Ghostwalk
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Ghostwalk is a setting for the Dungeons & Dragons game, similar to Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance. Unlike most other D&D settings, however, Ghostwalk was designed to be released as a single book which would contain all the material for the world. The central locale for the Ghostwalk setting is a city called Manifest, a mausoleum city built atop a geological feature known as the Well of Souls which leads the spirits of the departed on 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, their ghost bodies marked by whatever injuries killed them and often driven by some craving for some aspect of the living world, such as music or food. A manifested ghost may fairly easily be returned to his body by resurrection magic and 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 unlife that drives 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, 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 are vast natural caverns and tunnels that increase in size and complexity surrounding the Well of Souls. All of these are filled with all manner of monsters and villains, but also treasures lost. Hence Manifest is home to adventurers as well as mourners and the dead
Of 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.
