[New Release] GURPS Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits

[Steven Marsh]

We've got spirit, yes we do! And with GURPS Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits, so will you! But only if you're prepared to treat the realm of spirit with respect . . .

With this supplement, you'll discover the power wielded by shamans, medicine men, and other spirit-workers, with 28 sample totems and 17 archetypal roles. Your journey to the spirit world is just a download away, thanks to Warehouse 23!

[Celjabba]

Very nice work, and it offer a new power-based power set, neatly filling an hole next to divine power, chinese elemental, psionics and others.

A few thought after a first read :

Quite short but complete.
Perhaps too short ? one page with a fully worked exemple character and an exemple of partial manifestations at various power level would have been nice, and there is a couple "see Gurps power p xxx" that could have been expended instead.
On the other hand, it is very cheap !
Cheap in price, not in quality : there is a lot of solid work here, and it show !

Lots of crunch, but easy to read, and with some nice levity added.

3e Lensman Sense of perception is back !

One nitpick : the extended enhancement for Nictitating Membrane feel off to me ... I will have to think about it.

Congratulations against to Refplace for his first Gurps book.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Very nice work, and it offer a new power-based power set, neatly filling an hole next to divine power, chinese elemental, psionics and others.

Thank you for the feedback!
The power set is based on existing work from GURPS Thaumatology (Spirit Vessel) and of course from GURPS Voodoo in Third Edition but I was hoping enough was added and clarified to make it a full set usable on its own.
And not just for shamans.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Quite short but complete.
Perhaps too short ? one page with a fully worked exemple character and an exemple of partial manifestations at various power level would have been nice, and there is a couple "see Gurps power p xxx" that could have been expended instead.
On the other hand, it is very cheap !
Cheap in price, not in quality : there is a lot of solid work here, and it show !

Good concern, and one I was a little worried about. No one in the playtest had a question that I think would have been addressed by that kind of example and that space would have cost 3 or 4 totems.
I tried to break up the how to use this so it became apparent as you read through it rather than by a fully complete example. Sort of a show your work rather than show the results approach.
In a larger book I would have done both, but as you say this is short and cheap.
And I really wanted as many examples as I could fit in! The original draft had many more totems but it was a more complicated "Connect the pieces" approach and tester feedback made me opt for fewer totems but each worked out in more detail. I am happy with that change and thank the playtesters for it.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Lots of crunch, but easy to read, and with some nice levity added.

3e Lensman Sense of perception is back !

One nitpick : the extended enhancement for Nictitating Membrane feel off to me ... I will have to think about it.

Congratulations against to Refplace for his first Gurps book.

I'm no Kromm, Steven Marsh, or Steve Jackson but I always liked a little humor in SJG publications so I tried. Glad you liked it!

Yes I missed Sense of Perception not being in Fourth Edition and was thrilled Kromm let me add it.
One thing that came up for some was understanding how it works. I think the quote on p. 15 helps explain it and why its in the book in the first place.

Fair point on the enhancement for Nictitating Membrane. It was a close call in my opinion and questioned in the review but I think it works, primarily for the same precedent Extended was created for other abilities. After the first sense (usually the primary one) the value for other senses sharply drops off.
Still to be safe I specifically called it out in my final draft notes so it would not be overlooked and get looked at by the editor.*

Really glad you liked it and thank you again for the feedback.

*Note: Unlike it would have been overlooked but I figure anything that might be a change or controversial deserves calling out by the author so nothing just slips through.

[Humabout]

For anyone interested in an alternative approach to Totem Spirits based on Spirit Vessels from Thaumatology and ties in Divine Favor, Powers, and spirit-related Pyramid articles, I wrote this back in 2015 as part of Pyramid Write Club. It includes a variety of totems that include animals, demons, elementals, and a ghost in the machine. Check out Totem Spirits for an alternative, if that sounds interesting.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Humabout

For anyone interested in an alternative approach to Totem Spirits based on Spirit Vessels from Thaumatology and ties in Divine Favor, Powers, and spirit-related Pyramid articles, I wrote this back in 2015 as part of Pyramid Write Club. It includes a variety of totems that include animals, demons, elementals, and a ghost in the machine. Check out Totem Spirits for an alternative, if that sounds interesting.

Nice take on it, you can see how much Spirit Vessel inspired both of us but we went in separate directions for the bulk of our material despite the common origin. Nothing stopping you from presenting your own Totem book, especially since mine was focused on animals which leaves a LOT of room left over.

[Humabout]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Nice take on it, you can see how much Spirit Vessel inspired both of us but we went in separate directions for the bulk of our material despite the common origin. Nothing stopping you from presenting your own Totem book, especially since mine was focused on animals which leaves a LOT of room left over.

