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The following is just something that I cooked up to beef up the power of the higher souls of the Exalted after their horrible demises. Comments are welcome.

CREATING AN EXALT'S GHOST:

Step 1: Determine Essence.

Celestial Exalts: If the Exalt had an Essence of 1 or 2, the newly-created ghost will have an Essence of 1. If the Exalt had an Essence of 3 to 5, the new ghost will start at Essence 2. If the Exalt was Essence 6 or higher, the new ghost will begin with Essence 3, and may raise her Essence as high as 6 with experience.

Terrestrial Exalts: If the Exalt had an Essence of 1 to 3, the newly-created ghost will have an Essence of 1. If the Exalt had an Essence of 4 to 7, the new ghost will start at Essence 2. If the Exalt was Essence 8 or higher (a rare occasion indeed), the new ghost will begin with Essence 3, and may raise her Essence as high as 6 with experience.

Step 2: Attributes and abilities.

The ghost retains all Attributes, with the exception of those above 5; these are set back to 5. The Exalt also retains all Abilities, with the same exception.

Step 3: Charms

This is where the power is. The ghost retains access to ALL Charms and Comboes that she still meets the complete prerequisites for. Any Charms and Comboes that she does not meet the prerequisites for are lost forever; they will not be regained if the ghost should raise its Essence or other Traits. The ghost still has technical understanding of these Charms, and may teach them, but is otherwise not able. Sorcery may not be retained, although a very powerful Exalt might retain Shadowlands Circle Necromancy. The ghost will NEVER be able to learn more Charms of her former Exalt type; this is a residue of her Exaltation, not a continuing power. All Charms will have a +1 mote surcharge per activation.

Step 4: Essence Pools

Exalt-based ghosts retain personal and peripheral Essence; their peripheral Essence functions as an Abyssal anima banner save that it lacks any distinguishing Caste mark, and it cannot reach the totemic stage. Exalt-based ghosts have (Essence x3 + Willpower + Sum of Virtues) personal Essence and (Essence x7 + Willpower x2 + Sum of Virtues) Peripheral Essence. This is generally the only warning that characters will get that they are facing a more dangerous foe than expected.

What This Means

Mainly, it means that elder Exalts leave scary, scary ghosts behind. In fact, an Essence 6 Exalt who's been dead for long enough will actually approach or even (in rare cases) surpass what they were capable of in life. The Deathlords may try to collect these as Deathknights; while the Abyssals will quickly surpass Exalted ghosts, they are weaker than them to start with.

However, Exalted ghosts should be rarer than regular ones; they are much more likely to ascend to their next incarnation. Plotting to acquire an Exalt's ghost as a servant could well be a full-time task for a Deathlord.

Comments

I know this was just for fun, but you do realize that all the actual power of a person goes to the Po after death, right? ~ Seiraryu

Ehn. The power of an Exalt affects the Po, as well as affecting their direct children and their body. It seemed odd to be that the higher soul was the ONLY piece of them that was completely unaffected. - FrivYeti

The higher soul is also the only part that is completely seperated from the Essence shard (and its history) completely. The Po has to protect the tomb of an Exalt, the children of the Exalt have a blood-tie with the shard, but the Hun just goes back to being what it was before the shard came around and took it over. The only connection they have is the memories of what the Exalt did. I've always ruled that ghost of an Exalt can teach any of their old charms to Exalts. But beyond that... eh. *Shrugs.* However, I wouldn't be adverse to a spell (either Solar Circle or maybe Labyrinth Circle) that allows a character to take a bit of power with him upon his death. ~ Seiraryu

If you have the Throwback flaw, maybe it -wasn't- completely uneffected, and the memories and power of the shard are bleeding through. I can't help but think that the disassociation between higher soul and shard is there for a reason, probably protective in nature, as a design decision by Autocthon, and I strongly suspect that any power-bleedthrough would cause weird effects, make people go mad, or generally mess up the exalt in question. In addition... are they really themselves anymore, if the shard messes with their higher soul?
-- Darloth

Isn't the Higher Soul the one that channels Essence, though? I could be wrong, but I have some vague memory of that being why ghosts use Arcanoi and have so much Essence. - FrivYeti