Classification: Ethereal Entities

Temporal Range: Unknown

Geographic Range: Germany

Diet: Nothing due to being just a glowing skull

Horde: Germanic

Germany’s answer to the will o’ the wisp, the Irrlicht is a haunting phenomenon. While many will o’ the wisps across the world are balls of light that lead unwary travelers astray, the Irrlicht has a little more substance than that. Both literally and figuratively. The German spirit seems to be a glowing skull, rather than just a ball of light. It’s thought to accompany phantom funeral processions through graveyards and some have speculated that they are the spirits of the unbaptised. Local priests have been known to say blessings on rainy days in the hope that it will turn the rain into holy water and quiet this restless souls.

In one story we tracked down, a man captured an Irrlicht, thinking he could use it to light his home. He caught it in a sack and took it back to his family. However, when he opened the sack, he found nothing but a dusty old skull. And it certainly wasn’t emitting even the faintest glow. Unfortunately, the skull then began to float around his house, causing all manner of ghostly problems and the man was forced to stuff it back into the sack and return it to where he got it, where it proceeded to glow once more. Sometimes, it’s better to leave things where you found them and it seems that the Irrlicht is a living (or undead) testament to that lesson.

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