Uncle Fred may still be given a sup of milk every year on his birthday, but so are Aunt Ethel, Uncle Joe, Great Aunt Maude, Great-great Grandpa, GGGrandpa's Second Wife (we don't talk about his first), etc. The ancestors are a very real part of life, it's just that there are so many that they blur (literally and figuratively) into a single group.
> Seems to me the dividing line shouldn't be so rigid and arbitrary.
> What's a spirit to one can still be a daimone to another, without
> misapplied penalties. Shamans have always, in 'reality' (depending on
> terminology, of course) dealt with little local powers, the sort of
> thing that could just as well be defined as a daimone and thus be
> completely beyond any shaman's abilities.
Daimones are not "beyond a shaman's powers", it's just more difficult (-20) to deal with. Remember that most disembodied thingies wandering around will *probably* be deceased members of your own group, and your local "talker to the Other Side" (godtalker, shaman, priest...) will be able to deal with it. In Heortland, most disembodied thingies will likely be Orlanthi souls. In Prax, most disembodied thingies will be animist spirits, and your shaman can whip them into line. When a foreigner dies and starts haunting the area, of course it will be more difficult to lay to rest (even a disembodied Dara Happan will be "foreign" to the local Ty Kora Teki - she may have a bit more trouble sending it on its way. But then, "foreign ghosts" are trouble in RW cultures too.
> And will TR clear up just what a Ghost is?
No. It not a set of rules for dealing with the Other Side, it's a description (and some rules) about being a Heortling Orlanthi.
>Can you get ghosts of theists? If not, what are they? And who can exorcise
them?
Usually a god will ensure that his worshippers get to the right place after death, but sometimes he can't. Yes, you can get disembodied theist souls wandering around for one reason or another. Godtalkers and priests are the ones to lay them to rest. Every culture has a cult that deals with death and dying, funerals and rememberance. The normal orlanthi one is Ty Kora Tek (not Humakt, he deals with *DEATH*, a much more serious thing).
"Ghost" is as good a word for such a creature as any, and better than "disembodied spirit".
Personally I would probably assign a modifier similar to the "Other Side Safety" Mod. A Ty Kora Tek godtalker trying to lay the soul of a Dara Happan to rest would suffer a "Dangerous" (-10) mod due to the natural antipathy between Storm and Sun, Dara Happa and Heortland, Orlanth and Yelm.
RR
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