Orc Shaman Q&a

[Arteh 1837]

This post is for EVERYONE to ask questions about Shamans and how they RP. Whether you are interested in RPing as a Shaman, have suggestions or just want to ask questions. Feel free to post!

​

​Shoi & Blawharag will be answering your questions.

 

Ask Away!

 

 

 

Questions:

 

Q: Can the questions be about magic, or just about the characters and how should react?
A: Feel free to ask anything about Shamanism.
 

Q: How do you become a shaman? Isn't it a subrace, or at least used to be one?
A:

Shaman has actually been removed as a Subrace in reality. In the past, the "Shaman" subrace was intended to refer to skinny, lankier Orcs that would be more inclined to a magical rather than a martial art. Since, however, this made little sense in respect to the Orcish lore in general, the idea was scrapped very, very early on in aegis, but the subrace option remains simply because it has not been removed. To become a Shaman you need only learn Shamanism, no different than any other magic. It is generally recommended that you learn from a teacher, but you can also self-teach Shamanism if you wish (though it will take you twice as long to learn in this case).

 

Q: How important to Orc society are shamans, typically? How important should they be?

A: 

Shaman generally act as spiritual leaders for Orcs, with Shamanism being the closest thing the Orcs have to a religious institution. Shaman, therefore, play a very important role in Orcish events. Farseers will often bless warparties before battles, Lutauman enforce ancestral traditions, Elementalists watch over the lands and Witchdoctors attempt to handle more practical aspects of Orcish lifestyle in a more direct way. Farseers in particular are an important aspect for most Orcs, as the Farseers are generally the most directly visable in their handling of the spirits as they bless Orcs before their all-too-frequent battles, oftentimes making the difference between victory and defeat (or so many Orcish warriors will claim).

 

Q: How difficult is it to become a shaman, in general? What are their duties in the War Uzg?

A: 

 Becoming a Shaman is not exceedingly difficult. In certain cases of apprenticeship, some Elder Shaman are more strigent than others. Blawharag, for instance, used to require a series of tests to prove you are worthy of even being trained (though with the recent decline in Shamanism, Blawharag is abandoning this model at the request of the Ancestors). However, even beyond earning an apprenticeship, one CAN still self-teach Shamanism (I am more than willing to act as an OOC overseer, which is the requirement to self-teach, for anyone interested in self-teaching Shamanism). The magic is no more difficult to learn than any other (at least not IC, OOC depends on the individual player of course).

 

Q: How steeped in ritual is a shaman's daily life, and magic?

A:  

Shamanism has a more heavy reliance on ritual than most other Subtypes. Many of the more advanced and complicated spells require an extensive ritual in order to perform. In Lutauman, for instance, almost every spell which manipulates souls still anchored in the physical realm by bodies requires some advanced ritual or another, as it is a far more difficult process than connecting with souls in the Ancestral Plane. Farseer blessings over war parties are usually less complicated rituals reflecting sermons or war dances, while many Witchdoctor spells can be highly barbaric and ritualistic on a primal level. That is not to say that it dominates every aspect of the Shaman's lifestyle, however. Many spells can be preformed without the presence of rituals, and a Shaman need not wake up every morning and do a voodoo dance around a fire. For the most part, ritualistic practices are reserved for spells and reverence towards the spirits.

 

Q: Is it still possible to practice shamanism, without access to magic (as applications are on hold)?

A:

 Due to the many things that the word "practice" can mean in your statement, I'll try to address them all. Existing Shaman can still practice their magic. Magic Apps are on hold, but magic is still usable. Those who were not accepted prior to the hold can practice the worship parts of Shamanism (you can still revere your Ancestors, as a religious institution). Finally we have the actual learning part of Shamanism. Unfortunately right now with the magic app hold, you cannot begin learning Shamanism as a magic until we re-release the new system. HOWEVER, due to various random and stupid delays, and the critical state that Shamanism is in, I will speak with my peers on the Magic Team about allowing me to start a learning process early, despite not have the new system released. I'll let you know how that boils over.

 

Q: What type of spirits are there, that a shaman can ask for help?

