Hi, 

While reading the article about playing as a reborn, I got somewhat curious.  Is there any way to play a reborn spirit being, who can possess a willing host, or forcibly possess any beast with a low enough INT/WIS score?  I am thinking of something like twins, where one twin has died, and the other, unable to live without their twin, performed a ritual to bring back the spirit of their dead brother or sister and the pair now share a body.

The corporeal twin being a willing host for the spirit of the non-corporeal one?

Or, something like a person who was meant to complete a great task, and keeps getting reborn over and over into new bodies, until their task is completed.

I personally would like to play twins who share a single body, with one twin being a willing host to the other.

Is there any official way to play this kind of thing?

Cheers

XD

What you're describing can be part of the backstory/flavor of any character, provided the incorporeal twin isn't allowed to change bodies.  Just write it into your backstory and roleplay it appropriately.

I have a concept like this written up for an Echo Knight. I think they have a lot of roleplay potential as the echo can be flavored as all sorts of things.

In 4e, the shaman class had a spirit companion. One of my characters was a dwarven ghost who I played as the spirit companion and the actual shaman was more of a side character as the medium that helped him stay in the world until he did what he needed to do in order to rest. There might be a 5e equivalent in one of the summon spells.

 I dont see there being much harm in doing a reflavour of the find familiar spell. Rather than it resemble the animal it resembles a ghostly appearance of a person, mechanically it functions as a familiar and you could go down the warlock pact of chain route to give it extra powers, ie it goes form having the stats and senses of an Owl to having the stats and abilities of an imp but either way still looks like your ghostly friend. This could also give plenty of roleplay repercussions as well. To make it a little more ghostly, have it affected by Turn Undead abilities like a ghost so if a cleric does turn it you have to resummon it through the fin familiar ritual.

The Kalashtar of Eberron are beings fused of people and dream spirits of sorts, which might be a good base for a concept like this. That plus a class that can manifest spooky spirit stuff or like the Echo Knight suggested above would be a good way to do this. 

Quote from quindraco >>

What you're describing can be part of the backstory/flavor of any character, provided the incorporeal twin isn't allowed to change bodies.  Just write it into your backstory and roleplay it appropriately.

 This. Just have it as part of your back story and something that you roleplay. In fact, the Echo Knight suggestion isn't a bad one either and IIRC something similar was suggested for your own echo knight character idea (the emo one with a lost love?).

Trying to make this into some sort of mechanical device will just be a headache to the DM and an annoyance to the other players.

I mean the Reborn inspired you and actually can accommodate what you'd want (either a ghost in the machine sort of thing where something was constructed to hold the reborn soul, or in your within the Twin case your in a body and you sense the "dark passenger" of your twin along with you ... in fact there's a RotFM background or secret that suggests just that I think).  You might even see if your DM would give you that Dark Gift that is based on Jekyl/Hyde lore.  And really, you can play any race/lineage/species and say part of your story is your body is actually the vessel of a soul that's lived before ... but that's not going to give you any mechanical advantage beyond what the Reborn would allow or say the Phantom subclass of Rogue.