Here's to Hoping

PART ONE: Mind vs. Heart
PART TWO: Bane of the Beast

Taking place in early 1970s northern michigan, Here's to Hoping centers around a few things, some of which are trauma, alienation, lighthouses, ghosts, and mental illness. People make stupid descisions, and sometimes they learn from it. Maybe.

Simplified worldbuilding rules: There's 3 'domains', and a different godhead ruling each, and type of spectre helping them to maintain order:

✦ The Walking World: 'regular' Earth. Anyone alive is here including breathing spectres, + ghosts not inside The Aftermath for whatever reason. Ruled by Death.

✦ The Aftermath: The first place everyone goes when they die. Souls aren't able to move on to the end (or be reincarnated) until they can let go of whatever's keeping them back. If they did something evil enough to catch Justice's attention, there's no chance of leaving. Anything that stays too long gets erroded into something unrecognisable. Ruled by Justice.

✦ The End: This is the final destination of anyone who moves past The Aftermath. Nobody knows how big this one is, because it changes depending on what the inbahitants want. This way it's perfect for everyone! Everyone here can communicate long distances with a primative form of thought transference, not unlike what the Breathing Spectres have. Ruled by Mercy.

✦ Passive Spectres: These stay exclusively in The End, and are almost always Mercy's creations (aka not spirits/ghosts + were never alive). They're self-aware, but due to the nature of The End, are perfectly fine with being made for a pre-determined reason! They often exist for specific people, and act as companions. Dispite their peaceful nature however, they're also the main defence against anything... unsavory trying to escape The Aftermath.

✦ Active Spectres: All of them were alive at some point, but have been dead for anywhere from a few weeks to hundreds of years. Death hides most of their living memories, leaving just what 's needed to keep their identity. Often struggle with apathy.

✦ Breathing Spectres: A bit different from the kthers! These are the only ones considered tehnically 'alive', and the only ones that're born. One could technically attempt 'making' one through various ways, but this isn't recomended for a whole host of reasons. Some of their abilities include seeimg/talking to/excorcisimg ghosts, telepathy, and acting as Active Spectres in a pinch. They can also 'grab onto' the emotions of otgers and posotovley or negstovley influence them, severity depending on the individual's power. While not the most powerful, they'reregarded as the most dangerous just due to their will to live & protect their loved ones. Theyre often in tight knit groups, which are connected throigh a large web of social connections.

Also pretty much all cryptids and 'classic' monsters [like werewolves, vampires, ghosts/the undead etc] are real, just in varying degrees of hiding and aren't super relevant to the story. They just kinda exist.

The first installation is currently in development, so anything interesting is going in that folder. The 2nd is BotB, which has asolutkey nothing in it rn but I wanted to acknowledge it's existence! I have no clue what I'm keeping as general informaion and what's being saved for a reveal, so anything relating to the sequel is hidden until further notice