Shamans with Social skills, not spells

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

This sounds pretty much identical to what I have heard of Obeah, Santeria and Voudou ... which surprises me not at all as they have exactly the same origin. Although I think some of those have several disaporic African religions as different tribes of spirits.

Yes, I was gonna say that, that it ressembles northern ones like Voudou. But here in Brazil is far more spread, even thou it is still a minority creed, but you can easily find it even in big centers, like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Do Umbanda/Candomble have the same Mambo/Hougan vs. Bokor distinction as well? That there are specific guys - like the Bokor - who specialise in dealing with the dark spirits?

That would also mirror what I understand of the North American native traditions whose shamen tend to belong to what I have heard called "blessing ways" but occasionally you get one who takes an opposite path, which is where the skinwalker tradition comes in.

I remembered the name of the Dark Spirits, they are called "Quiúmbas". I believe the sound in English would be something like "Kywmbahs", something like that. And the light spirits are the Orishas - actually, "ancestor spirits" in service of the big bosses. But they dont identify as "Jonnhy serving under Eshu". It's like they lose their names and just identify themselves as the Big Boss they serve under. They also BEHAVE as the Big Bosses - so, theoretically, you cant differentiate between two "Eshus", althought they were 2 different people in life. As if they sort of "incorporate" the essence of the ones they serve, I dont know.

As for the "Black Magic" part, there is no OFFICIAL differentiation, thou the "Pai de Santo" (Father of Saint in a literal translation) and the "Mãe de Santo" (Mother of Saint), who are the "masters of ceremonies" or the "high priests" of the "temple" are supposed to keep the "temple's house" protected from the Kywmbahs - if they act on good faith. Usually, the Mother and Father of Saint (or any other practitioner) are NOT supposed to dabble in Black Magic, but there are many that do.

Those who do thou, usually get sort of CONSUMED by it. The Kywmbahs have the ability to disguise themselves, to incorporate on Mediums and pose as Orishas in order to deceive, and they'll take ANY sort of work, but they just work for bad things. They also want the same things the Orishas want - animal sacrifices, dance, music, alcohool, smoke, food and sex, which are the things that give sustenance to both Orishas and Kywmbahs, but one group only operate good deeds, and the other only bad.

Dealing with Kywmbahs need NOT be a conscious act; if you summon the "Orishas" with ill intent, wanting to hurt someone for example, you'll end up calling a Kywmbah instead, and he/she will gladly accept the petition. However, the evil you unleash on others always returns to you.

So the answer is... It's not that simple, thus the faithful need to trust their priests in order to not end up in a Black Magic house in disguise.

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I don't think - based on very little except being a nosey outsider - that any shamanic tradition is entirely animistic without any ancestor veneration, and that most have all sorts of spirit tribes like their are different tribes of people - some spirits are of the natural world and animals, some are dead ancestors and some are ultramundane and belong mostly in the spirit world.

As a nosey outsider myself, I have to say that Umbanda/Candomble are NOT animistic religions. ALL the spirits they deal with are ancestor spirits, who serve the Yoruba pantheon turned into Catholic Saints. They dont have spirits of the rivers or of plants and animals, like many natives do.

Also, the South American natives - Tupi-Guarani, Tupinambas, Tapajós, Guaytacazes and contless others - they have another VERY important distinction from North Americans ones too. The North American native religions are usually TOTEMISTIC - ie they believe in "Big Bosses Spirits" of each kind, the Totems. Like the "Wolf Father" or the "Great Eagle", who are the Big ones of their respective kinds.
The South American natives are animistic too, but they are not Totemistic. They actually have Pantheons that ressemble more other politheistic religions, like greeks, egyptians or even the Yorubas Orishas here in the South or the Voudou Loas there in the north, with the difference from those being the animism (the greeks were also sort of animists, with Nymphs and Dryads and some lesser Gods for specific places, like many rivers)

Originally Posted by The Colonel

--- back to game terms:
I would guess that you could also let a shaman carry out various social checks in the local spirit population in the same way the party face would ask around the local humans: the shaman lights a pipe, pours out some libations and enters his trance ... the local spirits turn up, partake and chat and the shaman has to pick the bones out of what they tell him in the same way as the face has to filter the mixed bag of rumours he heard in the tavern.

