Spiritual leaders of tribes, the shamans of Hârn have various talents and abilities, most of which are simple herblore ,high oratory, and perhaps some psionic talents. But there are a few exceptional shamans who actully do have esoteric skill or items to enhance their shamanic rituals. In particular, there are rumored to be shape changing shamans in the Kath and the Taelda tribes. Other tribes might well have a shapechanger in the tribe. The type of shapechanging used by most of these shamans is not true shapechanging, rather it is through the use of specially prepared pelts and furs that the shaman gains his/her ability.
The preparation of the pelt is an invocation of the IV or V circle (depending on the size and abilities of the pelt created). And the use of the pelt would be an invocation of the III circle. Piety costs would vary from religion to religion, but here is an example of a Yarili Jarlak Shaman's invocations and piety costs.
Such a system could be based on lesser god or totem worship, which works well within the frameworks of the religious system, or ancestor worship, which still fits into the religious system.
"Oh Great-great Grandfather, help me slay this white and red beast which invades my village.... urrrrch!!! yalp-" said Upposka, the Solori Shaman as a Knight skewered him to a tree. (He must have made his Divine Intervention, as the knight was thrown from his horse and broke his neck.) :)
any comments?
-Eric Anderson
PS thank you for the ideas Steve, I will be using this real soon.
Thanks to Eric Anderson - I like that implementation of shamans (or at least of those who follow various spirits/gods etc)
Since the party are wandering around in Kath/Taelda hunting grounds, and have made things worse by building their new village close to a Taelda holy site (see 100 bushels of rye), as well as having calously slain several Kath who were in the process of running away from them, and one who was trying to surrender, action is slowly but surely creeping up on the party..... ;-)
comments on the shaman article...
the shamanic abilities in this depend upon the ritual skill, which is fine. A problem I forsee (if used as player rather than NPC) is that ritual does not increase with practice, it must be learnt. The answer is presumably that you learn from a better shaman, but how does he get better? In terms of conventional religions (Larani etc), the priest would learn from a high priest or books, but the same 'where did the high ritual item / person come from' exists. I'd probably claim that self teaching would work, though there would definately be some chance of getting it wrong!
(OK, so this isn't really a comment on the article ;-) The only real comment on that is 'I like it!')
I also really liked the example of Divine Intervention! - the guy didn't mention his own life ;-)
Steve
In regards to a PC's ritual increasing, I have a player in my game who worships Jarlak. (actually his character does... :) ) If you dont remember, Jarlak is the carrion lord of Sarajin. He is a huge white wolf. I thought that it would be acceptable for him to worship Jarlak. He was a Hodiri tribesman who was cast out of his tribe by his brother, and went to Cherafir and became an animal trainer, training dogs and horses. The character had about 6 months to kill (he missed a few weeks) and he said he wanted to increase his Ritual EML, perhaps learn a few invocations. We thought about it and decided that His character would endure several ordeal drugs and ceremonies to gain some idea of how to get closer to Jarlak, (ie increase Ritual ML) He gained a vision of a mantle of Jarlak being held by some strange creatures in Ivinia. And to make an epic story short, He retrieved it and was granted an audience with a divine pack of white wolves, and increased his ritual by SB. (i think) Anyway, as you can imagine, not all religions followers gain knowledge of invocations from a book.
-eric (not parson) anderson