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Table of Contents
Spirit-Chasing
Source: Sorcerer's Companion, modified
While this Path's name implies a similarity to Summoning, it has little relation to Summoning/Binding/Warding of any kind. Spirit Chasing instead creates a bond between a mystic and a chosen plant or animal (or, with Storyteller permission, some other sort of Naturae).
Practitioners of this Path believe that within every living creature rest a soul, spirit, animus or similar ephemeral concept. Spirit Chasers try to watch and learn from these beings; unlike the learning of Gifts, however, the animus doesn't necessarily enter into any kind of “bargain” with the mystic. Instead the practitioner studies the spirit, first by making contact with it, then by asking it questions and mimicking its natural abilities that manifest in this world, and finally by putting what it’s learned into practice through Sorcerous rituals.
For example, a Spirit Chaser studying bears would begin by watching bears and observing their movements and patterns of life. He would then engage in some sort of private ritual of his own devising, pleading for a bear's particular spirit to appear; sometimes, this process takes years of work. Next, the mystic would explain to the spirit that he'd like to learn the ways of bears in their natural habitat. The spirit might require proof of the mystic's sincerity. But if it agrees, the Spirit Chaser can learn the rudiments of living like a bear. He could, for example, discover how to survive on raw meat, roots, berries, nuts or insects, even those poisonous to humans. As his understanding progresses, the mystic could also learn to focus his sense like a bear, hibernate or even grow claws. Spirit Chasers by no means restrict themselves only to mammals or even the animal world. A number of them choose plants for their Spirit Chasing. This Path is unique to every practitioner.
While, by default, the practitioners of the Path may only benefit themselves with the abilities they’ve learned, at higher levels a dedicated Sorcerer eventually learns to grant these gifts to another; the mechanics work the same way in that case as if the target had cast it themselves. Any target of this Path’s base effects must be willing; it’s to be treated as a gift, not a burden.
The following table provides both the base spells and general possibilities of Rituals developed at each level, but the specific mechanics will depend on the animal in question; sample benefits and rituals for different plants/animals can be found afterward. If a Sorcerer wishes to take this Path for more than one type of Spirit, they must re-purchase the Path, going through the whole process again from the beginning. With Storyteller permission, redundant levels (like level 3) might provide an additional ritual if you’ve already purchased it once.
System
Attribute: Perception
Cost: One Willpower
Modifiers: -1 if you have Medium, Spirit Sight, or similar merits. +1 if you’ve angered related Naturae.
Duration: A scene, unless the ritual or level says otherwise.
Aspects
Effects
| • | This level allows the mystic to learn how to “eat” the food of the chosen spirit. It requires that the proper food be available (e.g. sunshine and water for plants or crumbs for insects). He receives full nutritional value from the meal, as if he were the animal or plant. Rituals might include chewing cud, hiding food to eat later and so on. |
| •• | With this level of Spirit Chasing, the character can extend his sensory perception to match that of his chosen animal or plant in one aspect. If the Spirit Chaser has a bond with a lynx, for example, he could see in the dark. Discovering hunters, scenting a trail or finding food are examples of rituals at this level. |
| ••• | Animals and plants have an innate understanding of self-preservation. Hurt creatures lick their wounds clean, while plants use energy from photosynthesis to repair torn leaves and roots. When winter approaches and food is scarce, some animals and plants fall into hibernation; they awake when spring comes. This level allows Spirit Chasers the same luxury; they can fall into a healing sleep and recover one Health Level for every success rolled one Health Level for every success rolled on Spirit Chasing. Each level regained requires four hours of rest. Thus, a person who got three success could heal three Health levels after 12 hours of sleep. Rituals may include hiding, or healing venomous. |
| •••• | This level of Spirit Chasing grants the mystic keen insight and wisdom. The Storyteller decides, based upon the levels of success, what sort of information to provide. For example, if a character has chosen the oak tree as her bonded spirit and rolls three success, the wisdom that comes to her might involve seeing how an event long ago affected the present. The idea is that the oak has stood for many years and seen much. The Storyteller can use this level of the path to provide clues or plots hooks for the characters. Possible rituals encompass past visions, detecting lies or leaps of intuition. |
| ••••• | At this point, the Spirit Chaser may practice a unique ability chosen from their spirit. A practitioner bonded to a deer could run quickly or jump over a high fence. If a character chose poison ivy, anyone who touched him might develop a blistering rash. A minimum of three successes is necessary to invoke this effect. Acquiring physical prowess (such as great strength), offensive powers (growing claws or fangs) or shielding (sprouting thick fur) are all possible rituals. |
| ••••• • | The rare Spirit Chaser that reaches this pinnacle may practice another ability chosen from their spirit, but this one may be more obvious or simply a lot more potent. Someone following a bird spirit may be able to fly short distances without wings, or someone following a type of vine may be able to suck the life from another individual. |
Subjects
| • - ••• | The Sorcerer may only grant the benefits to themselves. |
| •••• | The Sorcerer may grant the benefits to one other individual. |
| ••••• | The Sorcerer may grant the benefits to themselves and one other individual. |
| ••••• • | The Sorcerer may grant the benefits to three people, which may include themselves. |
Sample Patrons
The following are a few examples of the abilities certain types of spirits might grant the Spirit-Chaser following them. They’re organized by the base effect for that creature, with rituals at that level following the base spell. Note that these are just examples, and even for the same type of spirit, the levels can vary.
