Editing Geist: The Sin-Eaters (section)

=== Reapers ===
There are Malicious Ghosts who are doing things largely for their own benefit, and then there are ''these'' guys. In nine campaigns out of ten, a Reaper will prominently feature as an antagonist in some fashion.

Reapers are largely ordinary Rank 2 Ghosts that have entered a contract with the powers of the Underworld by the way of their Deathmask; an item formed from the remains of a Geist that they often find on the banks of the Rivers of the Dead or buried somewhere, or will have come into them by some other fashion. Putting on that mask will change the Ghost forever, giving them the first sensation they've felt in a good long time, and massively powers them up. All the Underworld asks in return to find ghosts in the above world...and bring them kicking and screaming down below to waste away forever. They can resist or put it off all they want, but putting on that Deathmask means you will be compelled to reap at some point. 

They do this by stalking their prey by whatever means they choose; hunting them, trapping them or tricking them, but the end is always the same once they've caught the ghost. Namely, that they become terrifying monstrosities for just moments in order to swallow the ghost whole...and then the Ghost wakes up, stuck in the Underworld forever, vomited out by the Reaper, their anchor to the world of the living demolished. If a ghost is too powerful, they'll just drop wherever the ghost is into the underworld themselves without any thought to the ghost or the living who might still be in that building at the time...And they see all of that as a good thing, because more than supernatural bounty hunters, Reapers are the enforcers of entropy and the status quo in the Underworld, who install themselves as community leaders and heroes among the River Cities in order to make sure that everyone understands that this is the way things have to be, and that it's good this way. 

To no one's surprise, Sin Eaters and Reapers are consistently at each other's throats because they are natural opposites: The Sin-Eater wants the Underworld to change, and the Reaper will see the Sin Eater's goals as inherently wrong, and will fight tooth and bloody nail to keep it from happening.