> Are spirits just people and animals with no bodies who have been dead for a long time?
> What's it like to talk to an animal spirit? I assume some of them are intelligent, otherwise it would be pointless.
> How do you treat spirits in your game world?
First it very much depends on the type of game you are playing. If it's HQ then then the spirits serve the story, acting just as any other part of the plot, they are the tools of the narrator. If it's a more nuts and bolts system like GURPs or RQ then you need to have some idea of what you are dealing with.
Animists believe that everything has a spirit, so everything has a spirit. The land, the plants, animals, people. The spirits of everything around you can be contacted, but really only know about what they would know. My players are now very wary of trying to use the spirits around them for information. Plant spirits don't know too much and are very simple in their outlook -Sun, water, earth, etc. Animal spirits, the same - food, water, eat, watch for predators. I keep it very simple. The same with land spirits. Simple but not stupid.
Some spirits are separated from their bodies - normally they go back into the cycle of rebirth - but the interesting ones remain. These are the ones that players can really interact with. Treat them as normal NPCs, with wishes and desires, and oddities as they are spirits. These also include spirits from other places other than the middle or inner world of Glorantha, so there are spirits from the skyworld, underworld, water, earth,etc.
Unless your players are spirit-talkers or shaman, they are not going to be experts at dealing with spirits. They lack the training to fully negotiate with spirits, and so tend to only have simple spirit interaction. However Spirit-talkers and shaman can help you obtain a spirit friend - sidekicks in HQ. Treat them as any other sidekicks, and make them interesting. Give them a flaw just so the player can butt heads with it from time to time. And remember that not everyone can see them unless they have some kind of ability to manifest in the inner world.
One of my players has a spirit sidekick who like to appear and scare people to Death...
Ghost Apparition of Death
Death 1W
Ghost 16
Apparition 1W
Flaw - likes to sit in on meals 1W
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