A:

 There are three catagories of spirits that the Shaman evocate. Elemental Spirits, Immortal Spirits and Ancestral Spirits(or Souls). Without going into extreme detail, Elemental Spirits are spirits which make up the physical world around us, and are channeled by Elementalist Shaman (very closely related to the Aspects channeled by Druids). Ancestral Spirits (as mentioned, sometimes also referred to as Souls, particularly by non-Orcs) are spirits of people and living/once-living creatures and are channeled by Lutauman Shaman. Immortal Spirits are spirits which affect the way we live our lives, and are divided into two catagories, the Greater and the Lesser. The Greater spirits are spirits of Culture and affect grander schemes in the way we live our lives. There is a Spirit of War, Hunt, ect. These most closely reflect our modern day image of Gods, as each one of these Spirits is an actual "Being" that holds its own title. This is important because that means the title can be passed between one-another through various means (near the start of Asulon, the current Spirit of War overthrew the former Spirit of War). The Lesser spirits are spirits which affect people on more personal level, namely by causing shifts in our emotions. For the most part, these spirits are indistinguishable from the usual emotions one feels on a day to day basis, though usually when a spirit is the culprit, the emotions become significant enough to drive one person to alter the course of their actions. For example, an individual who just had their parents killed by an Orc is prone to attracting a spirit of Rage or Vengeance. This spirit will than drive the character's emotions towards acting out or devoting their life towards hunting down Orcs. In both cases, Farseer is the Shaman Subtype responsible for channeling the Immortal Spirits, both Greater and Lesser (generally a Farseer focuses on one or the other).

 

Q:How can the ones that mess with information work? Is it grabbing OOC info and giving it to a character or?

A:

 I am not sure what is meant by "mess with information" but I'll try my best guess. When a Shaman consults the spirits for information, it is literally like asking someone what they know. Lutauman and Farseers will act as our examples today. A Farseer can (and generally does) ask the Immortal spirits (usually the Greater variety) about the future. The spirits will then literally give their best guess, no better than what you or I might guess. The Spirits generally have better guesses than you or I, because they sometimes have access to information we do not, but in the end it is still just a guess. A Lutauman can ask the Ancestors for information, but that is limited two fold, by what the Ancestors know, and whether or not they care enough to tell him. An Orc Ancestor would be more than willing to tell a Lutauman all about the secret entrance to a base, but the Orc Ancestor probably does know about the secret entrance (else it would not be very secret, now would it?). An Elf ancestor might know about the Secret Entrance, but he is not likely to share that information to a Lutauman trying to lead a War Party of Orcs in to slaughter all of his decendants.

 

Q:For elementalists, what spirit elements exist?

A:

 

Q:How do possetions work, and what are their limits and pros/cons?

A: 

Possessions? Like what you might find in a bad horror flick by a demon? Or possessed by a ghost sort of thing? Is there any form of lore anywhere where that is actually ever thought of as having pros? On a more serious note, possession (at least by the spirits) is not generally something which just "happens". Your body is built to anchor one spirit into the Physical realm, that being your soul. Another spirit cannot physically co-exist with your soul, you body is simply incapable of holding them both here. Like trying to pour more water into an already full glass, it just won't work. If your soul were to be removed, then TECHNICALLY another spirit could then be harboured in your body (assuming it was put in before your body died and was then incapable of acting as an anchor) but that is not necessarily possible on a practical level. Depending on mitigating circumstances, for the most part it ends up taking too much Mana energy to preform without being an Aengul or Daemon of some sort. One can, however, channel the influence of a spirit to varying degrees to the point where it very much resembles possession but all of this really kind of depends on which kind of spirit we are talking about, and what you are looking for in your "possession". You need to be more specific about what you are picturing in your head before I can really be able to help you.

 

Q:Do shamans still have the powerful strength and fighting power as another orc?

A:

Like other casters, Shaman inevitably end up losing their martial prowess in exchange for magical ability. The longer you spend learning Shamanism, the more your martial ability suffers for it. At day's end, it means the Shaman is better off relying on their magic in battle over themselves. There are two "exceptions" to this rule. First being the Farseers. Farseers still suffer from the atrophy that afflicts other casters, but their magic is centered around "buffing" large groups of individuals. These "buffs" are not concentrated blessings (to compensate for the fact that they can bless entire parties) and a blessing of strength may not be a notable benefit for any individual Orc, but for the party as a whole it makes a difference. The Farseer is, however, affected by their own buff and will gain the same amount of strength (however small on the individual level) as the rest of the war party for the duration of the buff. The second exception is a more notable exception, that being Lutauman. Lutauman do not have the ranged casting ability of other magic schools, nor the support ability held by Farseers, Clerics and the like. Here is the in-depth explanation in the spoiler of how they work.

