Sandy Petersen in X-RQ-ID: 6913
> Colin: I agree with your theory that Power and Intellect spirits are
> not just tools of abusive players, but have some sort of natural
> function and/or reason for existence.
I agree that there ought to be a natural function and reason for their existance, now we have them. But which?
> I'm currently sticking by my theory that Intellect spirits
> are the great Spell Recyclers of Glorantha, an essential part of
> moving knowledge around.
Wouldn't these be the abominous spell spirits? Or does a spell spirit beaten in spirit combat become an intellect spirit?
> Power spirits aren't quite so obvious. Perhaps they are just
Like your MP-only entities your player shaman encountered in Pamaltela? Below I'll try to present some POW spirits (well, MP-donating spirits) with a certain sense of self. Comments appreciated.
> A more highly evolved
> spirit, such as a ghost, cannot donate its MPs to another, because it
> _has_ self-awareness.
Your standard ghost is the result of a special enchantment which endowed the spirit of a recently deceased creature with the abilities to attack in spirit combat, to become visible at will, and to possess a victim of spirit combat reduced to zero MP. There are several ways to create ghost-like entities, including Thanatar's mad head ghosts, and Humakts guardian ghosts. (IMO there should be a create ghost enchantment for shamans as well as for death-related divine magic users.)
> Nick Brooke:
>>Some people want the diversity to be reflected in more >>tangible/mundane ways, distinguishing between Troll spirits and Wolf >>spirits and Flower spirits rather than between game constructs with >>different stats. > Unless there's something different about a troll spirit as
Sure there is. Let's assume there are spirits distnguished after functionality, and further by their origin, as Sandy seems to propose.
I'll compare POW spirits of different origin: a flower spirit, a bunny spirit, and a wolf spirit.
According to RQ, POW is life force, so the generation of life force will follow certain habits.
A flower POW spirit will bask in the (spiritual equivalent of) sunlight, and provide nectar (MP) to those who access it in a way both the flower and the approaching entity profit from, in the way the flower is designed to work. It is possible to harvest the plant, i.e. mutilate it in a way that most of it survives, and extract the nectar in some way or other, generally harmful, or even to annihilate the plant for some temporal benefit (Tap?). Anyway, this spirit would regenerate its life force just by being.
A bunny POW spirit would be different in that it needs nourishment on other entities (plant spirits?), nibbling off their green (or roots) in a way somewhat harmful to that other being. A bunny could share its life force either in the way a mother animal sucks its young, or pass on the "harvested" life force, possibly pre-processed (chewed into balls), or it could be devoured by a predator, mutilated, etc.
A wolf POW spirit would hunt bunny (and similar) spirits, devour (or, as in GodTime, mutilate) them, and pass on either chunks of the spirit meat it has, be mutilated itself, give milk, or be annihilated.
Oops, I forgot an important mechanic of extracting life force from beast POW spirits: you could bleed it.
How would these spirits differ in rules terms?
The RQ3 POW spirit reminds me of a cow that is milked, or a maple tree leached for its syrup. The spirits I described above could use slightly different rules:
The plant spirit just needs to hang around. It can produce excess starch (life force, energy = MP) organs which can be harvested (take time to regrow), or it could voluntarily produce flowers to share part of its life force - nectar. Its continued utility would be seasonal - when flowering it provides very concentrated, attractive life force, its seeds contain the core of a new entity and very attractive, though hard to get MP within the seeds' shell, possibly surrounded by a fruit designed to be harvested by other entities.
The bunny spirit offers itself for one-use, mainly, but should be highly fertile, and reproduce a lot. It needs to be let loose on otherwise indigestible life force, which means that its binding must allow it some freedom of action - a leash rather than a cage, unless the cage is provided with a steady feed of indigestible (for the human user) or at least less productive (i.e. green salad, hardly palatable roots) life force. In return a fattened bunny makes a very good dish once. (If the Spirit Plane is similar to GodTime, parts of the bunny's essence could be ripped off it without destroying the bunny, leavng it to hop off or remain caged, and heal slowly.)
The wolf POW spirit would need to roam freely, and hunt bunny spirits and similar. Its binding must allow for this, since there is little to gain from feeding it caged bunny spirits - these would be usable by the caging agent himself. The difference is that a wolf spirit, if devoured, would convey life force specalised for hunting and fighting. As a companion, it would provide chunks of bunny spirits after successful hunts. So either the wolf POW spirit is kept like a hunting companion, or it is devoured on special occasions.
This wolf spirit wouldn't work as an involuntarily bound spirit, only as kind of allied spirit, willing to share its prey, and at times off hunting.
Maybe with this kind of allied spirits we could go back to RQ2 "spirit zoos" without dirupting game balance?
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