Spectre

In folklore, a spectre is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear to the living. In reality, they are much more heinous. Spectres resemble a person wrapped in their death shroud from the olden days, though in the current zeitgeist these are erroneously labeled “bed sheets”. The death shrouds, occasionally called mound shrouds, grave clothes, winding-cloths or winding-sheets, or burial shrouds were traditionally made of white cotton, wool, or linen, though any material can be used so long as it is made of natural fiber. Spectres are more powerful than ghosts in that a ghost can only drain the energy and lifeforce of a human. However, spectres are also weaker than wraiths or the rarer phantoms that can fully possess a human body. Generally lurking in dark or abandoned places, the spectre will attach itself to the mortal, linking themselves via an unseen chain. No matter how far the human flees across the world, the spectre will always find them.

Once they have the person isolated and fearful, the spectre will whisper into their minds and dreams, urging them to do unspeakable things. In the end, after the spectre feels that it has sowed enough chaos with its current victim, the entire possession ends in a murder suicide with the linked individual being devoured by the spectre at the moment of their death. Spectres, like other undead, can also be summoned and controlled by a necromancer as was the case in the novel Desideratum: Blood Bonds. When Absinthe Van Gothen makes her way through the Shanghai Tunnels of Portland, Oregon, she fights spectres that were raised by the Nightbred necromancers of Lord Ivor.