The World of the Wraith Explained

Friday morning...bleck. I feel like I've been run over by a Trax train. I've just noticed that I've been feeling awful for the past 2 weeks...and yeah, I didn't even have enough appetite to eat pancakes, that's sad because normally all my family eats for breakfast is cold cereal. Pancakes are a sweet release from that, until today.
Anyway, I'm done whining about my less than healthy couple of weeks (that's all I feel like I've done this week, sleep and whine, not a very productive week if you ask me!) I'm now going to explain about one of my most favoritist characters ever!
Seriously.
I talked about him during my last blog post, now you get a better in depth version (lucky you!) I've already explained about Amaarzar, now I get to explain about his arch enemy, the Secret Keeper.
First off, you guys already know the basics, the Secret Keeper is a wraith, he's evil from the tip of his boots to the top of his unseen head. In form, he kind of looks like the Nazgul from the Lord of the Rings. You know, robed and faceless, but if you pulled back the Secret Keeper's hood, you wouldn't see nothing, like the Nazgul, you'd see a rotted corpse.
Gross right? Okay maybe not so much for you zombie enthusiasts out there, but I'd probably be haunted for life if I saw the Secret Keeper without his hood. But anyway, the Secret Keeper fascinates me. He's so different from all the characters I've ever had before and I've had some pretty odd characters, like Black Beard and then a couple flesh-hungry kelpies, but they were all easy because they had the same thought pattern as I do. The Secret Keeper doesn't.
Here's pretty well the basics of being a wraith in Twisted, and you're going to be thinking in a couple of minutes wow, she spends way too much time thinking about this! I have to agree with you, I do!
Here's how I pretty well have to think when I'm writing from the Secret Keeper's POV or pretending to be him.
(Just to get us into the mood, not my picture, it's copied from Google images, if it's yours, awesome, leave your URL in the comments and I will give you full credit, promise :D!)
In Twisted a wraith is basically the shell of a once living person that lost his soul and fell into darkness. There are so many ways that this can happen (i.e. greed, lusting for power, denying one's own light...) I'm not going to go through and list all of them (I'd have to write a whole book to do that!) Wraiths are always on the defensive, guarding themselves against possible attacks from the living or their brethren among the undead. They may appear humanoid, but they are definitely not human, their minds revolve around darkness, and their bodies are nothing more than an animated corpse.
Grossed out yet? No? Here's more.
Wraiths cannot step into sunlight. I mean they physically can't do it. Sunlight may feel warm and welcoming to us, but to them, it's so cold it burns and if they stay in it for too long, they'll fade, meaning the dark magic essence that keeps them animated will dissolve and the wraith will be nothing more than a rotted body in robes.
They also can't see light, so more than 75% of the time, the wraith is wandering around nearly complete blindness, even in forests, think about how much light spatters in, to a wraith, that's complete agony! Looking at light to them is like for us when we've been sitting in a dark room and the lights suddenly flip on. Ouch. But despite being practically blind most of the time, wraiths have this uncanny ability to be able to find you, even if you're invisible. They can sense the living, and usually when you're facing a wraith, you're terrified! The wraith tracks you by the beating of your own heart and your terror.
Most people in Twisted don't escape the wraith. They're too scared. I mean seriously, you're facing something undead that looks horrifying and you know has absolutely no love for the living. It also doesn't help that wraiths cast dark auras. These auras can squish the light of fire from a distance of over a hundred feet, they're so cold, it's like standing outside during winter without a coat, and the darkness never allows your eyes to adjust. Where you can't see the wraith, the wraith can see you just fine and will delve on your fear. Basically saying, the wraith is eating your fear like it's candy and the more you're afraid of it, the more it's going to be able to dominate you.
The Secret Keeper is different from your average wraith in that aspect. He doesn't feed on fear, he could if he got bored enough, but rarely does. His power comes from stealing secrets out of the minds of men (hence his title) the darker and heavier the secret, the more powerful he becomes. This makes him practically impossible to beat in battle because he knows what move you're going to make before you make it, he'll counteract that move before you've even lifted your sword!
Wraiths seem completely impervious to defeat now, but they do have weaknesses. Sunlight for one thing, it's their natural enemy. Fire is another thing, if you can manage to light one, a wraith will burn as easily as anything else. But their most guarded weakness is their identities. When a wraith falls, he forgets every memory he had during life. His mind is a blank slate of darkness at this point. He even forgets his name, and that name is his heaviest weakness. If a person can figure out who a wraith was in life, they can say the wraith's name and the wraith will have no choice but to do as that person says. Names are a powerful thing, it's why wraiths go by titles. The Secret Keeper is a title, it's not his actual name, he doesn't know what his name is and doesn't care to figure it out. But be warned, if you know a wraith's identity, you best keep it to yourself, if you make it known to that wraith that you know...you'll be dead before the sun rises.
