Lay to Rest

Lay to Rest is part of the Path of Spirit, it's most basic use. 3e GURPS Spirits mentions it on page 104.
"guides the spirit of a newly deceased person to the afterlife" is a vagueness not helped in 4e's Thaumatology page 162 in terms of forcing this to happen or not.
"Guide" seems to assume that newly deceased persons have trouble finding their way. One could assume in 3e from this reading that it simply meant there was a lack of the "basic spirit ability" to find an afterlife. This is S34's Spirit Travel to "one inner spirit world" S36 removes with Missing Power. S56 for example uses this for Elementals "can't use" list.
T162 however imagines this as "can guide anything, but the longer they've been dead, the harder it is" in the form of skill penalty or more required energy.
Hellboy 128 was much clearer in meaning than these other two. It lists at the top "May Be Resisted" and "A spirit may resist this ritual if it wishes to remain on the physical plane".
This distinction is also important for the Exorcism skill on 4eB193 which mentions "The spirit of a deceased mortal is laid to rest." This is worded as if it is an automatic result of driving deceased mortals from bodies. However there does not appear to be a statistical representation of this vulnerability. T161's version doesn't include that at all.
*Spirit Slave must target a "living" being, so "dead" creatures being immune to that could be another compensation.
*Summon, similarly, is inexpensive teleportaiton and communicaiton which could be desirable, fo rthose lacking normal abilities to do it.
Nor would it seem any stat represents vulnerability to the Path of Spirit.
It is apparently like a 0 point feature where the drawback of "may be forced from this plane, unlike other insubstantial creatures" is compensated for by benefits such as "can possess an Embody" or "can be guided where it wants to go"
If converting that skill to a power, exorcism is probably something along the lines of Affliction w/ Negated Advantage (Possession) while Lay to Rest is probably like Affliciton (Advantage: Spirit Jumper) which sends something where it doesn't want to go, no matter what. Afflicitons have resistance rolls!
Category:Spells
Category:Books and Paths