World of THE GHOSTS – the Ghosts of the Empire

There are no Ghosts. Everyone of any sense agrees upon that. The Ghosts are only a story told to thrill children. Or an tale used by fools to excuse their failures. Far easier to blame a defeat upon the Ghosts lurking in the shadows than one’s own idiocy.

And yet…

Those who know of such things whisper about the Ghosts, the Emperor’s spies and assassins. They say that every city and every town has its Ghost circle, a cell of informants who pass on secrets to their superiors and to the Emperor. They talk about the Ghost nightfighters, the elite agents of the Ghosts, masters of stealth and disguise.

A curious story persists about the Ghosts. The Ghosts, the tale goes, believe themselves the defenders of the Empire’s commoners, their champion and shield. The Ghosts only support the Emperor because he is the commoners’ strongest guardian against the avarice of the nobility, the greed of slave traders, and the black sorcery of the magi. If the Emperor ever turned against the commoners, the story claims, the Ghosts would arrange his death.

And for all their skill at remaining secret, an even stranger story circulates about a single Ghost nightfighter.

A woman.

This woman, they say, has defied a pyromancer of fearsome power and even more fearsome madness, has thrown down rebel lords and freed slaves from their fetters. This woman has even saved the Imperial capital itself, snatching a million men, women, and children from the jaws a horror wrought of ancient necromancy.

But it is all just a story, and a foolish one at that. Everyone with any sense knows that the Ghosts are only a myth.

-JM