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

[sir_pudding]

A river called Rhine flows yet, but no maidens do there dwell.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Banishing is intended to send demons back to hell (freeing the people they possess), or elementals back to the elemental plane, or that sort of thing. It's really more "Deportation."

I think you're mixing it up with Magic spell banishing. Path/Book banishing is actually intended to damage spirits, killing them if they can be killed or weakening them so they won't remanifest until centuries later. The most likely result of "killing" a genius is that the place simply becomes mundane. But injuring it but not quite killing it could drive the genius mad.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Or maybe I would point out that DF9 was written without reference to Path Magic, so I’m (very definitely) allowed to Make Stuff Up, and what I’d make up might well be “You can’t do that any more than you could use that spell to murder a human by Banishing their soul.”

Or maybe somebody would find themselves geased by the Goddess of the Land to go get her tragically banished daughter back from where she’s wandering the distant astral plane, depressed and angry and insane.

Or maybe the spell requires some other spirit to displace the existing spirit. Whether that's expanding the territory of the neighboring field spirit, introducing a "cooperative" demon into the ecosystem, or sacrificing the soul of a forsaken child depends on the tone of the game.

[malloyd]

It really does seem like it depends on how your setting metaphysics interprets spirits.

If they are souls, then it's exactly analogous to what happens to a person when a magician destroys his soul. This is generally death, and anything else alive within the person is on notice that it needs a new home really soon or it is going to die to.

If they are guardians, maybe nothing, but whatever they guard against (possibly incursion by the neighboring spirits, the evolution of the local wildlife into monsters or invasion of demons from hell) is likely to happen pretty soon.

If they are platonic essences, the place no longer exists. Geography is altered and places originally separated from each other by it are now in contact. Possibly it [never did] and the entire history of the world is now different. Oops.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anders

Spirits of Place are spirits of a location, like the spirit of a river, mountain, or forest. Banish is a ritual that gets rid of a spirit "effectively permanently." So what happens when e.g. the Spirit of a River is gotten rid of? Obviously it depends on the campaign metaphysics, but what are some ideas?

I think it depends on how you mechanically design this creature. It should come down to the traits that build them.

Powers: Totems and Nature Spirits for example defines "Dragon" as "a fierce and proud spirit of place" but which part of that template is Banish interacting with?

Are you referencing the Spirit of Place 3e template from Spirits 61?

The key aspect to that is "Dependency (Domain; common, constantly)" which would basically kill them via HP loss if they're forced out of the domain and unable to fulfill their dependency (unless it's somehow possible to buy off the disadvantage)

4e's Horror 79 also had this with with the "Genius Loci" which is a similar "spirit of a place" (not 'spirit of place') with many abilities limited as 'only in domain'.

Thaumatology 160's Banish ritual just outright causes damage to spirits so the outcome seems pretty standard.

If the river is not literally it's body (maybe something in Possesses) then it would remain behind.

Maybe if the spirit maintained the ecosystem or made it somehow reliant you would see problems though.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Plane

4e's Horror 79 also had this with with the "Genius Loci" which is a similar "spirit of a place" (not 'spirit of place') with many abilities limited as 'only in domain'.

I don't think that distinction is linguistically accurate. Latin does not have articles (words such as "a" or "the"). The phrase genius loci translates literally as "spirit of place," but it can mean either "spirit of a place" or "spirit of the place." It's like Natasha Fatale saying "We find moose and squirrel" when she means "the moose and the squirrel."

[RyanW]

There's also the possibility that you can't banish a spirit of place from its place.

The Doctor: "I sent it to its room. This is its room!"

[Plane]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't think that distinction is linguistically accurate. Latin does not have articles (words such as "a" or "the"). The phrase genius loci translates literally as "spirit of place," but it can mean either "spirit of a place" or "spirit of the place." It's like Natasha Fatale saying "We find moose and squirrel" when she means "the moose and the squirrel."

yeah I'm just quoting the actual text used in Horror, given this is a template that could be applied to many places there is no "the place" context so I figure "of a place" or "of place" whatever the difference might be

[sir_pudding]

Game mechanically, the "just a river" option would be to treat the river, or even the entire valley, as desecrated ritual space.

[Donny Brook]

But....!
... what if the spirit is a robot?