ghost magi

I'm running a saga with new players to AM. They're characters have been invited to try to revive a winter-ruins covenant, where one lone very powerful bonisagus magi still resides.

The secret of the covenant is that there is a magical regio that can be entered at the top of the tower. Inside reside the ghosts of the founding members of the covenant, all long-dead. The ghosts are bound to the regio. Should they leave, they're spirits would vanish. The ghosts are shadows of themselves, however. While they can perform magic in the regio, they cannot learn, they cannot grow. The bonisagus magi, Vitalis, has been working on a breakthrough whereby he can enter the spirit world of his own free will... but would not lose the ability to learn magic and grow.

I have a few questions: 1) I recall reading something about the ghosts of magi being able to attend Tribunal and vote. Where can I find that? Did I imagine that? Is there any other canon material that deals with Magi ghosts?
2) How would you storyguides play the ghosts? Thinking, rational beings? or more monomaniacal? I'm thinking more along the lines of shadows -- personality traits really exagerrated for comic or dramatic effect.

The idea behind this was to give the players some "advisors" but who would not be competing for resources, etc. Plus there's this threat of the increasingly desperate Viatlis who's getting on in years....

I invite your thoughts and general devils' advocacy....

eric

gaurdians of the forest mentions a spirit of magi thought lost in twilight showing up and voting. This is why votes are rarely retired in the rhine, they are just used by the "survivors' in their place

Becoming a living ghost is in the myseries: revised

If the ghost is living and aware it's played just as any other "person", if it is a spirit that can't rest play it how you like. Most often this version is portrayed replaying the same events day after day

When our troup encountered ghosts for the first time I dipicted them like someone suffering from anterograde amnesia: At dusk they had lost all memory of the recent day. This lead to interesting interactions with the magi as they had to introduce themselves each day again and again. To make it worse several of them were severly mental. They suffered from confabulation which is the confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the confusion of true memories with false memories. Thus they mistook the magi for their aprentices and asked minor tasks of them. They simply could not imagine that foreign magi entered their convent. Additionally most of them were not aware of being dead.

This way the players could get vital information (when trying hard) but did not get superior teachers/authors for free.

In Covenants (not the recent 5th edition book, but the old 2nd edition one) there's a description of four covenants, each one in a different season, given as example. The winter one is Val-Negra, extremely decadent and weird. One of the magi there is a necromancer who collects the spirits of deceased magi and has them living in some kind of "spirit covenant", which he controls. His goal is to watch the spirit magi and see how they respond to a threat similar to the one Val-Negra faces (a closed gate which might lead to Hell and that must be resealed periodically with a high-level ritual), so that he can learn from them. They are not aware they are dead, and the story idea involving the covenant is that one of them realizes what's happening and manages to escape.

The concept is certainly interesting, but I thought it looked too much like a virtual reality simulation (or even Philip K. Dick's science fiction novels).

If I played something like this, I'd probably have the spirits show some weird traits, just like I would expect a very old wizard nearing twilight to show.