As you observe the spirits that are ignoring you, you realize they are all fractured in some fashion and all are in pain. Your attention comes back to the aggression you sensed while you slept. It was the reason that you went into your trance, against your companion’s wishes.

Where the surrounding spirits are all pale opalescent shapes and shadows, this wall of bloody red, charcoal black, with flecks of what could be lightning blue, cascades to a stop before you. There is a hunger and pain about this spirit that makes you hesitate while watching it coalesce.

“I wish to help you.” You call, sending the thoughts and presence of calm feelings towards the raging spirit before you. You realize quickly that your choice to engage was a mistake as pain flexes through your incorporeal self and your worst memories run forward through your mind uncontrolled.

It takes you a moment to understand that this memory, this pain, was the spirit’s doing. You press back. Press through the memory to bring the spirit back into view. The pain you felt wasn’t its pain but the pain it was inflicting on the surrounding space. It’s bound here, and you blundered right into its range.

The spirit latches onto you, draining your energy in its attack, and the memories swarm you again. After another frantic moment, you manage to pull yourself from your trance and back to your body. “Bane spirit,” you whisper in a pant. “That’s what I felt.” You grip the wolf fang fetish around your throat for comfort against the fragments of memories that followed you.

As an animist, this probably isn’t your first time interacting with hostile spirits, but this one was powerful enough that it caught you off guard. Your choice to become an animist makes you unique and, in my opinion, pretty darn cool!

Hey you! I’m Kat, I’ve been Game Mastering for a little over 10 years now and I’m here as your guide as we explore Mythras’s Magic. Animism is a unique magic system within Mythras and is like the Druid of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). Though, the comparison is truly to the Subclass, Circle of the Shepard (CotS) from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. This subclass has one similar feature, but that’s as close as it gets.

The main thing that Animists interact with, and use are Spirits. In this blog, we’re going to explore the ins and outs of what spirits are, how they’re attained, and what can happen if you succeed or fail in your procurement of said spirits.

Ready to explore Mythras’ Animism Magic in some depth? So am I! Let’s dive in with defining spirits.

What defines a Spirit?

When you think about spirits, what comes to mind? Ghosts? Souls? Oddly defined bubbles of light? In D&D there are creatures, like ghosts, but none that reflect what Mythras has done. Most of the creatures that are considered ‘spirits’ are summonable, or tools like Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon, which are both Cleric spells in D&D 5e.

As I mentioned, the closest thing that I know of is the D&D 5e subclass of Druid called the CotS. The main ability of this subclass is to be able to summon a totem spirit to aid you and your companions throughout your adventures. A quick breakdown looks like this:

1. Bear Spirit – this gives temporary hit points and advantage on strength checks.
2. Hawk Spirit – this gives advantage on perception checks and as a reaction you can grant advantage on attacks.
3. Unicorn Spirit – this gives advantage on ability checks and if you heal someone in the spirit’s range, you heal everyone in the spirit’s range.

Even with this similarity, Animists bring a much deeper connection when using and aiding the spirits of the world.

So, what is a spirit? Though D&D doesn’t really have a definition of spirit, they do have a brief description on souls that being that every creature has one and are a creature’s bodiless life force. Which doesn’t explain things like the two spells listed above. Mythras has a different take on spirits. Mythras describes a spirit is something that is incorporeal.

While the definition is very similar, there are varying types of spirits within that for Mythras. A spirit doesn’t just include creatures and people, it includes everything that exists within the world, both ours and the spirit plane. Souls are the spirits of sapient creatures where a rock or plant also have spirits but can’t hold the same level of conversation as a soul can.

Mythras takes this another step further by allowing the Animist in question to converse and bargain or bind a spirit. Before we go further into bargaining or binding, let’s talk about how diverse spirits are.

Diversity of Spirits

As we said with D&D 5e, there isn’t much diversity beyond spells and beliefs in the published books. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has a small section on Animism as a religion on D&D 5e for instance. The CotS is considered a summoning style of Druid. I mentioned that it’s the closest I can find to the Animist, and that’s simply because of the style of the Spirit Totem they gain at level 2.

I outlined what the totem spirits are and their abilities. The closest single entity in Mythras would be a Fetch. However, where the CotS’s totem is used for more than just themselves, the Fetch is designed as an extension of the Animist’s being and power. Within that, each fetch is also different for each individual Animist.

