Spirits of the World

Material objects have "spirit'', an inherent spiritual force and consciousness. This inherent consciousness can be awakened and communicated with, and sometimes even persuaded to animate and act on the sorcerer's behalf, but is difficult to order directly.

The world of animism is full of spirits, all of whom can be communicated with and who can help the sorcerer. These spirits have a personality compatible with their type, animal spirits are shy and cunning, plant spirits slow and intense et al. These spirits inhabit the creatures or places they represent. 

Spirits are all supernatural creatures, but they are awakened rather than summoned. They are present in a place, item or creature, but passive and inactive until awakened by a sorcerer using the summoning effect Awaken Spirit.

Animal spirits

Inhabit the animals themselves. Assume that animals communicated with have the intelligence of small children, and that they can give fair recollections of what they have seen or experienced. Rarely will they risk their lives for the shaman, however.

Elemental Spirits

These are temperamental, of an intelligence less than human, but with a cunning greater than that of animals. They see things from a very pure standpoint relating to their element. 

• Air spirits are quick tempered, fickle, with little patience. 
• Earth spirits are slow, patient, and considerably thick headed. 
• Fire spirits are destructive, hungry, with a willful desire to consume everything it possibly can. Fire resents being contained in any shape for long, and will always try to free itself. 
• Water spirits are playful and gentle unless enraged, in which case its vindictive destructiveness is unmatched by any other element. 

The following spirits are not considered an elementals at all in many magic traditions.

• Plant spirits are sometimes considered elementals, under the name wood spirits. They have separate description, below.
• Metal spirits are strong willed, loyal if treated well, treacherous if treated poorly. Metal spirits are similar to, possibly a subgroup of, tool spirits. 
• Void spirits are calm and aloft. They hate anything that disturbs them, and sometimes become destructive simply because they perceive the world to be annoying.

Virtues (Obsessions)

These spirits abstractly represent arts, ideal or ideas, often those with a positive bent. There are virtues of love, song, dance, and inquisitiveness. There are also dark virtues, called obsessions, that may be virtues driven to overzealousness or simply representing dark arts and passions.

Virtues can teach and invoke skills in people, giving him an Action Value in their art equal to the spirit's Creature Power.

Sometimes another type of spirit, such as an elemental spirit or even the spirits of the deceased, assume a double role as virtues. In this manner certain wells, cairns or groves become famous for the inspiration they provide.

House spirits

Inhabit the dwellings of folk, and are concerned with the well-being and health of those who share their dwellings. In places where the nature of folk is twisted or repressed they can be malign, but generally they are kind and generous but suspicious of outsiders. 

Plant spirits

Slow - not dumb, just slow. They take their time when speaking even plants who have very short life spans are slow communicators. Wood spirits are subtle and bend with the wind of circumstance, but always maintain their love of life and growth. They are considered ethical but stubborn. Plant spirits are patient, often pleasure seeking, sometimes wise. Plants can't do much to help they shaman, but they know all about their surrounding and the things that live there. They generally take no notice of kindred who merely pass them by, but learn to know those who live nearby very intimately.

Road Spirits

Roads and paths are used by kindred to travel, and when a particular path has been used many times, it will acquire it's own guardian spirit. Note that road spirits are not limited to just roads. Paths, railroad tracks, ports, airplane routes and much-travelled straits are all roads. City streets are roads to some and homes to others, and both types of spirits can be found there. Road spirits are almost always superficially friendly. The seek and deliver news, and try to accommodate all travelers. They know a wealth of information about who traveled where and can give hours on end of road gossip. Unfortunately, they have little conception of what is important and what is not. Think of this as radio chatter: endlessly happy, endlessly mindless, interrupted by traffic jam notices.

Spirits of the Dead

Can only be summoned if the sorcerer has some kind of link to the departed. This can be either a part of the dead persons body, a beloved object or a descendant or beloved of the dead person who is present. They tend to be very self-centered. They care only about the things closest to themselves, family, personal belongings and about their reputation. Summoning a spirit of the dead so that it manifests creates a ghost, always an unwise thing to do. As the dead gradually lose interest in life or are reincarnated, it grows increasingly difficult to summon them over time. A person that died contentedly might be impossible to summon after but a few hours, while those who have urges tying them to this earth linger on for hundreds, even thousands of years. Many religions, especially those with a specific concept of the afterlife, make their devotee's spirits harder to summon.

Tool Spirits

Inhabit the tools created by folk. This includes small tools like screwdrivers and weapons, but also huge tools such as caterpillars and planes. A tool in which people dwell, such as a ship, is inhabited by a house spirit, but the machinery on board is still the domain of tool spirits. Their personality is usually very single minded, they only have one purpose, the purpose their tool was created for. They are very loyal to the people they work with on a daily basis.