Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen August 2018 Newsletter, Spellcaster Class Reveals

Visionary Realms wraps up their summer class reveals for Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen with the upcoming MMORPG’s spellcaster classes – the Summoner, the Wizard, and the Enchanter. And then, they bring us the latest newsletter that tells us a few things about the game’s Banhsees, announces a new pre-alpha test coming this fall, and shares a Q&A with the game’s senior programmer Robert Crane. Here’s an excerpt from the wailing spirit overview, and you can take it from there:

OF HOWL AND CHAIN. The banshee enters our world in a window of time that mirrors their own heart: the dead of night. In the past banshee portended coming misfortune or death, often in areas close to their own passing and with a mournful keening or wail. But as they’ve grown in power and attained a loose organizational structure, their role shifted from harbinger to assailant. Today banshee use their abilities to sow ruin by their own hand, rather than serving as a sympathetic horn. They can detect a scent of innocence as if it were a trail of blood, and their chief desire is to bring the blameless into their own torment, or at least give them a kiss of agony on the way through death’s door. Because of this transition toward mayhem and murder they are marked for judgement at the end of their existence on Terminus.

This future condemnation is apparent by the chain that coils around the banshee body, itself a prison of time and spirit. This chain, which shall be discussed in greater depth later, grips banshee in a punitive vice of their own making and limits their freedom of movement to a degree. The chain is also primary tool of their assault, a biting whip that slashes and snares the victim, making the banshee a sort of anti-cleric that seeks only harm and never to heal. The more iniquitous the banshee the greater the chain, in length, weight and skillful application. By the excess of the pain they’ve levied their power grows, until they are mercifully banished from this world forever.

The howl of a banshee is a devastating counterpart to the chain. It is often referred as an extension of the rageful spirit itself, capable of slithering into the ear — and heart — of those nearby. Survivors speak of a “fury of voices” held within the howl, which carry the emotional torment of previous victims and those of the banshee itself. Once the howl buries within an unfortunate mortal it echoes with increased ferocity, eating at the sanity of the unprepared with accusation and anguish. Many are driven mad by its distorting refrain long after the effects ought to have faded away. For the howl itself is not the most insidious attribute of their cadence, it is the void left behind after the cadence departs. Pity those who cannot hold out until that cavity is healed.

THE PATH TO PERDITION. A banshee is more than a simple ghost, for ghosts do not end up as banshee by preference of wardrobe or an affinity for chains. Of course banshee do have similarities to ghosts: they are the spiritual form of a mortal who has died; they are not bound to material needs like food or drink; they seem to exist in perpetuity unless acted upon by an outside force, or the dilemma of their passage to the world beyond is solved. Yet the similarities soon cease, and it is worth considering how the fiends arrived at their current state, whatever unpleasantries lie ahead.

The bonds of a banshee are thought to be forged in two primary ways, with a third based more in speculation. The first is by committing heinous acts of bloodshed against innocents, whereby the mortal’s own soul is grieved unto enslaving the spirit after death. (This is why witches, necromancers, murderers and so forth have an increased “risk” of entering the spiritual enslavement of a banshee upon their death.) The living may even see evidence of this if their life is given over to works of wholistic evil. Their actions may have already begun to transact upon the immortal realm of the soul, anchoring them beyond the veil of our reality even as they walk among us.

The second means by which a departed mortal might see their spectre bound is a enduring tragedy so painful it poisons their soul. Bitterness is said to be the anvil of the banshee chain, turning once joyful creatures into rageful apparitions of vengeance. This delineation may go unnoticed to the untrained observer, fleeing for their life while the red death hunts them down. But banshee of this poisoned sort are said to have a more monotone howl, which is the manifestation of the pain they’ve endured rather than a collection of that which they’ve inflicted.

The third manner of becoming a banshee is not as reliably sourced, as examples are scarce and accounts second hand at best. But the conclusion is that certain ghosts, unable to move beyond our world, take a liking to tormenting mortals and even scaring them to actual death. In this case there appears to be a window of transformation open to ghosts who have lost their empathetic connection to mortals entirely, and soon after come the chain and the veil.

The chain is more than spiritual manifestation or jewelry of spite. It is the forged account of a banshee’s iniquity, a record that bears witness in the natural and supernatural of their vile behavior. Each link speaks with the voice of the victim, calling back condemnation upon the banshee itself. Thus the fury of voices unleashed upon living victims is as well a torment to the banshee who wields it.

Yet the understated but still important article of the banshee appearance is called the “veil of perdition”. This otherwise innocuous looking piece of fabric wraps around most of the face of the banshee, save for the mouth that houses the howl. This veil is connected in some way to a realm beyond our reality, keeping banshee physically blind on Terminus while also holding their “eyes” firmly in view of their future judgement.