08. The Shamanic World

Creating a Shaman

Shamans draw magic powers from the natural and spirit worlds, from the multitude of spirits that exist. They do not believe in "gods" as such, but merely see them a the most powerful of spirits. Gods are to be respected and admired, representing as they do the highest level and form of spiritual power, but they are still "just another spirit".

Limitations on Shamans.

If you learn Shamanic magic you can never cast Divine Magic, and vice versa. Shamans may learn arcane magic if they wish, and vice versa, but a single individual must make a decision as to which is primary to them, either Shamanic or Arcane. The decision will effect the cost to cast the lesser discipline, making all spells one level harder to cast and cost. Thus a Shaman (primary choice) would cast an level II arcane spell as if it were level III, costing 9 FAT rather than 4 FAT. Switching disciplines would require the GMs agreement and a major quest.

Casting Shamanic Magic

Shamans derive their ability to cast spells from their SPIRIT characteristic, similar to how priests use Piety and arcane casters use Mage or Spell Skill. Shamans may enhance their SPIRIT characteristic by making bonds with various spirits (qv). Shamans may also bind spirits with particular spell casting powers to their service, either through a spirit binding item (totems and fetishes) or within their own body (allies and binds).

8 + *(Spirit + Spirit Support) - Shamanic Spell Level.

All shamans must make choices as they grow toward adulthood and completing their training. The culmination of this process, and the awakening of their full powers occurs when they accept their Totem Spirit. It is after this point that most players will enter the game.

Each shamans must chose a primary alignment rune; LAW, NATURALITY or CHAOS. Chaos is not normally an option to a player shaman as it has now been tainted by the Dark Lords influence, but a shaman entering the game from a distant land could possibly chose it.

Each shaman must then chose a favoured elemental form:

EARTH, FIRE, WATER, AIR

When interacting with spirits of their chosen domain they will gain a 1 point modifier to their advantage at all times. When dealing with spirits of the opposing domain they will gain a 1 point modifier to their disadvantage at all times.

Finally the Shaman must chosen a totem spirit form who will become their first, and strongest, ally spirit. This is most often an animal (wolf, bear, fox, owl, eagle etc). A shamans first totem spirit will teach the shamans the inners secrets of the spirit world and allow them to complete their training. It will remain with them their entire lives normally. The loss of your totem spirit is a major disaster and many shamans die as a result of it. Because of this they are rarely committed to dangerous tasks.

Spirit World

There are three plains of existence: the Material Plain, the Astral Plain and the Divine Plain. The Divine Plain is what creatures and spirits of the Material Plain can ascend to. It is here that the Gods exist. The Astral Plain, also called the Void or the Mana Plain or Plain of Limbo, is more a medium separating the Material from the Divine Plain.

New life can only manifest on the Material Plain, and when the life form reaches maturity it ascends to either Order, Chaos or Fate (although some may not!). When a spirit matures and leaves the Material Plain it may wander the Void until such time as it makes a choice to ascend.

Spirits.

Spirits are formed on the Material Plane only. Everyone and everything is linked in some fashion to a spirit of some kind. Materials, such as rock, have elemental spirits. Living things, such as plants and animals, have souls. Many philosophers believe a soul to be merely a complex elemental spirit. Spirits come into existence on the Material Plane and are diffuse and obscure, undergoing a growing period like childhood. When the time is right the spirit will move to the Void where it will wander until it chooses a path.

All life is dependent on a spirit, without one the life form quickly dies. Spirits are brought into existence in combination with a new primitive life form. This new spirit is an elemental form and develops as the life form does. Spirits can only come into existence on the Material Plane, where life forms can be born.

A new spirit usually begins as a primitive life form and develops with time. When its material body dies it is released and usually wanders the Void until it is attracted to a higher life forms birth. The spirit is thus reincarnated back onto the material plane and undergoes a further period of development.

Spirits eventually reach a stage of development where they are able to 'ascend' to the Higher Plain.

Because spirits can only be created and matured on the material plane, the forces of the Higher Plain are constantly fighting for dominance of that plane. The most powerful creatures of the Divine Plain can no longer risk extended contact with the material plane as they can be killed there, so instead they make limited visits or send agents, lesser spirits in their service (expendable ones). These agents try to influence the development of spirits on the material plane so that they chose an appropriate path, thus reinforcing the forces available to that view.

