Some time back I purchased a copy of Vaesen, written by Johan Egerkrans, its a stunning collection of his illustrations depicting the spirits, fairies and other supernatural creatures from Scandinavian folklore alongside some interesting background about these beings, their personalities and abilities. This material is a great inspiration for fantasy scenarios and of course it’s no surprise that an RPG based on this book soon followed from Modiphius, who are coincidentally also the publisher of the Liminal RPG.

What struck me reading the entries is that the spirits themselves have some abilities which are not readily represented by existing Traits in the Liminal RPG, notably their ability to control reality within what might be called their sphere of influence. House spirits such as Nisse or Tomte, are quite powerful in their ability to protect dwellings and farms, but they and their powers are limited by being tied to those locations. There are also spirits or forests, pools, mountains and the like who have varying powers and influence but again they are tied to specific locations in the world.

It’s worth noting that the extent and power of a spirit’s abilities is not linked to the size of its domain. A house spirit could be very powerful but might only command these abilities within the confines of a single dwelling whereas a river spirit/god might be more passive, with more subtle powers, but with an influence over a much greater geographic area.

Though there are plenty traits in the Liminal core book that can be used to represent the powers of a Spirit, I felt that there was merit in a specific system to capture some of their unique abilities. Also, as one of the major NPCs in my campaign is a powerful local spirit (and I have a few more planned) I wanted to explore their powers in a little more detail.

“Sir, what you had there is what we refer to as a focused, non-terminal, repeating phantasm or a class-five full-roaming vapor. A real nasty one, too.”, Ray Stantz, Ghostbusters.

My take is that Spirits are a separate class of entities from the Liminal beings already outlined in the game so a framework might be useful to the Game Master for creating such entities, and I hope the information provided here will do the trick. I would avoid being slavish to this guide though, Spirits do and should definitely have abilities that are unique and unusual, and it is vital that PCs are not able to simply catalogue or pigeonhole these beings. Familiarity breeds… well, maybe not contempt, but it takes some of the magic out of the game if Spirits are simply reduced to a couple of well-known Traits.

Decades ago when my gaming group first started playing Call of Cthulhu, everyone read through the section on the Mythos gods and races, and I think in the subsequent games they were not as powerfully alien or horrific due to our over-familiarity with the monsters we were facing.

In this post I have tried to provide a basic system for presenting the powers of spirits from small house spirits – genius loci – such as the Brownies, Tomte or Kobolds, through to medium powered entities like Naiads up to city river and mountain spirits such as my own Maister of the Old Toun, Nikar and also the River God Temese in Pax Londinium.

Fae Lords & Ladies

It’s worthwhile making a quick aside to look at the the slightly blurred definitions between major Spirits and the more powerful Fae. My view is that the main distinction lies with a Fae’s powers being tied to their realms, whereas Spirits derive theirs from the nodes and Ley Lines within the real world. I assume that some Fae are happy to be considered akin to powerful Spirits as a matter of vanity and pride.

Lastly, a further confusion it that term, spirit, could also refer to Ghosts and the souls of the undead, clearly they are different sort of entity and are not covered here.

Aetheric Traits

Powered by qi, aura, prana, mana, élan vital, etc, spirits have powers that are multifarious, ambiguous and potent. House spirits can banish intruders, spoil milk, curse the rude and protect the inhabitants of the home to which they belong. River and Lake spirits can grant safe passage, whisper truths they have seen or, drown the unwary in freak currents and tides. It’s not in the scope of this post to cover what Spirits are, how they came about or, how they draw on this power. I have my own thoughts but perhaps it is best left as a mystery for the players.

There are two primary Traits which define the extent of the Spirit’s powers: Domain/Demense, which represents the extent of reality the spirit can influence and Power/Vires, which is a measure of it’s force or ability to affect that same reality. I will use both names for these traits throughout, e.g., Domain and Demense, with one being common usage and the other being the more academic term used by magicians.

