Banishers Techniques

As Banishers we are no spiritual guides or inquisitors. We are ghost-hunters for hire, specialized and sensitive crafters who train hard to protect the livings through our rituals and knowledge about ghosts and specters. We are no cult: There is no hierarchy nor established dogma among us. The most obvious reason why a Banisher becomes a Banisher is because he or she wants to protect the living from the dead, whatever the reason. We are efficient, adaptive, and versatile.

Our community is sparse and nomadic, just like our predecessors were. We wander the world in search of living victims of the dead, cleansing haunting cases using techniques tried and trusted and honed by generations of masters and pupils: Releasing or Banishing the ghost — rarely Blaming the living.

Unlike puny sorcerers, we do not waste our time crafting enchanted rifles, with the butt, barrel and stock engraved with runes and other symbols of power, for hunting specters or otherwise. Who would wish to depend on a single weapon? Instead, we bring our bane-powder, prepared according to recipes handed down from generation to generation, rendering any firearm capable of shooting and damaging a supernatural target, no matter what the ammunition is. Efficient. Adaptive. Versatile.

Our knowledge of alchemy and botany helps us selecting minerals and plants whose properties will support our work. We do not waste time in libraries or schoolrooms. We do not waste our time drawing, carving, or engraving complex circles of power, because what we gain in power or nuance, we lose twice as much or more in time, risking putting ourselves, and those around us, in unnecessary danger. Instead, a clever Banisher carries stamps, in wood or metal, with which to mark a door, wall, or stone with the necessary symbol for the appropriate ritual. We also wear rings upon our fingers with these symbols, so we always have a range of powerful runes close at hand, as it were. Efficient. Adaptive. Versatile.

Thus, we prevail. Thus, we fight. Thus, we send back the creeping dead where they are supposed to be.

From Death to the dead, by Balthasar H. Frenhofer

Well this was pretty insightful, be Balthasar seems a bit haughty with the constant “efficient, adaptive, versatile” crap he kept spouting at the end of every paragraph. Like, okay dude, we get it. You’re better than every other person who does everything different from Banishers, good lord.

But it’s interesting to know what they don’t do and what others rely on, you know?