The other aspect that’s similar between the two is that the CotS and the Animist both ‘summon’ their spirits or creatures to some degree. Whether it’s with a word or from a fetish, the spirits the Animist interacts with come forth and each has their specific abilities to aid the Animist. Let’s go over some styles of Spirits in Mythras and their abilities.

Bane Spirits – The is the one I used in the intro story. These are examples of chaos and destruction incarnate. They eat everything, including other spirits. These spirits have two abilities, Cannibalistic and Deadly.

• Cannibalistic – This means that whatever damage they inflict on your magic points they eat and heal.
• Deadly – This breaks down into two abilities that become active when the spirit wins combat. Dissipated and Sundered. I’ll talk about them a little more later.

Elemental Spirits – These are simply what they sound like. You have bound a literal spirit of whichever element. These spirits have two abilities, Animate and Demesne.

• Animate – This is the ability to animate nonliving matter. IE: An earth spirit can build itself a body of stone.
• Demesne – This means that the elemental (or other spirit) can control a substance like them. IE: A water spirit could control the sea around a ship if they are in rough waters to see those aboard out of a storm.

Guardian Spirit – These are a literal shield for the Animist. They act to protect you from spells and aggressive spirits. They have an ability called Warding.

• Warding – This is the ability to shield against magic. IE: You’re the target of an enchanted weapon or spell. So long as it is within the spirit’s power, the magical damage is reduced to 0.

Medicine Spirits – This spirit heals most wounds and diseases. These are rarely bound because of their ability Healing.

• Healing – This is the ability to cure different diseases so long as it’s within their capabilities of doing so. It also aids in recovering Minor, Serious, and Major Wounds.

And this is only the beginning of the list of examples. If you’re interested in more information or options, check out pages 145–153 in Mythras Core Rules. There’s even a section to craft your own spirits. This is how you can tell that Mythras has a fresh take on spirits instead of using them as buffs or attacks. Mythras grants both players and GMs the chance to give their spirits more depth beyond just the fun stuff.

Now how on this plane or the adjacent one do you sit there and control, bargain, use, or defeat these spirits of Mythras? An excellent question! You engage a spirit in Spirit Combat. This is a skill that Animists learn and get to master over their time as an Animist.

Bargain, Bind, and Spirit Combat

Let’s start by talking about the different statistics and traits for each spirit. I mentioned them in Part One. There are three things that you need to be aware of with spirits. Instincts, Charisma and Intensity. What I need to note is that Instinct is exchanged with Intelligence depending on the spirit.

Intensity – This is the measure of a spirit’s Power (POW). It also measures three things that matter to the Animist.

• How much of a pain the spirit is to bind.
• How much the spirit can influence the material world from the Spirit Plane.
• What benefits the spirit gives to the Animist.

Instinct – Some spirits are more likely to run off instincts than intelligence.

• The Bane spirit that you fought in the beginning runs off instinct instead of intelligence.

Intelligence – Those who are more sapient like Ancestor spirits or the Fetch I mentioned earlier use Intelligence instead of Instincts.

• These are all calculated via the different spirit styles.

Charisma – Like it is for your character, charisma is the force of personality for the spirit.

• This, like intelligence and instinct, differs via spirit styles.

To explain the Bane spirit, you fought in the beginning. The stats looked like this:

Bane Spirit

Intensity – 4

Power – 30 (1d6+24: I rolled a 6)

Charisma – 6 (1d6)

Spectral Combat Skill – 62% (50% + POW + CHA)

Willpower – 62% (50% + POWx2)

I won’t bore you with the rolls, but I can explain how and the damage done when the Bane Spirit tried to eat your soul. Spirit Combat uses your Magic Points (MP) as your Hit Points. Say you roll out with 17 MP. When the Bane Spirit attacked you, it consumed 8 of those points when it trapped you in the memory before you could get away.

Spirit Combat isn’t just a tick of points to zero, though. With something like the Bane Spirit or any malicious spirit, there are different flavors of combat. In the story, you were reliving your worst memories. To combat this, you shook off the memories–or tried to. But that’s not every combat with a spirit.

A Guardian Spirit might see if you’re worthy of protection via combat with jokes. You get to make the spirit laugh. You convince the spirit to join you. When I say join you though, I’m not referencing only binding a spirit to a fetish or a creature for multiple uses.