Spider
| • | The Spirit-Chaser is able to eat insects and perhaps certain small animals, depending on the exact type of spider, with only a small handful’s worth providing a day’s sustenance. - Spinning a Web: This ritual allows the Spirit-Chaser to spin silk, able to create about a “handful” of the substance per success. It’s no stronger than a spider’s usual silk, but can help with catching insects or perhaps storing/hiding small objects. - Liquid Diet: While spiders don’t exactly drink blood, the spiritual resonance of it (perhaps due to the Ananasi) allows the Sorcerer to subsist on it. The ritual involves the act of drinking the blood itself (at least a “point” of it), and in addition to being able to digest it properly, for about an hour afterward they become immune to mundane fatigue. |
| •• | The character can sense minor vibrations along the ground and other surfaces, granting a -2 difficulty to appropriate Alertness rolls. - Warning Instinct: After using this ritual, which costs 1 Willpower, the character becomes attuned to hostile activity aimed against them. For the next 12 hours, they may roll Wits + Alertness, Difficulty 7, to get a vague sense of any sort of incoming danger, giving them about a turn to avoid it or prepare. - Spider’s Web: This ritual is used within territory belonging to the character, allowing them to become acutely aware of their surroundings; for 1 hour per success, the general direction and distance to anyone else in the area can be sensed. This may work against concealing powers, using the normal means for resolving such a Seeing the Unseen (V20, pg. 142). |
| ••• | As normal. - Antivenin: This ritual allows the Spirit-Chaser to “bleed” out an antitoxin through their pores, which can be used to cure any sort of natural toxin affecting themself or another. 1 Willpower is spent, and 1 success is needed per the Toxicity of the poison to be cured. - Paralyzing Slumber: This ritual lets the character develop a paralyzing venom of sorts that sends a target into a healing sleep. After use of the ritual, a target must be immediately bitten (an unwilling target resists with Stamina (difficulty 6)), and if successful, they fall into a slumber akin to the normal third level of the Path, letting them heal. However, they’re still awoken by anything that might normally wake them up. This costs 1 Willpower. |
| •••• | A Spider-Chaser’s insight at this level shows them webs of connection and influence, the vast network providing insight of various kinds, perhaps showing connections between a body and its murderer, or between two lovers that are concealing their feelings from others. - Cobwebs: Gathered cobwebs, whose denizens have long since passed, have often survived for years. Using this ritual on gathered cobwebs can show the caster what happened in the area in the past, back until the point of the web’s original creation, with level of detail and what’s seen depending on level of success. The cobwebs are destroyed in the process, and so it may not be performed on the same web again. - Metaphysical Vibrations: With this ritual, which costs 1 Willpower, an individual, object, or location can be marked with a sort of preternatural “webbing” that connects to the Spirit-Chaser. Any time the target is in danger over the course of the next month, the caster feels the pull of that web, and knows the general location of their charge. |
| ••••• | The Sorcerer becomes able to climb walls and even ceilings without needing any sort of handhold or other support, nor any sort of roll. - Exoskeleton: This ritual, which costs 1 Willpower, grants 3 Armor to the caster, which doesn’t stack with mundane armor but does stack with other supernatural forms of protection. The caster’s skin takes on a hard sheen to it, feeling like a spider’s exoskeleton. It lasts for 1 hour per success rolled. - Trap: By spending a point of Willpower and preparing an area with this ritual, a sort of invisible “web” can be set up to trap intruders (or otherwise). An area about the size of a small room is marked, and anyone who steps inside must beat the Sorcerer’s successes in a Strength + Athletics roll (difficulty 7) or end up trapped in place, as if grappled by an invisible force. They may roll again each turn, with successes being cumulative, escaping when they exceed the Sorcerer’s total. The ritual lasts for a full day. |
