Animism for Dummies

[Deacon Blues]

Maybe it's my parochial Western upbringing, but I'm having a hard time getting Animism.  I don't understand the relationship between a tradition and a practice, or between a shaman and his spirts.

I have some general sticking points, but I'll bring those up later.  If anyone has a good layman's summary of How the Spirit World Works (in game terms as well as setting terms), I'd appreciate it.

[Deacon Blues]

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34 views and not one bite?  Don't tell me you're all as confused as I am.

[Paul Watson]

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34 views and not one bite?  Don't tell me you're all as confused as I am.

I think I pretty much get it, I'm just waiting until I get home tonight to respond to you with my book at hand. I want to make sure I get the terms and fiddly-bits right.

[BPetroff93]

I only have Hero Wars and I understand Animism changed for Heroquest so I don't want to confuse anyone.  Which version are you playing with?

[rylen dreskin]

I don't understand [animism.]
I've never run [animism.]
And I'm willing to talk extensively about [animism.]

Always willing to talk about [blank.]  Well, lets see what corrections this flushes out.

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My understanding --
Wizardry is manipulaiton of abstract forces to produces broad, multi person effects.

Theism is emulation of the gods to learn their tricks.

Animism is hashing things out with spirits.  Convincing nice spirits to do what you want.  Bullying neutral and nasty spirits into the same.

Traditions are a set of relationships with spirits.  It includes some big, nice spirits.  And some smaller, useful spirits.  A Practice is a subsection of the Tradition.  The Tradition includes all the spirits.  A Core Practice focuses on the important ones.  The Helper Practice involves useful, perhipheral spirits.  And so forth...

Animists have charms.  These are items containing a spirit that provides an augment.  So a "fight good 5W spirit" would give +3 to lots of fighting.  Don't know about using these automatically vs. first magic vs. invoking.

Advanced animists have fetishes.  If you've traveled the US west, you can get some wonderful small, carved figures.  To an animist, spirits keep house in those figures and will give free augments as above.  HQ advanced animists can also get the spirit to come out and augment with the entire strength of the spirit -- for one [something].  So, if the above fightin spirit was released it add +25 to one roll in a simple contest and one round in an extended contest.  (I may be wrong about the second time frame.)

Animists can have spirit allies.  These are basically sidekicks.

Last, advanced animists also learn to have a Spirit Face.  This lets the animist see and talk to spirits.  It also helps them bluff unhappy spirits into leaving the animist alone.

Advanced animists are also called Practioners.  AA has less flavor but works better for the discussion.

I'm not sure how mythology and heroquests differ for spirits.

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Not as much info as some folks can give you.  With luck this will flush them out and fill in where I'm getting things wrong.

Rylen

[Der_Renegat]

Hey!

I would explain it this way: animism perceives the world as embodied by living spirits.
Animists want to live in harmony with these spirits.
In return for behaving the proper way, they help you.
In essence, animism is about friendship with the spiritworld, i´d say.
A charm is kind of a (magical) symbol, that you undrstand the ways of the spirits and in return you learn some magic. In a way this kind of magic is just doing the right thing- being in harmony with the magical, spiritual, cosmic order.
Fetishes and Spirit Allies are even deper friendships with the spirit world.

I had some more questions about this in the past, and asked Greg Stafford on the yahoo group list, here it is:

Question:"I would really like to hear some "official" statement on that topic because it would clear a lot of questions i still have about animism.
The way i understand it a lot of spirits are already in some way in the mundane world, "

Answer: "This is correct. the official line is that the natural world is the world of spirits. They were disrupted from their idyllic existence and, diembodied, were sent to the Spirit World. IN a way, that is how they are defined as being spirits: they go to the spirit world when they are dislodged from their normal life."

Question:"or at least have a connection to it, thats why you want a friendly relationship with them. "

Answer:"That is correct. Normally they are the animating force for trees, rocks, rivers, and so on.
They are your neighbors,and the forces that sustain your life, so of course you want them to be friendly."

Question:"They are native to the spiritworld but do some kind of "job" in the mundane world somehow."

Answer:"In normal cases, their job is to be a wolf, or a tree, or to bring forth berries every year and so on. And some are to make your sharp rock cut better, or to help you run faster, to to make things cold and so on."

Question:"Animism sees the world as animated by spirits. "

Answer:"The animist part of the world IS MADE OF embodied spirits."

Question:"The wind is made by a spirit, gold shimmers because of its shining-spirit, "

Answer:"(A type of) wind IS a spirit. Gold spirits shine, for it is their nature."

Question:"fire spirits eat the wood the fire consumes etc. In the winter naturespirits sleep, thats why its winter and vice versa."

Answer:"Yes."

Question:"Why does any spirit want to help you? Because it has certain needs or wishes."

Answer:"More likely that it has a certain nature which is wants to express. Not so much a need, nor a wish, just "the way it is.""

Question:"It wants to expand its personal "view" of life, just like humans do. "

Answer:"Not necessarily. This gives ambitions and desires to spirits, which are (generally) not in their nature. Fire wants only to be fire, not to help you, not to hurt you, just be fire."

Question:"Why would i help you? Because it helps me in some way, too. The same with spirits i´d guess."

Answer:"Not necessarily so. The fire spirit does what you want/ask because you allow it to be fire.
NOW, exceptions exist. SOME spirits have acheived a consciousness like a person has. SOME have desires, ambitions, and so on. But most want to just be what they are, and anything that helps orlets them do that is good for them."

Question:"Spirits who have no natural connection to the mundane world, have certain goals too so thats how you can make a deal with them. "

Answer:"Spirits which have no connection to the mundane world are, in general, hostile and "unhappy," because they have been taken, thrown, forced or otherwise removed from their natural existence. Thus (to humans) they seem hostile, unhappy or hateful. We can not tell what their nature is. They are disembodied beings without a nature. "

Question:"Maybe that deal "as a reality" is enough to give them the ability to temporarily transcend the border between the worlds to aid you for a short time, before they´ll fade back. "

Answer:"To have a body again is a great desire for those miserable spirits, and so they will work for you to have that body."

Question:"Or maybe they can only come the mundane world when called upon and will fade back after that."

Answer:"Yep, in general. "

maybe that helps
all the best

Christian

[Tim Ellis]

The given descriptions of how an animist does magic look good to me.  In case it's of any use here are some pointers to examples of how to create animist characters using Heroquest rules

for non-shaman and
for Shaman