Yes, wraiths are nasty beings. They kill, destroy, and plunder for their own reasons and trying to figure out the mind of a wraith is about as easy as sticking a camel through the eye of a needle. But they also have vulnerable places in their black essence, the reason for their fall. As much as the wraiths hate the living, they're jealous of us because we're still alive, we're still learning and growing and they're stuck sleeping in death.
Yeah, I know, not much about the Secret Keeper, but it explains what he is. His thought process is basically bipolar, switching from one thing to another, he can't see color so his descriptions are general short and to the point, and amazingly he's very eloquent with his speech, meaning, he's actually really proper with the way he phrases things, unlike Aster the Terrible who is a thief and has as sloppy way of phrasing things.
Here's something from the Secret Keeper's POV, it's on the spot so it's nowhere in the books (yet, I may use it.)
I stand at the ready, bemoaning the fact that I even have to face this man at all. I had no intentions of fighting him, but he makes it completely clear that he has ever intention of battling me.
These fools!
They are the same fools who try to carve a reputation out of dragon hides, this man is trying to carve a reputation out of my own rotted skin. I pity his foolishness, but not enough to spare him.
See? He's pretty proper, especially when he's annoyed. This passage is like when he's feeling neutral, or not really feeling anything at all and is just going about a wraith's day to day business (or should it be night to night?) when he's angry, annoyed, or passionate his descriptions become a bit more lively and he tosses insults here and there.
like this, same passage, but let's say that he's annoyed.
I stand with my sword ready annoyed that this fool is wasting my time. I would have preferred to move on with our own existences, without confronting one another again but this brainless man has made it clear he desires to return to the stars early.
I shall not waste his last living breaths on glaring at him. He desires a reputation, he shall get one. The reputation of a halfwit who bothered the wraith that told him to skedaddle.
In other words, the ever-desired reputation of a fool.
Why do so many humans desire this reputation? The world has enough fools already.
See? You can tell that he's annoyed. His narrative gets a bit more entertaining when he's annoyed, because seriously, who hasn't thought like this? His POV is just difficult to navigate because he's one among the undead, meaning human emotions are lost on him. I've had to fight and struggle to get it to the point that I know how he's going to react in certain situations. It's also kind of difficult because of the physical limitations he has, he's almost completely blind, he can't step in sunlight, his physical form can only take so much abuse, and all wraiths despise getting wet and can't cross running water unless they positively have to. Also, he doesn't cast a shadow, it is physically impossible for him to cast one and only he can see his reflection in mirrors or glass, everyone else just sees a shadow vaguely shaped like a human.
Okay, I'm betting you're tired of reading this. I could go on for a while, but I think I should go lie down for a bit. I'm still not feeling all that great.
Just a final word, as awesome as the undead may seem, they just desire to be left alone. Never antagonize a wraith. They're great at antagonizing back and they don't stop with just poking you with a stick. First rule in combating the undead is (1) leave them alone!
This is roughly what the Secret Keeper would look like. I don't have any pictures great of him on this computer. This picture is actually of a Nazgul, Khamul I think, again NOT my picture, it's from here, http://www.kropserkel.com/blackriders.htm 
So looking at that, why on Middle Earth would you want to go poke it with a stick? And yet some people in Twisted are stupid enough to try!

Here's what I view as the Secret Keeper's theme song, (yes, most of my characters have one) I was listening to this song when I first started writing Twisted (I mean literally, it was the music playing as I wrote Oh what a world...)
Okay, no worries, I'm shutting up now, seriously, even the Secret Keeper would get bored of listening to me blab about him.
Oh last note, the Secret Keeper has a Russian accent, what's so awesome about that is that he picked it himself! I was reading Twisted to my little sisters, started reading some of his narrative and bam! I was speaking with a horrible Russian accent. Though in Twisted Russian is basically Silverdalian, I based each kingdom of the Four Kingdoms (the world of Twisted) off an actual country. Silverdale is probably my favorite kingdom and I really want to go to Russia because of it.
Sorry, off tangent. I'll explain more on the Four Kingdoms later, now, I'm serious, I'm stopping. :)