Wraiths

To the magical girls who endured Walpurgisnacht, Wraiths are a new form of Grief-based enemy, which arose when Witches became extinct. From everyone else's perspective, Wraiths have always been a threat (and Witches never existed). Highly numerous, they remain dormant until attacked, but they radiate one of five different forms of suffering, and if not destroyed will increasingly influence the people of the area with their dark emotion. In battle, they attack in waves, with major infestations taking hours to eradicate.

In accordance with the Law of Cycles, Grief is no longer harvested into Labyrinths, instead accruing over time into Grief Miasma. This Miasma is a natural part of human existence, but becomes harmful when disaster or overcrowding creates too much suffering in too small an area. Such dense Miasma gives birth to Wraiths; until it does so, it can only be sensed by Puella Magi, or mages trained in its detection. Wraiths themselves can be sensed by any magical girl, and are not the exclusive foe of Puella Magi than Witches had been.

Backstory

An era has passed for Puella Magi. Their very name was chosen, by the coldly rational Incubators, to represent their status as a child form of the Witch. As inevitably as a child will become an adult, a Puella Magi would be subsumed by their own Grief and mature into their final form: that of the Witch. All that they once were would fade, leaving only an endless, demented stage production by and of their suffering. The sole reason that not all Puella Magi reached this fate is identical to the reason not all children become adults.

Under the Law of Cycles, however, Puella Magi disappear at the exact moment that they would otherwise have become a Witch. No longer is all the hope inspired by their choices brutally offset by the despair they create after that dire transformation. The Incubators chose the first meaning of ‘Puella Magi.’ It is Puella Magi who must find a second.

The final mercy granted by the Law of Cycles could not be more crucial, nor its effects more profound. But the Law does not eradicate suffering, for Puella Magi or otherwise. It merely decrees that suffering will have an end. The deeper metaphysical consequence of this principle is a question for the religious and the dead, but there is a word for the most significant worldly consequence: “Wraith.”

Wraiths are formed when too much Grief accrues without being otherwise collected or dispersed. The occasional Wraith would form during the age of Witches, due to the inability of ill-populated areas to sustain a Puella Magi’s grim ecology. But because even a stray familiar can gather human Grief, Wraiths remained so rare that the Magic Association categorized them alongside ghosts and spirits, failing to understand their relationship to Witches. The Grief Cubes that can be retrieved from a destroyed Wraith had obvious supernatural properties, but there is little value in an artifact that is so weak while being so scarce. Thus there is no record of any Puella Magi using a Grief Cube, nor any mage attempting to exploit one.

However, the extinction of Witches has turned Wraiths from an obscurity to a dangerous worldwide plague. Witches had once permitted the efficient harvesting of Grief. Puella Magi would absorb unbearable amounts of it, like a sprouting seed absorbs nutrients, then blossom into Witches, who would gather quantities still more vast by reaping the suffering of innocent humans. Finally all this Grief would be contained in a seed and removed from Earth entirely by the Incubators. Without this process, diffuse Grief simply accrues as a supernatural Miasma. This natural phenomenon is of no real concern in a happy rural neighborhood, but in areas afflicted by human suffering or overcrowding, the Grief Miasma will begin to condense into Wraiths. In areas both overcrowded and suffering, as Tokyo often is, these Wraiths can become legion.

Once their cubes are utilized, the Grief of Wraiths is also harvested by the Incubators, but it is a far less efficient process than it once was. In particular, the impossibly anti-entropic emotional energy created and released by a phase change of Puella Magi to Witch was many orders of magnitude greater than any part of the life cycle of a Wraith. Fortunately, the Incubators have no idea what they're missing out on...

Hunting Wraiths

Due to the broad effects Wraiths have on the local population, particularly responsible or ambitious magical girls may choose to hunt Wraiths on TV, on the internet, or in the newspaper instead. Once they understand Wraiths well enough, they may begin to have a keen instinct for news articles that are unwittingly describing Wraith activity, and will acquire a habit of researching certain types of natural disaster or human tragedy that tend to create Miasma. The human spirit is resilient, and for that matter, there are other sorts of monsters than Wraiths, so this method is always hit-or-miss. But performed well, this strategy can save many lives, as a magical girl discovers a nest of Wraith activity before it causes too much damage.

But most Wraith nests are smaller, and their mild emotional effects produce no rumors or news stories. So the typical Wraith hunt begins the same way the typical Witch hunt began: with a Puella Magi wandering the city, Soul Gem out, dowsing for the telltale energy of Grief. In this case, she is searching for areas of thick Miasma. When she finds such a place, she searches it for Wraiths. This can be a little easier at night, because each type of Wraith has telltale Marks: certain symbols that appear, colors it prefers, or effects it has on the environment, many of which are more often (or exclusively) present after dark. But daytime searches have merit as well, because Miasma originates in human pain, and it is the people who live nearby who may know the most about where that Miasma might be thickest. It is necessary to find a Wraith, since the Miasma itself cannot be destroyed directly, but in a sense, having difficulty finding one is a happy problem: if they are all over the place, the Miasma must be dense indeed.