| ••••• • | Those Spider-Chasers that end up at the pinnacle of the path become able to instantly ensnare someone with ephemeral webs. This works as the Trap ritual above, but instead instantly targeting a single individual, and the substance visibly being “shot” at the target by the Sorcerer. - Spider Sense: It becomes entirely impossible to surprise the ritualist for a day after this ritual’s cast. Any mundane attempts at Stealth or deception against them automatically fail, instantly revealing them to the caster, and supernatural attempts must defeat the Sorcerer at Seeing the Unseen (V20, pg. 142) per the usual mechanics (higher Power level wins, or higher number of successes if equal). This costs a point of Willpower to use. |
Vine, Ivy
| • | The Sorcerer can “feed” on trees and other large plants by absorbing energy from them by touch. A single use of this will rarely harm them long term, but continued usage might. - Bask: By performing this ritual in direct sunlight, the Sorcerer is able to immediately replenish their internal reserves, as if they’d just eaten a large meal and had 8 hours of sleep. They still require water normally, however. - Liquid Diet: As the Spider ritual. |
| •• | The Sorcerer gains a sense of ‘life’ inherently, detecting if something’s living or dead on sight, and with multiple successes detecting injury or illness, or other conditions that might imply a state closer to death. - Salted Earth: The Sorcerer is inherently able to tell the level of nutrients and other factors affecting the sustainability of plant-life in the area, after performing this ritual. - Diagnose: With this ritual, the Sorcerer gains a further sense of what the base Path allows, granting actual details about the health and well-being of the target, and what that means. If used on the undead, this will even provide details as to what sort they are, but of course it’s unlikely they’ll sit there and allow you to perform this ritual on them willingly to determine that. |
| ••• | As normal. - Eat Wounds: This ritual, which costs a point of Willpower, allows the Sorcerer to absorb up to 1 lethal or bashing wound per success from another individual, suffering from it themselves and healing it normally. This may only be used once on an individual per day. - Absorb: For the rest of the day after using this ritual, the character heals damage twice as fast so long as they’re either in the sun or touching someone that’s in a healthier state than they are. Prolonged use of this around a healthy individual might cause their health to suffer, but the specific details of this are up to the Storyteller. |
| •••• | Ivy tends to reveal the weaknesses and failings of others; for instance it might reveal someone’s low Stamina score, a building’s loose support, or a group’s most “open” member. - Sense Control: This ritual, when cast on someone or something, reveals details about others that have some sense of control over them, whether a mundane sort like blackmail, or a supernatural sort like a Mage’s Mind rotes or a Vampire’s Presence. - Symbiosis: As “Metaphysical Vibrations”, from Spider. |
| ••••• | The character becomes able to more blatantly absorb the life force from someone. When in a grapple with someone, or otherwise having a large amount of bodily contact to them, this power can be enacted, dealing 1 bashing damage to them per success and healing the same from the Sorcerer. This is soaked normally by the target. - Support: By casting this ritual on a willing participant, and spending a point of Willpower, that character acts as a sort of physical support, keeping the Sorcerer sturdy and uninjured. Whenever they would take damage, after they’ve rolled their own soak, the target may roll their soak pool (minus any physical armor), if any, to further reduce the damage the Sorcerer takes. However, if damage still gets through, the target takes it as well. - Warning: Your character gives off a vague impression that stimulates the same part of the mind as someone recognizing a poisonous plant and animal, and they instinctively want to avoid them. Anyone who wishes to attack them must succeed on a Willpower roll (difficulty 3 + your Path rating) to do so. This protection is negated if the Sorcerer attacks first. |
| ••••• • | This works as the fifth level, except lethal damage can be delivered and healed. - Stolen Years: A seemingly minor effect that can add up over time, when casting this ritual on someone (which costs 1 Willpower), you steal 1 day of their lifespan and add it onto your own per success. This can be resisted with Willpower (difficulty 8), with successes cancelling your own. Most will never know they’ve lost a day or two, but repeated usage of this ritual can theoretically greatly expand the Sorcerer’s life, if others don’t catch on to what they’re doing. |
