Wraith
Where most other antagonist roles exist to make you afraid of some maniac with a fire extinguisher coming to get you, the Wraith exists to make you afraid of the station itself. Malevolent poltergeists with a mean streak a mile wide, wraiths have a wide array of spooky powers they can use to terrorize (or annoy) the crew. Given enough time and corpses (and given all the other baddies they appear with on Space Station 13, there will be corpses), they can progress from an inconvenience to a terrifying juggernaut of murder. They have their downsides, though, and a clever chef with some salt can be far more dangerous to a wraith than an army of supercops armed to the teeth.
Wraith Abilities
First and foremost, wraiths are ghosts. They cannot be seen by the living unless manifested, they can hear everything on the station, they can talk to and see normal ghosts, fly through walls, all of it. They can use their powers while incorporeal as well, and are effectively invulnerable in this state. When wraiths use the Haunt ability or float over salt, they manifest in a physical form for about minute, able to be injured and even killed. If killed while manifested, though, a wraith isn't necessarily dead. Wraiths can survive being banished from physical form once - the second time kills them for good.
Wraiths can also move items by click-dragging them from one tile to another, similar to the Telekinetic Pull genetics ability. This does virtually no damage, but it can set up dangerous animated/possessed item rampages and give crew members the heebie jeebies.
Wraith abilities work off the creatively named Wraith Points, or WP, a resource that passively increases over time. The rate of regeneration can be permanently increased by absorbing corpses, or temporarily increased by using Haunt near a crowd or possessing a Revenant. There's no upper limit to banked points or regeneration rate, but banishment resets both.
Icon | Name | WP Cost | Cooldown | Description |
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Haunt | 0 Points | 60 seconds | Temporarily become corporeal to scare people and/or gloat. Every witness present gives you an increased rate of WP regeneration. | |
Whisper | 1 Point | 2 seconds | Send a spooky ghost message to somebody, which they hear as "A netherworld voice whispers in your ear..." This is your only way to communicate with the living. | |
Absorb Corpse | 20 Points | 45+ seconds | Skeletonizes a targeted corpse in a cloud of black smoke with a big red message, and permanently increases your rate of WP regeneration. Must be used on a relatively fresh corpse. Cooldown starts at 45 seconds and scales exponentially with each use, but is reset by banishment. | |
Poltergeist | 20 Points to Mark | 30 seconds once activated | The first use Marks an area, and the second use lets you choose a spooky thing to do to that area:
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Decay | 30 Points | 60 seconds | An ability with two uses. Used on living humans, it damages stamina. Used on inanimate objects, it EMAGs them if possible. | |
Command | 50 Points | 20 seconds | Hurls a few nearby loose objects at the chosen target. | |
Animate Object | 100 Points | 30 seconds | Causes an object to come to life and try to murder anything and everything nearby. | |
Raise Skeleton | 150 Points | 60 seconds | Commands the skeleton inside a corpse to detonate out and free its brothers still trapped in the living. By murdering them. Best used in combination with Absorb Corpse, because only completely decomposed cadavers can be raised as skeletons. | |
Possess Object | 300 Points | 150 seconds | Puts your consciousness inside an object for a limited time, letting you fly it around and use it to murder people, all while taunting them (somehow). | |
Blood Writing | 10 Points | 5 seconds | Draws a single letter or pictogram of your choice on tile, complete with fancy animation. | |
Raise Revenant | 1000 Points | 500 seconds | Allows you to possess a corpse and empower it as a Revenant, so you can murder people with their co-workers. Must be used on a relatively fresh corpse. |
Revenants
A Revenant is a telekinetically controlled corpse-puppet used by wraiths to step their game up from dangerous pranks to full-throttle massacres. Wraiths inhabit fresh corpses to create revenants, which provide them with a physical body to interact with the world freely. This allows for a much, much broader ability to screw with the station, as a wraith can temporarily do anything a normal traitor could, like mixing up horrible concoctions at a chemistry machine or rigging giant bombs.
Revenants enjoy an increased rate of WP regeneration, stun immunity, ignore stamina penalties, lose their normal set of powers, and gain a smaller, much deadlier set while active. However, they constantly lose health and cannot be healed, so your time is limited. Visually, revenants are easily identified by their distinct sinister black aura, and upon "death", they dissipate into black smoke.