Lore

Lutauman work by channeling their ancestors, and in the case of Orcs, their Ancestors are Warriors. What this essentially means is that the Lutauman basically just is a warrior, but of a slightly different variety. For orcish Lutauman, Battle is considered reverence towards the ancestors, but more specifically duels. Duels are considered to be contests in which the Ancestors are showing favor in one side or the other. Lutauman operate by channeling their ancestor's power to improve their fighting skill. What this means is they are able to buff themselves for as long as their mana can hold out. This fighting style heavily favors duels, but is nearly useless in a large-scale battle. In a duel, a Lutauman can buff themselves to become a much stronger fighter, and should generally defeat their opponent before they run out of energy (unless their opponent is a more experienced and powerful fighter than the Lutauman, for you must remember that even as the Lutauman grows tired, so to does the opponent for having to face an improved opponent). In a large scale battle, being good for the first (and like short) leg of the fight doesn't mean much, and after they tire themselves out the Lutauman is only about half as good as any other warrior of equivilant experience, meaning the longer a battle draws out, the more and more useless a Lutauman becomes. Now, in reality, a Lutauman without magic would be the same sort of fighter as any given orc warrior of equivilant experience, however a Lutauman is not allowed to choose to not use magic, or they lose their magic. Battle is the Orc Lutauman's way of revering his ancestors, and refusing to channel the Ancestors during a serious battle is basically like telling the Ancestors you don't care for them. Since your magic is reliant on the Ancestor's good opinion, that means you just insulted them and took a serious dive where your magical ability is concerned. In a five-tier system of experience in magic (tier one being someone who just learned magic and tier five being a "master" of the craft, like the Motshams) every serious battle you choose not to channel the Ancestors in knocks you back two tiers (the equivilant of needing two months of ICly being taught, or four months of self-teaching to recover what was lost). Note, however, I say serious battle. In the same way that when a Lutauman becomes too tired and ends up having to stop channeling his magic and fight at the ability of a warrior half his experience, a Lutauman will not incur the wrath of the ancestors if they never have to fight at more than half their ability. Meaning they don't need to channel the ancestors whenever they want to swat a fly, or kill a farmer. As far as the Orcish ancestors are concerned, that doesn't even really count as a battle. Any fighting that they wish to do beyond that half-way point must be done with the aid of the ancestors.

Now here is all that translated into mechanics, as that might make it easier to understand: imagine back when we had the skill plug-in. If a warrior of 3 elven months of experience had 50 skill in Swordsmanship, a Lutauman of the same experience would have 25 Swordsmanship, and "melee magic". He could use his "melee magic" spells until he ran out of mana, which should last him about long enough to beat one 50-swords person in a one-on-one fight if he is using all the "melee magic" at his disposal and goes all out. Once he is out of mana though, he is just a 25 swords warrior, and that's pretty damn pathetic and useless.

 

Q:Lets say  a shaman wanted to talk with the Spirit of Gorkill.Could he do this?And if so how hard would it be?

A:

Lex:

TECHNICALLY, yes, but I don't reccomend it. You can speak to any spirit in the Ancestral Plane if you have enough experience, and talking to a spirit is only as hard as how long they've been dead and how willing they are to speak to you- along with their power. Gorkil would be pretty hard to speak to.

Blaw: 

Yes, technically. To build off of what Lex said, spirits that have been dead for long periods of time slowly begin to grow "distant" from the physical realm, as they have less and less ties to it (their old cave collapses, their tomb becomes lost in a sand dune, their favorite axe is destroyed, their decendants slowly possess less and less of his blood, ect.) They will never become totally unreachable, but spirits like Gorkil are at the point where a powerful Lutauman might be able to ask him some questions, but don't expect any lengthy conversations, and don't expect the answers to always be clear (they may come in the form of vague visions and the like).

 

Q:Will there be training schedules for shamans?

A:

 

Q:How do you roleplay communicating with spirits?

