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[Curris]

As I was reading through the January Run, and I read the post where the spirit was pushing the halon out of the room, I thought this up.

I was under the assumption that spirits (and elementals) could only perform actions pertaining to manifestable powers and abilities.

To me, "pushing air" doesn't seem to be equivalent to Accident, Guard, Manifest, Engulf, etc.

My question is this. What other non-keyword powers do spirits (and elementals) have? Do these minors actions decrease their force, as though completing a task? Can they be performed by only certain types of entities? (Such as "pushing air" can only be done by air elementals, and sky spirits, or can any astral entity do this?)

Thank you for your responses, as this may get a grip on whether or not I have been running spirits correctly. . .

[mercy]

ah but pushing the halon out the vents does quilify as guard to guard is to protect the caster and breathing halon is life threating

[Ruski]

Mostly, I try to think about how hard it would be to do something.

moving air arround isn't very tough if you have a fan.

-RuskiFace the Pirate

[ROOTless]

Or plenty of liquid helium, a (very!) good thermal insulation suit and a shovel.

[Curris]

Okay, so the abilities are up to interpretation then. . .

But to continue the example, yes, it is easy to move air with a fan. However, controlling the direction of motion with said fan, that could be rediculously difficult. But, it's magic, so. . . it's plausible. . .

In addition, can watcher spirits be summoned only by shamans, or do mages have some equivalent?

[ROOTless]

Mages (and magical oddities) can summon Watchers.

It's right there in Magic in the Shadows.

[Retread]

Any summoner can summon watchers.

A spirit (assuming you mean nature spirit) can guard the players against accidents in their domain. The halon gas, being a danger, is considered a mundane "accident" However, the guard power should have reduced Power the damage the players would take every turn from the halon gas by the spirit's force. If the power were reduced to zero, the halon could be rendered inert. This, however, is my interpretation of the rules. Guard is a sustained ability that does not make a dice roll. Ideally, this makes it so a force 1 spirit has very little effect on an unnatural (relatively) gas, while a force 8 has no problem and is completely powerful in its own domain.

If a Force 6 spirit were to guard against a force 4 spirit's accident power, the force 6 prevails. However, if a force 4 spirit were to Guard against a force 6 spirit's Accident, the spirit would only negate 4 points of the accident and the effective power of the force 6's Accident would be 2.

[mercy]

I just figured a hearth spirt would be able to do it who knows it might have just got the vent fan going to pull it out

[Ruski]

it's mmmaaaaggggiiiiccccc.... wwwoooohhhhhh!
LOL

mostly, I suck at magic, and in an impromptu fasion, I took a little GM inititive, and let it work, because that was easyer than looking up all the rules, and it was a good idea, and one of the few things that could get them out of that death-trap alive.

-RuskiFace the Pirate

I don' t know if it's a good idea to base my actions on cannon though...

[Gabriel]

Well Curris, I a while back, I asked the question "what other things can you do with a spirit besides just listed powers; that is, what would a spirit be able to do by simply BEING a spirit in a particular domain." It was supposed to get people thinking about other ways to use spirits by thinking outside of the box. In the example I gave, my players summoned a Force 4 Wind Spirit and had it vaporize a army helmet full of DSMO laced Gamma-Scopolamine, by sucking the liquid into its windy form. Then the spirit glided through an army camp. As it did so, the soldiers were breathing in teh GS, and dropping like flies.

Now, as far as I know, none of that really jibes with listed powers, but I could certainly see it being feasable for a critter that is essentially air on the material plane. So in the case of the Halon, I could certainly see a wind spirit being able to push the gas back. However, if the entire area were flooded with halon and it had had a chance to work on the oxygen in the room, then I think you would HAVE to use it as a Guard power since very little oxygen would have survived the gas. As I've been told (and I'm sure ROOTless will be able to clairify) halon actually destroys oxygen, or at least renders it totally unusable. Therefore, if there had been halon flooding the room, there would be no breathable air left and the spirit would have had to "make" it by using a power.

Of course, I still like playing spirits a bit more losely than canon rules seem to dictate. To me a spirit isn't really a critter, but the reflection of a place/event/ideal/etc. So there are bound to be things that they can do that aren't covered in their power list. For instance, have you ever thought of asking a Hearth Spirit for juicy gossip?? After all, it is the manifestation of everything that happens in the building, so therefore would know ALL about what goes on inside the building. You wouldn't even need to make Int. Tests if you asked it directions. It KNOWS the building because it IS the building.

Think about it and have some fun with the idea.

Gabriel

[Curris]

That's exactly what I'm talking about, and those are some great ideas!

[Gabriel]

I suppose it's just the way you look at it. If you look at spirits as just statistics, then it gets a bit redundent. So now I'm interested here: what kind of ideas do you have Curris?

Gabriel

[Curris]

Well, I once thought that air elementals could be used as carrier mediums for signals. Since you can relate signals to vibrating molecules, an elemental can "attune" itself to a frequency, or signal, and then use itself as a transmission medium. Kind of like a spiritual wireless. . . Never used it, except as a thought experiment.

I had a player try to sell an earth elemental as a statue "work of art." I reminded him that the elemental would eventually expire, and that the buyer would likely be angry. . . Although think about it, artistic magicians. . .

Using mountain Nature spirits to guide miners to veins of valuable minerals, so that you can avoid nature depleting methods like strip mining, by doing precision dig work. . .

Those are just a few, but you see what I mean, that none of them use a "by-the-book" rule, but it seems like things they should be capable of.

Using a nature spirit to help fertilize and grow your private small garden?

[Gabriel]

That would work, the garden thing that is. I could see a low-level forrest/prairie/etc. spirit being used to fertilize and care for a garden. You could even use it as a scarecrow. The thing is, the "favor" or "ability" should reflect the nature (pardon the pun) of the nature spirit. I don't know about an earth elemental or mountain spirit would actually guide miners to precious minerals as they would be removing the minerals from the wpirit's domain, and thus weakening it. Of course, maybe a free spirit might do that by making a deal or something.

Gabriel

[Retread]

Spirits are bound by their favors and have NO choice in their actions. In fact, if you look at the way spirits work, they are essentially "lifeless" that is to say, they as they consider themselves, never really existed, but are rather a snapshot of the nature of that area linked in a colonial manner. When the magician summons them however, they are somewhat "imprinted" on reality by their summoner and begin a life if/when they become Free.

The finding precious metals is a Search power, relative to the power of the spirit, a higher force spirit will be able to find more minerals in a greater range.

Wind Spirits have Telekinesis and cannot attack physically without it, therefore, a DMSO laced Gamma-Scopyline[sp] could easily be transferred through the area as long as it didn't weigh too much (which, it likely didn't)

An Earth Elemental could pose as a statue, indeed, it wouldn't last long, unless you bound it under remote service using Karma for a year and a day. (Another Earthdawn holdover, as well) More efficiently, a Greater Form Earth Elemental could shape its own statue out of marble or clay.

Watcher spirits are a more effective way to send messages, they can never do greater than Light Stun damage and are relatively efficient at 6 force, if not a little brainless. Watcher spirits make great party favors at social gatherings too, you can have them eavesdrop on the mundanes while they make chit-chat to catch every little bit of gossip. They are also quite dangerous in astral combat when attack en masse.