The Death of Hotep
Aspect: Spirit
Divinity: 8
Known Primals: Wraiths, Wights, Angers, Spites, and other spectral unliving
Known Guardian: The Devourer of Hope
Defining Ability: Endless Agony
Common Materials: Misery, Dead Adventurers
The Death of Hotep is the most frightening Catalyst I've been to. It is the congealed spiritual residue around the wound where the Blade of Virkonna pierced Hotep's heart. The wound is the Catalyst, and the spiritual energy is fueled by every death in the system.
Here's how it works. Let's say you die in the blizzard on Hotep, in search of magic. Your spirit can either pass into the Great Cycle, and you can be reborn as someone or something else, or you can walk over to the Death of Hotep, grab some loser's body, and go right back to hunting for magic.
Some ghosts move on. Those who choose to stay are almost all absorbed by the wound itself. The Death of Hotep is really the sum of all the deaths that have ever occured there, and that's a lot of deaths. This is actually the strongest of the three Catalysts in the Sanctuary cluster, though not by much.
Spirits who survive passing over become a spectral undead. The weakest are wights or shadows. Next come Angers and Spites. If you're unlucky you'll run into wraiths, who are stronger, harder to hurt, and better at possession.
If your luck is extremely bad you may meet the guardian, a lich with the fun name The Devourer of Hope. He is the strongest of the spirits, and is all but impervious to magic. His physical body can be destroyed with enough damage, but that will merely eject the spirit in search of a new host. Avoid if you can. Run if you can't.
Known Primals
Wights, Angers, and Spites can be found in the bestiary. They're common enough that I won't spend a lot of time talking about them here. You've probably run into them before.
Shadows are polite wights. They wait until you are asleep, or unaware, and slither through the shadows until they touch you. Then they stop being polite.
Wraiths have much better defenses than the other types of unliving. Hit them with life, dream, or void if you can. Smart wraiths will possess a party member, then have them attack you. If you hit the possessed person with a dream bolt it will usually eject the wraith.
Known Guardian
The Devourer of Hope is little more than a name to me, as I was fortunate enough not to encounter him/she/they/it when I hit the Catalyst. Like I said above I've heard he's basically immune to magic, but has a physical body that can be destroyed.
Be careful.
Defining Ability
Endless Agony
Effect: Inflict unbearable pain on the target
Uses: Once per day
Description: The caster wishes harm on a target, and the target is flooded with indescribable pain. They make a willpower check DT 5, and they are unable to do anything but fall prone and thrash around for one round per point that they fail by. Note that short of gods almost no one can fully resist this, which makes it devastating on all targets. You haven't seen funny until you've seen a Wyrm thrash around helplessly while your party riddles it with bolt spells.
Common Materials
Ectoplasm
Effect: As primal water for spirits, fuel for spirit rituals
Cost: 1,000 credits per liter
Description: Ectoplasm is a ghostly liquid with an internal glow. It is the residue left from souls being absorbed into a Catalyst, and the more souls die, the larger the deposit.
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