A Spiritual Bestiary (SB)

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This section presents brief looks at a wide variety of spirits. It barely scratches the surface, as the types of spirits in existence in the game setting are limited only by the human imagination. Those most easily used in play are expounded upon in the MC section.
Ancestors: Many tribes venerate the preceding generations, and their memories often come to define the laws and morality of their societies. These beliefs define and sustain ancestor spirits, beings usually seen as the ghosts of the dead, who act as conservative forces working to maintain and defend what the people consider to be the "old ways."
They are most easily contacted at their home (90% chance), but can also be contacted at a shrine to their honor (10% chance) or while attending special events and holidays in their honor. (The chance for contacts in this case is defined by the story needs of the DM.)
The ancestor spirits are detailed on the MC pages.
Animal Spirits: These are 1-Hit-Die spirits, exhibiting characteristics suitable to the human perception of the animal's species (the fox is wily, the rat despicable, etc.). Magical creatures and those with Intelligence scores above Animal-level have no "spirit" that a shaman would recognize.
They may only ever be contacted at their home (the animals within which they reside), present 100% of the time, but encountered only ldlO times per year.
Predatory animal spirits form the ghost packs, which are detailed in the MC section.
Bound Spirits: A bound spirit is any spirit embedded within a physical object on the Prime Material Plane. Some are deliberately bound into an object by a shaman (most usually fetish spirits), but the vast majority are nature spirits (see plant spirits, tree spirits, and weather spirits, below).
Bogeymen: Bogeymen are the figments of frightened imaginations. They are the nameless creatures that lurk in a child's closet or beneath the bed and the dark shadows glimpsed in the yard at dusk. The more frightened people are of them the more powerful they become.
Bogeymen generally fall into two categories: The lesser spirits are responsible for only minor scares— the creak of a floorboard when no one else is in the house, or the rustle in the bushes when a character is traversing a deserted, darkened area, alone and unarmed. Shapeless and shadowy, these are 1-Hit- Die spirits, able to cause Id4 minor, inexplicable effects per week. If they succeed in frightening those that they haunt, however, they may grow in power, developing into the greater bogeymen described in the MC section at the end of this book.
Truly monstrous spirits might be born of the superstitions of a whole community, having 6 or more Hit Dice, but the particulars of such spirits are left to each DM to determine.
They may always be contacted at their home, and never anywhere else. Home for a bogeyman is where it feeds on fear (the deserted path, the bedroom closet, and so on).
Disease Spirits: People are always concerned about their health, and their concerns create disease spirits. Those living from hand to mouth are often particularly anxious about losing their health, and so in poorer areas these spirits infect people with blind malignancy, just as they are expected to do. In areas where illness is considered to be punishment for wrong-doings, such spirits seek to afflict sinful or evil people or communities. Where illness is considered a random fact of existence, they act randomly. When people begin to panic about disease, their fear causes the spirits to proliferate, causing an epidemic, often leading to greater panic and further spread of the disease. In order to cause a disease in a person, the spirit must possess him or her. A target that saves successfully vs. paralyzation fights off the spirit and its illness, and those already infected can be cured if the spirit is exorcised. (Of course, real illnesses exist in the campaign worlds, and these still threaten characters as normal.)
Minor ailments should be considered 1-Hit-Die spirits. Fatal diseases are 3-Hit-Die spirits (because people fear them more). They have no Intelligence or Wisdom scores and cannot take physical form. They simply behave as they are expected to.
Most disease spirits have no homes and rarely have shrines (though worship sites raised to disease spirits would have Id6 spirits present per sacrifice offered each month), but rather wander from victim to victim. During major epidemics, there is a 50% chance that 2d6 disease spirits can be contacted.
Emotions: Whenever an emotion is felt, this can create or strengthen a corresponding spirit. Thus, there exist spirits of love, hate, anger, sorrow, and so on. The entire range of emotions may be found in the spirit world.
Shamans believe that every sentient life form— and many animals—have a multitude of such spirits imperceptibly contained within them, one spirit for each emotion which that person often feels (joy, anger, and so on). The strengths of these spirits reflect and in turn affect the person's behavior: a bad tempered person, for example, has a strong spirit of anger, and this spirit in turn provokes the person to further bouts of temper. In other words, the spirits within a person make up their personality.