Wraiths are insubstantial until provoked, and are often found standing like statues staring at some object, or a person who has been still for a long time. They do not move around often in this state, and when they do, it is eerily slow, so they cannot generally follow humans around. Where Wraiths are and what they are doing can sometimes offer clues as to why an area is afflicted with them. This can range from the simple and obvious, like finding a Wraith looking at every bed in a certain hospital ward, to the obscure and symbolic, like finding a Wraith on a doorstep (waiting for someone to come back who never will).

Wraiths become substantial if attacked by a magical girl of any type, and they are oddly obliging about this--it is impossible to have an attack pass through them while they are ‘waking up,’ as if they hasten to get hit. With proper preparation, the first Wraith you strike might be destroyed in a single blow, but it will alert all others of its particular swarm, which will converge. From this point on, they will attack relentlessly. Though each individual is a weak foe compared to a magical girl, it is rare in a large city to find Miasma that generates fewer than six Wraiths, and much larger groups are not uncommon.

Once Wraiths are provoked, more will begin to seep out of the Miasma, always in groups of two or more. This takes some time and consumes the Miasma gradually. The span of time between these waves can permit magical girls to rest and regroup, and in ideal situations can make Wraith hunting almost leisurely, like fishing. But with larger groups, where the magical girls may fall behind and begin to face an ever-increasing backlog of old waves bolstering the newcomers, the situation can quickly become untenable.

Wraith types vary greatly, but generally their sluggish reflexes are what makes them manageable. Even those that can move quickly do not react quickly. Wraiths may be quite deadly or resilient other than this weakness, and a magical girl should not underestimate the risk they pose. There is no such thing as a Wraith “Familiar” or a super-powerful “boss” Wraith; Wraiths of a given type are all identical. There are, however, unconfirmed rumors that sufficiently dense Miasma can cause multiple Wraiths to emerge physically attached to one another.

Once enough Wraiths have been spawned and slain, the Miasma will grow too thin to produce any more, and its negative influence will cease.

Every Wraith becomes a single Grief Cube upon death. These are pellet-sized, metallic-textured cubes that can store Grief drawn out of a Soul Gem, just like a Grief Seed, but their capacity is much smaller, requiring a few dozen Cubes to equal the capacity of the now-extinct Grief Seeds. A typical solo hunt will not even net ten Cubes. But with the relative ease of Wraith hunting, this lifestyle is easier than hunting Witches. In fact, Kyuubey frequently accepts entirely unused Cubes, for they cannot be stored forever, reverting back into Miasma after a few weeks. Thankfully given their size, the “stale” Cubes are visually obvious due to a soft black glow, and only particularly organized Puella Magi bother to store them by date.

Miasma

Wraiths never physically harm humans unless harmed first, and since a normal human cannot see or attack them, they only injure or kill magic-users. The Miasma they dwell within can cause a great deal of emotional harm, however, afflicting large numbers of people with the same sort of negative feelings that the Wraiths display. The misery, ruined lives, and death caused by this spiritual damage greatly outweigh any direct physical harm Wraiths inflict in combat.

Many Puella Magi speak of Miasma as though Wraiths emit it, but it is actually Miasma that emits Wraiths. The difference is largely academic; slay the Wraiths and the Miasma stops. But it is Miasma that is the true foe, and the source of damage. Even if a Wraith is staring at, following around, or hanging onto a victim, Magic Association experiments have been unable to consistently demonstrate a benefit to removing the Wraith if the victim remains in the Miasma. Some argue that Wraiths are just a warning sign of Miasma sickness, rather than a vector for its delivery.

Contact is still not advised.

One sense in which Wraiths do define Miasma is in determining what sort of threat it poses the community, for there is no mystical test yet devised that can determine what sort of Miasma is present in an area. Examining what sort of emotional symptoms are present in the populace and in the hunter herself is the first and best tool, but final confirmation comes upon finding a Wraith. An expert will then know which of the five Wraith types is present; a newer hunter can gain clues from the Wraith’s appearance and behavior.

A given area of Miasma will only manifest one type of Wraith, and that Wraith type symbolizes the Attachment that the Miasma afflicts its victims with. An Attachment is an emotion which has grown too strong and inflexible, and now harms the individual experiencing it. The form this takes is dependent on the individual, rather than the Miasma, which is a big change for those used to hunting Witches.