A:

 

Q:

A:

[Jistuma 1996]

Can the questions be about magic, or just about the characters and how should react?

[cmack1028 549]

How do you become a shaman? Isn't it a subrace, or at least used to be one?

[Arteh 1837]

Can the questions be about magic, or just about the characters and how should react?

Anything related with Shamanism so yes.

[blindmind 350]

How important to Orc society are shamans, typically? How important should they be?

How difficult is it to become a shaman, in general? What are their duties in the War Uzg?

How steeped in ritual is a shaman's daily life, and magic?

Is it still possible to practice shamanism, without access to magic (as applications are on hold)?

[Jistuma 1996]

Alright then, so many to ask...

What type of spirits are there, that a shaman can ask for help?

How can the ones that mess with information work? Is it grabbing OOC info and giving it to a character or?

For elementalists, what spirit elements exist?

How do possetions work, and what are their limits and pros/cons?

Do shamans still have the powerful strength and fighting power as another orc?

[craotor 617]

Lets say  a shaman wanted to talk with the Spirit of Gorkill.Could he do this?And if so how hard would it be?

[VonAulus 2082]

When can I continue my training? It has been 6 months.

[Lexperiments 18]

Alright then, so many to ask...

What type of spirits are there, that a shaman can ask for help?

1. SO MANY. I'm an Elementalist and purely an Elementalist, so I can't nearly name all of them. Each branch of Shamanism has their own scores of types of spirits- see #3 for mine.

How can the ones that mess with information work? Is it grabbing OOC info and giving it to a character or?

2. ...What?

For elementalists, what spirit elements exist?

3. Many more than you'd think. There are around a dozen 'main' elements, with types like the main four (fire, water, earth, & air); the secondary spirits (storm, metal, light, dark, etc); life, death, order, chaos, and more. All elements have an opposite, though. I'd say more, but I'm on my phone.

How do possetions work, and what are their limits and pros/cons?

...Yeah, I don't work with possessions. Ask Blaw.

Do shamans still have the powerful strength and fighting power as another orc?

Yes and no. Yes, because there is nothing that PREVENTS them from being strong, unless they are in a spiritual bond that reduces their strength. No because they can't spend enough time training strength as they used to- and that's it!

 

How do you become a shaman? Isn't it a subrace, or at least used to be one?

 

Nope! While it is still a subrace, the subrace refers to those that are descended from Shamans, not actual Shamans. You become a Shaman just like how you become any magic user- with dedication, an app, and a teacher!

 

 

 

 

Lets say  a shaman wanted to talk with the Spirit of Gorkill.Could he do this?And if so how hard would it be?

 

TECHNICALLY, yes, but I don't reccomend it. You can speak to any spirit in the Ancestral Plane if you have enough experience, and talking to a spirit is only as hard as how long they've been dead and how willing they are to speak to you- along with their power. Gorkil would be pretty hard to speak to.

 

Hope I helped. I'll answer more soon.

[Hoss 16]

Will there be training schedules for shamans? I became a shaman awhile back and I was wondering if and when we get more shamans, there would be some training scheduled.

 

Sorry for any mispellings.

[Blawharag 277]

To build a little on some area's where Lex has already made responses

How do you become a shaman? Isn't it a subrace, or at least used to be one?

Shaman has actually been removed as a Subrace in reality. In the past, the "Shaman" subrace was intended to refer to skinny, lankier Orcs that would be more inclined to a magical rather than a martial art. Since, however, this made little sense in respect to the Orcish lore in general, the idea was scrapped very, very early on in aegis, but the subrace option remains simply because it has not been removed. To become a Shaman you need only learn Shamanism, no different than any other magic. It is generally recommended that you learn from a teacher, but you can also self-teach Shamanism if you wish (though it will take you twice as long to learn in this case).

 

How important to Orc society are shamans, typically? How important should they be?

How difficult is it to become a shaman, in general? What are their duties in the War Uzg?

How steeped in ritual is a shaman's daily life, and magic?

Is it still possible to practice shamanism, without access to magic (as applications are on hold)?