By the use of extract spells, a shaman can "exorcise" unwanted emotions, like hate or jealousy) from a person by driving the appropriate spirit from the body; malicious shamans can equally remove positive emotions from a person. If an emotion is cast from a person, that person becomes unable to feel the corresponding emotion, be it love, pity, hatred, or whatever. (Targets of this kind of attack may roll a save vs. magic, and characters who believe in the spirits receive a -2 penalty to their roll. A failed save means the emotion is gone from the character.)
Equally, an emotion spirit that has been exorcised, or left lingering in a place where an emotion was felt strongly, can latch on to a new victim, "riding" them unless they can successfully save vs. spell. A person who is being "ridden" then finds him or herself much more prone to the emotion which the spirit represents.
Should the DM choose to have a player character under the influence of a loose emotion spirit, he can simply tell the player that the personality of his character has inextricably changed, or he can simulate the emotional imbalance suffered by the character with saving throws: Whenever the character might plausibly be driven to feel the emotion—insane anger if insulted or overwhelming joy on seeing a young child playing—he must successfully save vs. spell or be filled with the emotion.
An interesting use of emotions in game play might be to explain why a certain player wasn't playing his character according to his typical personality. As all DMs have seen, there are some sessions during a campaign where a player will be out of sorts, and his character will be more violent or emotional than usual. Rather than chalking it up to bad roleplaying and docking the player's XPs, the DM might make an adventure out of it, as this personality abnormality suddenly becomes permanent, and the character needs to discover why.
Emotions usually survive only within mortal hosts, but linger (at a temporary home) for a time depending upon their strength. They have no Attribute scores and cannot take physical form.
Fetish Spirits: Fetish spirits are barely sentient creatures, often found around ruined law courts, abandoned palaces, and other places where justice has previously been exercised in a cursory or heavy-handed manner.
Each fetish spirit has a spell-like power, usually malign, which a shaman (using a suitable spell) can harness. Further details of these spirits and their powers are given in the MC section.
Great Spirits: These are distant, powerful spirits, usually the personification of natural forces like The Rainbow, Mother Earth, or the Four Winds. Rarely invoked by anyone but high level shamans, the great spirits are unconcerned with petty details of mortal life, but are usually considered to be involved with great and dramatic events—wars, quests to save the tribe, and so on.
Great spirits have 15 Hit Dice, and may be considered to have powers equal to those of demigods (as detailed in Legends and Lore). Full statistics for a sample great spirit are included in the MC section.
Great spirits are not believed to have a home that is accessible by mortals, thus they cannot be contacted at their home by shamans. There is a 40% chance they may be contacted at shrines devoted to them, and a 1% chance at any other location.
Guardian Spirits: These spirits are most frequently found in places where a person gave his or her life to protect a place or object that he was passionate about. A priestess who died bravely protecting her temple from looters, a soldier killed in the heroic defense of a beloved lord's palace, or a farmer who died protecting his farm from marauders might give rise to a spirit that guards the place the person died for.
For as long as the focal site or object stands, and even though there is no reason to guard it, the guardian spirit maintains an invisible vigil, appearing on the Prime Material Plane when the mortal defenders (if any) have been overcome. If the focal place or object is ever destroyed, the spirit vanishes.
By the use of a bind guardian spell, a shaman can uproot a guardian spirit from one place and set it to guard another. It is always present at its home—the place it defends—and cannot be contacted elsewhere.
Guardian spirits are described fully in the MC section at the end of this book.
Hearth Spirits: When a home has been lived in for some years, the combined affections and concerns of its inhabitants lead to the creation of a hearth spirit—a spirit that oversees and guards the home.
These are simple 1-Hit-Die spirits, with Intelligence and Wisdom scores of 11 and very limited powers. They may watch over all that happens in the house, and as they are formed from the emotions of the house's occupants they have a perfect memory of the major events that have occurred throughout its history, and the motivation and concerns of those who live there (but not of visitors and guests).
Further, once per day the spirit can cast the equivalent of a cantrip spell. This is often used for simple defensive purposes. For example, if burglars enter the house while the occupants sleep, the spirit might cause a noise to wake the owner or scare the interloper.
