[Path Magic] What happens if you Banish a Spirit of Place?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

But if you like to upset expectations, you can turn that on its head. The genius loci is the embodiment of the place, and uses its power to maintain its place, which is not just its home but its body. But it's a fixed, eternal being, which means enacting its vision produces stasis and rigidity, with nothing allowed to change from the spirit's vision and goal. Indeed, the spirit can't even conceive of any other way of being, as it has just one nature. Once the spirit is gone, new plants and animals can appear in the forest, the trees can grow thicker and taller, the river can change its course and become more bountiful, people living in the area become more inventive and progressive, developing new cultural expression or technologies and techniques.

If you think of it that way, though, a genius loci does seem to change. You start out, for example, with bare rock; you get lichen, and then grass and herbs, and then small perennials, and then bushes and shrubs, and then trees, and you end up with climax forest. Is that a succession of different genii loci, or is it one genius loci growing up?

And what if the forest catches fire? You go back to barren ground, and then a new ecological succession. Is that a new genius loci, or is it the same genius loci being reborn?