Continuing on with my effort to go into the lore of other classes the way I have with Divine classes, I’ll be talking about the various kinds of spirit that empower Spiritual classes through their bonds. (Not to be confused with the next part in my Alcohols of Aetrimonde series…)
The rules for Spiritual classes don’t require characters to have defined spirits empowering them, leaving that up to the players and GM to sort out. Depending on what they want, they can leave their spirits entirely nebulous and undefined, or they can create a backstory for each of their spirits that explains why their bond lets them use each of their Spiritual powers. There is a little bit of a mechanical tie here, in that certain powers are associated with different types of spirit, but I believe I’ve left plenty of room for players to design and flavor whatever kind of spirit they want…
The four most common kinds of spirits are ancient, animal, elemental, and land spirits. They are divided up in this way because each of the four groups has certain commonalities in how they behave both in isolation, and in their interactions with spiritualists.
Ancient Spirits
Ancient spirits are predominantly the spirits of people, whether real or imagined: they are equally likely to arise from stories told about people who really lived and figures of myth who were simply part of a story that took root in a culture and was retold until a spirit formed. Most ancient spirits blur the lines somewhat: it’s rare for a spirit to be a truly accurate representation of a real person, and most of those cultural heroes originated with real people and events, even if they grew exaggerated over time.
The defining trait of ancient spirits is their interactions with mortals: they are the most like mortals, and their fundamental natures are based on mortals’ interactions with each other. Ancient spirits want to do things that mortals do: some try to protect their supposed descendants and pass on their wisdom…while others play nasty pranks or simply break things. When bonded with spiritualists, ancient spirits push their bond-partner to express this fundamental nature, whether personally, or by inspiring it in other mortals.
Animal Spirits
Animal spirits are based on animals, or rather, on how mortals perceive them: most animal spirits behave exaggeratedly compared to the actual animals they are based on (and there are some rare spirits based on strange beasts that may be mythical to begin with). Some animal spirits arise from generalized traits of their representative animal, while others are based on specific creatures that were notable for their size, appearance, unusual behavior, or involvement in specific events.
The fundamental natures of animal spirits are tied to form and behavior: they allow spiritualists to express this nature by transforming their bodies, growing features like claws, fangs and antlers, or by bestowing them with instincts that influence their behavior. Spiritualists bonded to animal spirits commonly feel urges to behave like the spirit, which can be as subtle as becoming unusually sleepy in winter under the influence of a bear spirit, or as overt as trying to headbutt threatening figures when bonded to a stag spirit.
Elemental Spirits
Elemental spirits are predominantly related to the four classical elements of air, earth, fire, and water, with plants as a common fifth variety. Like all spirits, elemental spirits are shaped by mortal perceptions, and they are by far the most diverse kind. Fire is associated with warmth and industry as well as destruction and war; plants embody both growth and plenitude as well as the creeping influence of nature over civilization. Inconveniently, the most powerful elemental spirits are shaped by destructive events like earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornadoes that affect mortals en masse, and they are therefore considered the most dangerous and destructive of spirits even if weaker spirits are less wantonly dangerous.
Fundamentally, elemental spirits want to influence the world around them. Fire spirits want to burn, plant spirits want to grow, and earth spirits want to stay still—until they abruptly decide to move. While they don’t influence the behavior of their bonded spiritualists, they do push—steadily and inexorably—to be unleashed.
Land Spirits
Land spirits are created when mortals perceive a place or region as distinct from its surroundings. While this can happen with ordinary lands, like a people’s homeland or a piece of especially productive farmland, the spirits of such places are generally somnolent and difficult to form productive bonds with. The sort of land spirits that are both useful and willing to bond tend to be dangerous to mortals in some way, like freezing glaciers and parched deserts.
As an extension of how they tend to be perceived as dangerous, bonded land spirits also tend to be expansionistic: they want to spread their influence, making the rest of the world a little more like them. Like elemental spirits, land spirits consistently push to be unleashed, although as long as no mortals are in the way, is it much less immediately dangerous to unleash land spirits. However, if used repeatedly in the same place—especially if that is near the spirit’s place of origin—this can have lasting effects on the terrain, either by strengthening the spirit so that it can expand its influence, or by creating a new spirit related to the original in a new place.
Complex Spirits
Not all spirits fit neatly into these categories. Some spirits blur the lines between categories, as in the case of an ancient spirit based on a bear so dangerous that it became anthropomorphized as a force of destruction, or a land spirit formed from mountains shrouded in constant storms, so that it also has influence over the element of air. Others, thankfully rare, defy categorization entirely, and have unique powers that make them difficult to handle…or sought-after by those who would control them.
To wrap up this series on the lore of different class types, I’ll be covering Martial training and how Martial characters develop their peerless skills with weapons and armor. Stay tuned!
Aetrimonde 
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