You can just as easily gain a spirit’s name for a favor instead. Take a Medicine Spirit as an example. Where it’s frowned upon to bind a Medicine Spirit, offering a trade from you for the spirit’s name for onetime use is a better way of negotiating with the spirit.

But why would you want to bind or trade favors with spirits? Let’s talk about the risks and rewards of engaging in Spirit Combat?

Rewards

As you’ve probably concluded, there are plenty of risks. I’m sure you’re questioning what the hell type of reward there is for messing with spirits. Let’s talk about the rewards a bit before I shed some more light on the risks.

The biggest benefit comes with brokering a deal or negotiating a bargain with a spirit of use. You will have a companion at your fingertips or spoken word to help you along the way, and each has their own special powers and abilities. There are plenty of ways to bind spirits, which is one of the easier quantifiable rewards. In Part One, I discussed fetishes and location binding. I also touched a little on creature binding.

Here’s one of those moments you get to run the risk/reward sequence yourself.

1. First – You should know if the spirit you want to bind is friendly, neutral, or even hostile towards you.
2. Second – Understand that if there is a disagreement between you two or you fail your call on them, you have the potential to piss them off or release them.
3. Third – You bind a spirit in a separate creature, item, or location. Binding to a creature or item is called creating a totem (creature) or fetish (item).

What happens when you bind a spirit to a creature? They, the two souls within the creature, engage in spirit combat much like you would when trying to bind the creature. Here’s the difference: whoever loses this battle, usually the original soul of the creature, is destroyed and the new soul is bound within the flesh via branding or tattoo.

See why I suggest running this one via your gut instinct? There are bonuses to creating creature bindings. The biggest one is that your spirit can regain its MP naturally and can move like the creature in inhabits. The downside is now it can be physically harmed.

A little more on that… Spirits, unless they’re released back into the Spirit Plane or are within a creature, cannot naturally recover MP. Though the animist has a trick. They can give their own MP to their Spirits so they can recover, since the Animist can recover MP naturally.

We talked about Elemental Spirits above as an example, but I didn’t mention how to use them beyond what abilities they have. As an Animist, you’ve successfully bound a fiery elemental into a fetish. You and your friends have encountered something dangerous and bent on killing you. Here’s why binding an Elemental Spirit can be a glorious reward:

• Using an Elemental Spirit gives another body in combat (with successful control) that can fight with you.
• Instead of using the Elemental as another entity, you, as an Animist, have the option of Embodying the spirit instead and become the Elemental yourself.

Drawbacks – the damage you take as an Elemental damages you and the elemental. This can kill you and the elemental if the damage is too great.

You can see with something like the Elemental how much of a reward binding or negotiating with them can be. Now let’s talk about the risks.

Risks

We’ve talked about the advantage of having something at the tip of your fingers to give you special powers or a companion to make your life easier in combat, day-to-day life, or otherwise. I mean, taking on the form of the Elemental you’ve bargained with is a cool reward for making the bargain.

You can imagine what a Bane Spirit like you fought can do. As I stated in the little blurb about them, they eat spirits. It’s just what they do. You can figure that if you hadn’t gotten away, you’d have been destroyed.

Here are a few examples that could happen if you fail:

Possession – If you fail against something like a curse spirit, you could become possessed by it. There are three different levels of possession.

• Dominant – The invading spirit is in control.
• Passive – The spirit nestles in your subconscious.
• Covert – The spirit nestles into your unconscious and can take control when you’re vulnerable.

Dissipated – A spirit that has Deadly as an ability can tear the essence of their opponent apart. Your soul is shredded and you roll a new character.

Sundered – A spirit that has Deadly as an ability can remove your essence from your body, making you a spirit. Your body dies, but your soul stays intact.

This is one of those ‘with great power’ moments. You can tame, trade, and negotiate with spirits if you succeed against them. If you don’t, many bad things could happen. Hence why I will repeat, go with your gut.

Conclusion

Why would you play an animist when you could lose your soul to something like a Bane spirit? Why wouldn’t you when you can embody an elemental and become your own variant in combat?! Animism is overall one of the most complex but rewarding magic systems in Mythras Core Rules.

Engaging with spirits can be dangerous, but the rewards far outweigh the risks when you have spirits of unique skills and abilities to aid you and your companions on an adventure. My suggestion is to roll yourself out as an animist and start working with spirit. That’s the best way to experience and learn about any of these magic systems.

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