Spirit Form

A spirit entity (one that has moved to the astral or higher plane) is a creature of energy, feeding on mana from the Void. They can move to the material plane in two forms:

• Manifest Form: the creature remains as an energy form but appears as a ghostly image of itself. It cannot be harmed by anything other than magical energies. It has no physical form so cannot carry or use physical objects.

• Material Form: the creature takes a real form and can be harmed by normal physical means. It may carry and use objects.

If in material form its powers may be reduced and it risks destruction by doing this. A material spirit that is slain is destroyed, its energy returns to mana (it dissipates). The more powerful spirits have developed ways to ensure against this however and instead only need time to recover their form.

Whilst in manifest form spirits appear as shimmering ghost like figures. They can be harmed by direct magical energies, such as spells and magical weapons. The magical power is what is causing the damage so poison on a magic blade would do nothing extra (unless magical).

Spirits cannot inflict direct physical damage while not material, they may however use magic if they have any. As a manifest spirit cannot carry material possessions its magical powers must come from within, or a supplied power source.

Spirits that assume material form take one action (one action dice) to do so, and may do nothing else that action. The material form of a spirit will be similar to the form it last occupied when living, modified by its current power.

Spirits can generally regenerate wounds they suffer from nonmagical means at a rate of 1 per action (per action dice), but can do nothing else that action. ... Each time they discard a 6 dice?

Damage done by magical means will take normal periods of time to heal. If sufficient damage is inflicted, either magical or normal, then the manifest spirit will roll for unconsciousness and death as a normal creature. If it goes unconscious it returns to spirit form and the plane of its origin. If it dies then it dies, its form converts back to the mana energy from which it came. The more powerful spirits will most likely have founds ways to ensure against this.

Normal spirits (those still attached to a physical body) are not killed when the body is slain, they simply separate and move to the astral plain and await reincarnation. Possession of a material body is one way to avoid death for a spirit.

Some spirits however become corrupt, and fail to leave their body or refuse to move to the astral plain, thus becoming undead in various forms. By sheer force of will they are able to re‐animate their bodies, or take on a permanent manifestation. In doing this they become detached from the mana that sustains all other spirits and would waste away if unable to find a new mana source. They thus need to feed on the living, absorbing their energy from the spirits of the living, often destroying those spirits in the process.

Spirit Types.

Spirits come in four basic forms:

Free, Corrupt, Ascended and Elemental.

A Free spirit is the normal state of affairs, a soul attached to a body or wandering the void in search of its destiny. Such spirits do not have any preconceived concept of Good or Evil, and only a limited grasp of Law and Chaos. They remain essentially neutral and under development.

A Corrupt spirit is also known as an Undead Spirit. These are spirits that have refused to leave their bodies or the Material Plane. They remain behind where they seek out the living and feed off them

An Ascended spirit is one from the Divine plane, where they serve some greater power (a god). They are also called Servants, Avatars or Aids.

An Elemental spirit is an incarnation of some pure elemental force, usually associated with a matching body of that element on the Material Plane. A large body of water will have water elementals etc. To summon an elemental requires that it be done near such a mass of the appropriate element.

Spirits may also be in the following states:

A Coerced spirit is a spirit that has agreed to perform a service for some other being, either for reward, intimidation or coercion. When not in service this spirit would normally be Free and wandering the Void (no longer attached to a body). Servants of higher powers may perform service but remain an Aligned spirit form.

A Bound spirit is one that has been forced to serve some other being until released. This is normally against the will of the spirit who will make all attempts to escape the binding.

Corrupt Spirits.

Also known as Undead Spirits. These are spirits that refuse to accept their death, either because they have some task left to complete, or by sheer obstinacy. The minds of such spirits are not those of the mortal they once were, in effect the effort of remaining on the material plane sends them insane (to various degrees). This insanity confers a benefit in that they cannot be fooled by illusions or affected by charms. Undead may or may not retain their physical body (depends on what might have been done with it). Do not confuse skeletons and zombies with undead, these are animated dead. No matter how they manifest the original body of the undead is important, acting as a focus. The undead spirit will return to this focus to rest and recover. If the body is destroyed completely then the undead is also destroyed. Most undead hide their bodies to prevent this.

Most undead will hate the living and seek to destroy them. Further they are unable to regenerate their energy levels as they have not passed to the void. They must therefor seek energy from other spirits/life forms or face extinction.

Options for undead are as follows:

Immaterial Undead can:

• Attack other immaterial forms as if both were material, if any damage penetrates they can also drain FAT.

• Make Touch type attacks vs material lifeforms to drain FAT.