Yes, that's the challenge Im trying to achieve lol

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Well I wrote it all as one rather large book at first so have a solid idea on how shaman will work out. Essentially I just pulled out a chapter or two then expanded and rewrote for each supplement.
The advantage is I am working with a more complete model. The disadvantage is my writing has sometimes been convoluted and hard to understand because I have a bunch of related material the reader cant see yet.
It is not a method I recommend, especially when your a newish writer like myself. however the end products are likely to fit better together since they were written with each other in mind.
I do not expect to use a table for this but maybe, my playtesters get a lot of influence in the final product, and of course the editor.
My plan though is to offer guidelines and ideas for the GM to work with.

Sweet!

Originally Posted by Refplace

Bascially you do not need ot make all spirit encounters or actions interesting. The trick is to make enough interesting that the player feels they got good value and the table has an interesting and fun experience. Die rolls are ok, and especially good for trivial effects. The real winning solution I feel is in balancing the two methodologies.

Yep, I agree 100%

Originally Posted by Refplace

As for the order of publication? I went with what I felt would be the best selling and widest appeal items as well as foundations first.
Totem and Nature Spirits let you play a Channeling based shaman with just that book and that works well for DF and MH campaigns. Also it can be helpful to spice up Druid types. Conceptually its well trodden ground (Spirit Vessel), mostly missing worked examples.

I loved Totem and NS, but I was gonna use that for my Druid exclusively, which is the reason why I was doing some thinkering for a different type of Druid. Im setting a crazy world that will have Gods from different Pantheons from real life fighting Titans from the game "Scion", but in a parallel dimension. The idea is that "our" Gods went there. Oh yes, it will sort of be Banestorm too, so there are elves and dwarves and orcs and all that, with humans coming from "beyond" and bringing their Gods with them. There will also be a tiny Skyrim influence, with highly techno-magic ruins from an extinct race - the annunnaki - who were Cthulhu-esque psionics who were fighting the "good races" for thousands of years, until humans came, initially got enslaved by them but then learned magic from elves, proliferated, kicked their butts and took their place in the food chain.

Some while after, the Titans, first generation "Primal Gods" escaped their prisons in whatever dimension humans came from and came to my weird world. And now they fight the Gods.

So you have the Old Gods (the "natives", Gods of elves and Orcs and Dwarves and whatever) you have the Cthonic Gods of the Annunnaki (all extinct), you have the new Gods of the humans and now the Titans as a recent addition.

I also borrowed from D&D things I only recently learned, Gods needing prayers and some others.

Any way, the Titans waging war on the Gods are the "Lesser Titans". Those are like "Avatars", a conscious metaphysical manifestation of the Great Avatars; the Great Avatars are the primordial forces of creation and are NOT conscious. For example, Surtr, the fire giant of nordic myrh, is one of the (Lesser) Titans of Musspelheim, the primordial fire (the Great Titan).

Anyway, the reason I was telling all of this is because Druids will be receiving their powers directly from Terra, the Great Titan of primordial Earth (with Gaia as its main Lesser Titan).

And I was going to use Totems and Spirits for the Druids, so I wanted something a little different for Shamans.

There's also a niche here. My Druids will be like "Holy Warriors" of Nature. It's kind like Clerics and Paladins (Holy Warriors in Gurps). So, the Shamans would be more like priests, and Druids more like Crusaders of Nature.

I also have a kind of a "kit", a variation of the Druids, which will be the "Death Knights", and those would have a similar relation with the "Witch Doctors", which will be a "kit" for Shamans that deal only with the Spirits of the Dead.