Note that the two traits are not linked, so a House Spirit with a 1-point Domain, the home it protects, might have a Power of 3 or 4 representing it’s ability to ward against invaders, repair damage to the home and keep the hearth burning. A sleeping or forgotten mountain Spirit (Demense 3) might only have Vires at 1-point representing it’s dwindling strength and influence.

Domain/Demense (1-5 points)

A Spirit’s demense is a rating of the extent of it’s control and a limit to how far it can travel – Spirits are bound to their Demense and can only move out of it in exceptional circumstances.

• 1-point trait would indicate that the spirit is bound to a small area, perhaps a house, small copse of trees, a forest clearing or a spring-head.

• 2-points : A Spirit of a wood, hill, lake island, stream, village or henge.

• 3-points : A Spirit of a town, forest, mountain, medium-sized tributary, lake or swamp

Only Spirits of great power would merit a 4- or 5-point Demense which would represent great mountain ranges, large islands, cities and large rivers; and of course whole countries or large geographical areas such as deserts, tundra and continents. Few spirits of this size exist and most are in a dormant state.

Within it’s demense the Spirit is aware of almost all things happening, and by focusing it is able to sense magical effects or creatures, sense the movement of mundane creatures or people, detect temperature changes and movement or destruction of natural items with a simple Awareness roll. The difficulty set should consider what is being sought, with commonplace events being harder than rare events, individuals or objects.

Substantial damage to the Spirit’s demense can cause this Trait to drop in value, as well as likely angering the spirit in question. Complete destruction of the demense such as uprooting or felling all the trees in the wood or burning down the house will cause the Spirit to become unbound, effectively removing it from world and leaving to drift through reality until it can bind itself to another location. What happens to the unbound Spirit is beyond the scope of this post but perhaps could be the source of an investigation or trigger for larger events in your game world.

Power/Vires (1-5 points)

Vires acts like a Skill Cap for spirits so any additional Traits assigned by the GM either from the Rule Book or from the option below cannot exceed this value.

Vires acts a cap on the limit but not the total number of Traits so a spirit with a Vires of 1 can have as many 1-point Traits as the GM deems necessary. As Spirits are NPCs it is left to the GM to decide which Traits are appropriate. Note that some Traits would not suit the spirit itself e.g. Supernatural Strength, but these could be assigned to the Avatar/Incarnate, see below.

For example, if a GM wanted to grant the 2-point Geomancer magical Trait (Liminal pg. 96) to the spirit they are creating, it would need to have a Vires of at least 2. If the GM wanted to add the Geomancy extra effect, My Enemies are the Land’s Enemies, their Vires would have to be a minimum of 3 – the total cost of the that Trait and specialisation. Subsequent specialisations would require a higher Vires score.

Will & Spirits

Spirits have a base Will of 10 plus their Vires score. If a Spirit’s Will drops to zero for any reason it will lose one point from it’s Vires Trait permanently, and obviously they want to avoid this happening. Loss of Vires is usually enough to cause a Spirit to flee the source of attack or dismiss its avatar.

To recover it’s Vires Trait rating the Spirit needs to expend 10 x the lost level in Will. For example a Spirit whose Vires has dropped from 3 to 2 would need to expend 30 Will for it’s Vires to rise again to 3. This expenditure does not have to be spent at one time and the Spirit can spend a few points a day to gradually recover its strength.

Recovering Will

Spirits spend Will to activate their Traits as normal but they recover Will slightly differently. By drawing on the energy of their Demense they gain Will points equal to that Trait plus D6 per day. The Tomte example below would recover D6+1 Will points per day from it’s tiny patch of reality.

Tomte

A Tomte or Nisse is a small Scandinavian household spirit which could be represented with the following Traits, spending the recommended spend of 10 – making it a formidable opponent for any would be house-breaker, but one who can only affect the world in the immediate vicinity of its home.

Spirit Traits

As noted above Spirits can be assigned almost any Trait in the rule book but GMs are encouraged to use a bit of common sense – a lake spirit is unlikely to have Vehicle Wizard or Big Business for example, whereas Healer or Presence might be appropriate.

