I only ever played through Fallout 4 once, and I don't remember the playthrough well at all, but I recall how lonely it felt towards the end. Fitting with the themes of the game, I felt far removed from the people I once knew. I remember returning to an old dungeon and the mild sadness of confronting a generic boss as opposed to the named one I had fought before. Perhaps it was just where I was in real life at the time, but certainly the Sole Survivor's journey to isolation didn't help.

This mod was developed to simultaneously add some extra diversity to the modded enemies of the Fallout 4, while also allowing the player opportunities to reunite with some familiar faces, even if they are angry ones.

The ghosts of this mod are not encountered as regular opponents; instead, they are summoned by the player by crafting "invocation bottles" at the chemistry workbench under the "summon" tab. The bottles are like molotov cocktails, only the bottle is a means of insulting/challenging the spirit of a fallen adversary in to a fight. Invocation bottles are thrown and explode in to ethereal purple flames, from which a ghost steps out. It is like a fantasy version of the synth grenade.


Fighting ghosts is as you might expect different from fighting any other kind of enemy in the game. Ghosts are 'cursed' beings and are completely invincible to all forms of damage, unless they are from other cursed sources. You will be able to curse yourself by using the consumable "cursed ashes", which can be created from the chemistry bench under the healing tab. The curse will reduce your luck by three points, but it will allow you to damage ghosts with your weapons. The only other way to get cursed is to be within the ghost's cloak radius, which isn't recommended as it causes damage over time.

As a result of this invulnerability, other NPCs will run and cower from ghosts, which will include your companions. While this unintended effect increases the difficulty of the duel, it doesn't necessarily have to be used this way. Invoking a hostile ghost around NPCs may cause it to fight them instead. In most cases the NPCs will be powerless to fight back, unless the cloak curses them. Most ghosts retain the faction allegiances they held in life, so it is possible to summon ghosts to fight other ghosts, but keep in mind most if not all of them will be hostile to the player. One way or another, bringing a spirit back to the world means you will eventually have to send them back.

Apart from the ghost's have three other abilities to note...

• Fade: Ghosts will disappear seconds after being defeated. If you're quick, you can loot the bodies before this, but this wasn't something I intended. Ghosts provide a minimum of a 100xp in defeat, but otherwise the rewards of summoning a ghost lie in the sentiment.
• Cloak: As stated, approaching too close to a ghost will cause constant energy damage and inflicts the aforementioned curse.
• Grudge: Like legendary enemies, should your attack bring a ghost to below 50% HP without defeating it it will return to full health with new abilities. Ghosts gain an extra 50% damage to their weapons, but also the ability to ricochet your own bullets back toward you for 1.3x the damage. 
  

Recipes to summon specific NPCs will not be unlocked until after you've progressed through certain quests or cleared areas. I placed the actual summons within spoiler tags for good reason. Therein may be spoilers for potential character deaths.

Raiders and Raider Bosses
Clearing a raider hideout will allow you to summon the boss as a ghost. To my knowledge all raider bosses are unlockable summons.

Gunners and Gunner Captains
Like with the raiders, gunner bosses can also be summoned after you've cleared their respective area. To my knowledge all gunner bosses are unlockable summons.

Faction NPCs
These were more complicated. I tied the prerequisites to quest stage completion. If you've killed a faction NPC by using a mod that enables the killing of essential NPCs, then their summon recipes will not be unlocked.



Quest NPCs
The summon recipes for these characters are unlocked the same way as the faction NPCs, they must die a plotline death.



Dead NPCs
These NPCs were originally spawned in to world as corpses or are for some reason technically dead. My earlier plans were to place their ghosts near where their bodies are discovered, but I've never enjoyed messing with cells and worldspaces. You'll be surprised at the NPCs you'll be able to summon this way. I plan to add more of these type of NPCs in the future.



The ghosts are levelled and are intended to always outlevel the player, although some of these spirits pose a greater threat than others. Lorenzo already possessed high HP as a human, but as a levelled ghost his HP can climb even further. Some such as Clint, appear in the power armour they wore in life. Pickman and  


Great care was taken with implementation of these NPCs to make sure there were no potential incompatibilities with other mods. At worst, a mod added weapon may be able to penetrate the ghost's immunity perk, otherwise I don't foresee any problems.


NPCs with attacks that have certain DoT effects are able to damage through the ghost's natural immunity so they will attempt to battle them if they are enemies. A companion with Grognak's Axe for example will attempt to battle ghosts, perhaps even win against a few.

My testing has been enough to know that the base systems work fine, but I would like input on balance. The mod adds powerful enemies, maybe too powerful.


Bethesda, for making the game
My sister, for her photoshop skills in creating the necessary textures.