Speaking of which, do you know the game "Wraith the Oblivion" from White Wolf? The same company from Vampire the Masquerade and Mage the Ascension (and some other about "human-wolves" that shall remain unnamed). I'll open up a new thread to translate that to Gurps because I'll base my ghosts in it. It has been the most incredible take on ghosts I have ever seen, do check it out when I post it

Originally Posted by Refplace

The next one Template Toolkit: Spirits adds more foes and interactions for the GM, hopefully letting them add more flavor and depth to their campaign. Ideally without a lot of the boring mechanical work so they can focus on their own creativity.
It will require a little more work than before the playtest due to some requested changes but should still be a big time saver and foundational type product.

The remaining pieces are building various powers and social material.



Yeah African and Native American also have a wide diversity and I will not be able to explore all the cultures or go into any depth. My goal is for gameable abstraction that wont offend most people from those cultures and that someone can see how to easily build the type of shaman they are familiar with (if any) without really leaving anyone one.
A benefit of this approach is that if done well shamans can become a very interesting class to play with a lot of variety. I do not want all shamans to look like each other.

PS: Boto is used in English, I have heard that myth before and its probably the best well known outside that region. I think everyone uses the native name for that dolphin as its a regional species. I suspect we pronounce it differently though.

I agree, the thing needed the most are (rational) descriptions of spirits. Because we all know that they are "fickle". But what does that mean? Are they totally random? Are they insane?

The difficulty players and GMs have with spirits is that they dont have a single clue on how to roleplay them. Do they act instinctively like animals? Or do they behave as humans? Or are just absolutely nonsensical?

If you deliver that, and it can be just a handfull of exemples and guides, players and GMs will love it and use them a lot more.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Refplace

And yeah I would say that most shamanic traditions are also animist but definitely not all. And it might not even be most.
The key thing (to me) that differentiates shamanic traditions vs. worship based religions is not that spirits are in all things but how they are interacted with and treated.

So, south American natives are animistic but not totemistic like north American ones, our natives here have Pantheons ruling over the spirits, and it seems that most of those american religions from african origin (mostly Yoruba) are NOT animistic, but rather "ancestor cults" under pantheons too. The old european pre christian pagans and hindu europeans in general seemed to follow one of those two formats too, or sometimes a totally politeistic religion, with worship solely to the gods and not to spirits. I dont know much about the asian ones, except a little bit about buddhism and hinduism and a little about the Celestial Bureocracy of the chinese pantheon and the japanese pantheon a tiny little. The ones I know better are the greeks, norse, egyptians and Yorubas. So, from the ones I know you have those varieties: animistic/totemist, animistic/politeist, ancestors cults/politeists and politeists. Those are the differences I can relate to your "field reserch".

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yep.
And GURPS can do this quite well. The social rules are pretty easily understood and yet can have good depth to interactions. The key is most people do not really know what a spirit wants or why, making social activity kind of confusing and hard to play. Once a basis for that information is available to the players and GM without them having to read a lot of text books or study multiple religions I think shaman will be much more interesting to have in a campaign.
And as noted earlier they can handle the Face role quite well, replacing the Bard as an option.

This. 100% this. Players and GMs have no idea on the "behavioristic science" of Spirits. Thus they have no clue how to use them.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Sweet!
There will also be a tiny Skyrim influence, with highly techno-magic ruins from an extinct race - the annunnaki - who were Cthulhu-esque psionics who were fighting the "good races" for thousands of years, until humans came, initially got enslaved by them but then learned magic from elves, proliferated, kicked their butts and took their place in the food chain.
Anyway, the reason I was telling all of this is because Druids will be receiving their powers directly from Terra, the Great Titan of primordial Earth (with Gaia as its main Lesser Titan).

And I was going to use Totems and Spirits for the Druids, so I wanted something a little different for Shamans.

There's also a niche here. My Druids will be like "Holy Warriors" of Nature. It's kind like Clerics and Paladins (Holy Warriors in Gurps). So, the Shamans would be more like priests, and Druids more like Crusaders of Nature.

Have you read GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier?
Your setting sounds interesting, I prefer mix and match settings too.
Using Channeling and Spirit Vessel type powers to handle druids and holy warriors sounds like a good idea. Praying for miracles or even spells and such seems less intuitive if your dealing with an unaware spirit such as the avatars and slumbering spirits you describe.
I might adapt that to my own "Outsiders" and such, thanks for the inspiration.

