Animism

The Sphere of Spirit

All Spheres: Animism

All things have Spirit, or Essence, which governs their actions and determines their being. An Animist-Mage is able to harness that spirit, to control it and manipulate it to his advantage. It is proper to speak of living things, from the amoeba to the tree to the man, as having spirits, and inanimate things of any variety, as having Essence. It is unknown, though a topic of much debate, whether immaterial things, forces, for example, have spirits; it seems unlikely, or at least, the path leading to these spirits is unknown to even the most powerful Mages of this sphere.

An Animist-Mage respects all life (there are, of course, exceptions to every rule), because all spirits are equal (in their own spiritual way). Spirits are alive, Essence is not. Spirits are composed of Essence, in much the same way as living beings are composed of un-living atoms and molecules. A quick distinction: Spirit (majuscule 'S', no article) refers to the Essence of living things, it is, in a word, the animating force, while a spirit (miniscule 's', article) refers to the actual living Spiritual creature which resides in and governs each material creature; so, we could say, spirits are composed of Spirit. Animism deals almost entirely with Spirit and spirits, rather than Essence; indeed, there is disagreement on the nature, and even the very existence, of Essence.

Mechanics of Animism

Animism spells, particularly the lower-level ones, tend to require very little ritual or preparation; often, the only action necessary is direct interaction with the spirit in question.

Animism spells often deal with "binding" spirits. To bind a spirit is to metaphysically tether it to a place or thing. That place or thing then gains some of the characteristics of the spirit. An item with a spirit invested in to increase its power or effectiveness is called a fetish; for example, investing an arrow with a wind spirit might increase one's accuracy. Binding a powerful fire spirit to a forest location would make that location much more susceptible to forest fire.

Every binding has a "bind level". Bind level determines two things, firstly, the difficulty of breaking the bond between the spirit and its fetter, and secondly the length the bond will last under normal circumstances. Lowering a bind level to 0 will release the spirit automatically. The following is a chart displaying bind levels and corresponding length of time for which a spirit is bound:

Animism Spells

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