Material Undead can:

• Attack other material forms and if ANY damage penetrates they can also drain FAT, as long is the damage was caused by a Natural attack form or a metal weapon.

• Make Touch type attacks vs immaterial lifeforms to drain FAT (as this is a magical ability).

Undead drain FAT initially and then wounds. An average undead will drain 1d6 FAT per touch. FAT thus drained is gained as FAT to the undead and can be used as such for all normal reasons, such as magic. Given time, and undead will convert excess FAT into powers and improvements. A well feed undead can grow extremely strong. The mechanics for this are not specified at this time, just so you know that undead can grow in power should be sufficient.

Attacking an undead with an extension of your body (a weapon) will not allow the undead to harm you, but hitting it with the flesh of your body will inflict drain damage on you immediately.

Immaterial undead are hard to kill (they avoided it once already), they will normally flee before death, returning to their hiding places. They will then survive by killing small animals and insects until they have recovered, no matter how long it may take. Even if you 'slay' an undead it will re‐appear at its corpse on the next full moon (very weak tho). The only way to finally kill them is to track down their original bodies and burn them completely. Clever undead tend to scatter their body parts around a bit (the part has to be significant, a normal human corpse would yield 7 significant parts). Undead are also able to place themselves into states of torpor, allowing them to use very little energy whilst waiting for fresh food to arrive. For this reason undead can survive very long periods of time with a lot of power stored up. Waking from torpor takes a little time however and may allow the living a chance to react as the spirits rise from the ground.

Spirits

The natural world, the astral world and the aligned planes (Law and Chaos) are all inhabited by spirits. Spirits come in various forms, both immaterial and manifest, elemental, corrupt or free etc. Some of this discussion has already been spoken about in the Religion chapter. What is presented here is more detail, and a shamans view of the spirit world, which is quite different to that of the priests view.

Spirits exist within specific 'domains', a domain is merely an area of influence. A domain can be a geographic region, a planar region or it can simply be a physical manifestation such as a thinking being. Remember that spirits abound, and that every sentient being is merely a manifest form or shell for a spirit. So the domain of an elf would be their body. The domain of a wood spirit might be an area of a forest, or a single tree. Essentially the spirits power is representative of its domain, the bigger the domain the more powerful the spirit. Spirits in bodies have a capacity to translate growing power into a stronger manifest form, hence players can grow their spirits and become more powerful. Domains can overlap, partially or completely, allowing hostile spirits to exist within the same location. In such a case however the opposing sides would be weaker than if they had their own dominant domain, or it might be that two (or more) spirits are fighting each other in an area of overlap.

A city is a primary example of overlapping domains, where many spirits may be combating each other for dominance. Law and Chaos tend to be common in cities, whilst Neutrality/Neutrality is most often found in rural/wilderness areas. Corruption and Chaos tend to overlap easily. Elemental spirits can be found in areas where their element thrives. Following is a listing the various types of spirits that shamans can interact with, their favoured environments (domains), and other notes of particular interest.

Law ‐ spirits of law are generally 'good' in human terms, but you can also have avenging spirits that are Law aligned. Law likes order, honour, justice, control and integrity.

Free ‐ spirits that have left any material form they may have had and are now awaiting a choice as to which alignment they will ascend to, if ever.

Corrupt ‐ spirits that refuse to become free or aligned. They tend to cling to their material form after it has died or been destroyed. They reject life and the natural order, disconnecting themselves from the astral planes. They survive by consuming the living spirits around them.

Wild ‐ are spirits that have somehow disconnected themselves from the natural progression toward an alignment (they have no alignment rune) and remain in a free state indefinitely. They are often closely tied to the natural world/wilderness or areas of very strong magical influence.

Native ‐ spirits closely attuned to an area of the material world, acting as its guardian protector, preserving it in its pristine state. Native spirits tend to be very strong, being manifest spirit forms of natural regions, such as a large forest. Native spirits are equivalent to a demigod in power, but remain unaligned but usually pursuing their own agendas. They are often associated with a single elemental form as well.

Elemental ‐ spirits that represent the 4 elements (fire, water, earth, air) and are mostly found in areas where that element is naturally found. Elemental spirits are usually hostile to their opposing elemental form and in such areas the hostility may manifest itself in different ways.

A spirits power is represented by its Spirit characteristic, which for non‐material spirits becomes their physical characteristics when they manifest. A spirit locked into a material body (a player) is permanently manifest and derives its characteristics differently.