History TabletopGame / WraithTheOblivion

* EpiphanicPrison: Transcendence can be achieved by fusing the Shadow and the Eidolon, [[CrowningMomentOfHeartWarming essentially accepting that though your life had both its good sides and bad sides,]] [[{{Tearjerker}} it was worth living, and no matter how much it hurt first, the time has come to move on.]] [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome You may have not been able to achieve every last thing you wanted, but no person ever can. But you did enough - you felt enough, loved enough, and made enough, and what matters is that to you, it's really enough. So you sprout great wings of light, and soar towards Heaven.]]

''Wraith'' was considered a tough concept to handle, even for the World of Darkness. The characters were constantly at war with themselves (and sometimes each other) while trying to find their place in both life and death. The concept required advanced troupe-style roleplay, with each player playing their own character, someone else's Shadow, and occasionally other characters. The first edition focused more on the personal struggles than the actual setting; it took the second edition to truly flesh out the Shadowlands. ''Wraith'' was the first and only gameline in the Old World of Darkness to be cancelled before TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.[[note]]There were a couple pages dedicated to it in the MET's ''Laws of Judgement'', but nothing like the other books.[[/note]]

A 20th anniversary edition was announced at [=GenCon=] 2013. [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-wraith-the-oblivion-20th-anniversary-editio A Kickstarter for the game went live on December 2, 2014, and was fully funded within hours.]] A "beta" was released to backers on February 12, 2018, and the final product is due to be released sometime at the beginning of 2019.

* AndIMustScream: Soulforging. That soulsteel sword you're holding, the kind of thing that makes mincemeat out of Spectres? Guess how fondly you'll look on it when you realize it's ''weeping''. The building blocks of Wraith technology are forged from Wraiths themselves. Technically speaking, the consciousness ''should'' be extinguished, but Nhudri (the first Artificier) had to make examples of some of his underlings for "haphazard work," and there ''are'' high-level Arcanoi that allow you to draw knowledge from forged souls.

** 20th Edition, at least, points out that most soulforging involves Drones, ghosts who do not have the sentience of wraiths, or Plasmics, creatures of the Shadowlands that often don't have sapience. Sadly, they can't be used for the really effective artifacts, and the Hirearchy is more than corrupt enough to look for excuses to soulforge enemies.

* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: Imagine that nearly all the historical figures from the other gamelines that weren't secretly a supernatural end up in the Shadowlands eventually. On the actual "historical influence" level, it's revealed that Guy de Maupassant's nervous breakdown and death was the result of his pissed-off brother's wraith, who screwed with his dreams using Phantasm, and the reason all the other game lines thought they could count Rasputin among their ranks is because Rasputin's ghost used Puppetry to screw with them.

** [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]] -- And yet, as many fans loved to point out, it was weirdly the most hopeful of the settings. Managing to resolve your fetters and passions, thus ascending out of the Shadowlands was a very attainable goal, putting it way ahead of the all but impossible existential goals from [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade Vampire]] and [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse Werewolf]], the at-the-very-least highly unlikely goals of [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension Mage]], or the no-kidding-you're-screwed-no-way-out nihilism of [[TabletopGame/ChangelingTheDreaming Changeling]].

* EvilIsEasy: One book eventually revealed that Spectres have an EnemyWithin, the Psyche, that was able to cause a HeelFaceTurn. Of course, the odds of that happening were ''much'' lower than a Shadow causing a Wraith to undergo a FaceHeelTurn. 20th Edition subverts the trope, with the fact that Spectres, unlike wraiths, have an expiration date; it's not that the Psyche [[GoodIsNotDumb is inherently any less cunning or beguiling as the Shadow]], it's that it has less time to break Spectres free before Oblivion consumes them.

* HopelessWar: Stygia's war against the [[FarEast Dark Kingdom of Jade]], which pits the ghosts of the Western world against the even bleaker tyranny of the first and greatest of the Chinese emperors, who now rules all the dead of Asia in death as he ruled the living in life.

** There were also three Forbidden Guilds, banned for the abuse of their talents:

* MarkOfTheSupernatural: Practice of most Arcanoi leaves an identifying mark on a wraith, from the black eyes of Argos to the odd mannerisms of Pandemonium.

** ''Wraith: [-THE GREAT WAR!-]'' (one of the very few games of any medium based on UsefulNotes/WorldWarI) and ''Dark Kingdom of Jade'' (Wraiths [-OF THE EAST!-]) There were actually several Dark Kingdoms based on different cultures, but Jade is the only one that got its own book; the rest of the non-North American/European kingdoms were detailed in the ''Wraith Player's Guide''.

