Spirits, Minor

This is a catch-all for a wide variety of spirits created when mortals dwell too long on the hardships of their every day lives. They have less than one Hit Die, and the effects they have on the lives of mortals are barely beyond that of being irritants. However, from these spirits may grow bogeymen or worse. No statistics are given for these spirits, since they cannot, for the most part, fully interact with the real world. These spirits do not by themselves have XP values, but if DMs build plots around them and the character resolve those situations, they should naturally get story points.

Apparitions. These spirits are caused by traumatic emotional events, and a mortal dwelling on those occurences– such as murders, executions, and so on. So long as the mortal lives, even if he or she is hundreds of miles from the location of trauma, the apparition appears whenever events of the material world again resemble the events which gave birth to the spirit.

So, the night before an innocent convict is to be hung on the town scaffold, the cries of the last guiltless victim may be heard in the market place or court house, because somewhere those who knew the person was innocent are still wrestling with their guilt. Many legends of "ghosts" stem from the manifestations of the apparitions, and it is through these legends that apparitions can be transformed into more powerful spirits, either benign or malign.

Apparitions may be considered ½ Hit Dice spirits, though lacking intent or the capacity for independent action they are no danger to anybody. They may only ever be encountered at their home, present 100% of the time, but visible at most 1d10 times per year.

Breathstealer. Sometimes, infants are just not strong enough to survive the rigors of life. The human heart and mind, in a neverending search for answers, inadvertently gives rise to unnatural horrors, such as the breathstealers. They are arguably the most dangerous of the minor spirits.

These foul spirits can be found in nurseries and the homes of the old and infirm. They lurk in the corners until nighttime, at which point then manifest themselves in the form of black cats. In this shape, they get onto the chest of a sleeping victim, lean over his mouth, and literally draws the breath of life from the person, essentially smothering the victim as he sleeps. When they assume solid form, they appear like sleek, black cats with eyes that glow with a faint greenish glow.

Like bogeymen, breathstealers are born from the fears and concerns of mortals. Unlike bogeymen, they never grow more powerful than ½ Hit Die. In rare cases (2% of breathstealers), the spirit has the ability to sponser the death candle spell from the spiritualist's spell list. Such a spirit is most often found in hospices or orphanages, where it has been able to steal the breath (and life) of dozens of victims.

Forgotten Ancestors. When a tribal society is destroyed or "civilized" and the people forget their fore-bears, the ancestor spirits begin to fade or to be distorted. Many simply vanish, but others persist in different forms. (Some change into creatures like the dark faeries of legend, now surviving in the popular imagination as figures of evil. Others use their remaining power to "haunt" sites once sacred to them, and continue to take power from the fear and the stories they cause.)

Forgotten ancestors have the same statistics as the ancestors described in this section, but with only '/ Hit Die and none of the spells or benefits listed. They appear as twisted or emaciated versions of their former selves, in line with present perceptions of them.

They may typically be contacted at the same places that they could have been found when they were normal ancestors. Any place that has come to be associated with them since they were Forgotten can also be considered a shrine. They are at home 90% of the time, at a shrine 9% of the time, and elsewhere 1% of the time. However, they have little of consequence to offer shamans, except perhaps information, and so their steady fade into nonexis-tence continues.

Grave Spirits. Around many corpses grave spirits grow. Each spirit is spawned by the negative feelings toward the deceased, and are particularly likely to exist where a person died a violent death, or where he or she left many behind who felt betrayed or angered. So, while they are usually rare, they are commonly found at the graves of wealthy, ruthless merchants, coldhearted magistrates, assassins, traitors, moneylenders, and thugs.

The grave spirit maintains a vigilant watch against anyone who would disturb the rest of the deceased or otherwise defile the grave. Should anyone attempt such actions, the spirit manifests itself with a decayed visage of the deceased, and all who view it must make a successful saving throw vs. paralyzation or flee as if under the power of a fear spell. This is the only attack the spirit has, and it is invulnerable to all attacks: The only way to destroy it is to remove all ill will toward the deceased, an impossible task in most cases.

Additionally, every year on the day the person was buried the spirit may roam the entire cemetery or burial ground, harassing any living people that may be there.

Each corpse can have only one grave spirit, giving rise to tales of ghosts, which might strengthen the grave spirit into something far more lethal. Grave spirits may always be contacted at their home (burial site) and never anywhere else, but they rarely have anything interesting to offer and cannot sponsor spells. They have no hit points or Hit Dice.