Witches were selfish constructs, for whatever value of ‘self’ remained to them. They played upon your existing insecurity and pain, but with an end goal of drawing you into their own depraved mindscape, to play out their own endless tragedy. But a Wraith has no identity at all, and no story of their own to inflict upon its victims. They can only afflict you with unnaturally elevated versions of existing suffering. Thus, those who confront a Wraith of a type they are currently not vulnerable to (for instance, a girl who has recently found serenity through forgiveness, confronting an Animus Wraith) will be affected only a little, or even not at all. Unfortunately, those who were already enduring similar suffering even before encountering a Wraith will find themselves highly vulnerable to the Miasma, the pains of their heart growing stronger and harder to ignore.

A very mild presence of Wraiths does not cause real harm, but simply a little extra nostalgia, laziness, or so forth. Strong Wraith presence, however, can create a sort of emotional plague similar to those Witches once caused, where most of the people in an area are suffering badly, and the cultural fabric degrades. Unlike many supernatural effects, magical girls are not intrinsically immune to this effect. However, the effects of a Wraith’s nature are gradual, affecting residents of an area over days and weeks. Hunting medium-sized swarms does not present much psychological risk to a Puella Magi, even if it is done every night. Major swarms, however, can pose a more immediate threat.

Antipathy - The emotions that Wraiths inflict upon an area can be devastating, but a certain number of people in the area will be functionally immune. If at this point in your life you have an unusual level of emotional strength in the area a Wraith is influencing, the Wraith will be unable to upset you. Unfortunately, it will still be able to punch you.

Affinity - If at this point in your life you are unusually vulnerable to the specific emotion they are evoking, the psychological battle can be harder than the physical. For this reason, veteran Puella Magi often have a type or two of Wraith they avoid hunting, though few would refuse to aid their friends against the same.

Benefits

By and large, Wraiths are by far the preferable foe when compared against Witches.

• Less Dangerous - Just as it is easier to eat a cake slice by slice than by shoveling the whole thing in at once, gatherings of Wraiths are on average easier to deal with than the singular fortress of Grief a Labyrinth represented.
• Easier Stockpiling - Grief Cubes are highly inferior to Grief Seeds, even normalizing for how numerous Cubes are. This reduces a Puella Magi’s budget for magic expenditure. But this is amply compensated by reduced need for magic, which means Soul Gems tend to stay cleaner, and most Puella Magi are able to maintain at least a modest reserve for emergencies.
• No Labyrinth - Since they lack Labyrinths in which to hide, active Wraiths can be sensed equally well by any type of magical girl, not just Puella Magi.
• Do Not Harvest Grief - Familiars presented a moral dilemma: kill them for no reward and starve yourself and your friends of magic, or let them roam and gather Grief at the cost of innocents. But Wraiths lack any Familiar equivalent; every Wraith will turn into a Grief Cube when destroyed, and Wraiths do not gather or intentionally foster more Grief. All Puella Magi can agree that the only good Wraith is a dead Wraith. And, as Soul Gems darken not only due to magic use but when a Puella Magi is suffering emotionally, the end of this miserable moral dilemma is functionally another line item removed from their magical budget.
• Peace - Widespread peace among magical girls in Tokyo has spread for many reasons in this new world, but one contributing factor is the end of Witches. With the wrenching, both-answers-are-wrong dilemma of the old Puella Magi way of life gone, there is no longer any need to fight over it as the Chevaliers and Shepherds had.
• Redemption - Most importantly of all, a world with Wraiths instead of Witches is a world where Puella Magi have hope. Whether their future is dark or beautifully bright is now up to them.

Dangers

There are still a few aspects in which the age of Wraiths is worse than that of Witches.

• Relentless Numbers - The most dangerous aspect of Wraith combat is their sheer numbers. Fighting Wraiths is easier than invading a Labyrinth, but most Witch fights would resolve quickly, one way or the grim other. Minor Wraith infestations can be short work like that, but major ones take hours. This is a cruel form of battle to inflict upon a Puella Magi, who will lose her life rather than her henshin if she is not disciplined with her mana use over a marathon battle. Puella Magi still die in battle far more often than most magical girls, often without even using all their Grief Cubes--their bodies worn down by attrition faster than their Soul Gems can heal the exhaustion and injury.
• Stochastic Infection - Witches were subtler foes in some ways: though they too corrupted the general mood of an area, their Familiars would focus the effect by granting a Witch's Kiss to specific victims, who would then be led Pied-Piper style to their demise. This meant, however, that even a weak, budding Labyrinth would produce a few obviously afflicted victims from the get-go, who could be investigated or tailed. By the time Miasma is causing flash mobs of cult-like behavior like that, almost everyone in the area is probably already infected with its emotional poison.
• Lower Stockpiling Ceiling - Wraiths do not concentrate Grief nearly so well as Witches, so the total purification available for a Puella Magi’s Soul Gem has been reduced. Though the average Puella Magi comes out ahead due to lower mana expenditure, it is no longer feasible to create the sort of surplus that Witch “cultivation” allowed.
• Ubiquity - Witches strip-mined Grief very effectively, and if a large Witch was destroyed, the mood of the neighborhood was restored near-instantly, the same way a youma’s death might restore a broken windshield. But Miasma stops being dense enough to produce Wraiths well before it is gone, so even a full eradication does not create an emotional clean slate (e.g., a husband and wife are no longer unnaturally jealous, but they still had a big fight last night). Pragmatically this is a subtle difference; things return to normal soon enough. Psychologically, though, the difference between a battle that fixes everything instantly and a battle that leaves the neighborhood still healing can be significant.

