleb grew up to see and participate in the horrors of the early Würzburg witch trials, but he fled to England once he was forced to execute his own parents... and, well, he only had a few years of solitude and quiet before the English witchfinders caught him and put him to the pyre. Even though his ghost ability is pretty tame, all things considered---people smell smoke and burning when they pass through him---Caleb is absolutely one of the scariest ghosts in the manor, based on pure intensity alone (and, well, the fact that he's covered soot). Once you break through his walls, though, he's surprisingly sweet, and being able to talk to a Living person definitely helps him with his trauma. (Also, he can still use his magic, but he's still working through all the self-hatred associated with it.)
Fjord: He's a sailor who spent his whole life traveling the world as part of a crew of pirates before he was unceremoniously struck by lightning in 1731 after a shipwreck. For a wanderer like Fjord, being stuck in one place forever is very much not ideal (especially since he has proof that not every ghost is trapped where they die, more on that later), and the fact that he was scared shitless of Caleb at first didn't exactly help matters, but he did get to see the manor house get built, and he likes having a roof over his head. Even though Fjord was only first mate on the ship, he has a lot of leadership skills that he's kept with him in death, which means he's kind of fallen into an older brother role for most of the ghosts. That being said, he's still a pirate, and he's down for a little bit of mischief-making every now and then. It usually involves his ability to mess with electricity.
Molly: A circus performer mauled to death by an escaped lion in 1786---just a few years prior to the manor being built---Molly is definitely one of the friendliest ghosts, and they're the social glue that Fjord and Caleb desperately needed in order to become actual friends. He tells a lot of outlandish stories about his life before the circus, many of which are very hard to confirm, but the one thing that does appear to be true is that he used to be some sort of soothsayer for a noble family... and it definitely ended in disgrace. During the course of the story, Molly figures out that she's non-binary and genderfluid---which she always kind of knew, she was very into crossdressing and died in a pretty androgynous outfit, but she obviously didn't have the words for it until now. Also, Molly can visit people's dreams, which means that they are very much able to become friends with Yasha. (Yasha probably gets to see the ghosts at some point, or at least has limited interactions with them, but Molly's the first one she meets and gets close to.)
Fearne (yes, Fearne!): She's a flighty, adventurous, and drama-obsessed young lady who died of consumption in the latter half of 1819, only a short while before she was supposed to get married. Her parents were the ones who'd commissioned the house to be built, and by Regency nobility standards, they were actually pretty chill---they let Fearne have a wide range of interests, encouraged her love of studying the natural world, and were even going to let her be a spinster and have her cousin inherit the house instead---but they eventually fell on money troubles, and the only way out was for Fearne to marry rich. Of course, that never came to pass, but thankfully, her cousin was able to provide for the two of them after her death. To everyone's misfortune, Fearne happens to be a poltergeist, and she's gotten very good at using her powers to steal things, move things, and cause general mayhem around the house. She's also a shameless flirt, which Beau learns almost immediately after she's able to see the ghosts. Thankfully, Fearne also knows when to take the hint.
Essek: A distant relative of Fearne's, Essek was the victim of a "mysterious death" in 1871. His grandmother, Fearne's long-lost aunt, cut ties with the Calloway family after marrying a Black man and immigrating to Greece, where her daughter grew up and had two sons... and by the time Essek was fifteen, all of them were dead, either from illness or old age. His long-lost cousin heard about this and took him in, making sure that he had the best opportunities that he could get---nice clothes, a steady allowance, and a top-notch university education, where Essek was able to fulfill his dream of becoming an astronomer. However, during a party held at Thornwood House, Essek was drinking in the corner when he suddenly fell ill and died... and one of the first things he witnessed as a ghost was a doctor confirming that he had been poisoned, and his benefactor's son telling the doctor to rule it as a heart attack instead. Essek still holds a lot of resentment over his murder being covered up, and one of the first things he requests from Beau is for her to solve it proper---even if he's ninety percent sure it was his second cousin who did the deed, he'd pissed off enough people in academia for there to be a fairly long list. He's also very deep in the closet, but he's been harboring a pretty significant crush on Caleb for the past century or so. (Also, he can show up in photographs. Pretty cool stuff.)
Jester: Fearne's afterlife BFF and the self-proclaimed "life of the party," Jester's a cheerful flapper from the city of Zadar who died in 1925. She and her mother moved to England after WWI, and it didn't take very long for Jester to become friends with a lot of wealthy girls her age---granted, she still had to deal with a lot of "jokes" about her mom's occupation, but she considered them friends even if they weren't the nicest people in the world. One fateful Halloween, Jester was invited to a party at her friend Effie Thornwood's country estate, and she had an incredible time... right up until she walked in on one of the neighbors, Lord Sharpe, in the middle of a very steamy affair with Effie's widowed mother. Sharpe freaked out and shoved Jester down the stairs, and her death was ruled as an accidental fall caused by drinking too much liquor. Despite her more grisly end, Jester still keeps her bubbly and upbeat spirit, which tends to... clash with her ability to induce terror-fueled hallucinations onto unsuspecting Livings. She mostly just uses it to make the eyes in paintings move, but she can go full horror movie when pushed.
