Spirit Traditions and Spirit Societies

[Agentorange]

Over at the RQ facebook page I asked David Cake what he thought the difference between these was and he provided a very well thought out response  - which for some weird Facebook reason i can no longer see 🙁  So if he's reading this  - please do post it here.

But it got me thinking. I'm assuming it's possible for a shaman to belong to multiple spirit societies ?  What happens if there are  antagonistic spirits in two different societies ?

So Agentorange the  shaman belongs to the Thirstless spirit society - a collection of water based spirits in and around prax and the Zola fel valley ( see the Prax thread in the link ). he has a single Rune Pool that he uses to access their Rune magic. But........he also belongs to a Spirit Society called the Zola Fellows ( which i just made up ) which consists of Spirit Cults located within the Zola Fel valley, some are water spirits, some aren't but they all reside in the ZF valley. Now, what happens if one of the spirits in the Zola fellows is hostile or antagonistic towards  one of the spirits in The Thirstless ? Would Agentorange the shaman be unable to be a member of both societies ? What if he was  a member of both societies but never actually worshipped one of the mutually hostile pair of spirits ?

Which brings me on to my next question. Could a spirit belong to or be worshipped  in more than one society. For example imagine a spirit called Sturgeon Boy - grants  the  Rune spell Transform to Sturgeon and can be contacted somewhere near the mouth of  the Zola Fel river near Corflu. he is considered to be part of the Zola Fellows spirit society. However other shamans living on the coast of Genertela also know of his existence and worship him as part of the Fish Boys of Genertela spirit society ( which also include Sea Bass Boy, Mudhopper Boy, Cod and Chips Boy** and so on ) The coastal shaman know nothing of the rest of the Zola Fellows. is this situation something that could happen.

** Cod and Chips Boy does actually have a ritual rune spell which I've written up  😃

Link to the prax thread
https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4533-the-praxian-tradition/

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Agentorange
typos

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Agentorange said:

But it got me thinking. I'm assuming it's possible for a shaman to belong to multiple spirit societies ?  What happens if the there antagonistic spirits in two different societies ?

Then you have a classic story where your character is pulled between two conflicting Loyalties, and possibly must make the choice of which taboo to break to satisfy the other... 

This is one of the reasons why shamans may be disinclined to join multiple societies (unless there is a compelling advantage for them to do so).

3 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Could a spirit belong to or be worshipped  in more than one society.

Quite likely. A given spirit likely has their own freinds, allies, rivals, and foes based on mythic events. Those are unlikely to align perfectly with how a spirit society has developed. Now, it's very unlikely that a spirit be part of hostile or rival societies, but I'm sure there are exceptions (might be that a given spirit was captured by another - e.g. a fire spirit by darkness, a lightning spirit by air - and so they have conditions by which they participate in both).

[Agentorange]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

Then you have a classic story where your character is pulled between two conflicting Loyalties, and possibly must make the choice of which taboo to break to satisfy the other... 

This is one of the reasons why shamans may be disinclined to join multiple societies (unless there is a compelling advantage for them to do so).

Quite likely. A given spirit likely has their own freinds, allies, rivals, and foes based on mythic events. Those are unlikely to align perfectly with how a spirit society has developed. Now, it's very unlikely that a spirit be part of hostile or rival societies, but I'm sure there are exceptions (might be that a given spirit was captured by another - e.g. a fire spirit by darkness, a lightning spirit by air - and so they have conditions by which they participate in both).

I'd imagine you could certainly have a situation  where spirits whose natures would seem contradictory - Light and Dark might have a history of cooperation against a common enemy eg : chaos  ?

[David Scott]

8 hours ago, Agentorange said:

But it got me thinking. I'm assuming it's possible for a shaman to belong to multiple spirit societies ?  What happens if there are  antagonistic spirits in two different societies ?

The main points in my original spirit society posts was that generally a shaman would only lead a single society, and the spirits within it would be at least neutral. Given the basis of spirit societies in real life shamanism, there’s never a hostile (or antagoistic) spirit in the society. However a shaman can belong to separate spirit cults outside of the society. As they are the leader, they may even be able to add the spirit cult to the society. Hostile spirit cults are rarely possible except in propitiated manner. So a shaman who is the leader of the Thirstless society could also separately lead the Mallia spirit cult allowing all initiates that are members, temporary immunity from disease.

A shaman who is not the leader of a spirit society (or a splinter) is at the mercy of the actual leader and will be down the pecking chain of power. (The easiest way to determine relative shaman power is POW+ Fetch POW + age)..

[French Desperate WindChild]

2 hours ago, Agentorange said:

I'd imagine you could certainly have a situation  where spirits whose natures would seem contradictory - Light and Dark might have a history of cooperation against a common enemy eg : chaos  ?

Of course

However the point then is about the other spirits society (let’s say a light spirits society)

will all the other light spirits accept your shaman to « trade » with darkness spirits ?

they are probably not too hostile (as one of their spirit member is in the other society) but they may request more efforts/sacrifice -pow, mp, cows, time, taboo, - than a « light » shaman

[David Scott]

8 hours ago, Agentorange said:

So Agentorange the  shaman belongs to the Thirstless spirit society - a collection of water based spirits in and around prax and the Zola fel valley ( see the Prax thread in the link ). he has a single Rune Pool that he uses to access their Rune magic. But........he also belongs to a Spirit Society called the Zola Fellows ( which i just made up ) which consists of Spirit Cults located within the Zola Fel valley, some are water spirits, some aren't but they all reside in the ZF valley. Now, what happens if one of the spirits in the Zola fellows is hostile or antagonistic towards  one of the spirits in The Thirstless ? Would Agentorange the shaman be unable to be a member of both societies ? What if he was  a member of both societies but never actually worshipped one of the mutually hostile pair of spirits ?

In this case, agent orange the shaman would be leading a Thirstless splinter and just add the other water spirits to their society. Their worshippers would be able to access the other water spirits as part of the society. With the non-water fellows, they would be separate spirit cults.