I would like a DF book about spirits please

[zoncxs]

I have been giving this topic some major thought. I like the way DF categorizes monsters and the Spirits are separate from undead, but there is only 1 example of a pure Spirit monster (Household Guardian).

This makes sense since most other "spirits" fall under other categories, like elementals and undead.

Elementals would also fall under the more specific Nature Spirits category.

My main point is that I want to start creating more Nature Spirits. Like a spirit of the lake, mountain spirit, Storm spirit, etc. And what each should have and can grant as an ally or patron.

[Kromm]

We have to avoid becoming obsessed with the idea that monster classes and Hidden Lore (and other skill) specialties should be what mathematicians call an "orthogonal basis." There's really nothing wrong with ruling that ghosts belong to the "spirit" and "undead" monster classes, and are therefore covered by both Hidden Lore (Spirits) and Hidden Lore (Undead) . . . that's intuitive, which 25 years of games writing has shown me is better for most gamers, even if it drives the minority of obsessed reductionists crazy.

So perhaps what's needed is simply a list of which creatures currently lumped into classes that aren't "spirit" are really something else plus "spirit." The only thing I'd want to avoid is assigning all of a class to "spirit," making it a non-class and "spirit" far too large a class. For instance, I think that tangible demons, divine servitors, elementals, and undead – beings you can just walk up to and whack with a sword – should never, ever be in the "spirit" class . . . but that demons and divine servitors that exist as intangible forces that manifest through possession or cursing/blessing an area in their name, elementals that exist only the abstract in rocks or winds, ghosts, and so on can be "spirits" as well.

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by Kromm

We have to avoid becoming obsessed with the idea that monster classes and Hidden Lore (and other skill) specialties should be what mathematicians call an "orthogonal basis." There's really nothing wrong with ruling that ghosts belong to the "spirit" and "undead" monster classes, and are therefore covered by both Hidden Lore (Spirits) and Hidden Lore (Undead) . . . that's intuitive, which 25 years of games writing has shown me is better for most gamers, even if it drives the minority of obsessed reductionists crazy.

So perhaps what's needed is simply a list of which creatures currently lumped into classes that aren't "spirit" are really something else plus "spirit." The only thing I'd want to avoid is assigning all of a class to "spirit," making it a non-class and "spirit" far too large a class. For instance, I think that tangible demons, divine servitors, elementals, and undead – beings you can just walk up to and whack with a sword – should never, ever be in the "spirit" class . . . but that demons and divine servitors that exist as intangible forces that manifest through possession or cursing/blessing an area in their name, elementals that exist only the abstract in rocks or winds, ghosts, and so on can be "spirits" as well.

Yup, I agree with this. My thing is that I basically want to expand on totems and nature spirits more.

An example I have in mind is a volcano spirit. Its not an elemental spirit of fire, but the embodiment of a specific volcano. It is intangible unless it wants to be tangible. You can't physically kill it because it is the volcano. It has a domain around it that it rules, etc. Examples like that are nice to have.

I was once part of a small game that was TL1 tribes. My character was the son of a blacksmith who had a contract with a sprite spirit. Because of how weak and small this spirit was, it could travel anywhere I went, I was its domain. The game didn't last long but that was a fun concept.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Kromm

We have to avoid becoming obsessed with the idea that monster classes and Hidden Lore (and other skill) specialties should be what mathematicians call an "orthogonal basis."

Hear, hear. Presenting an appearance of a universal classification system leads gamers into trying to use it as part of the laws of nature within a game setting, which leads them to a very "gamist" world, that doesn't make any sense, in the GURPS sense of the phrase.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Hear, hear. Presenting an appearance of a universal classification system leads gamers into trying to use it as part of the laws of nature within a game setting, which leads them to a very "gamist" world, that doesn't make any sense, in the GURPS sense of the phrase.

I might have leaned in that general direction for a while in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I was hired to do this job in 1995, well after I had recovered.

These days, when it comes to the supernatural in games, I prefer solutions where the skills people learn and use, the things spells detect, the energies magic draws on, and so on make sense in the game world. Debates like, "Yes, but is it Evil in the sense that a spell can detect?" should in fact be in-world debates, not stuff resolved objectively by a game system. I figure that scholars in settings with demons, ghosts, and magic routinely pull out their beards over how creatures are categorized, what spells actually sense, how magic "knows" A from B, and so on. That's good worldbuilding material, not something for game designers to dictate!