Automatic Traits

Spirits have the following Traits due to supernatural nature; Night Sight and The Sight.

Assigning Trait Points

The GM should just assign as many Traits as they think the Spirit requires for their needs but as a rule of thumb limit the Trait points to the (Vires+Demense) x 2, and Aetheric and Automatic Traits do not count towards this limit. Spirits can take the NPC Traits such as Monstrous Toughness (pg. 219) but many will only be applicable to their physical form.

Spirits cannot directly interact with other entities unless they have an Avatar, however they can make their presence felt by altering the weather or causing other effects, giving them equivalent of Geomancy Traits (Danger Sense and My Enemies are the Lands’ Enemies) and the Weathermonger Trait to a limited degree for manipulating the air and temperature close to the ground. So fog and frost are possible, lightning and hail storms are not.

Additional Traits for Spirit NPCs

Below are Traits which are specific to spirits:

Avatar/Incarnate (2 point)

The Spirit can create a physical form for itself out of magical energy giving it a body to interact with the world. The avatar will have a fixed form and will be visibly non-human unless it also possesses Glamour traits to enable it to mask its true shape further. Spirits vary widely in their appearance but are heavily influenced by the nature of their Domain.

The GM should assign Skill points noting that they tend to be few in number with Awareness, Lore, Charm and Taunt being commonly taken. The focus should be on Physical and Social skills.

Skill Points = 20 + (Demense & Vires)
Endurance = 12 + (Demense and Athletic skill)

Destroying a Spirit’s Avatar, causes a permanent loss of 1 point of Vires which much be recovered. Creating an avatar costs 2 Will per day.

Suggested traits for avatars: Animal Sense, Frightening, Healer, Night Sight, Presence, Quick Reflexes, Rage and Sneaky. And from the NPC traits: Appear Human. Faerie Tongue, Immaterial, Invisibility, and Monstrous Toughness.

Anger of the Earth (1 point)

This is functionally the same as My Enemies are the Land’s Enemies (pg 96), however the range is limited to within the Spirit’s domain. The Spirit spends 1 Will to make the attack. Optionally, spending 2 Will to attack causes D6+Vires damage on a successful strike. Note that this attack can damage the local environment, so Spirits will use it sparingly.

One with my Domain (1 point)

While all Spirits have an innate connection of their domain, they are not fully conscious of what happens within it at all times, excepting when an unusual event occurs. With this trait the Spirit maintains a vivid. constant awareness of all that occurs in their domain. Traversing their domain without being noticed is impossible without magic. This costs the Spirit 2 Will per day to maintain.

Blessings of the Land (2 points)

The Spirit creates an pleasant idyll in their domain which is a place of safety and healing for friendly visitors. The nature of the place depends on the Spirit itself: this might be a small, sheltered, sunlit clearing in a forest; a clear, warm, pool next to a river; or a stone circle in the land. As well as being a place of refuge, engendering calm and peacefulness – visitors in the idyll recover D6 endurance per hour, and never feel hunger or thirst. Time flows differently in these places and characters must make an opposed Will test against the Spirit’s Power when they wish to leave – some people never choose to.

The Spirit must spend 2 Will per day for each such place it maintains.

Rage of the Land (2 points)

Part of the Spirit’s domain is hostile to human life and usually this is a location where extreme weather conditions occur. In such places, characters without proper, relevant equipment suffer D6 endurance per hour, and must make Will tests against the Spirit’s Power per hour or be forced to turn back to safety. Commonly such places would be mountain ranges where howling winds drives ice and snow at climbers. However, other natural hazards such as swamps, whirlpools, riptides, desserts, entangling or thorned foliage, and deep jungle are all possible alternatives.

The Spirit must spend 2 Will per day for each such place it maintains.

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I hope that the above is of interest, I am sure that there are more Spirit specific traits that can be developed, but there is enough there to create a range of these beings to populate your Liminal world.