I welcome discussion in the comments! Let me know your input and talk amongst ourselves!

This has been a point of contention for a while in the lore community and understandibly so, as the in-game text revolving all these ghost magics is very inconsistent in how it refers to these mostly skull-shaped ghostly projectiles.

Wraiths / Vengeful Spirits

Wraiths are produced by the bairn items and seem to be just like the ome, twisted forms of the latent spirtuality in the crucicble worshiped by the hornsent then turned towards cursing the people of the erdtree, resulting in their negative stigma ie; "Age of Despair", "Shunning Grounds", "Vengeful Spirits" forming from those who "Died while Cursed". Seems fairly cut and dry at first glance, the wraiths are cut off from the erdtrees cycle of rebirth from dying "cursed" by a form of hornsent divinity untangling them away from Marika's gold and retying them towards the crucicble gold. This places them outside of order, its seen as a curse, they are vengeful for this fate befalling them, they lash out as expected and haunt the omens in their nightmares (that nightmare point being a reach on my end, stemming from the omensmirk mask and the ties of wraiths to omen, but its honestly not super relevent to this disscussion anyhow). Vengeful spirits and wraiths are thus the same, and we in fact even find this "crucible flame" so to speak in the Shadowlands lighting torches at varrious places of hornsent importance (I know theres some at Belurat at least). I see it as a sort of holy form of ghostflame, just residual magic of souls being burned as fuel sources. These deal holy damage as expected.

We see a more pure form of these wraiths via the hornsed bairn of the dlc, intretignly dropped by an old tree spirit that I presume has come from the roots complelty disconnected from Marika's gold seeing as the erdtree is very much not in the Shadowlands. These projectiles lack the skull shapes, and a transitory point between the revered wraiths of the hornsent and the reviled wraiths of the omen can be found in the Watchful Spirit incantation grnated by grandham, a women implied to be very high ranking and potent in her spirtuality (she animates the divine beast, recounts ires towards Marika invoking the omen curse at her lineage, has survived in Belurat this long, her son weilds the pwoer of a horned bairn, etc). This shows the clear progression from clean spirtual energy to the corruption into vengeful spirits. They are a mangled reshappen twisted form of the power of a soul due to meddling of countless ages having their way with the lifeforce of the crucible. It's as pure a microcosm of the similar abuse of lifeforce by Marika and the Hornsent alike; Marika turned the tables, but the abuse of souls remains the same. Even ghostflame killed spirits are abused, forming rancors, but we'll get to that in time

Revenants ????????????

Then there are the f*king revenants that just royally fuck up that whole clean timeline. Their wraiths deal magic damage, we find them in liurnia and places tied to carian royals espically (Kingsrealm Ruins, Moonlight Alter, Laskyar Ruins, Liurnia in general, and arguably Elpheal via Loretta but thats a stretch), not to mention the wraith calling bell itself allllllll deal magic damage. They look the fking same I swear to Ranni they look the exact same to those we conjure via the bairns, correct me if Im wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

I don't know how to interput those contridcitions between the wraiths, but I assume the key lies in deciphering what the fuck is going on with revenants, but thats a whole nother tangent I'd be mostly grasping at straws for, so I'll just mention the tree-like growth patterns of the royal revenants (check out Zullie the WItches video ont their unclothed model, it's uncanny and quite unique to these enemies), and their seemingly tree like nature mimmicing that of the shamen ie; golden lineage grafting, godwyns deathroot spread via roots, erdtree, jar saints, and so on. I feel the revenants mystery is more self sustained, but I haven't the faintest of clues to why they are tied to magic damage and the carians, especially the huge ammounts of them in Elpheal's depths. Fuck those ones in specific btw, that soreseal talisman isn't worth ever returning to those damn forsaken trenches.

My best guess is a simplistic one; that the reveants focus on CALLING wraiths is the important part, and thats all they do; direct the wraiths. This would cleanly explain their weirdness as just a disconneceted enemy type that's utilizing wraiths. Doesn't explain the magic damage though. Fuck this, I got nothing of substance left for these awful creatures XD

natures of Gold & Glintstone could possibly explain this

Last note here; revenant wraiths dealing magic damage could be a result of glintstone seeping into it (unlikely without any blue hue though), or ties into the broader mystery of "Primordial life" of golden amber and "Residual life" of cosmic amber, in other words, these wraiths could fall into the overlapping portion of where glintstone and gold diverge from one thing into two distinct thing.

The line between magic and holy getting blurry could very well be the intent behind these wraiths inscrutible damage type. I haven't the faintest clue on how this would happen, but glintstone & gold is a whole unrelated topic.

Rancors

Then we get to rancors and.... I'll leave this one simple and liekly expand on it later, but these are the magic tied ones, that I presume revenants wraiths despite being labelled wraiths and looking the same, are actually most closley tied too.

They take various forms, namely in the form of death hexes / "necromancy", as pale death sorceries like rancorcall, rancor blades, catacomb mages, Garrius my beloved, and of course ghostflame. We're not getting into ghostflame right now. I think rancors often come from ghostflame, but its not the only way. the skeletal snails, spiritcalling snails, spirit ashes and the like all seem rancor adjacent, so I'm of the belief they are more relaized rancors that have a given shape, and call spirits to take shapes via processes such as spirittuning, calling, eclipses, guidance of varrious form from rosus, helphen lamplight, grace, tibia mariners lights, stuff like that.

Rancors seem to be the most generic "do damage with it" option for weaponizing these spirits, hence their lack of indivuality, like the scraps of spirits just being clumped together and fired without care, similar to the venegful spirits. Rancor is a real word bassically meaning a deep festering resentment, in other words, a rancor is a synomym for vengeful spirit. Rykard's rancors have burned in gelmirs flames, ghostflame rancors in ghostflame, and in wraiths in gold-touched fire (crucible, erdtree, "holy" fire of some sort)

Where does that leave us?

Spirits are the broadest term, used to apply to any form of ghostly presence

Rancors are the same as Vengeful Spirits, I see them as synonyms now. They are subjective terms being used imperfectly by design.

Vengeful Spirits are often confused with wraiths, but in truth wraiths are a more percise thing.

Wraiths are the most specialized, stemming from holy energies of various forms. As simple as regal omen coating a weapon with them, mid-level as a barrage of wraiths from a horned fetish of grief, or complex as Morgott manifesting his Margit form around a connected holy lifeform (mostly commoners).

^above wraith point ignores revenants magic damage wraiths

Discussion Points!

I have no fucking clue about revenant wraiths. magic damage. ahahaahahaha 0_0 why. I put some guesses and inputs of mine in this post. They are truely a wrench in every explanation I've seen.

gimmie your input on all this stuff, espically any insight to the terms used for spirits (especially skull shaped ones) across translations, espically the Japanese.

also reveants. what. help. what's their deal and why they poison on my gout 'till I SCREEEEEECH *lunge* *unending attack chain of slaps*