Fighting/Killing a Straggler, injury expression and availability

Okay so, how exactly do you go about fighting a Straggler if not all attacks work on them and no one species can automatically whoop one? There are several ways that fall into two main camps. 

-One, a Straggler against a Straggler can just beat each other until they are so far battered and torn apart that lose the strength to hold their form, at which point one of two things can happen. The victorious Straggler can absorb the remaining essence of the one it’s bested, essentially consuming them and making them no more. This can boost strength (until they hit their cap). The other option is to let the fragments drift off and spare their essence. In this case, the fragments will eventually reform and come back to be the same thing that was shredded before. They get to “live,” at least in the form that they are now.

-Two, a mortal against a Straggler has several ways to fight. Your typical ghost weapons, primarily.

 >Iron hurts like a sonofagun! Smack a Specter or intangible Ghoul with some iron and they will be thrown off their game. They’ll disappear and have to reform within a few minutes. It won’t keep them down for long, but enough of that can wear them down to the point that they have to retreat and recuperated for a significant time.  Smacking a Kobold is arguably not as effective but still rather unfortunate. If they are intangible, it will act on them as if they /are/ tangible. This means, regardless of form, it hits them /hard/, harder than the actual force behind the hit. The touch of iron also scalds and burns like holy water on a demon. It’s very unpleasant. 

>Salt, the purer the better. Stragglers don’t like salt. If there is exposed salt, they can’t pass through or over it. It has to be covered or removed before they can pass. If they try, it will just be like running into a solid, very electrified wall. It shorts them out like a tazer. Not pleasant. If salt is thrown, dropped, or shot at them, it will hit them and likely bounce off of them, but it will have an effect similar to pelting someone with firecrackers or embers. The purer the salt, the more effective it is. 

>True holy water (ingredients: angle blood and water) is also effective. It hurts them like it would hurt a demon and quickly wears them down. Think of it like kryptonite to Superman. Even having it near, they feel weaker. (FYI, it’s the same when they’re near angels.) They will often hide themselves away and out of reach if it’s at all evident. The only way to hide it from them is to keep it in an iron container, which they can’t sense through. Being hit with it is like sucking out their battery. They can be brought to their brink, enough so that they can’t even manifest before their attacker for a stretch of time far longer than if they were dissipated by iron. Holy water (or real holy water anyway) is extremely rare, however. Hardly anyone has it because there’s not really a ready supply of angel blood anywhere around. Usually, people get “holy water” which is blessed. They throw it on a Straggler. Nothing happens. Then they get their hides handed to them. Thus, the idea of holy water being effective has become somewhat of a myth.

>Some powers still work on Stragglers. Not every power will work on every Straggler and not every Straggler will be immune to every mortal power. It’s a game of chance. Some will be hurt by fire, some won’t. Some will be hurt by shadows, others won’t. Some will be hurt by enchanted weapons, some will laugh and take your heart out. Each Straggler is different. Their death, though, often is tied into what can hurt them most. (For example, get drowned to death? That Straggler is likely to freak out and drain when submerged in water.)

>Their bones. Their bones are their truest weakness. If a Straggler has its bones of its original body still in tact, then it has an off switch. Salting the bones or submerging them in true holy water will cut the spirit off from them, weakening it considerably until it’s basically the equivalent of a freshly neutered dog. From there, burning it is the best option but burn it hot. If it’s not burned well or only burned partially, it won’t work. If the burning is done properly, then the spirit will have nothing to attach to and will dissipate for good (supposedly).

(Fun fact, a spirit can not touch or move it’s own bones at all unless it is a Kobold)

> If a spirit does not have bones or the bones have already been cremated by the time it is formed, then it will attach to something else. These are the ones that haunt locations. They bind to houses, cars, trinkets, anything. They can only be in close proximity or within this place or object though and it functions the same as their bones. Burn it to ash and they will die. 

