Advice on Spirit creation

[Asyme]

Hi folks, busy adapting my campaign to RQ (which has been great so far) - most of the stuff has moved across very smoothly.

At the minute the final bit is spirits. In my campaign world most magic is wielded by the churches who offer up low magic and something that equates to pacts a la Elric. All easy to duplicate and I've added things like compulsions. However the greater church magi/ritual priests normally bind and summon daemons, elementals and spirits which we've traditionally used in a rather free form manner. The idea was to break from the traditional RPG mana points and have mages not turn into the 'now you're useless' lump of meat at the back when out. I've linked this with spirit magic as it seems closest but the spirits themselves are a bit different from the ones offered up in the rules. One player, for example worships a god of death, memory and earth - and usually has a death elemental, a minor life spirit and a shade of earth or darkness bound into their service.

For ease would you advise switching to the spirits in the book? Or winging it a bit and just making up abilities for a group of what amounts to life, death, etc elementals?

 

[Simulacrum]

I've linked this with spirit magic as it seems closest but the spirits themselves are a bit different from the ones offered up in the rules. One player, for example worships a god of death, memory and earth - and usually has a death elemental, a minor life spirit and a shade of earth or darkness bound into their service.

For ease would you advise switching to the spirits in the book? Or winging it a bit and just making up abilities for a group of what amounts to life, death, etc elementals?

I'd wing it - using the examples int he rules as benchmarks for how powerful a spirit can be.

e.g. - A Death Elemental/Spirit - if the spirit magician has control of one of these, I'd suggest it might grant a vampiric touch trait, or at very much higher intensities (= higher POW), a killing touch. Or might simply have the ability to discorporate a target and kill him on the spirit plane. A Life spirit might counteract ageing, increase fecundity, whatever, needn't be limited to healing.

The Spirit Magic rules are, I think, quite daunting to start out with, but actually provide fantastic scope for adaptation and customisation.

 

[Asyme]

That was kind of the direction I was heading in - I'd gone half way into writing up some notes then noticed that the spirits seemed to be split into roughly buffers (e.g. animal totems and ancestor spirits) which seemed mainly to be summoned for fetishes or possession, or elementals and bane types which usually could manifest and be sent into spiritual combat.

I'm still a little confused as how a player would decide when and when to use a spirit in either way.

Assuming she bound a Death Spirit (say intensity 2), she could choose to either bind it as a fetish (where it might have a vampiric healing touch but make her hands feel white and clammy) or choose to use it as an attacking spirit. Or is it more a case that the bound spirit acts as said power until released at which point she can command it to attack?

Sorry to sound dense on this one...

 

[Titus]

You are making up the spirits, so you can have them behave as you want.

One cat spirit might grant the holder of its fetish a bonus to stealth and another cat spirit might grant the Night Sight trait. It might be that neither of these has the ability to attack embodied spirits (like people in the material world).

One death spirit (Vampire Hand) might grant the holder of its fetish the vampiric healing touch ability and another death spirit (Feral Fangs) might be one who will attack for the holder of its fetish but not offer any other benefits. In either case, she would have to release the spirit from the fetish and command it. If she succeeds in commanding Vampire Hand, it could envelope one or both of her hands making them seem wet and clammy, and granting her the vampiric healing touch until such time as she orders it back into the fetish. If she succeeds in commanding Feral Fangs, it will try to attack who or what she ordered it to attack.

According to the rules, spirit combat takes place in the spirit world. So she would actually have to break the fetish and free Feral Fangs so it can go into the spirit world. From there it would try to discorporate its victim and then engage in spectral combat. This makes attack type spirits one use, but that might be a good thing.

If you haven't seen the two articles on spirits and shamanism which were in Signs & Portents, I highly recommend them. They are in issues 89 and 90. S&P is free from Mongoose.

Also, some of the setting books modify the spirit rules. I am adapting the changes to the spirit rules from Age of Treason for a Gloranthan game which is starting this Saturday. Most spirits must manifest (a spirit skill) in the material world to attack or otherwise interact with people. Spectral combat usually takes place in the material world and a person fighting a manifested spirit uses their full persistence skill. A few rare spirit entities do have the discorporate skill and that still works like the core rules. I am giving shamans and fetches that would have gotten the discorporate skill the Spirit Manifestation skill instead. A high shaman could still take willing comrades into the spirit world when he spirit walks. I will probably make the Discorporate skill available as a Heroic Ability.

That last paragraph might be a little off topic, but the point was that you can find interesting ideas in other sources.