Ashton: He's a foulmouthed, opinionated punk who snuck into Thornwood House on a dare in 1974, only to fall out of a third-story window in an attempt to avoid being caught by the lady who lived there. Despite their rather lackluster death, Ashton doesn't really mind being a ghost, and their only complaint---besides not being able to leave---is that they've still got to deal with echos of the chronic pain that plagued them in life ("it was a joint thing, for fuck's sake, how can you have joint pain when you don't have any joints?"). Even though he's one of the younger ghosts in terms of years lived, Ashton has some of the wildest stories, and unlike with Molly, the ghosts are ninety percent sure that most of them are true. Their ability to interfere with radio systems---which ranges from being able to change the frequency a few degrees to straight-up being able to speak through a radio---means that they've been able to both introduce the ghosts to their favorite artists and keep their own musical taste fairly current. Ashton's still pretty loyal to the old-school stuff, of course.
Veth: A camp counselor who died in a canoeing accident in 1998, Veth is in the unfortunate position of both being the most recently dead and the only one who died past the age of forty. Despite the fact that she's only been dead for less than thirty years, she's kind of the unofficial leader of the group---mostly because, well, she was a mother of two who worked with kids on the regular, and in her experience, long-dead ghosts tend to act very similar to preteens. Veth's authority is partially motivated by the fact that she died wearing her counselor whistle around her neck (and she uses it so frequently that Beau has given up on setting an alarm), but she's also pretty understanding when it counts, and she's fiercely protective of her friends. Since she died in the freezing cold water of the property's lake, Veth can make the space she's in colder... though she doesn't really do it that often, since she's still a little traumatized about her death. Yeza and the kids live in town and visit the estate every year on her deathday, but they start visiting more frequently once Beau and Yasha befriend them.
Artagan: The actual oldest ghost on the property, Artagan is an old Celtic druid who presumably died of natural causes sometime in the British Iron Age. Due to several mysteries he practiced in life and his deep connection to the fey spirits that used to roam the area, he has one of the rarest ghost abilities of all---to be able to leave the place where he died, and to freely wander the earth. Artagan's been a roamer long enough that he doesn't strictly need to return to Thornwood House, but he shows up every now and then, mostly to check in on the other ghosts. He and Jester in particular have a pretty special connection, mainly due to their shared love of chaos.
Livings
Caduceus: While he's known by the town as one of the resident witches (though they all think it's a spiritual thing instead of an actual magic thing), Caduceus is known by the ghosts as one of the only Livings---besides Beau---who can see them and interact with them. He's been able to see ghosts ever since he got into a car accident as a teenager, and he's become pretty popular with the local ghost population... mainly because he works at his parents's funeral home, and is able to fulfill funerary specifications for the recently dead. Since there's so many ghosts and most of them are fairly friendly, Thornwood House is Caduceus's favorite one to visit, but prior to Beau and Yasha moving in, he had to be a little sneaky about it. It doesn't take him very long for the two of them to integrate him into their routine, and he's got a lot of tips on how to go about life when you can see dead people everywhere. Also, Caduceus's whole family lives in town, though he's the only one who wants to take over the funeral home (his aunt and older sister are the town doctors, his brother's the local pastor, and his younger sister is a freelance artist).
Imogen & Laudna: The two of them run a witchy coffee shop in town, and they're the only other townsfolk who are aware of the existence of ghosts---Imogen's a psychic and has always been able to see them, while Laudna's been able to see them since she fell out of a tree as a kid. (Laudna is also a witch, but most witches need near-death experiences in order to see ghosts, just like regular people.) Imogen and Beau get lumped together by the town at first as the two American lesbians, so it takes Beau a bit to actually like her... and, well, she initially thinks that Imogen's a fraud, so there's a bit of a kerfuffle when she attempts to expose her and then finds out that she's the real deal. Despite the rocky start, the two couples do eventually become actual friends. It helps that Laudna's cinnamon rolls are borderline addictive.
