First, thanks to all three for the insightful answers. Then, the replies... ;)
Ian Cooper
> > Requirements: A would-be shaman must defeat the current one in duel
> >and integrate his spirit, which then becomes his fetch. Usually the
> > duel is preceded by a ritual to augment the integration's chances
> > of success.
>
> Don't have my Lords of Terror to hand but I think this duel should
> apply to becoming the Queen (who must be female) and who IMHO gets
> the secret.
In the LoT's write-up every promotion required a duel, a kill and a meal (gluttonous, these scorpion-people)! :)
> > Spirit Ally: Bagog herself (provides her mundane counterpart the
> > Talent of Rebirth)
>
> Hmmm see below, I think only the Queen should have this.
I think it too! But I was under the impression that the Spirit Ally forged a relationship only with the head of the tribe, which in this case is the Queen.
> > Other Notes: Two special rituals have been mentioned above, the
> > Ritual of Devouring and the Ritual of Rebirth.
>
> I suspect that these should be the secret and only learnable by the
> Queen.
Well, certainly the Queen is most often the recipient of the rituals' bonuses, and only her can give birth to other scorpion-men, but the devouring is important enough in Bagog's tradition (at least I perceive it so) to make it available to every scorpion-men. Mind you, I don't think that the Queen fulfils the role of magical assistant to the tribe (what would they have shaman for?) so these ritual would be more often performed by the shaman for the Queen's benefit (or whoever would be the recipient).
> > The ritual's effect is to release from the corpse a spirit for
> > every ability that the victim possessed in life, whose might equals
> > the ability's target number. These spirits can be fought with the
> > augmented Devour ability and then forced into a fetish or
> integrated, as usual.
>
> I think that individuals only have one spirit (ok there may be some
> exceptions) so I am not sure about the idea of a spirit per ability.
But if fits with the fact that spirits in HW seem to possess only one ability (I may be grossly mistaken though). And they don't look like complete individuals, so I don't know if a spirit (found on the Spirit Plane) should *necessarily* be identified with a person's "spirit" (soul?). Just look at passion spirits: they seem to me more like emanations of a "full" spirit, maybe broken pieces of it. But not the soul of a defunct person.
> I don't think you need to represent this ability in spirit terms, it
> is memories that are devoured.
It's a matter of interpretation, no? I mean, from an animistic POV what the ritual does is breaking up the spirit into many spirits (ok, you call them memories, but the shaman calls them spirits) which are then Devoured by the magic of Bagog, and used as nutrition by her children. BTW, it's Bagog's cycle again: destroy the spirit, eat it and then have it reborn within you.
> I think a better interpretation is that it allows mundane
> abilities//feats/spells(grimoire knowledge) and memories to be stolen
> from the victim and gained by the eater.
Isn't it too "vampiric" (to tie with another thread)? I used spirits just to remain solidly within the animist paradigm, and to avoid adding ad hoc mechanics. Mind you, at very least it could be just a way to maintain mechanical homogeneity, but with a different interpretation (yours, frex).
> Remember that traditionally scorpion men had poor magic - shamans
> were loath to hand it out and I suspect the number of fetishes or
> integration spirits given to followers would not be great.
Is there a particular reason for this? I mean, is Bagog's magic poor? Are her traditional spirits too strong to be easily captured? Are shamans trying to keep all the power for themselves (maybe to balance the Queen's power)? Maybe another, better, reason?
Philip Hibbs
> > Requirements: A would-be shaman must defeat the current one in duel
> >and integrate his spirit, which then becomes his fetch. Usually the
> > duel is preceded by a ritual to augment the integration's chances
> > of success.
>
> What happens if the new shaman can't integrate the spirit of the old, or
> does the old spirit not resist?
Right. I choose this procedure because in LoT a new Queen obtains the allied spirit of the former one. The sample character, K'rana, communicates (once) with her predecessor's memories (which she has devoured). I like this sort of continuity but since I prefer to have Bagog as Spirit Ally I transferred it to shamans (the new shaman can use the abilities and experience of the old one, who then survives his death in a typically bagogi (?) way).
To return to your question, I can think of three possible answers:
Other suggestions?
Peter Metcalfe
> >Requirements: A would-be shaman must defeat the current one in duel and
> >integrate his spirit, which then becomes his fetch. Usually the duel is
> >preceded by a ritual to augment the integration's chances of success.
>
> There are many other stations in Bagogoi... culture than just the
> shamans. Not all Bagogi are shamans and the RQ cult drescription
> had holy fighters who could incarnate various aspects of scorpions
> yet could not be shamans.
Agreed. But IMO there are better ways to track these stations than cult hierarchies. Holy Fighter could well be an advanced occupation (requiring knowledge of the Tradition Secret to enter).
> >Traditional Spirits:
> >Ancestor Spirits (typically provide a single mundane ability or a
> >personality trait)
>
> Bagogi would not have ancestor spirits as dead bagogi are
> integrated/eaten by the living.
True.
> >Chaos spirits (typically provide a Chaos Talent - look for
> examples in the
> >Narrator's Book, p. 89)
>
> I don't think Bagogi shamans will have such an easy access to
> Chaos.
But isn't Bagog a great chaos spirit? Then why shouldn't they have it? Besides, in RQ scorpion-men had more or less the same chance than broo to have a chaotic feature (POW*5 vs. POW*3, but the scorpion-men have a lower average POW).
> Bagogi shamans should not have access to these types of spirits
> unless they are also Queens. You might be better of viewing
> the Bagogi Shamans as dealing with spirits _outside_ the Bagog
> tradition (like the Ituvanu shamans of the Dorastran Telmori)
> for the benefit of the people.
But who would deal with traditional spirits, then? IIRC telmori have two types of shamans.
> >Secret: Shapechange (like Hsunchen shapechange)
>
> This would not be available to the shamans but to those holy
> warriors serving the People.
Maybe changing the requirements? Something like: one mastery at three talents from integrated spirits, a hunting ability and a combat ability.
> It be much simpler to have something like "the Devourers can integrate
> the captive to gain any ability of his as if he were a spirit". This is
> intentionally wasteful in that you only get one ability and it behoves
> the Bagogi to use the ritual of rebirth for hero-types.
But what level of victory is required? Normally integration requires a complete victory, so would this ritual be useless unless the participants get a complete victory? Of course I wouldn't allow integration on any victory.
The ritual's results, i.e. the availability of the new ability, should be related to the level of success. One proposal is Ian's, allowing the stolen memories to fade away after some time. I prefer to stick with the usual animist rules.
> >These spirits can be fought with the augmented Devour ability and
> >then forced into a fetish or integrated, as usual.
>
> Definitely not "forced into a fetish".
Definitely not, I agree. :)
-- Regards, Alexandre. "Cinq milliards de races d'hommes sur Terre, Est-ce assez pour croiser le fer...?"
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