In the darkened corners of reality, where fear and despair permeate the very air, resides the wraith—an embodiment of pure malice, an entity stripped of mercy and pulsing with an insatiable hunger to devour all life. It is an incorporeal terror, suffused with an energy so negative that its mere existence is an abomination.
The wraith’s passage through the world is an event marked by unutterable dread, a slow creep of shadows that sucks the vibrancy and warmth from everything it touches. Plants wither and blacken, their vitality drained as if by some obscene kiss, while animals, driven by an instinctual terror, flee its presence as if pursued by the very essence of death itself. Even the flicker of small fires, those elemental symbols of warmth and comfort, are snuffed out, extinguished by the horrifying oblivion that trails in the wraith’s wake.
Vile Oblivion
The genesis of a wraith is a tale of damnation, a spiritual tragedy born from a soul that has tasted the darkest of depravities or forged unholy pacts. These souls, once destined for eternal torment in the Lower Planes, sometimes become so saturated with wickedness that they implode into themselves, obliterated the moment before consignment to an unimaginable afterlife. What remains is a soulless wraith—a malevolent void, trapped and writhing in agony on the plane where it met its twisted end.
In this ghastly metamorphosis, all traces of humanity are erased, and almost nothing of the wraith’s former existence remains. It becomes an entity driven by a singular purpose: to annihilate other life, to spread its unending torment, to make others feel the horror of its existence.
Bereft of Body
The physical form of a wraith is a haunting spectacle, a swirling vortex of darkness that moves through solid objects as though they were mere wisps of fog. Its presence is a chill in the air, a whisper of despair that settles over the heart.
Though a wraith might retain vague echoes of its mortal life, these memories are but shadowy illusions, fleeting and distorted like the images in a nightmare. Occasionally, a wraith might pause before an object that once held meaning or momentarily recognize a past connection. But such instances are rare and fleeting, for most wraiths loathe reminders of what they once were. They are tortured by their transformation and seek to obliterate all that reflects their lost humanity.
Undead Commanders
The malevolence of a wraith extends to a terrifying power to manipulate the dead. It can conjure an undead servant from the spirit of a creature that has met a violent demise, transforming it into a specter, a spiteful entity that shares the wraith’s hatred for the living.
These nightmarish beings often command legions of the undead, orchestrating their movements and plots against the living with a cold and calculating intelligence. When they rise from their hidden tombs to wage their unholy wars, the land itself seems to recoil in horror. Life shrivels and hope dies in their presence, and the very earth becomes blasted and withered. Even if defeated and forced to retreat, the scars they leave are so profound that those who dwell in the affected lands often succumb to famine and decay.
The wraith is more than a monster; it is a symbol of existential horror, a reminder of the darkness that lurks within us all. It is a manifestation of evil so profound that its very existence is a blight upon the world. To encounter a wraith is to stare into the abyss, to face a darkness that is both alien and terrifyingly familiar. It is a glimpse into a void where all that is human is consumed, leaving behind only the cold, unfeeling hunger of oblivion.
