Spirit

A Spirit of Courage

A **spirit** is a natural inhabitant of the Dreaming.

## Nature of Spirits

### Origins

According to the Ministry, the spirits of the Dreaming are the first children of the Watcher. He turned his back on them because they lacked a soul; they could twist the Dreaming to their liking, but lacked the ability to imagine and create, and thus emulate their creator. The Watcher created a new realm, separated from the Dreaming by the Veil, and this realm would be one that his new children could not alter at will. These new children had the spark of the divine within them, and the Watcher was pleased. Supposedly, ever since the Watcher created His new children, the spirits from the Dreaming have watched humanity with curiosity and, in the case of more malicious spirits, envy and desire.

The malicious ones among the Watcher's first children were jealous. They called out to the mortals, drawing their sleeping minds across the Veil and saw the land that the Watcher had created for them in their dreams. They coveted the spark within them, but did not understand it. They shape the Dreaming to create the land that they see in the minds of men, and seek to draw the spark from them without truly understanding where it might actually come from.

### Description

All the denizens of the realm beyond the Veil are spirits. Their very bodies are formed from the aether. Spirits are not physical entities, and are therefore not restricted to recognizable forms, or even having a form at all. One can never tell for certain what is alive and what is merely part of the scenery in the Dreaming, and it is therefore advisable for the inexperienced researcher to greet all objects he encounters. They are intelligent creatures capable of speech.

It is said that spirits lack imagination and creativity; everything they make is based off something made by mortals. Whether benevolent or malevolent, most spirits cannot help but mine a dreaming visitor's mind for their thoughts and memories. They then mimic the pieces of life they see by shaping the Dreaming into various realms that cater to the unconscious desires of the living, providing experiences to the sleeping that become their "dreams." Because of this lack of creativity, and the fact that spirits don't really understand the things they create, their creations tend to feel wrong to observers from the mortal world. It's been described as having a passage translated into a different language, then getting drunk and trying to translate it back. Spirits range in power from those who rule the dream realms, to minor spirits that have little influence over the aether.

A spirit cannot comprehend a world that is static and immutable, and is not familiar with the concept of time. It cannot comprehend what it means to be within a body of flesh, yet, for some unknown reason, some spirits crave to join the living. Some spirits cross the Veil because they desire to experience life, either to indulge in an aspect of psyche or to fulfill a purpose they embody. Usually spirits or demons can only cross the Veil by attaching themselves to something in the mortal world. This is known as possession. Some spirits, however, may be drawn to the mortal world and made manifest against their will. They will be driven mad by shock or even be made terrified by the waking world, resulting in them becoming unintentionally violent, or turned into demons once they have crossed the Veil.

Spirits are not complex in the sense that they seize upon a single facet of human experience, and this one idea becomes their identity. They are formed as a reflection of the real world and its passions. A spirit embodies and latches onto a specific purpose and will do all in its power to fulfill that purpose. For instance, a demon of gluttony will attempt to feed on anything it crosses, and a spirit of justice will stop at nothing to uphold its name. Spirits however, don't remember much; a side effect of their ability to make themselves forget or "wash clean" unsettling facts that they can't reconcile with their nature. While this routine keeps them pure, it also keeps them from learning or growing. So all of their acts to uphold their idea are mostly done in the simplest ways.

Relevance is paramount to a spirit. Spirits whose realms are flocked with visitors rise to rule great portions of the Dreaming, while memories and concepts forgotten in the real world slowly drift away back into the aether, the spirits who ruled them losing all potency. A spirit won't even recall the feeling it embodies once the latter was forgotten in the waking world.

When a spirit dies its energy returns to the Dreaming. If the idea giving the spirit form is strong, or if its memory has shaped other spirits, something similar may reform one day, but it might have a different personality with no memory of the past.

## Spirit Types

### Benevolent

Spirits embodying virtues may be considered *benevolent* (or at least not malevolent). Such spirits characteristically do not wish to cross the Veil. They consider the waking world a "dismal place" and pity mortals who are trapped there, beyond their reach and beyond help. They may comfort visitors of the Dreaming by creating dreams that strengthen the soul, or visions that promote epiphanies.

There are five widely known types of benevolent spirits: Compassion, Valor, Justice, Faith and Hope, which range in power from the relatively weak spirits of compassion, to the strongest spirits of faith and hope. Spirit healers maintain close relationships with spirits of compassion. Spirits of Hope rarely appear in the waking world since little there attracts them. Two more rarely encountered types of spirits are Wisdom and Purpose.

### Demons

*Main Article: Demons*

**Demon** is one name for the malevolent spirits from the Dreaming that embody negative emotions like fear and wrath. Demons envy the living, desire life, and have a lust to cross the Veil. In the Dreaming, they draw sustenance from memories of the dreaming. Often destructive, they can abuse the minds of dreaming mortals, possess living or dead creatures, generally preferring living mages, or even animate rubble or suits of armor.

### Wisps

Not all spirits represent a distinct virtue or vice. The weakest spirits, *wisps*, are shimmering orbs of light too simple and impressionable to be good or evil. In some cases they appear to be benign, aiding mages who summon them in the mortal realm, or in the Dreaming as guides. Wisp wraiths, however, are known to attack anything in sight.

### Ghosts

Some spirits retain the memories and personalities of those long gone. They substantiate the popular belief in ghosts as souls who became lost on their way to the Watcher's side, even though it is against Ministry teachings.

## Spirits in Other Cultures

Sylvan mages generally do not use any magic involving spirits, as they believe all spirits are dangerous. Spirits cannot be broken down into clear-cut categories and differ from each other, just as people do.

Conversely, the Cleve revere spirits as "gods" and interact with them much more than other Morgaean cultures, though only each tribe's Augur has a direct link with the spirits. Cleves and spirits communicate regularly, through their Augurs, altars, offerings, and sometimes even direct contact. Spirits usually tend to assist Cleves in many tasks, such as providing counsel, assisting in battle, protecting tribes from threats, and even helping train mages via voluntary, but temporary, possession.

Likewise, in Welserine culture, hedge witches called shamans converse with spirits and even allow themselves to be possessed for the sake of their villages.