Itmi Vruh

Travel through space and The Drift is not without hazards. Even making the transition from normal space to the Drift presents a rare danger. When a Drift engine malfunctions, whether due to damage from combat, energy fluctuations, or influence from stellar phenomena, the starship can perform an incomplete jump: the starship and most of its crew arrive physically intact, but at some point in the transplanar leap, a creature’s soul is left behind. Such a lost soul is known as an itmi vruh. The trauma of being ripped from their body and left adrift in space compels this spirit to crave only one thing: a return to their corporeal form. Meanwhile, crew members who make the jump unscathed often find the corpse of their companion showing no signs of injury or illness. Thanks to the nature of the Drift and the utter trauma of the severance, jumping back to the point of departure is no help, and only those most familiar with the dangers of Drift travel ever guess at what might have happened.
Doomed to wander, an itmi vruh sometimes encounters living creatures that remind the spirit of who they were during their life. In such circumstances, the undead finds themself compelled to take over the familiar creature in a futile effort to reclaim their old life. An itmi vruh’s possession slowly erodes the original soul’s control over of their body, eventually forcing them out completely. Many across the galaxy have heard stories describing how an itmi vruh’s possession became a permanent arrangement.
Usually, though, an itmi vruh possessing another creature concludes that the body the undead now inhabits is not their own. The more similar that body and its associated life is to their own, the longer it takes the intruding spirit to realize this. Most possessions last somewhere between a few hours and a few days. While living in the new body, the itmi vruh behaves like they used to, going through the motions of eating, sleeping, and basic communication. In this fugue state, they often resemble a normal creature experiencing amnesia. Crew or family members trying to treat a loved one for amnesia can inadvertently speed up the itmi vruh’s realization that they are not inhabiting their own body. One telltale sign of an itmi vruh possession is that they can become frantic when a ship is about to travel into the Drift; this is a manifestation of the trauma they suffered when they lost their original body. Whenever an itmi vruh’s possession is ended, the creature flies into a furious rage, lashing out at the living.
An itmi vruh that has possessed numerous bodies can slowly grow stronger as they absorb some of the residual energy, memories, and sometimes even abilities of those they have possessed, eventually becoming a powerful itmi vruh reminiscent. These rarer undead often have a number of additional magical abilities garnered from their victims over time.