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The game's occupation of an extremely interesting point along it is often brought up as one of its main points of appeal. On the one hand, on the surface, it appears to be by far the most depressing of the World of Darkness games: it ''opens'' with the characters being not only dead, but spiritually unfulfilled and on the verge of succumbing to the cosmic force of nihilism. The book is gray and filled with extremely depressing imagery, and the setting is established on suffering and despair. At the same time, it's the ''only'' World of Darkness game in which "victory" is not just a theoretical, distant possibility (like Golconda or Ascension), but a realistic ([[EarnYourHappyEnding albeit extremely hard to achieve]]) goal. Being a wraith in the Underworld might be an incredibly horrible existence, but if you're brave, wise and compassionate enough, you ''can'' [[EpiphanicPrison attain Transcendence and Move On into the true afterlife, leaving all suffering behind you.]]

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: In some editions, it was recommended that the ''players'', not the Storyteller, provide the voices of another character's Shadow. It's not like they have any more motivation than the GM to screw you over with this - on the contrary, a shadow that is too active can actually doom the entire group, including the shadow's player's character. The book in question actually gave percentages involved for just how cruel things could be - generally, about a limit of 25% of the game involving "Shadow play," as it was called, was considered reasonable. Beyond that runs into the tabletop version of this trope. There's one more version of the game, with the Shadows having their own players - every character is then played by two people, one of which has completely no reason not to be active.

** 20th Edition, at least, points out that most soulforging involves Drones, ghosts who do not have the sentience of wraiths. Sadly, they can't be used for the really effective artifacts, and the Hirearchy is more than corrupt enough to look for excuses to soulforge enemies.

* EvilIsEasy: One book eventually revealed that Spectres have an EnemyWithin, the Psyche, that was able to cause a HeelFaceTurn. Of course, the odds of that happening were ''much'' lower than a Shadow causing a Wraith to undergo a FaceHeelTurn.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Wraith was one of the TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness' less popular titles, and this criticism was frequently leveled at it. It even extends in universe. Many a wraith can easily fall to Oblivion through simple despair.

* CreepyChild: The Striplings, Spectres of those who died before they went past 10 years old. Form a society unto themselves, with their own Malfean. Even other Spectres (including the Malfeans) find them creepy.

* {{Crossover}}: The supplement ''Ghost Towns'' is a crossover with ''[[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse Werewolf: The]] WildWest''.

* DeaderThanDead: Soulforging is often considered a form of this.

* DealWithTheDevil: The Shadow is capable of offering temporary rewards to its host if they give it a little bit of power.

* PowerOfTheVoid: You ''saw'' the title, right? Same thing applies to all Oblivion's soldiers -- the Neverborn, the Onceborn, and the Spectres alike.

* [[RecycledInSpace Recycled IN DEATH!]]: ''Wraith: [-THE GREAT WAR!-]'' (one of the very few games of any medium based on UsefulNotes/WorldWarI) and ''Dark Kingdom of Jade'' (Wraiths [-OF THE EAST!-]) There were actually several Dark Kingdoms based on different cultures, but Jade is the only one that got its own book; the rest of the non-North American/European kingdoms were detailed in the ''Wraith Player's Guide''.

A 20th anniversary edition was announced at [=GenCon=] 2013. [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-wraith-the-oblivion-20th-anniversary-editio A Kickstarter for the game went live on December 2, 2014, and was fully funded within hours.]] A "beta" was released to backers on February 12, 208, and the final product is due to be released sometime at the beginning of 2019.

A 20th anniversary edition was announced at [=GenCon=] 2013. [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-wraith-the-oblivion-20th-anniversary-editio A Kickstarter for the game went live on December 2, 2014, and was fully funded within hours.]]

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: In some editions, it was recommended that the ''players'', not the Storyteller, provide the voices of another character's Shadow. That went over real well, I bet.
** As a matter of fact, it did. It's not like they have any more motivation than the GM to screw you over with this - on the contrary, a shadow that is too active can actually doom the entire group, including the shadow's player's character.
*** The book in question actually gave percentages involved for just how cruel things could be - generally, about a limit of 25% of the game involving "Shadow play," as it was called, was considered reasonable. Beyond that runs into the tabletop version of this trope.
** There's one more version of the game, with the Shadows having their own players - every character is then played by two people, one of which has completely no reason not to be active.

* DeadAllAlong: The premise of the game, though some Storytellers run a brief [[{{Death}} mort]][[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin al campaign]] [[BaitAndSwitch first.]]

* HauntedHouse / [[HauntedCastle Castle]]: There are Arcanoi devoted to hijinks you can use on [[Film/{{Beetlejuice}} people who mess with your former home.]]

* HumansAreBastards and/or {{Tearjerker}}: ''Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah'' deals with Wraiths spawned from the Holocaust. There's no "BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy" here; humans are perfectly capable of atrocities on their own. It is considered by some to be the single darkest sourcebook White Wolf has ever released. While many titles in the Black Dog line were simply RatedMForMoney, this one truly is ''not'' for the faint of heart.