>Kobolds are unique cases. They /must/ have bones to be Kobolds. They can’t be formed without them. They, unlike Specters or Ghouls, can touch their bones, but it burns them terribly and causes an unbearable, spreading pain throughout their entire body, emanating from that place. It’s not comparable really to any living person’s pain. Touching them for too long will cause them to go insane and turn into Ghouls, so they must be extremely careful. (Gloves help some but it’s not going to stop such a powerful force. It’s gunna do it no matter what.)  If their bones are damaged, subsequent pain and injury will manifest on their form no matter how close or far away they are from them. If their bones are salted or doused in holy water, then they won’t just get weak. Their form demands such strength and energy that draining them that far will cause them to fall extremely weak, in pain, occasional convulsions, and almost immediate unconsciousness. They will remain comatose and will be stuck in their physical form until their bones are removed from that situation. If their bones are burned, then they will die. Their physical form will become intangible, disappear, and simply cease to exist. Though they are not completely dead immediately.

For Kobolds, their essence is strong enough that, after their physical form disappears and they are technically dead, the essence lingers in the area where their bone’s ashes are, trying to cling to them for up to twenty-four hours. In that time, someone can find a new, living host and perform a ritual on them that will essentially sacrifice them to resurrect the Kobold. While the sacrifice is alive, their flesh must be cut down the bone, the bone must be opened, and the ashes of the burned Kobold’s bones must be poured inside. If done in time and if enough of the bone ash gets in the sacrifice’s system, then the Kobold will return. The sacrifice will be consumed alive by a mighty, blue and black fire until it wears them down to pure, polished bone. The skeleton left behind, the Kobold’s essence will now be bound to that. They will reform their physical form again, exactly as it was before, within the next several days. For the rest of their eternity, those new bones will be theirs, though. This can be performed an indefinite number of times, but it becomes less and less likely to take the more times it’s done, meaning the time before they are completely gone grows shorter and the ash required grows larger. It’s a big sacrifice and it’s a bigger risk. (FYI, if the Kobold’s essence doesn’t take to the sacrifice, the sacrifice is poisoned by the tainted bone ash and doomed to die anyway. They’re extremely likely, almost guaranteed, to become Stragglers themselves. SOoooooyeah.)

Stragglers don't carry fresh scars or healing wounds. When they are damaged, it is their energy that is hurt, often because they have no real physical form. While they can chose to manifest the appearance of injuries to freak people out or blend in, they don't really sustain them. When they are hurt, their body looks like it's been damaged but without blood. The wound will then turn hazy at the ends and seem to morph back together as if nothing happened. It's deceiving, but it is still damage taken to their energy and strength.

Kobolds can bleed and will bleed if they are in their physical form when damaged, but they will heal the same way and their blood will evaporate without a trace wherever it has fallen. It's part of them and, separated from them, can't sustain a physical form. They only begin to look damaged if they are so far weakened that they don't have the energy to heal or change forms, at which point they will appear to have wounds that don't bleed. For example, a black eye, a slash that is obviously open but dry, a missing limb that doesn't bleed. This only happens when they are pushed to their very limits though and they will be very strained in this state, particularly vulnerable.

It doesn't matter the kind of injury they sustain. Stragglers can regrow limbs startlingly quickly and form back together from near anything because there's no physical form to actually damage. Every injury does count though. The more severe an injury would be on a person, the more it drains them. So chopping off an arm is going to cause them quite some problems, whereas a cut on the hand is not all that impressive.

-Specters: Yes. Have at it~ Just know that they are at risk of becoming Ghouls, but it never has to be within their RP lifetime, since it can literally be til the end of the world before their inevitable fate catches them.

-Ghouls: Yes, tentatively. You can make a Ghoul, but it’s not really a character. They’re more of just beasts. So you can make as many as you want, but they’re more like permanent NPCs or stock characters. They’re not gunna be a whole heck of a lot of fun or use to RP with unless you’re using them as just a mindless monster or threat. 

-Kobolds: Yes! Have at it~