I found this image a while back and it brought me wonder, “Are there ghost/apparitions in Mouse Guard?”
I own no copies of any MG comics except “The Black Axe 1.”
But, what does this image mean to the world of MG? Are there unexplained phenomenon lurking in the shadows, bumps-in-the-night, or other worldly visitors reaching from beyond the grave to terrorize/entice our intrepid heroes.
Or am I just behind the curve, and this is me showing my relative low understanding of the Mouse Guard World?
I can’t think of any ghosts in MG stories, or really anything super natural at all. Doesn’t mean it isn’t there! I think that would be a fun direction to take a MG game.
–Victor
So I found out that this image was a cover image for Legends of the Guard #2.
I’ve ordered the book, and hopefully we’ll get some answers soon.
I don’t know why this intrigues me so, maybe I just want a question answered.
I also found this thread over in the Hacks and Expansions:
Me thinks I am not the first to want to raise the dead in MG.
From what I’ve read from Mouse Guard (everything I think) the guard mice and maybe other mice believe in the ‘‘good’’ mice coming to some kind of nice place after their death, maybe a little helped by the death ritual and the songs from this occasion (see for example last booklet of the winter series). There’s a ritual that gives me vibes of Rome and Bysans. All the Legend of the Guard has a little text corresponding to the cover and in the one with the ghost there is explained how a guard mouse actually met a ghost but on the other hand it’s a legend (neither the text says anything about wether this ghost is lingering among the living or if the ghost is coming back from The Land of the Forefathers to visit the living mouse and make her point).
I’d say that it’s perfectly OK canon-wise to say that there are no ghosts but many mice believe in them and an afterlife a little like in the belief in the forefathers in ancient Rome and Greece OR that there actually are ghosts, the legends are true and there’s a passage to be made for the spirit of a dead mice to arrive to ‘‘The Nice Place’’.
There’s nothing said anywhere as I can remember of what happens if a mouse can’t reach ‘‘The Nice Place’’, maybe becomes a lingering ghost slowly turning mad?, or what happens to the mice that doesn’t deserve to get there. In my ancient mediterranean Mouse guard hack I go with the ‘‘bad’’ mouse getting their soul annihilated forever a lot like in the mythology of ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt the human soul was judged by some of the gods. In my version most mice, all except the ones living a too unbalanced life, gets passed by jury of forefathers (since there is no gods, that’s just superstition) and if passed get to come to the place where the forefather live a collective life and support or not support the living mice (so keeping your forefathers in a good mood is important).