Percy & Vex: While it's customary for the living couple in a Ghosts story to have annoying rich neighbors, I decided that Beau and Yasha should also have some nicer rich neighbors, so... Percy and Vex are the current owners of de Rolo House, Beau and Yasha's neighbors to the right. Neither of them are aware of the ghosts---or the fact that their own house is populated by several restless de Rolos who were all brutally murdered, hence why Beau always insists that they have dinner at her place instead---but between Vex's eye for style and Percy's skills with both mechanics and finances, they're always happy to lend a hand to help the Thornwood B&B get going. When they're not busy dealing with all their kids, that is. (Also, Laudna used to be friends with Cassandra when the two were young, and the accident that led her to see ghosts happened on the de Rolo property. So... yeah, bit of a traumatic awakening.)
Mr. and Mrs. Osgood Sharpe: Unlike Percy and Vex, Beau and Yasha's neighbors to the left are very conceited, very out-of-touch, and very, very, very irritating. Neither of them approve of the B&B---or the lesbian couple who inherited it---and while they do act all nice and fake-friendly, they're always trying to find some way to interfere with the work going on. And, of course, Osgood happens to be directly descended from Jester's murderer, which means there's some extra tension mixed in there on the spiritual side... though, after a few unwelcome visits, Jester makes sure that the Sharpes know when to stay out.
And after that very long cast of characters... I think that's it!
in terms of appearance he looks like Veth cloned herself. Dark hair, dark skin, a lil' chunky. Yeza's genetics did not participate in this kid.
except the kid has atrocious eye-sight and he desperately needs glasses that he refuses to wear because he feels they make him look like a dork. So he has Yeza's terrible eyesight.
Yeza actually feels really bad because he feels like he doesn't have much in common with his second son, but Luc points out to him that actually, he and Bren are a lot more alike than he thinks: Luc and Veth are chaos gremlins, but Yeza and Bren are the calm and collected ones who stay focused even with chaos going on all around them.
(despite this, Bren is still definitely Veth's son)
He is a wizard prodigy--especially when it comes to dunamancy. Caleb theorizes that this is because of his exposure to dunamancy in the womb speeding up his birth giving him a special connection to dunamantic energy, while Essek disagrees; he thinks that Bren is just naturally talented at said magic. Regardless, the kid is good at dunamancy.
speaking of Essek: Essek does not give one single shit about this kid until the kid is like, 6; the Mighty Nein are all gathered for someone's birthday, and all the other kids are out playing and causing a ruckus, and Bren figures out how to do Essek's floating trick all on his own. Then Essek starts to care about this lil' halfling.
after that Bren-Bren starts spending a lot more weekends at his favorite Uncles' house.
time spent at the wizards' house is enrichment for all wizards; the uncles' spend time creating traps and puzzles and magical situations for the little one to get out of, and the little one spends time getting out of said traps/puzzles/situations. Like a pumpkin in a tiger cage: everyone leaves a little better than they started.
by the time Bren is 11 he hates being called Bren-Bren. His mom and Caleb still call him that because sometimes that is just what parents do
(Yeza is respectful and calls him Bren. Essek has never called him anything but "Bren Brenatto" in the exact same tone of voice he says "Caleb Widogast". Luc exclusively calls him Bren-Bren because he's his big brother.)
When Bren enrolls at Soltryce and starts studying to become a full-time wizard, and is naturally Charming and Good at People while also being Good at Magic, and, because he's Veth's son, reasonable good at thief things, Caleb has a panic attack as he realizes he's accidentally made the Perfect Volstrucker. He has to spend a week on Astrid's couch after that.
When Bren is 17, he (17, the age when all good decisions is made) (loves lying) (has excellent hair) (Veth's son) gets the truly excellent idea to go to the Kryn Dynasty and tell them: "What's up? I'm Essek Thelyss's consecuted soul. You can stop hunting me now! I died 17 years ago in the Empire. Anyway I want to learn more dunamancy!" which certainly won't have any consequences for anyone ever.
characters who get the "i can fix him" urge not because theyre a saint who loves everyone inherently but because they think "if i can prove there's good in everyone, maybe i can start feeling like i'm worthy or being seen as good too."
“Why did the bright queen believe essek so easily how did he get away with so much shit before he was caught?” Buddy you would not believe what you can get away with if you’re Quiet and Get Good Grades
I do want to address something that has come up a number of times of late, which is that folks have pointed out that at many junctions, it is clearly a deliberate choice that Essek is not particularly present in Nein live shows content, whether that's being excluded (along with Kingsley, which will be relevant momentarily) from combat at the wedding, or considered largely absent from shows with concepts that otherwise would suggest a larger involvement, like Echoes of the Solstice (though I would argue, and I have, that this is a poor understanding of his narrative role) or, most recently, Projekt Funball (though allegations of his absence were, quite frankly, vastly overrated). And when it comes up there is often a sense, both explicitly and as an underlying implication when not stated outright, that this is because the cast don't care about him or that Matt doesn't like playing him, with a resentment that suggests his fans feel personally snubbed by his absence.