Shaman generally act as spiritual leaders for Orcs, with Shamanism being the closest thing the Orcs have to a religious institution. Shaman, therefore, play a very important role in Orcish events. Farseers will often bless warparties before battles, Lutauman enforce ancestral traditions, Elementalists watch over the lands and Witchdoctors attempt to handle more practical aspects of Orcish lifestyle in a more direct way. Farseers in particular are an important aspect for most Orcs, as the Farseers are generally the most directly visable in their handling of the spirits as they bless Orcs before their all-too-frequent battles, oftentimes making the difference between victory and defeat (or so many Orcish warriors will claim).

 

Becoming a Shaman is not exceedingly difficult. In certain cases of apprenticeship, some Elder Shaman are more strigent than others. Blawharag, for instance, used to require a series of tests to prove you are worthy of even being trained (though with the recent decline in Shamanism, Blawharag is abandoning this model at the request of the Ancestors). However, even beyond earning an apprenticeship, one CAN still self-teach Shamanism (I am more than willing to act as an OOC overseer, which is the requirement to self-teach, for anyone interested in self-teaching Shamanism). The magic is no more difficult to learn than any other (at least not IC, OOC depends on the individual player of course).

 

Shamanism has a more heavy reliance on ritual than most other Subtypes. Many of the more advanced and complicated spells require an extensive ritual in order to perform. In Lutauman, for instance, almost every spell which manipulates souls still anchored in the physical realm by bodies requires some advanced ritual or another, as it is a far more difficult process than connecting with souls in the Ancestral Plane. Farseer blessings over war parties are usually less complicated rituals reflecting sermons or war dances, while many Witchdoctor spells can be highly barbaric and ritualistic on a primal level. That is not to say that it dominates every aspect of the Shaman's lifestyle, however. Many spells can be preformed without the presence of rituals, and a Shaman need not wake up every morning and do a voodoo dance around a fire. For the most part, ritualistic practices are reserved for spells and reverence towards the spirits.

 

Due to the many things that the word "practice" can mean in your statement, I'll try to address them all. Existing Shaman can still practice their magic. Magic Apps are on hold, but magic is still usable. Those who were not accepted prior to the hold can practice the worship parts of Shamanism (you can still revere your Ancestors, as a religious institution). Finally we have the actual learning part of Shamanism. Unfortunately right now with the magic app hold, you cannot begin learning Shamanism as a magic until we re-release the new system. HOWEVER, due to various random and stupid delays, and the critical state that Shamanism is in, I will speak with my peers on the Magic Team about allowing me to start a learning process early, despite not have the new system released. I'll let you know how that boils over.

 

Alright then, so many to ask...

What type of spirits are there, that a shaman can ask for help?

How can the ones that mess with information work? Is it grabbing OOC info and giving it to a character or?

For elementalists, what spirit elements exist?

How do possetions work, and what are their limits and pros/cons?

Do shamans still have the powerful strength and fighting power as another orc?

There are three catagories of spirits that the Shaman evocate. Elemental Spirits, Immortal Spirits and Ancestral Spirits(or Souls). Without going into extreme detail, Elemental Spirits are spirits which make up the physical world around us, and are channeled by Elementalist Shaman (very closely related to the Aspects channeled by Druids). Ancestral Spirits (as mentioned, sometimes also referred to as Souls, particularly by non-Orcs) are spirits of people and living/once-living creatures and are channeled by Lutauman Shaman. Immortal Spirits are spirits which affect the way we live our lives, and are divided into two catagories, the Greater and the Lesser. The Greater spirits are spirits of Culture and affect grander schemes in the way we live our lives. There is a Spirit of War, Hunt, ect. These most closely reflect our modern day image of Gods, as each one of these Spirits is an actual "Being" that holds its own title. This is important because that means the title can be passed between one-another through various means (near the start of Asulon, the current Spirit of War overthrew the former Spirit of War). The Lesser spirits are spirits which affect people on more personal level, namely by causing shifts in our emotions. For the most part, these spirits are indistinguishable from the usual emotions one feels on a day to day basis, though usually when a spirit is the culprit, the emotions become significant enough to drive one person to alter the course of their actions. For example, an individual who just had their parents killed by an Orc is prone to attracting a spirit of Rage or Vengeance. This spirit will than drive the character's emotions towards acting out or devoting their life towards hunting down Orcs. In both cases, Farseer is the Shaman Subtype responsible for channeling the Immortal Spirits, both Greater and Lesser (generally a Farseer focuses on one or the other).

