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<blockquote data-quote="Jackelope King" data-source="post: 2699221" data-attributes="member: 31454">There aren't any &quot;meldshapers&quot; who create &quot;soulmelds&quot; from &quot;incarnum&quot; and empower them with &quot;essentia&quot;. Rather, there are &quot;spiritualists&quot; who use &quot;rituals&quot; to channel the might of &quot;great spirits&quot; (or possibly demons, depending on your point of view) in potent &quot;rituals&quot;, empowering them by binding lesser &quot;spirits&quot; to their will.Instead of soulmelds looking like more magic items, the visual representation of this practice is usually nil. A spiritualist can walk around looking almost entirely normal. However, the very presence of otherworldly horrors in their bodies tends to warp reality in disconcerting, subtle ways. As an example, if you've seen The Exorcist, you'll recall all those barely-seen glimpses of demonic faces in the dark shadows of the film? That sort of stuff. You might glance over at someone, not knowing he's a spiritualist, and out of the corner of your eye you see a sinister, grinning face looking hungrilly out into the world from a shadow. When you look back, nothing's there. A figment of your imagination, a trick of the light, or something else?This takes other forms. Minor bad things just happen all around a spiritualist, usually of the mildlly frightening sort. Vermin may sprout from the spiritualist's footprints, only to whither and die again in an instant. Tiny trinkets may go missing, or be found mangled. Barely-heard, ghostly screams may echo in the heads of people in the area. Someone familiar with these sort of occurances (i.e. ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) in this case, instead of spellcraft, which doesn't exist in my game) can get hints as to exactly what sort of spirits may be at work here, and can identify what rituals the spiritualist has used.But when actively using the benefits of these rituals, it becomes plainly visible for everyone to see: whithering masses of ghostly tentacles extend out from the spiritualist's body, flailing wildly and trying to reach out at living things around the spiritualist, hungry for the caress of life. While visible like this, identifying what rituals are active becomes much easier (+4 bonus on knowledge (arcana) check).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jackelope King, post: 2699221, member: 31454"] There aren't any "meldshapers" who create "soulmelds" from "incarnum" and empower them with "essentia". Rather, there are "spiritualists" who use "rituals" to channel the might of "great spirits" (or possibly demons, depending on your point of view) in potent "rituals", empowering them by binding lesser "spirits" to their will. Instead of soulmelds looking like more magic items, the visual representation of this practice is usually nil. A spiritualist can walk around looking almost entirely normal. However, the very presence of otherworldly horrors in their bodies tends to warp reality in disconcerting, subtle ways. As an example, if you've seen [i]The Exorcist[/i], you'll recall all those barely-seen glimpses of demonic faces in the dark shadows of the film? That sort of stuff. You might glance over at someone, not knowing he's a spiritualist, and out of the corner of your eye you see a sinister, grinning face looking hungrilly out into the world from a shadow. When you look back, nothing's there. A figment of your imagination, a trick of the light, or something else? This takes other forms. Minor bad things just happen all around a spiritualist, usually of the mildlly frightening sort. Vermin may sprout from the spiritualist's footprints, only to whither and die again in an instant. Tiny trinkets may go missing, or be found mangled. Barely-heard, ghostly screams may echo in the heads of people in the area. Someone familiar with these sort of occurances (i.e. ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) in this case, instead of spellcraft, which doesn't exist in my game) can get hints as to exactly what sort of spirits may be at work here, and can identify what rituals the spiritualist has used. But when actively using the benefits of these rituals, it becomes plainly visible for everyone to see: whithering masses of ghostly tentacles extend out from the spiritualist's body, flailing wildly and trying to reach out at living things around the spiritualist, hungry for the caress of life. While visible like this, identifying what rituals are active becomes much easier (+4 bonus on knowledge (arcana) check). [/QUOTE]

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