To begin with, this is blatantly false and easily disproved. For one thing, if he was not enjoyed as a character among the cast and Matt didn't care to play him, the animated show would not be structured as it is, to give him such a prominent and interesting role. On top of this, he would not have made as much of an appearance in campaign 3 as he did, wherein he acted as a familiar guide and trusted ally for both the Hells and Vox Machina, something that is only possible because the cast themselves know to trust him, as their other parties would have no context for who he is or why they should take his word. (He's come quite a long way from his original role for the Nein as Official Unreliable NPC!) Even in the finale, when the cast had no idea what else to do in the moment after expending all of the resources their various characters had, they end up turning to Essek, despite the fact that up until that point he hadn't even been present in the scene. Clearly he is a character in Exandria that they enjoy having around and consider an important resource, mechanically and narratively, and during both campaigns 2 and 3, he shows up when it makes sense that he would and even sometimes when it almost doesn't.
In contrast, his presence is minimal in live shows featuring the Nein in particular. I thought about this in the wake of Projekt Funball, in which it almost strains narrative belief that he doesn't venture with the party—obviously there is a reason given, but it would be just as easy to simply not introduce this requirement in the first place, which suggests that there is a different, non-narrative reason for this element to keep him outside. So let's think about why, shall we?
Evidence points to a very simple logistical reason, one that I present in a manner that is only somewhat tongue in cheek: time. (Realistically better described as mechanically efficient, but that's not as funny in context.) Consider that he's present in the first half of the wedding one-shot, and is, quite frankly, freely (and hilariously) chatty, but is not included in the effect that Isharnai uses to drag them into her domain, along with Kingsley. The reason Kingsley is not included is easy to surmise, which is because the complexity of Taliesin having to manage two characters would be fairly time-consuming and mechanically complex, particularly when you add in the fact that the Nein's high-level combats have to be extremely intricate and arcane to pose a challenge—and crucially, during live shows, there is a very hard time limit.
Having attended two live shows with level 20 Nein combat, they are exceedingly long. In general, live shows do tend to run up against their out time, to the point that a common refrain I have heard is that it's a bummer the wrap-up at the end often feels rushed. I suspect that this is also why they've pivoted more toward puzzles and games than extended combat, as well, which are much easier to estimate time for when building the show and simpler to wrap if they do go on too long—and you can see in this cooldown that that's true, because the initial challenge with the intelligence checks was altered on the fly to get them through to the next encounter. And it's worth noting that there simply is not a good way to integrate an allied NPC into those kinds of things, puzzles in particular, because unlike with the unpredictability of combat, puzzles are predicated around the idea that the GM knows the answer, and the players have to be clever enough to find it. (Here it would've been exceedingly silly, quite frankly, to have him more directly involved in the first half.) Even in combat, the intricacies of creating a challenging encounter for the Nein at level 20 that absolutely must be completed in what is usually about two hours is already difficult enough without introducing another turn into the initiative order, and even in this show that was clear, given the hit point threshold was pretty low, but the combat was made more complex by trying to eliminate various members of the Nein from the board rather than landing hits on them. I do not think it's a stretch to say that this is a major factor in what is and isn't included in live shows while trying not to run afoul of venue fines for overtime use.
Essek is both an important person to the party and the players, and also he is still an NPC, and must be considered mechanically as such, and as I've argued many, many times over the years, that is literally fine. Honestly, I'm primarily writing this because I had to push back on similar ideas during the latter half of campaign 2, and they had largely fallen off, but the uptick of this again has been disheartening. At the same time, much like during the same period of campaign 2, it has also felt like there's been an uptick among other fans using these occurrences to either diminish his relevance to the party and cast allusions in the same vein—that he's not really important to the characters or the players, that his presence isn't wanted or valued, usually in an effort to either ignore or erase key themes of the Nein as a party and their campaign, or the themes of individual character arcs that some have soured on or feel, perhaps unconsciously, aren't compatible with the narrative that those fans want to posit about the Nein or another party—and the evidence in the text(s) and around it all point to these perspectives being wrong. Nevertheless, I also understand the frustration some feel when it seems that other fans are consistently hyping up their own faves using this status as fodder, but I do not think it worth my or anyone else's time to cast aspersions on the cast over something that is blatantly untrue.
My point is ultimately that it seems as though discourse has regressed to some of the more unfounded elements of its campaign 2 iterations with, quite frankly, an abundance of evidence to contradict the complaints, both explicit and implicit, in that discourse, in ways that turn fandom discussion from a generative conversation into not a conversation at all but a zero-sum game. Squabbling for perceived scraps of attention makes us all poorer in the end.
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