Re: Big spirit dudes

From: James Turner <j.a.turner_at_...>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 10:28:03 +0100


Peter:

>So? It's been consistently said that it would be _easier_
>for him to get a fire spirit if he worships Oakfed. If he
>does not worship Oakfed then any contacts with his fire
>spirits will be _hostile_. This means that he will have to
>fight the spirit if he wants to use it, as opposed to his
>knowing the tradition and being able to bribe or persuade
>the spirit.

The main mechanic for getting spirits is spirit combat (it's the only one used in the HW book although other ways of getting a fetish are implied). When you are using this you why care if the spirit is hostile or not. Roderick said on the hw-rules list - "Spirit Combat is perfectly okay to use on "friendly" spirits asuming the Tradition Knowledge says it is. Can some spirits get annoyed by it? Probably, but if you beat them, they don't have much say in the matter :-)."

Maybe spirit combat is a bad name for it and it should really be called "get spirits to do what I want".

>But when you worship Oakfed, you get _all_ fire spirits that
>he represents, and not just say the Flaming Arrow spirit
>that you kicked the crap out of during your last time to the
>spirit plane.
>
>I do not believe that binding a fire spirit means that all
>fire spirits of whatever kind are now within your tradition.
>That would be the equivalent of a RQ shaman arguing that he
>can command fireblade spirits because he already knows
>extinguish.

But you can get a generic fire spirit can't you? This may be more of a hw-rules question but I thought that fetishes needn't be as specific as Flaming Arrow fetish.

>Bear in mind the HW description is a _generic_ description
>of entering the spirit plane. It is not the be-all end-all
>of Praxian Shamanism. If you have Issaries initiate-status,
>you can look at the Praxian Spirit World description at
>a-sharp and see that the Praxian shaman normally enters at
>the Great Herd where Eiritha is.

Ah, good stuff.
I must have missed that update.

>But entering the spirit plane near a place of Great Spirits affinity
>_is_ entering the realm of that Spirit. It would be silly to enter
>the spirit plane near Malia's Stool and somehow not enter her realm.

What happens then if a shaman draws his circle in a leafy glade, under a big boulder, next to a running stream and a blazing camp fire?

>>Bears are common in Sartar,
>They are?

The point being bears are not rare, fantastic creatures that no-one has any real knowledge about. So looking for a bear spirit wouldn't be as hard as looking for a three-arsed wombat spirit, which certainly would require further knowledge and research.

>Hunting in a spirit wood? Rather dangerous I'd think. What
>happens if he encounters the Wild Hunt, the Lady of the Wild,
>or any one of the terrifying denizens in those woods?

No more dangerous than hunting a real bear and comming across, enemy clansmen, trolls, tusk riders, telmori, aldryami etc.



James Turner
j.a.turner_at_...

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