Divine Favor is good for the more self aware gods who are active enough to listen to their worshipers.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Sweet!
Speaking of which, do you know the game "Wraith the Oblivion" from White Wolf? The same company from Vampire the Masquerade and Mage the Ascension (and some other about "human-wolves" that shall remain unnamed). I'll open up a new thread to translate that to Gurps because I'll base my ghosts in it. It has been the most incredible take on ghosts I have ever seen, do check it out when I post it

Do a google search for "Steve Jackson Games Forums" + "World of Darkness" or maybe even "Wraith"
Some of that has been done here before, though I don't personally quite like most of what I recall.
I am familiar with the World of Darkness books, though First Edition only. I based Chalice World (one of my fantasy settings) off an old WoD campaign.
I liked the setting and concept much more than the mechanics they used.
I look forward to reading your posts on it. Also try to remind me when my next supplement goes out. I included a magic system for spirits based very heavily on GURPS Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys that was intended to give spirits some oomph while having limited resources so they would be useful and powerful but not take over the campaign. It could work for some of the WoD stuff and I'll post a designers notes kind of thing after publication that shows some ways to adapt it.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Sweet!
If you deliver that, and it can be just a handfull of exemples and guides, players and GMs will love it and use them a lot more.

Thank you, I hope to do exactly that.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Have you read GURPS Horror: The Madness Dossier?

I have not, I thought this would be a setting book so I never looked into it since I like to make my own (althought I loved Reign of Steel, Infinity Earth, Banestorm and Traveller).

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

I have not, I thought this would be a setting book so I never looked into it since I like to make my own (althought I loved Reign of Steel, Infinity Earth, Banestorm and Traveller).

It is a setting book but is based on an alternate timeline or reality shard where the Annuunke took over and enclaved humanity then they were sort of defeated and a reality quake replaced the timeline. Its interesting setting and most of it wont really apply to your setting but I think you can get some use out of it.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Your setting sounds interesting, I prefer mix and match settings too.
Using Channeling and Spirit Vessel type powers to handle druids and holy warriors sounds like a good idea. Praying for miracles or even spells and such seems less intuitive if your dealing with an unaware spirit such as the avatars and slumbering spirits you describe.
I might adapt that to my own "Outsiders" and such, thanks for the inspiration.

Oh, the Lesser Titans will be ENEMIES.

The Greater Titans, the primordial forces, dont care about their "Avatars". They just ARE. Druids and Death Knights are "touched" by those primordials by mysterious reasons, and channel their powers directly from those primal forces, no middle men involved. And yeah, no praying. They CAN work WITH Gods (for example, I would have several Death Knights employed by Hades, Anubis and other gods of Death, but also on the service of Titans, demons and other evil Gods/ancient evil Gods), but they DONT work FOR them, like Paladins and Clerics.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Do a google search for "Steve Jackson Games Forums" + "World of Darkness" or maybe even "Wraith"
Some of that has been done here before, though I don't personally quite like most of what I recall.
I am familiar with the World of Darkness books, though First Edition only. I based Chalice World (one of my fantasy settings) off an old WoD campaign.
I liked the setting and concept much more than the mechanics they used.

Blergh, do not tell me about WoD mechanics, that thing is cursed.

Blessed were the day that I found Gurps and their holy rules... From that point on, my WoD was WoD only in heart, because the mind was fully Gurps.

Wraith however I never translated... Until today.

Originally Posted by Refplace

I look forward to reading your posts on it. Also try to remind me when my next supplement goes out. I included a magic system for spirits based very heavily on GURPS Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys that was intended to give spirits some oomph while having limited resources so they would be useful and powerful but not take over the campaign. It could work for some of the WoD stuff and I'll post a designers notes kind of thing after publication that shows some ways to adapt it.

Hmm... That sounds promissing, I liked the concept of it.

I once saw someone here in these forums giving the idea of using Impulse Buys to explain how the powers of the ancient fairies were vanishing over the ages, from them going from powerful in ancient times to tiny beings more recently, and I found that idea absolutely fantastic.