 

I am not sure what is meant by "mess with information" but I'll try my best guess. When a Shaman consults the spirits for information, it is literally like asking someone what they know. Lutauman and Farseers will act as our examples today. A Farseer can (and generally does) ask the Immortal spirits (usually the Greater variety) about the future. The spirits will then literally give their best guess, no better than what you or I might guess. The Spirits generally have better guesses than you or I, because they sometimes have access to information we do not, but in the end it is still just a guess. A Lutauman can ask the Ancestors for information, but that is limited two fold, by what the Ancestors know, and whether or not they care enough to tell him. An Orc Ancestor would be more than willing to tell a Lutauman all about the secret entrance to a base, but the Orc Ancestor probably does know about the secret entrance (else it would not be very secret, now would it?). An Elf ancestor might know about the Secret Entrance, but he is not likely to share that information to a Lutauman trying to lead a War Party of Orcs in to slaughter all of his decendants.

 

Possessions? Like what you might find in a bad horror flick by a demon? Or possessed by a ghost sort of thing? Is there any form of lore anywhere where that is actually ever thought of as having pros? On a more serious note, possession (at least by the spirits) is not generally something which just "happens". Your body is built to anchor one spirit into the Physical realm, that being your soul. Another spirit cannot physically co-exist with your soul, you body is simply incapable of holding them both here. Like trying to pour more water into an already full glass, it just won't work. If your soul were to be removed, then TECHNICALLY another spirit could then be harboured in your body (assuming it was put in before your body died and was then incapable of acting as an anchor) but that is not necessarily possible on a practical level. Depending on mitigating circumstances, for the most part it ends up taking too much Mana energy to preform without being an Aengul or Daemon of some sort. One can, however, channel the influence of a spirit to varying degrees to the point where it very much resembles possession but all of this really kind of depends on which kind of spirit we are talking about, and what you are looking for in your "possession". You need to be more specific about what you are picturing in your head before I can really be able to help you.

 

Like other casters, Shaman inevitably end up losing their martial prowess in exchange for magical ability. The longer you spend learning Shamanism, the more your martial ability suffers for it. At day's end, it means the Shaman is better off relying on their magic in battle over themselves. There are two "exceptions" to this rule. First being the Farseers. Farseers still suffer from the atrophy that afflicts other casters, but their magic is centered around "buffing" large groups of individuals. These "buffs" are not concentrated blessings (to compensate for the fact that they can bless entire parties) and a blessing of strength may not be a notable benefit for any individual Orc, but for the party as a whole it makes a difference. The Farseer is, however, affected by their own buff and will gain the same amount of strength (however small on the individual level) as the rest of the war party for the duration of the buff. The second exception is a more notable exception, that being Lutauman. Lutauman do not have the ranged casting ability of other magic schools, nor the support ability held by Farseers, Clerics and the like. Here is the in-depth explanation in the spoiler of how they work.

Lutauman work by channeling their ancestors, and in the case of Orcs, their Ancestors are Warriors. What this essentially means is that the Lutauman basically just is a warrior, but of a slightly different variety. For orcish Lutauman, Battle is considered reverence towards the ancestors, but more specifically duels. Duels are considered to be contests in which the Ancestors are showing favor in one side or the other. Lutauman operate by channeling their ancestor's power to improve their fighting skill. What this means is they are able to buff themselves for as long as their mana can hold out. This fighting style heavily favors duels, but is nearly useless in a large-scale battle. In a duel, a Lutauman can buff themselves to become a much stronger fighter, and