If the house is not threatened, the spirit might occasionally perform some helpful task for the owners (repairing a shoe, finishing the cleaning, and so on.) If thanked with an appropriate gift (a meal left for it on the kitchen table at night, a pint of beer poured on the doorstep each evening, or something similar) the spirit may perform such tasks on a regular or even nightly basis.
Hearth spirits are always found at their home, defined by the fences or markings that bound the house's compound, or the walls of the house itself if it has no yard.
Hero Spirits: Hero spirits are the peoples' memories of their great folk-heroes—the champions of myths and legends. Many may actually have been callous megalomaniacs, but the people preserve only the heroic portions of their deeds, and so create spirits embodying the virtues that are dear to them. Examples of hero spirits are the founders of cities, great kings, benevolent outlaws, and so on. Few bear much resemblance to the people they are modeled on, and many never existed in reality at all.
Further detail on these spirits are included in MC section.
They are typically most easily contacted at their home (75% chance), although they also frequent shrines to their honor (35% chance) and sites that are connected to their name in legend (5% chance).
Might-Have-Beens: Every disappointment and betrayal can lead to the birth of a might-have-been, and if the feeling is widespread or powerful enough it can linger for some time. A kingdom straining beneath a tyrant's yoke might dream of what might have been if only they had a kind king—thus creating a might-have-been spirit that embodies the virtues that the real king lacks. Such a spirit might choose a champion to free the people and aid him or her in that quest. A barren woman might dream constantly of the child she never had, creating a might-have-been resembling the longedfor child. Untimely deaths, missed opportunities, and countless other sorrows can create might-havebeen spirits, beings that often seem to almost break through into the real world (as their creators would so like them to do), but remain elusive and evasive.
Might-have-beens are usually 1-Hit-Die spirits. Those created by the wistfulness of a whole country or region might be as powerful as 8 Hit Dice. They have no homes, but may be found where suitable dreams are dreamt and hopes hoped (5% at any such place).
Nemeses: Heroes are held to be great only because they fought such ferocious foes (Robin Hood needed the Sheriff of Nottingham, just as David needed Goliath). No one celebrates insignificant victories, and as the tales of a hero grow so the power and villainy of his or her foe is usually exaggerated: Just as hero spirits are unrealistically virtuous, so their arch-enemies are transformed into hideously malign and powerful villains.
Each nemesis is equivalent to or slightly weaker than the hero spirit it is remembered as struggling against. Although the two are bound into interminable conflict neither can ever finally overcome the other, and their fates are intertwined. If one is forgotten, most likely the other will be as well. Full details of these spirits may be found in the MC section.
Nemeses may typically be contacted at their home, with a 95% chance of being present. There is a 25% chance they are at shrines devoted to their honor, and a 1% chance of being at locations associated with them in legend.
Plant Spirit: Many tribes believe that plants, as well as animals and humanoids, are sentient beings, and sometimes even worship certain trees as sacred and potent beings.
Plant spirits are generally 1-Hit-Die spirits, as sentient as they are presumed to be. Some may have magical power (causing misfortune to those who cut wood or fruit from them without permission, for example). Plant spirits can always be contacted at their home, which is the plant within which they reside.
Rock Spirits: Like plants, rocks may sometimes be considered sentient or even sacred. Again, most rock spirits have only 1 Hit Die, and are very slow witted, feeling only the most obvious of events reverberating through the ground around them. A few unusual rocks (menhirs, weird natural cliffs, or other sites revered as sacred) may harbor 2-Hit-Die spirits capable of casting one 3rd-level priest spell from the Elemental Earth sphere.
Rogue Hero: When a legend or myth is forgotten— either because the people cease to care about it, or because their culture is destroyed—the spirits of the heroes that it spoke of no longer have the sustenance that they require to continue. They weaken and fade away within the space of one human generation (about 30 years).
Some spirits, however, do not take their destruction easily, but seek an alternative method of survival. These are termed rogue heroes.
Some of these spirits seek out rogue shamans (usually spiritualists), hoping that if these shamans can keep the legends alive or make regular sacrifices to them they can survive a little longer. Others use their remaining power to terrorize a community, hoping to win respect through fear but usually being transformed into bogeymen by the peoples' terror. Others seek to have cults founded to worship them.
