Popular Ghost

"As if in common understanding, the common folk barred their doors and windows. The city stood silent as the senators awaited the judgment they had called upon themselves."

— A recounting of the invocation of 393.

The Palatine conception of divinity has always been tightly bound up with the soul of the Palatine people. Protectors of the Palatine nation, it is thought that the gods are themselves Palatines, and to call on their power is to call on the primordial will of the whole of the nation.

The Popular Ghost is the final expression of this belief. In times of great despair, the senators and the augurs may invite the will of the nation itself to impose upon the land, with unpredictable consequences. Once invoked, the Popular Ghost cannot be stopped until it runs its course, and has rarely produced the result intended by those who summoned it.

The last invocation of the Popular Ghost was in 393, and it resulted in the deaths of approximately half of the senators of Atrans and the destruction of the imperial house at the time. However, it also routed a detachment of the Exodite army which had been coming to besiege Atrans.

Manifestation

The Popular Ghost manifests as various potentially natural or social events that taken together serve to effect the will of the Palatine nation. In the previous invocation of the Popular Ghost, the Exodite army saw the road to Atrans ahead of it fouled by flood and mud, and had their camp overtaken by plague. Simultaneously, the estates of the imperial family were raided by brigands, and a dozen senators hurled themselves from the walls of Atrans. An army did besiege Atrans, but the army was their own, and the emperor was already dead.

In the end, the empire was no more, but the core of Palatina was retained, and the Exodites had been sent home. The senatorial class had been decimated, and the common people were left to pick up the pieces in the wake of flood and plague. As always, the ghost cared little for the designs of those who had called it. The animus of the nation was aimed at enemies within and without, but in the end it was Palatina that endured.

Type

Metaphysical, Divine