Wraith Weaknesses
Wraiths are slippery bastards, but like proper ghosts, have one major weakness: regular ol' table salt. Lines of salt on the ground force an incorporeal wraith that passes over them to manifest, and so can be used to protect chokepoints, force a wraith into a trap, and trip up a wraith that's not paying attention to where they're going. It should be noted, however, that salt lines can be disrupted by bungling idiots running across them, giving the wraith a chance to sneak through. Walking does not scuff up a tile full of salt. Would-be ghostbusters are well advised to lay their salt lines across walls, with redundant layers, and/or in low-traffic areas. Make sure to alert people to the importance of using the walk intent on salt while beating the bejesus out of politely reprimanding those who don't listen.
In addition, Haunt heavily incentivizes manifesting near a bunch of people to get an extra infusion of WP, and a physical wraith is extremely vulnerable. They are slow, have no hands, and have only their basic powers to fight back against someone who wants them dead. Priestly exorcisms aren't necessary when a barrage of laser fire will banish a corporeal wraith very quickly.
That's not to say priestly exorcisms don't help, though! The chaplain enjoys immunity to many of a wraith's tricks, which lets them fight on even footing with an opponent that otherwise fights very dirty. Chaplains still need to rely on ambushing a wraith using Haunt or luring them over salt, but once a wraith is manifested, they can beat the bejesus out of it with their bible to banish it with the speed of lasers. They can even fight toe to toe with revenants, as they can't be Crushed, knocked or Pushed back, knocked down with Shockwave, and can use the bible to deal large amounts of damage. A wraith's best bet against a particularly relentless chaplain is to use ghostly mobility to go spook people somewhere the chaplain isn't, and failing that, take merry advantage of the fact that the chaplain's immunities don't cover them from indirect methods of attack.
Wraiths can only survive a single banishment - going down a second time permanently puts them out of commission. To make matters worse for them, when banished, they lose all of their built-up WP and, far more cripplingly, any WP regeneration bonuses from Absorb Corpse. The consolation prize is that Absorb Corpse's cooldown is reset as well. They may not have a second chance to get as strong as their first manifestation, by sheer virtue of there being fewer usable corpses. Wraiths may want to keep one or two hidden corpses around as insurance just in case they're banished.
As for revenants, for all their horrifying power when given sufficient WP to fuel their mojo, they are still rotting corpses. They're slow and incredibly obvious, and will eventually fall apart into a pile of bones even if left alone. That said, they're still superb at murdering isolated people because of Push, Touch of Evil, and Crush and can handle small crowds with Mass Command and Shockwave. Unless you're a particularly gutsy chaplain, getting into a fistfight with a revenant is an incredibly bad idea - running away and firing lasers or buckshot wildly is a far more effective strategy. Try to get the AI to lock it down in an isolated room if possible, and pray it doesn't have the WP reserves to just blast a hole through the walls and doors anyway. When in doubt, run for your life, because anybody who gets killed by the revenant (except victims of Crush) is leaving a corpse behind that will fuel the wraith if left alone.
Wraith Tips and Strategy
- You are not invincible, no matter how much it may seem like it sometimes. It only takes one twitchy guy with a weapon in his backpack and a salt shaker to ruin you.
- There exists at least one free corpse on the station every round. Eat it first!
- Wraiths don't appear alone, so try to lay low for a little while and look for the other antagonists. Scavenge the corpses they'll inevitably leave in their wake for more WP regeneration, or try to strike deals with them with Whisper. A wraith with someone to feed it a steady stream of corpses can get very, very scary, but be warned that some antagonists might not trust you to not murder them and raise the alarm on you.
- Revenants get faster WP regeneration, but their abilities still cost a shitload of points. Try to raise a decent buffer of points and regeneration before going nuts with a revenant instead of beelining for the first corpse you see the second you hit 1000 points.
- Plan for things going terribly. You may not want to absorb every corpse you find just in case you get banished, but you may not want to leave any corpses undrained either in case the crew gets wise and starts spacing/gibbing/reclaiming corpses immediately.