[AlexanderHowl]

Agreed. For example, the nature of demons will vary from setting to setting, as they might be stereotypical Protestant Christian demons in one setting and more nuanced traditional Chinese demons in another setting. In the former, they exist to tempt people into sin because, for some reason, they seem to think that humans need help in the arena. In the latter, they are just spiritual bureaucrats who exist to punish vicious people after they die and would probably like humans to be more virtuous because it would make their existences easier.

I would not mind a book on non-Western spirits though. Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Taoism, and the hundreds of traditional religions each have their own unique spiritual entities, though they also share a number of spiritual entities due to cross-pollination. The islands of Maritime Southeast Asia have some especially odd supernatural creatues, though many of them have been forgotten as alien cultures have contaminated their native cultures and as larger religions have replaced their traditional religions. I am just glad that the Japanese have recorded a large number of their traditional beliefs, and used a fair number of them in anime and manga, as it helps us imagine different roles for supernatural creatures.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I might have leaned in that general direction for a while in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I was hired to do this job in 1995, well after I had recovered.

These days, when it comes to the supernatural in games, I prefer solutions where the skills people learn and use, the things spells detect, the energies magic draws on, and so on make sense in the game world. Debates like, "Yes, but is it Evil in the sense that a spell can detect?" should in fact be in-world debates, not stuff resolved objectively by a game system. I figure that scholars in settings with demons, ghosts, and magic routinely pull out their beards over how creatures are categorized, what spells actually sense, how magic "knows" A from B, and so on. That's good worldbuilding material, not something for game designers to dictate!

This echos "For King and Country" Dragon #101; Sept 1985) by Paul Suttie which acknowledged "In the real world, good and evil are invented concepts. Societies label their own values as good, and those of the enemy (or the threatening or the unknown) as evil."

It pointed out "How does one define concepts that in the real world have no absolute meaning? There is no way to do it except to choose a particular value system and declare that it applies universally to the gaming universe."

Demon are regarded as evil largely because that is how Christianity portrays them. To the Greeks and Romans daemon denoted a spirit or divine power and there were no connotations of evil or malevolence with these creatures.

While ancient Egypt did have evil demons (or bought equivalent) they weren't always evil. In Asia cultures demons don't generally temp humanity but rather run part of the afterlife where "bad" people go. Yes, there are evil/malevolent beings but they aren't "demons" as we think of them.

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Kromm

For instance, I think that tangible demons, divine servitors, elementals, and undead – beings you can just walk up to and whack with a sword – should never, ever be in the "spirit" class . . . but that demons and divine servitors that exist as intangible forces that manifest through possession or cursing/blessing an area in their name, elementals that exist only the abstract in rocks or winds, ghosts, and so on can be "spirits" as well.

I would love to have demons, elementals and divine servitors be a sort of inbetweener spirit like in GURPS Voodoo. That way Affect Spirit could work the way “can only be hit by +1 or +2 weapon” in D&D. Plus demons are supposed the baddest of the bad in D&D but in GURPS they are just a monster that sits in a room waiting to be killed. Demons in DF don’t have any powers and gate ability like D&D and they should have some sort of spirit form too. Demons in DF are less cool than demons in D&D.

As far as spirits go I would love to have some rules on what separates regular spirits from undead spirits. Also rules on the spirit world would be great too. How to handle the spirit world in the dungeon etc.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by b-dog

I would love to have demons, elementals and divine servitors be a sort of inbetweener spirit like in GURPS Voodoo. That way Affect Spirit could work the way “can only be hit by +1 or +2 weapon” in D&D. Plus demons are supposed the baddest of the bad in D&D but in GURPS they are just a monster that sits in a room waiting to be killed. Demons in DF don’t have any powers and gate ability like D&D and they should have some sort of spirit form too. Demons in DF are less cool than demons in D&D.

As far as spirits go I would love to have some rules on what separates regular spirits from undead spirits. Also rules on the spirit world would be great too. How to handle the spirit world in the dungeon etc.

I'm more familiar with the Demons in Magic and Horror but I would hardly call GURPS Demons "a monster that sits in a room waiting to be killed".

Heck, Horror's Outsider component for demons is insane because as written magic weapons don't do anything (It's Insubstantiality component has no vulnerability to magic nor any magic component) and they can attack while Invisible (which in early AD&D was so insanely deadly that it wasn't even allowed)

I get the impression that the demons in DF2 Dungeons are on par with AD&D1's Type I (Vrock) which could be hit by normal weapons and that is the way I read Magic's version - the low end of the spectrum. This makes sense when you remember that racial templates represent the average of that "race".

Besides it don't make much sense for all demons to have gate (Planar Summons) as in D&D because you quickly realize that if they can summon friends that one demon somebody summoned could bring in a crap load of friends and next thing you knew you had a demon army taking over the kingdom.