It's always interesting to see variations on a theme this way. It'd actually make for a fun game among bloggers, honestly - have multiple people create an expansion based on a rule or something and post their results. I've seen this down with musical composers a couple of times and the results are always cool.

Anyway, congrats on the publication, Rory!

[jutis]

Hi

My first post here on the forum. I just read through the book and cannot figure out some things. Basically I think it’s good a little short on the examples as noted by others. I also read the review at Mailanka’s Musings and thought it to the point. https://mailanka.blogspot.com/2019/0...ature.html?m=1

What I don’t get is this. I’m probably wrong (happens a lot these days) but then somebody brighter than me can probably enlighten me

Firstly when you design an Alternate Form my impression was that it changes the racial template to another one. The Partial Manifestations don’t do this. They actually add on to the racial template like a Lens. Though it is explained in the book as an variant to Alternate Form it still seems very different.
With that in mind I’d like to know if I have, say one Totem with Partial Manifestation (Bear, 135 pts) and my racial template is 100 pts, is the Bear Manifestation really a second form or just an add to my racial template making it 235 pts?
- If it’s an add why do I get the 10% discount on the spirit pool? Since then it’s not an Alternate Form at all it’s just me getting 135 more points.
- If it’s not an add but in fact an Alternate Form then I still should not get the 10% discount to the spirit pool since the Bear Alternate form is the most expensive one. Instead my racial template should be 10% cheaper (90 pts)

This gets even worse when looking at the Lion Partial Manifestation which saves me 34 points 10% of 341) instead of 10 (10% of 100)

Looking at a full manifestation I find this passage on page 5
“For full manifestations (only), add your racial template cost to your Spirit Pool when figuring the maximum point cost of the form, because your racial template is swapped out”
This is more of the same as above. If the Full Manifestation of a Bear costs 61 pts and I have a racial template that costs 100 then I should only pay 12 pts for the bear manifestation. But what if my racial template is only 50 pts or if I have a very expensive Full Manifestation? Again the point reduction should according to the rules for Alternate Form go to my racial template not the Spirit Pool.

Then I just have to ask about the example in the book (one of the few)
On page 5 again
“Example: Shadowspeaker has three manifestations . He lists them on his character sheet as “Totem-Bearer (Horse 2; Raven) [36] .” He writes the points spent on his Spirit Pool separately, as “Spirit Pool (90 points) [81]” (90 points x 0 .9 = 81)”
Where does all this come from?
Horse Partial Manifestation costs 135 pts. Horse Full Manifestation costs 105 pts and Raven is listed as Partial 35 pts or Full?? (maybe 1 point derived from Falcon)
Where does 90 pts come from, us that the not printed racial template of Shadowspeaker?

Or am I just really confused?
Can you clear these things up I will be a happy man :)

[Refplace]

Hello, thanks for buying my book!
The answer to your first question is explained in the Under the Hood box on page 5. Here is the relevant snippet...
Totem-Bearer is a variant of Alternate Form (pp . B83-85). Full manifestations swap out racial templates, but the rest stack them (Stacking Templates, p . B261).

So adding a template to your race template is already part of the rules, an example is a Vampire template applied to a human or elf template.
Full Manifestations vs. Partial Manifestations really is just flavor text for change into an animal vs. gain some of the traits of an animal.

The 10% discount is essentially an Accessibility discount and is a minor limitation since you wont always have the abilities. Either because you dont want the drawbacks or because of countermeasures like Exorcism.
Monster Hunters has a Crusader variant that is similar but uses an ongoing FP cost to keep from constant use. I did not go that way here because I wanted players to effectively use travel totems.
GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier has something similar, though its a mental programming thing.

On the base race form more expensive than the animal form question. You have the gist ofit but do not get the discount if your base form is higher as you don't benefit from that default or base form. There is no drawback to your base form that it can be turned off for instance. A higher base form just means you can have more powerful Alternate Forms for the base cost.

On your last question...
“Totem-Bearer (Horse 2; Raven) [36] .” 3 forms costing 12 points each.
The other part however appears to be a math error. Sad author.
During the playtest and later edits, costs for all the forms changed several times and that example was not updated. Sorry about that, I shall confirm it (but think its just wrong) and send in errata.

I have found Alternate Form to be one of the most confusing advantages in GURPS, which I think is why its reexplained in the above books and this one, plus has its own FAQ entry. How it works is simply less intuitive than most other advantages and I tried to answer a few common questions with this book, while keeping the word count low.