Snap!
Having been exiled and landed up in the exact spot where their clan originally settled in the Far Place (funny that), my lot got in touch with some of their ancestors. One of the players reckoned they needed a guardian, so, being a godi, set the whole ritual up with all the exiles helping, to ask one of the ancestors to help.
Our having established that these particular ancestors were immigrants from Balazar via Tarsh, children or grandchildren of characters in a previous (Keith's) game, the one who popped up was a granddaughter of a former character of mine, the granddaughter being an animist whatever (practitioner perhaps) of the Lady of the Wild.
She quickly demonstrated herself as desirous of the physical pleasures which had so long been denied her, meat, drink, and pleasures of the flesh. We had begun the whole business as an extended contest to perform the rites AND do the persuading, so very difficult. It ended up being very convoluted.
The godtalker was striking deals with the Ancestor all night, while keeping the supporters from wandering off or going into panics when the ceremony got interrupted by deathly hands growing from the earth and grabbing at them (that was a large AP loss). He had to ask the womenfolk if one of them would volunteer to let the ancestor use her body for the night, her having decided she might accede to the request after a night with one of the heroes. At the end, he even planted a massive smack on the ancestor's lips, when striking the final deal, in front of his wife (that was a hero point spend).
It was one of the maidens of the exiles who volunteered to succumb to the spirit as her price. Towards the end of the whole business, in the morning, the Ancestor decided she would keep various parts of this maiden, to whit the eyes, the tongue and the 'parts'. At the end, with a marginal victory, the maiden ended up a rather lifeless figure (we had some toing and froing about how many eyes left and so on, all quite gruesome), living in a hut above the burial site, at times inhabited by the guardian.
We had some discussion about animists and theism, but it becomes intractable (animist ancestors are difficult anyway), so sod it. Each of the heroes who joined the hero band (i.e. a proto-clan) had to have their own form of duty. So, occasional long kisses likely to cause trouble, taking her on long hunts, telling her stories, looking after the human counterpart.
She has been of limited use so far, partly because the one she chose to warn about the attack hadn't bothered to join the hero band, being an outsider. So far, she is more of an NPC with a personality than having abilities of great use.
Thought I'd share that. I love all the other ones.
Sam.
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