I ran an encounter/story once where the players discovered that the town was haunted by ghosts who were all dragged to the material plane from the afterlife by a necromancer's apprentice who messed up a spell a long time ago, sort of setting off a timebomb of necromancy. The ghosts were attacking out of anger because they DID pass on, they didn't have unfinished business, they were essentially kidnapped from paradise and it drove them crazy. Ultimately, the players ended up going on a whole separate quest to locate the necromancer's last living relative so they could learn where he was buried, raid his crypt to find his notes, fight HIM at the end of that, and then go seek out a strong enough wizard to reverse-engineer the issue - all so they didn't have to fight the ghosts, because they were like "it's not the ghosts' fault, this is horrible and it's wrong to hurt them". They told me afterward that they thought this was my plan the whole time, I was like "No, if you killed them they would have just gone back to the afterlife", and my players pointed out something I didn't think of - the ghosts were harming people here on the material plane, even the ones who came from the GOOD version of their afterlife, so they might have been forced to go the bad place even though it wasn't their fault they were hurting people. I was like "oh... huh." I gave them bonus XP lol.

I've seen a lot of advice about ghosts in d&d and this was by far the most inspiring. The quest with the lighthouse is so engaging, and now I want to run something like it. Too bad I'm busy with a dozen other plot quests and plot hooks.

What if a three ghost asks you who is the prettiest of them all and then when the party chooses the other two attack the grouped.

I wanna make a ghost of a famed horror writer that turns its’ former manor into the setting of its final work. It lures in adventurers and guides them down a path in hopes that their actions will inspire a proper ending for his work.

How do we apply this to, per say, A GHOST SHIP?! With a GHOST crew?! And A GHOST treasure!? Which is a ghost mimic…. Who never knew how to steer the ship 🥺 but always wanted too.

One thing you didn't mention, possibly because it isn't in the stat block, but ghosts may reform until their unfinished business is complete.

Thanks, the video is finished for several minutes and I still burst into tears thinking about the ghost dog waiting forever :'(

Imagine a player character dying and turning into a ghost

magic missile is very good as a ghost killer. Its the only damaging spell that extends onto the ethereal plane, and since ghosts sre visible while on the ethereal theyre targetable.

Very cool. I love ghosts. I now want to make this my next low level quest for a newer party.

New idea A exploding corpse trap guarded by the adventurers ghost.

Thanks for making this video! You guys really deserve more attention, the info has given me some great ideas for writing ghosts. Also, the animations were SUPER cute!!! Good luck and keep up the good work ^.^ ~ Beb

Ghosts are a huge DM resource. They can inspire roleplaying, be a source of lore or hints, and their alignment flexibility means they can be inserted into multiple stories. Awesome.

This is AMAZING I love this channel always comming with the greatest and most creative stuff ever I'll defenetly ad something like this to a side quest of my current running story!

you're sooooo good at this!

Wonderful video thank you!

Sometimes your players might take a liking to the ghost(s) they're trying to help! In the case of the child wanting to operate the lighthouse, I'd have him "haunt" the lighthouse. From then on, and as long as his spirits (pun!) are high and he's not bothered then paranormal effects around the town are kept to a minimum.

I’m making a one shot of the players being hired by a baroness to try and solve her ghost haunting problem, as the ghost keeps leaving her cryptic and threatening messages. The plot twist is that the ghost actually has a massive crush on the baroness and is trying to woo her while failing spectacularly. Thanks for the video!

Thank you! Very helpful

"My Mommy loves me this much," says the mutilated child's spirit.

Can you play as a ghost?

My party got into a fight with a ghost because he was being super annoyimg like "if you don't help me you will die" or something like that so I yelled at him "rich coming from the dead guy" and that's where we rolled for initiative

I don't have many friends who like dnd So i wanted to make an npc charackter that works like a player charackter with a sheet and stuff to make the party a bit stronger He os supposed to be a ghost but i never had an idea what weakness to give him to make him less op since he can do mostky everything a player can do too We are very new to the game so the ghost will not "die" until the jurney is over His only wish was to be able to go on an advanture but he died in a fire Now thanks to you i could give him a weakness that makes sense FIRE He can mostly do what the monster ghost does but has the wizzard class and can also level up To make him easier to handle i let him being bond to an item called spirit orb(idk of thats a thing already but i don't care tbh) He get carried with the orb on the advanture and starts with the spells: Mage hand Light Minor illusion Silent immage Sleep I want him to be only able to stay close to the orb at level 1 but level two he gets levitation and is able to move around the area more freely

I will definitely rip off this wonderful encounter! Thank you!

I won';t uses this for dnd but this helps me for making my first call of cthulhu adventure

This is what I don't get about DnD; the book is so rigid that all ghosts do 4D6 touch damage - ghosts of kids, ghosts of adults, ghosts of a warrior dead at 30 or the same warrior dead at 95, ghosts of kobolds, orcs, dwarves, giants, sphynxes. Even real world modern lore distinguishes between phantasms and poltergeist and ghosts of misfortune, each with different effects on people, and different intensities within each type.

I want to like the video but there are 666 likes atm and thats oddly fitting for the video