In other cases, the people do not forget, but simply misremember the hero. It may suit a conquering regime, for example, to teach the people that the spirits of old were really foul, evil beings, and so the popular imagination recasts them in this warped image. (If only a part of the population is convinced, the hero spirit might actually divide, one half remaining as the hero—but less powerful— and the other half becoming the rogue hero.)
In almost all cases, however, the rogue bears the twisted appearance of its former self, and is a degenerate, evil creature.
Typical statistics for a rogue spirit are included in the MC section at the back of this book.
They may typically be contacted at their home (90% chance) or a shrine devoted to them (25%).
Totem Spirits: Each totem spirit embodies one species of animal, and all animal spirits of that species are subject to it. Many mortals talk of the totems as the first animal of its type (Grandfather Lion, for example).
They are the archetypes of the species from an anthropomorphic human or demihuman viewpoint, having every attributed characteristic of the species to a heroic degree. The lion totem is noble and courageous beyond compare, the owl totem is infinitely wise, and so on.
Not only do the totems have total control over the animals of their species, but can also bestow their own qualities on those who sacrifice to them. So, a hunter might give sacrifice to a gazelle totem (hoping that the animals would thus give themselves up to him or her more readily), but so might a warrior who envied the gazelle's speed. Examples of the gifts available from totem spirits include:
Boar: +1 to damage when charging into melee.
Fox: +1 bonus to Intelligence, Tracking and Survival checks.
Gazelle: +1 Movement Rate when sprinting.
Lion: Immunity to magical fear.
Owl: +1 (or 20%) bonus to any attempt at identifying an object or interpreting a text.
Mole: +2 bonus to Mining nonweepon proficiency checks.
Rabbit: +1 bonus to Dexterity checks.
Rat: +1 bonus to any check concerning lying, cheating or stealing. Toad: +1 bonus to any check concerning poisons or poisoning.
These benefits last for 3d10 days, after which another sacrifice must be made or the special benefit is lost.
Totem spirits be typically be contacted at their home, but there is always a 20% chance that a totem will be present at a shrine devoted to its honor. "Home" is wherever legend tells of them living, or wherever a large number of their animals gather. "Other" places are any where their animals roam.
Weather Spirits: Although there are great spirits overseeing most of the weather, shamans—particularly solitary shamans—believe every drop of rain and lazy summer breeze has its own spirit, though these would be tiny, with only Hit Die. The spirits may be Sentient, but as with other nature spirits their mentalities are limited by the people whose beliefs bring them into existence.
==Random Spirit Contact==
If DMs are put in a position by their players
where they must suddenly decide what spirits are
found in a particular place, they may either improvise
an answer, or roll on the following table. Note
that this list assumes that an area is not a sacred
site, spirit's home, etc., and results for such places
should be adjusted accordingly. Spirits which appear
only in certain places—like guardian spirits—
are not mentioned, as these should only be encountered
in the course of adventures. Hearth spirits
(present in established homes) are also omitted.
Natural areas (like forests) also have a number of
bound plant and animal spirits, and weather spirits
(breezes, flurries of rain, etc.) are omnipresent.
DMs should assume Id6 in any place at any time.
The headings on this chart are deliberately
vague. For example, a "totem spirit" may be a rat
or dog totem in towns, or a lion or bison totem in
wilderness areas. These should be defined by the
DM to suit the setting and the needs of the game.
Roll 1d100 to determine each spirit present. For
wilderness areas roll Id2-1 encounters; in inhabited
areas roll 1d6 times. Each roll covers a single
geographical area (copse, village, etc.), around 100
yards across.
 Table 7: Random Spirit Contact Chart
1-3: 	Ancestors (if venerated in the area, if not, no effect)
4-12: 	Bogeyman
13-14: 	1-4 1-Hit-Die Disease Spirits
15: 	1-3 2-Hit-Die Disease Spirits
16-39: 	1-2 Emotions
40: 	Fetish Spirit
41-48: 	Ancestors (if venerated in area; if not, no effect)
49-50: 	Hero Spirit
51: 	Rogue Hero
52-53: 	Nemeses
55-59: 	Ghost Pack
60-68: 	1-3 1-Hit-Die Might-Have-Beens
69-75: 	Major (2 HD) Rock or Plant spirit
76-100:	Totem Spirit