From: Colin Watson (watson@csd.abdn.ac.uk)
Date: Mon 21 Nov 1994 - 17:36:58 EET
I liked Joerg's ideas of Spirit ecology illustrated with the flower/bunny/wolf
- -spirit examples. It's maybe too obvious to point out that grazer and predator
spirits (bunnies & wolves) must have some *need* of what they're hunting or
foraging for. That is, if they "feed" to gain MP presumably they have some
use for these MP. I suggest that such spirits must expend MP simply to continue
their existence; this gives them a reason to act as they do.
Presumably the Flower-spirits feed off a by-product created when MP are expended (a sort of spiritual CO2).
In an idle moment I thought of another spirit type which I'll call a horse-spirit: Its movement through the spirit world is swift (disproportionate with its POW); it can be harnessed by nomad shamans and will carry them along at high speed, saving MP in travelling through the otherworld and giving the option of avoiding encounters with slower spirits.
Of course, to follow up Nick's point about spirit subjectivity, not all shamans will view these spirits as horse-spirits - Praxians would see them as their favoured riding beast.
___
CW.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:49:51 EEST