Ghost-Stone

Ghost-stones are just that: stones inhabited by ghosts. A powerful, evil individual may choose to send his malicious spirit into a specially prepared stone upon his death. The person prefers an undead existence to risking the punishments of the netherworld. The ghost-stone is often placed so that it guards the treasure the evil person hoarded in life; the treasure may actually be concealed within the stone itself

Combat: If the shadow of a character falls upon a ghost-stone, that person is trapped. The individual can still fight and cast spells, but is unable to move more than 10' away from the stone. The ghoststone uses the shadowy connection to drain the victim's blood, doing 1-20 hp damage per round automatically.

There are two ways to destroy a ghoststone. If the stone holding the evil ghost is completely hacked apart, the spirit is forced to depart and undertake its long delayed journey to the netherworld. An exorcism spell has the same effect.

The ghost in the stone can be pacified if its name is known. A simple command of: "[Ghost's true name] be still, and at peace" calms the angry spirit even if its treasure is taken. In a campaign, the DM has the option of revealing the ghost's name to the PCs, perhaps making the answer a puzzle or riddle.

Since ghost-stones look like any other stones, they normally attack with surprise. The first indication of trouble is when a character's shadow gets automatically trapped. If the characters have some reason to be suspicious of that particular stone, the DM should allow a saving throw vs. wands to the PC.

Any character who strikes the ghoststone physically, without first choosing an attack angle that guarantees that his shadow will not fall upon the stone, could end up trapped also. Each person in addition to the first gains a saving throw vs. wands to avoid entrapment. Only one person at a time will be drained of blood, however. Other trapped individuals are simply unable to move away. If the ghoststone survives attacks against it, it eventually drains all of its victims of blood.

A cleric has the same chance to turn away the spirit in a ghost-stone as he has to turn a ghost. If turning is successful, the ghost-stone releases all victims currently being held. It will not attack unless it is itself attacked, or if a character tries to steal the treasure the ghost-stone is guarding.

(Note that the "Habitat/Society" category is meaningless for the ghost-stone.)

In many cultures, a person's shadow is linked to that person with strong magical bonds. In The Golden Bough, a classic collection of folklore written in 1922, Sir James Frazer discussed shadows on pages 220-222. He wrote that "the savage regards his shadow as his soul, or at least a vital part of himself. As such it can become a source of danger to him." If a primitive man's shadow was trampled, struck, or stabbed, he felt the injury as if it were done to himself; if the shadow was pulled away from him entirely, the man believed he would die. Magicians on the island of Wetar, said Frazer, could make a man ill by stabbing his shadow.

In the Banks Islands in the Canadian Arctic are remarkably long stones called "eating ghosts." because dangerous ghosts were believed to live in them. If a man's shadow touched one of these stones, the ghost drew his soul out so that the man died. Such stones were therefore set in houses to guard them. A messenger sent to a house by an absent owner had to call out the name of the sender to keep the watchful ghost from attacking.

When the lid was about to be placed on the coffin at a funeral in China, the bystanders stepped back or even moved to another room, to avoid endangering their health by allowing their shadows to be enclosed in the coffin. When the coffin was about to be lowered into the grave, bystanders stepped away so their shadows did not fall into the pit. Grave-diggers and coffin-bearers avoided these dangers by tying strips of cloth tightly around their waists to keep their shadows attached.

Animals, too, were believed to be harmed or to bring harm by means of their shadows. A snail from the hills of Malaya was believed to suck the blood of cattle through their shadows; the cattle grew lean and sometimes died from blood loss. It was once believed in Arabia that if a hyena trod on a man's shadow, it deprived him of both speech and movement.

If a shadow is seen as so closely tied to the life of a man that its loss means injury or death, the shrinking of the shadow is logically regarded with fear. In Amboyna and Uliase, two islands pear the equator (where little or no shadow is cast at noon), local people did not to go out of their houses at midday to avoid risking the loss of their souls' shadows.

The Mangaians told of a mighty warrior whose strength waxed and waned with the length of his shadow. In the morning, when his shadow was longest, his strength was greatest; as his shadow shortened toward noon, his strength ebbed, till it reached its lowest point at noon. As his shadow lengthened in the afternoon, his strength came back. An enemy discovered the secret of this man's strength and killed him at noon.

Sir James Frazer also discussed customs practiced in his day (1922) in southeastern Europe. When the foundation of a new building was being laid in Greece, a cock, ram, or lamb was slain; its blood flowed on the foundation stone, under which the animal was then buried. The sacrifice was thought to give strength and stability to the building. Sometimes, instead of killing an animal, the builder led a man to the foundation stone, secretly measured his shadow, and buried the measure under the stone. The builder sometimes laid the foundation stone upon the man's shadow instead, which it was thought would cause the man to die within a year. Romanians in Transylvania thought that a man whose shadow was so entombed would die within 40 days; persons passing by a building under construction often hear a warning cry: "Beware lest they take thy shadow!"\ There were even shadow traders whose business was to give architects the shadows necessary for securing walls. The measure of a shadow was seen as equivalent to the shadow itself; to bury a shadow's measure was to bury the soul of the man whose shadow was measured (thus dooming him). The custom was a substitute for an older practice of sealing a living person in the walls, or crushing him under the foundation stone of a new building; this caused his ghost to haunt the place and guard it against enemies.

This collection of shadow-lore from The Golden Bough inspired the following monster: the ghost stone.