What is a spirit (Apath)

Unofficial rules compendium

What is a Spirit?

Several of the animists' and shugenja's abilities affect spirits. For purposes of the these abilities, a “spirit” includes all of the following creatures:

• All aberrations
• Constructs with an Intelligence of 1 or higher, except those of the robot subtype.
• All dragons
• All fey
• All magical beasts
• All monstrous humanoids
• Humanoids of the giant or shapechanger subtypes
• All outsiders
• All creatures of the Plant type (not normal plants)
• All undead
• Creatures created by spells, such as animate object.
• Creatures summoned by spells, such as summon nature's ally.
• Creatures in astral, ethereal, or incorporeal form, or who are possessing another creature or objects, such as by the magic jar spell.

Animists see elementals and fey as spirits of nature and undead as spirits of the dead. Magical beasts, constructs, plants, giants, monstrous humanoids, and aberrations are either spirit-possessed or spirits bound in corporeal form. Animists see the creation of constructs that are not spirits as an abomination, a reduction of the spiritual value of the world.

A simple way to change the animists' power is to change what creatures are spirits in your game. At a bare minimum, dragons, fey, outsiders, and undead should be spirits. A more generous definition of spirits might include all constructs, dinosaurs, dire animals, animals with an alignment template (like celestial or fiendish) and vermin. A truly generous definition could include anyone capable of casting 7th level spells, which makes high level spellcasters into spirits, including animists themselves.

Enshrined Spirits

In cultures where animists and shugenja are common, it is normal practice to enshrine spirits. Often, a shrine is built at the spot of an important binding, animists and passers-by alike perform services there to placate the spirit and renew the binding. This uses the seal spirit power, and the sealed spirit is not hidden away. Rather it is made into the focal point of a shrine or temple, venerated, and kept placated. Whole religious orders can be dedicated to keeping a powerful or destructive spirit sealed. Shugenja seek out such shrines because they can learn spells from them, but those guarding such a site often demand some kind of service or fee from a strange shugenja before they let him into the presence of the spirit. A normal fee would be the same as that for casting a spell of the level the spirit can teach.

The text in this article is Open Game Content. It is covered by the Open Game License v1.0a, rather than the Action copyright. To distinguish it, these items will have this notice. If you see any page that contains OGL material and does not show this license statement, please contact one of the Action administrators. Please note that images used in article may have different copyright than the text.