Phasmonia

Phasmonia

A phasmonia, or "city of ghosts", is a small village built outside of towns and cities to house ghosts and spirits. The Raen (often mistakenly called ghosts by living races) are feared and despised, but often larger cities will set up phasmonia as a way of attempting to appease the soul and convince them not to possess the locals.

This, of course, does not work for Raen, as they must bond in order to survive. Ghosts may end up haunting phasmonia on occasion, but most ghosts attach themselves to some poignant memory and end up reliving some part of their lives in a specific location. Spirits, on the other hand, have no interest in these mock cities of the living.

Construction

Phasmonias are equipped with miniature houses, streets, and even businesses. These mini-cities serve as both burial grounds and places for the dead to live on their own, with mausoleums and graves either side by side or nearby the miniature spiritual townships. Obviously, the construction and upkeep of phasmonia vary by Kingdom and culture. Often the small cities are laid out to mirror the town they were based on. The most common superstition is that the souls would prefer to live in the smaller, empty town and stay away from the populated town. This practice is very common among all faiths and cultures in Vita.

Phasmonia, when inhabited by ghosts or raen or even the rare malicious spirits, tend to be in one of two conditions. Either they are entirely ruined and destroyed, due to the long term effect of monic decay and spiritual entropy caused by the supernatural forces present, or absolutely pristine, meaning that no ghost or raen has ever existed there.

Cultural Misconceptions

However, other races often tend to perceive the state of repair of phasmonia slightly differently than the reality. If the phasmonia is ruined, in Anaxas, for example, it is usually thought that the ghosts are displeased and have possessed people in retribution, and if it is pristine, it is thought that the ghosts are pleased.

Note: Ghosts and Raen are not actually at all the same thing, though the majority of the Vitan population are completely unaware of the existence of Raen and mistake them for ghosts with very fatal misunderstandings the predictable result. Possession by a ghost and total inhabitation by a raen are definitely very different situations, though sometimes both spiritual anomalies end up in phasmonia regardless, especially in Kingdoms where phasmonia are used as actual graveyards instead of mere memorials.

A wick or a galdor is more likely to say "ghost" for just about any supernatural phenomenon they encounter, with perhaps the exception of Hexxos galdori from the Kingdom of Hox.