- You're not that great at outright killing people without becoming a revenant, isolating someone, or being lucky. Be a scavenger; try to make a bad situation worse for someone already pretty fucked up rather than try to kill a healthy person. The crew will amaze you with how many ways they can kill themselves.
- Raise Skeleton's skeleton is extremely fragile, and will die in one hit to just about anything, but is incredibly strong and knocks people down very easily. Use it to gang up on someone who can't fight back.
- Shockwave gives Mass Command tons of scrap metal and broken glass to hurl at people.
Possession Quirks
- Any object that can deal damage can be used to attack a human. ANY object.
- Any object that can interact with other objects by being used on them can be done with a possessed item. Be careful, inserting something into something else will kick you out.
- Any object that can be used by clicking on it can be activated by clicking yourself (if that fails use Page Down or whatever "use item in hand" is). You can be a self-playing saxophone... or a self-detonating grenade/pipe bomb.
- You ignore salt while possessing an item (or a Revenant). In fact, as a possessed item, you can scuff up salt piles on the floor, removing them.
- Mechanics or QM massing lasers to deal with you/another antagonist? Possess one and laugh with sadistic glee when you realize it can still shoot things.
- If you possess food or drinks, you can force-feed yourself to people. Let the chef know what people REALLY think of his cooking.
- You can talk as a possessed item, and if you possess a radio headset or station-bounced radio, you can talk over the radio! Gloat and crackle like a supervillian to those lowly mortals without any fear of the retaliation a regular mortal villian would receive.
- You can manually leave the item by clicking the red X in the corner. Good for a quick possession and then abandoning the item so you don't get caught.
- If you possess an AI law module, you can upload whatever law was written on it simply by clicking on an Upload computer. You can click on yourself to set a law. The applications of this should be immediately obvious.
Dick Moves
- Use Decay on Beepsky, and on his victims if they try to run. Watch the fireworks.
- Haunt can give you a ton of WP when used in a large crowd, but a large crowd is also in prime position to wreck you when you're at your most vulnerable. Try haunting just out of reach of a few people, like behind a table, window, or door, or in space nearby. Not only is it effective, but also it annoys the shit out of people! Just make damn sure the AI won't open the door for them, or that they won't zap you with lasers through the windows.
- Whenever someone has a gun drawn, use Command to knock them down and immediately Possess the gun and shoot them with it.
- Use Command to throw exploding tomatoes. They will chain-reaction and destroy the entire stack and Botanists will fucking hate you (the ones you don't kill with a possessed chainsaw immediately after, that is).
- If someone is making loaves, wait for them to make a high-tier one and Command it at them for an effectively instant kill.
- Poltergeist may seem harmless, but some cunning applications can save your ass or cause mass chaos in a clutch. For instance: try Possessing the fire extinguisher in Toxins Storage, bashing open a plasma tank, then using Poltergeist to pop a few lightbulbs.
- Is the chaplain pissing you off? Command and Mass Command may not work on them when you click them directly, but if they're stunned, standing still, or distracted by animated objects, targeting the floor under them works just as well.
Supplementary Video
Jobs on Space Station 13 | ||
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Command & Security |
Captain · Head of Security · Head of Personnel · Chief Engineer · Research Director · Medical Director | |
Medical & Research |
Medical Doctor · Medical Trainee · Roboticist · Geneticist | |
Engineering | Engineer · Technical Trainee | |
Civilian |
Staff Assistant · Janitor · Chaplain · Mail Courier · Radio Host · Mime | |
Silicon | Artificial Intelligence · Cyborg | |
Jobs of the Day | Dungeoneer · Barber · Waiter · Lawyer · Tourist · Musician · Boxer | |
Antagonist Roles | With own mode | Arcfiend · Blob · Changeling · Gang Member · Flockmind ( Flocktrace) · Nuclear Operative · Spy Thief · Traitor · Revolutionary · Vampire ( Thrall) · Wizard |
Others | Sleeper Agent · Werewolf · Wraith ( Poltergeist) · Wrestler · Hunter · Grinch · Krampus · Gimmick antagonist roles | |
Special Roles | Ghostdrone · Monkey · Critter · Ghost · Cluwne · Santa Claus |