Re: Bagog (reprise)

From: Peter Metcalfe <metcalph_at_...>
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 20:28:09 +1200


Alexandre Lanciani

>Requirements: A would-be shaman must defeat the current one in duel and
>integrate his spirit, which then becomes his fetch. Usually the duel is
>preceded by a ritual to augment the integration's chances of success.

There are many other stations in Bagogoi... culture than just the shamans. Not all Bagogi are shamans and the RQ cult drescription had holy fighters who could incarnate various aspects of scorpions yet could not be shamans.

>Traditional Spirits:
>Ancestor Spirits (typically provide a single mundane ability or a
>personality trait)

Bagogi would not have ancestor spirits as dead bagogi are integrated/eaten by the living.

>Chaos spirits (typically provide a Chaos Talent - look for examples in the
>Narrator's Book, p. 89)

I don't think Bagogi shamans will have such an easy access to Chaos.

>Scorpion spirits (include Hardchitin, Stinger, Venom)

>Special Spirits: Sharpclaws, Manylegs

Bagogi shamans should not have access to these types of spirits unless they are also Queens. You might be better of viewing the Bagogi Shamans as dealing with spirits _outside_ the Bagog tradition (like the Ituvanu shamans of the Dorastran Telmori) for the benefit of the people.

>Secret: Shapechange (like Hsunchen shapechange)

This would not be available to the shamans but to those holy warriors serving the People.

>The former is usually performed on a living victim (although a fresh
>corpse - no more than a night old - will do as well). The victim is killed
>and devoured at the end of the ritual, and the ritual's bonus is split
>between the feast's participants and applied to their Devour ability. The
>ritual's effect is to release from the corpse a spirit for every ability
>that the victim possessed in life, whose might equals the ability's target
>number.

It be much simpler to have something like "the Devourers can integrate the captive to gain any ability of his as if he were a spirit". This is intentionally wasteful in that you only get one ability and it behoves the Bagogi to use the ritual of rebirth for hero-types.

>These spirits can be fought with the augmented Devour ability and
>then forced into a fetish or integrated, as usual.

Definitely not "forced into a fetish".

--Peter Metcalfe

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