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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rechan" data-source="post: 4877832" data-attributes="member: 54846">Think of the Spirit as any other NPC. Flesh out its personality. By giving it a personality, you can get a few ideas of what sort of things would appeal to the spirit.For instance, what are its flaws? Is it vain? Over confident? Easily angered? Prideful? If it's vain, it might want something to make it look even better (or something to remove a blight upon it). If it's Easily Angered, it may want something to help it wreak vengence (like a powerful item the PCs must bury or destroy at the heart of the swamp, increasing the Spirit's power). If it's Prideful, it may want assistance punishing someone or something that the Spirit feels has given it a minor insulted. Spirits can have the same motivations as any other NPC: Wealth, sex, power, flight of fancy.The Spirit's personality will likely be reflected in the Swamp, so one way to work backwards is to ask what the swamp is like. Is it fierce and dangerous? Is it beautiful and full of life in its own right (like the Everglades or the Bayou)? Is it mostly inhospitable, seeming to discourage anyone from living there? If you can describe what the Swamp is like, this gives you personality traits for your Spirit.If it's Fierce and DangerousThere is an inhabitant in the swamp that so far has been fully impervious to the Swamp's hazards and threats. The inhabitant moves around easily, and this annoys the Spirit greatly; it has not GRANTED this person the ability to move so unhindered, so how DARE this person evade the swamp's threats! The Swamp wants the PCs to find out what weakness this inhabitant has, so the Swamp may hit the inhabitant where it hurts. In return, the PCs might get the Spirit's blessing to live there. Although the spirit might expect savage restitution; human sacrifice, destroying food or other supplies that would help them, avoiding pesticides and medicines so they suffer the effects of the swamp, etc. If it is beautiful and full of lifeThe typical example may be the swamp is being corrupted or tainted somewhere, and the Spirit needs assistance clearing up the infection. It's turning the Swamp into something darker and more nasty, killing the local life (My leeches can't even live there! You know how bad something must be to kill the leeches?). A more interesting thing may be a situation preventing the Swamp from prospering or spreading outwards beyond its borders. Perhaps the Swamp Spirit needs a Bride in order to spread, but it cannot find a Bride (or the Bride the Spirit desires has spurned its advances). Or something that the Spirit considers its prize inhabitant (some rare flowers or weeping willows) are dying, and the Swamp needs this rectified or it will be destraught by losing its prized plants. Or the PCs may need to negotiate with another local spirit, allowing the Swamp to encrouch on that Spirit's territory, or fix some other problem. Maybe the Spirit of the River that floods the Swamp is feeding too little water into the Swamp, drying the swamp up. Thus, the PCs become negotiators for the Swamp.</blockquote>

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