should generally defeat their opponent before they run out of energy (unless their opponent is a more experienced and powerful fighter than the Lutauman, for you must remember that even as the Lutauman grows tired, so to does the opponent for having to face an improved opponent). In a large scale battle, being good for the first (and like short) leg of the fight doesn't mean much, and after they tire themselves out the Lutauman is only about half as good as any other warrior of equivilant experience, meaning the longer a battle draws out, the more and more useless a Lutauman becomes. Now, in reality, a Lutauman without magic would be the same sort of fighter as any given orc warrior of equivilant experience, however a Lutauman is not allowed to choose to not use magic, or they lose their magic. Battle is the Orc Lutauman's way of revering his ancestors, and refusing to channel the Ancestors during a serious battle is basically like telling the Ancestors you don't care for them. Since your magic is reliant on the Ancestor's good opinion, that means you just insulted them and took a serious dive where your magical ability is concerned. In a five-tier system of experience in magic (tier one being someone who just learned magic and tier five being a "master" of the craft, like the Motshams) every serious battle you choose not to channel the Ancestors in knocks you back two tiers (the equivilant of needing two months of ICly being taught, or four months of self-teaching to recover what was lost). Note, however, I say serious battle. In the same way that when a Lutauman becomes too tired and ends up having to stop channeling his magic and fight at the ability of a warrior half his experience, a Lutauman will not incur the wrath of the ancestors if they never have to fight at more than half their ability. Meaning they don't need to channel the ancestors whenever they want to swat a fly, or kill a farmer. As far as the Orcish ancestors are concerned, that doesn't even really count as a battle. Any fighting that they wish to do beyond that half-way point must be done with the aid of the ancestors.

Now here is all that translated into mechanics, as that might make it easier to understand: imagine back when we had the skill plug-in. If a warrior of 3 elven months of experience had 50 skill in Swordsmanship, a Lutauman of the same experience would have 25 Swordsmanship, and "melee magic". He could use his "melee magic" spells until he ran out of mana, which should last him about long enough to beat one 50-swords person in a one-on-one fight if he is using all the "melee magic" at his disposal and goes all out. Once he is out of mana though, he is just a 25 swords warrior, and that's pretty damn pathetic and useless.

 

Lets say  a shaman wanted to talk with the Spirit of Gorkill.Could he do this?And if so how hard would it be?

Yes, technically. To build off of what Lex said, spirits that have been dead for long periods of time slowly begin to grow "distent" from the physical realm, as they have less and less ties to it (their old cave collapses, their tomb becomes lost in a sand dune, their favorite axe is destroyed, their decendants slowly possess less and less of his blood, ect.) They will never become totally unreachable, but spirits like Gorkil are at the point where a powerful Lutauman might be able to ask him some questions, but don't expect any lengthy conversations, and don't expect the answers to always be clear (they may come in the form of vague visions and the like).

 

When can I continue my training? It has been 6 months.

Contact me and we'll talk about your situation (forum PM would probably be the best place to start)

[ski_king3 0]

How do you roleplay communicating with spirits? Do you just base how successful you are on your perception of your character's abilities in relationship to the difficulty of the task, or do you find a third party who may be more qualified to attempt to sort of communicate as if they were the spirits.

[Blawharag 277]

Well, for the most part it's up to you to decide how difficult the situation is, but that doesn't mean you are going in blind and making it up as you go. There are a number of factors which make the task more or less difficult, and even then success is not black and white. There is also the question of which spirits are you speaking to? Contacting Immortal Spirits and Elementals is fairly straight forward, where contacting Ancestors has a few extra factors which tie into difficulty:

Elementals:

For the most part, just being closer to the element in question will help you. The less direct a line you have to the element, the more difficult the communication.

 

Immortal Spirits:

These are most commonly contacting through rituals. The better your ritual, the better your line of communication.

 

Ancestors:

This is best summarized by A]The ancestor's disposition towards you and B] the "closeness" of their spirit. The former explains itself, the latter is measured by what components you have about you to assist in your communicating with the ancestor: a blood descendant, the burial place of the ancestor, something of great value to the ancestor in life, ect. ect.

 

In all cases, communication with the spirits is made easier by distancing oneself from their own mind's connection to the physical world and becoming more open and receptive (or "closer") to the spirits. This can be done through concentrated meditation, the use of euphoric drugs (such as smoking cactus green) or a technique invented by the Farseers in which one enters the "Spirit Realm". This essentially means your mind enters a "plane" on which all spirits can traverse and communicate far more easily (including your own). All three of these techniques can even be combined. Indeed, for most their first journey into the spirit realm requires the assistance of cactus green as well as inherently requiring meditation to begin with.

[VonAulus 2082]

Entering the spirit realm for the first time with the motshams was a very unique roleplay experience, I really enjoyed it.

[Jistuma 1996]

What about witchdoctors, from those I saw in the responce to my question they weren't mentioned.

 

What are their abilities as a shaman in contact with the spirits?