The 5 Wraiths

There are five, and only five, classifications of Wraith. This seems to correspond to how many categories of Attachment a human can experience. The way a community reacts to a Wraith infestation can be difficult to predict, but thankfully, the worldly manifestation of a Wraith is highly consistent.

Wraiths cannot change. Each "individual" Wraith, if the term even applies, manifests with an identical form and affect as the next. Their demeanor does not change in response to external stimuli, neither to anger when attacked, nor relief should someone make an effort to comfort them. They may seem to present an emotion by their expression, the (always wordless) sounds they make, or movements, but that emotion will be consistent, unaffected by outside events. Their activated state can feel like the angry reaction of a kicked hive, but it is more properly thought of as an unleashing; a Wraith is either always expressing anger or never, depending on its type.

So while much can be said about the traits of each Wraith manifestation, perhaps only two words can confidently be applied to their true nature: single, and invariant. After all, when a being's manifestation is so stable, it is either synonymous with or irrelevant to its nature, and it is difficult to say which. If a Wraith expresses nothing but rage, is it an embodiment of rage itself? Or is it akin to an angry face carved into a rock, a permanent message with no relationship to the nature of stone, and no ability to be understood by it?

Here may be found a guide to finding, identifying, and defeating the Five Wraiths. The existence of such a primer is a luxury of this new era, for each of the numberless Witches of the prior reality was its own mystery box to be solved. Though Wraiths are complex and the ways communities react to them are hard to predict, their rules are consistent, and an expert Puella Magi will eventually know them well.

But every athlete knows the rules of their sport as well, don’t they? Be careful, because the loser of this game rarely gets to walk home.

The First Wraith: [REDACTED]

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The Second Wraith: Animus

ATTACHMENT

Anger, hatred, sense of being wron[REDACTED]

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The Third Wraith: Torpor

Torpor Wraiths are particularly hard to detect in their early stages, and often must be confronted after they are already entrenched. Only tends to entail physical lethargy at the end stages; avoidance is more common early on, such as absenteeism from change-related events like graduations or weddings. A population that is communally refusing to accept a change of some kind can be a telltale sign. Severe Torpor can result in the appearance of disturbing mass delusion, as a community play-acts as though a major change did not occur at all. Victims are not genuinely unaware of the change, however, and grow increasingly miserable if they are unable to return the situation to stasis.

ATTACHMENT

Stasis, comfort, fear of change.

MARKS

• Ghost lights. They will begin to follow and cling to people who are being affected, but can be brushed away by those who retain the will.

• Flies, behaving similarly to the ghost lights

• The color yellow

• Chains or wheels

• Unusually, actual mist may accompany the miasma, as proximity to water is common for some reason. Victims may speak of a sense that a curse seeped up from a low, wet place

COUNTERS

• Eagerness for the future, or revulsion at the status quo, can provide Antipathy to resist Torpor

• The Marks and Manifestations of Torpor can be held at bay at first by those who verbally identify them, even with a simple phrase like “I know what you are”

• The color red has a weak protective effect

CURSE

• Early stages involve reasonable perseverating over decisions, developing into a characteristic “I can’t” phrasing regarding even simple tasks

• Inability to physically let go of an inanimate object. The object is not necessarily of obvious personal significance

• Poor posture or slow movements in later stages, caused by an unseen, insubstantial Wraith. They prefer to grab on from the front with their forelimbs around the neck, creating a characteristic 'millstone around the neck' posture

• Avoidance may become disappearance, as victims seek to flee the change they fear

MANIFESTATION

A bulbous, fleshy torso, with sagging skin and patchy hair or fur. Six nominally spider-like legs, with curved spikes of bone at the tips, sheathed in flesh as one goes up the segments. Its vaguely bovine face is broad, horned, with dull predator’s teeth and a slovenly shape. Black in color, with flesh that seems too weary to do anything but sag, even its face slumping.

Torpor Wraiths tend to lurch around with a sense of weariness and resentment, their legs eternally exhausted from bearing their bulk. In combat, they attempt to physically grasp victims with their legs, rendering them vulnerable to attacks from their fellows.

The Fourth Wraith: [REDACTED]

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The Fifth Wraith: [REDACTED]

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