Hauntings

Hauntings are, at a basic level, partially compressed Artifacts.

When an emotionally charged event occurs in our plane, the emotions will sometimes resonate in the KNOT and settle into an Artifact.

But, sometimes the emotions are too active to settle into an Artifact state, or something in the KNOT’s compression goes wrong.

This volatile brew of often negative emotions is called a Haunting.

The Haunting will sometimes replay its origin memory repeatedly, searching for a solution, sometimes it will manifest as a furious incarnation, just attempting to destroy whatever is around it.

One of Lacuna’s missions is stabilizing Hauntings into Artifacts.

Just as powerful emotions in our world resonate in the KNOT, powerful Hauntings in the KNOT resonate back to our world.

Hauntings show up in our world as glitchy, incorporeal visions. What most people think are ghosts, UFO sightings, or other paranormal phenomenon are almost always Hauntings.

In the real world, Hauntings, for the most part, have little to no physical effects or form.

More importantly: in the real world, we are unable to use Artifacts to fight Hauntings. All Haunting taming must be done in the KNOT.

Taming Hauntings is an inexact science, but usually includes either giving the Haunting a sense of closure or forcefully subduing it.

A good metaphor we like to use: consider the KNOT’s compression as an unbalanced washing machine. It can knock itself out of whack, but sometimes all it needs is a swift kick or some delicate rebalancing, and it will continue as planned.

This is one of the more dangerous aspects of working at Lacuna so please observe all safety protocols when dealing with a Haunting.