Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Animism in D&D
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Haldrik" data-source="post: 8080752" data-attributes="member: 6694221"><p>I am trying to figure out how to represent a "nature spirit" in D&D.</p><p></p><p>For example, there is an important mountain. The more important the mountain is to the culture of the human inhabitants, the more salient, powerful, and "present" the spirit of this mountain is. The mountain has an active personality, and is a person.</p><p></p><p>Probably, a psionic worldview works best, where the mountain has a psionic presence, and is a mind. The mountain has a mind, that can interact with the minds of the human inhabitants. Especially by dreams, visions, and even strange physical encounters as if the mountain is a human-like person. The mechanics of psionics explains this kind of interaction well.</p><p></p><p>What is interesting is, the mind of the mountain can manifest physically as if a human. This human is a kind of avatar of the mountain, projecting out of the mountain to do activities that are of concern to the mountain.</p><p></p><p>In other words, this "human" seems almost identical to a D&D "summon" spell. The spirit takes on a physical form during combat, but if reaching zero hit points, the physical form dissipates, and the spirit returns home from where it came. Essentially, the psionic mountain "conjures" itself into a physical form.</p><p></p><p>It seems, this human form can last indefinitely. Sometimes the spirit of a mountain can live among humans for an entire lifetime, even have children with a human. The children seem like humans that are "gifted" magically with various aspects of the mountain. Maybe strength, maybe beauty, etcetera. At the same time, the mountain spirit can − at any time − feel homesick and want to return to living the life of a mountain. If reaching zero hit points, the body vanishes, or perhaps turns to stone, when the spirit reverts back to the mountain.</p><p></p><p>A nature spirit can be a player character concept. The playable aspect is a "conjuration", that functions moreorless like normal human, albeit there are telltale signs, such as mountainous-Strength, stony-Constitution, memory-Intelligence, willpower-Wisdom, and majestic-Charisma, along with a proclivity for "mindful" magical abilities. Nevertheless, the conjuration can be comparably balanced with the power of a human, especially a heroic human. Nature spirits vary in personal power, and any D&D level advancement is possible.</p><p></p><p>The mountain character is a specific mountain. The conjuration adventures any distance away, just like any other human. When the conjuration reverts back to a mountain, the character is simply "removed from the grid", and is back "home" doing downtime.</p><p></p><p>Probably, killing the conjuration of a mountain feels less than nice to the mountain. The mountain spirit probably needs time to restore (refresh or reform). It might be that a "dead" mountain character functions similarly to a dead human character, whose soul might go elsewhere or possibly still lingering nearby. The dying rules for a mountain character function moreorless normally. Except, there can be a fun twist. Perhaps the dead mountain conjuration petrifies to stone. The Revivify spell would leave the stony corpse where it is, but fully form a new conjuration of the mountain.</p><p></p><p>Something like this for animistic nature spirits.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Haldrik, post: 8080752, member: 6694221"] I am trying to figure out how to represent a "nature spirit" in D&D. For example, there is an important mountain. The more important the mountain is to the culture of the human inhabitants, the more salient, powerful, and "present" the spirit of this mountain is. The mountain has an active personality, and is a person. Probably, a psionic worldview works best, where the mountain has a psionic presence, and is a mind. The mountain has a mind, that can interact with the minds of the human inhabitants. Especially by dreams, visions, and even strange physical encounters as if the mountain is a human-like person. The mechanics of psionics explains this kind of interaction well. What is interesting is, the mind of the mountain can manifest physically as if a human. This human is a kind of avatar of the mountain, projecting out of the mountain to do activities that are of concern to the mountain. In other words, this "human" seems almost identical to a D&D "summon" spell. The spirit takes on a physical form during combat, but if reaching zero hit points, the physical form dissipates, and the spirit returns home from where it came. Essentially, the psionic mountain "conjures" itself into a physical form. It seems, this human form can last indefinitely. Sometimes the spirit of a mountain can live among humans for an entire lifetime, even have children with a human. The children seem like humans that are "gifted" magically with various aspects of the mountain. Maybe strength, maybe beauty, etcetera. At the same time, the mountain spirit can − at any time − feel homesick and want to return to living the life of a mountain. If reaching zero hit points, the body vanishes, or perhaps turns to stone, when the spirit reverts back to the mountain. A nature spirit can be a player character concept. The playable aspect is a "conjuration", that functions moreorless like normal human, albeit there are telltale signs, such as mountainous-Strength, stony-Constitution, memory-Intelligence, willpower-Wisdom, and majestic-Charisma, along with a proclivity for "mindful" magical abilities. Nevertheless, the conjuration can be comparably balanced with the power of a human, especially a heroic human. Nature spirits vary in personal power, and any D&D level advancement is possible. The mountain character is a specific mountain. The conjuration adventures any distance away, just like any other human. When the conjuration reverts back to a mountain, the character is simply "removed from the grid", and is back "home" doing downtime. Probably, killing the conjuration of a mountain feels less than nice to the mountain. The mountain spirit probably needs time to restore (refresh or reform). It might be that a "dead" mountain character functions similarly to a dead human character, whose soul might go elsewhere or possibly still lingering nearby. The dying rules for a mountain character function moreorless normally. Except, there can be a fun twist. Perhaps the dead mountain conjuration petrifies to stone. The Revivify spell would leave the stony corpse where it is, but fully form a new conjuration of the mountain. Something like this for animistic nature spirits. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Animism in D&D
Top