* [[RecycledInSpace Recycled IN DEATH!]]: ''Wraith: [-THE GREAT WAR!-]'' (one of the very few games of any medium based on WorldWarOne) and ''Dark Kingdom of Jade'' (Wraiths [-OF THE EAST!-]) There were actually several Dark Kingdoms based on different cultures, but Jade is the only one that got its own book; the rest of the non-North American/European kingdoms were detailed in the ''Wraith Player's Guide''.

** The {{Splatbook}} ''Pardoners and Puppeteers'' has a spirit modelled on Creator/JimHenson. He is, of course, a Puppeteer.

* ShoutOut: Compare [[http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm224/Zenoseiya/wraith2epg207.jpg this artwork from page 207]] of the Wraith 2nd edition rulebook to [[http://www.gnosis.art.pl/iluminatornia/sztuka_o_inspiracji/zdzislaw_beksinski/zdzislaw_beksinski_1971.jpg this piece painted by Zdzislaw Beksinski]].

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Wraith was one of the OldWorldOfDarkness' less popular titles, and this criticism was frequently leveled at it. It even extends in universe. Many a wraith can easily fall to Oblivion through simple despair.

** [[PlayingWithATrope Played With]] -- And yet, as many fans loved to point out, it was weirdly the most hopeful of the settings. Managing to resolve your fetters and passions, thus ascending out of the Shadowlands was a very attainable goal, putting it way ahead of the all but impossible existential goals from [[TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade Vampire]] and [[TabletopGame/WerewolfTheApocalypse Werewolf]], the at-the-very-least highly unlikely goals of [[TabletopGame/MageTheAscension Mage]], or the no-kidding-you're-screwed-no-way-out nihilism of [[ChangelingTheDreaming Changeling]].

** ''MummyTheResurrection'' has mummies [[OffstageWaitingRoom loitering]] in the [[TheUnderworld Shadowlands]] between deaths [[DerailedTrainOfThought and playing their little mind games, saying things like "You may be dead, but in the morning I'll be better!"]]

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The game occupation of an extremely interesting point along it is often brought up as one of its main points of appeal. On the one hand, on the surface, it appears to be by far the most depressing of the World of Darkness games: it ''opens'' with the characters being not only dead, but spiritually unfulfilled and on the verge of succumbing to the cosmic force of nihilism. The book is gray and filled with extremely depressing imagery, and the setting is established on suffering and despair. At the same time, it's the ''only'' World of Darkness game in which "victory" is not just a theoretical, distant possibility (like Golconda or Ascension), but a realistic ([[EarnYourHappyEnding albeit extremely hard to achieve]]) goal. Being a wraith in the Underworld might be an incredibly horrible existence, but if you're brave, wise and compassionate enough, you ''can'' [[EpiphanicPrison attain Transcendence and Move On into the true afterlife, leaving all suffering behind you.]]

* WorldWreckingWave: ''Six'' of them. Five of the Great Maelstroms were caused by historical events that thrust large numbers of the dead into the Underworld: the fall of Rome, the Black Plague, the Conquest of the Americas, World War I and the Spanish Flu, and World War II, the atom bombs, and the Holocaust. The relic of one of said atom bombs caused the Sixth and final Great Maelstrom when it was accidenally set off near the mouth of Oblivion.

** In a more literal example, certain items that are destroyed will make their way into the Shadowlands, from guns to [[{{Hindenburg}} rigid airships.]]

* EpiphanicPrison

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: The game occupation of an extremely interesting point along it is often brought up as one of its main points of appeal. On the one hand, on the surface, it appears to be by far the most depressing of the World of Darkness games: it ''opens'' with the characters being not only dead, but spiritually unfulfilled and on the verge of succumbing to the cosmic force of nihilism. The book is gray and filled with extremely depressing imagery, and the setting is established on suffering and despair. At the same time, it's the ''only'' World of Darkness game in which "victory" is not just a theoretical, distant possibility (like Golconda or Ascension), but a realistic ([[EarnYourHappyEnding albeit extremely hard to achieve]]) goal. Being a wraith in the Underworld might be an incredibly horrible existence, but if you're brave, wise and compassionate enough, you ''can'' [[EphiphanicPrison attain Transcendence and Move On into the true afterlife, leaving all suffering behind you.]]

* AndIMustScream: Soulforging. That soulsteel sword you're holding, the kind of thing that makes mincemeat out of Spectres? Guess how fondly you'll look on it when you realize it's ''weeping''. The building blocks of Wraith technology are forged from Wraiths themselves.

A 20th anniversary edition was announced at [=GenCon=] 2013.