More Spirit ecology

From: Colin Watson <watson_at_csd.abdn.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 15:36:58 GMT

I liked Joerg's ideas of Spirit ecology illustrated with the flower/bunny/wolf - -spirit examples. It's maybe too obvious to point out that grazer and predator spirits (bunnies & wolves) must have some *need* of what they're hunting or foraging for. That is, if they "feed" to gain MP presumably they have some use for these MP. I suggest that such spirits must expend MP simply to continue their existence; this gives them a reason to act as they do.

Perhaps MP are expended on the spirit plane in the same way that Fatigue is expended on the mundane plane (but at a slower rate). So (small amounts) of magic must be spent just to move about.

Presumably the Flower-spirits feed off a by-product created when MP are expended (a sort of spiritual CO2).

In an idle moment I thought of another spirit type which I'll call a horse-spirit: Its movement through the spirit world is swift (disproportionate with its POW); it can be harnessed by nomad shamans and will carry them along at high speed, saving MP in travelling through the otherworld and giving the option of avoiding encounters with slower spirits.

Of course, to follow up Nick's point about spirit subjectivity, not all shamans will view these spirits as horse-spirits - Praxians would see them as their favoured riding beast.

___
CW.

---