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Mentor spirits

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CraterShip

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« on: <04-02-16/1415:36> »
So I've been working on rebuilding quite a few characters from previous editions into 5e, and using both chummer and herolab, but neither seems to have a comprehensive list of mentor spirits, have you guys ever run into this problem before? How have you handled it? I'm probably going to just annotate the 5 karma and the mentor spirit notes in the final write up I suppose.


Blue Rose

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« Reply #2 on: <04-02-16/2331:27> »
Are you talking mentor spirits that have appeared mechanically in 5e materials, mentor spirits that have been mentioned by name in-setting, or mentor spirits that exist in the world?

If it's the first, Rooks has it.  If it's the second, I can't really help you.  If it's the last?  Pretty much anything that makes sense.

A mentor spirit is essentially a product of the collective human subconscious, a product of faith, that has gained some measure of self-awareness and power, which it in turn uses to influence the collective human subconscious in a manner consistent with the faith that spawned it.

In some ways, a mentor spirit can be like a deity, or it can be a tool of a deity, or it can be an aspect of a deity.  Or all three, in different ways, at different times, to different people.

Every being and idea of every faith in every way is, in some way, a mentor spirit, be it Coyote, Thor, St. George, a river spirit, the sanctity of life as an abstract concept, or your late, great great uncle Howard.

Whether St. George is a mentor spirit in his own right that just happens to have similar benefits to Dragonslayer, or St. George is one of the ways Dragonslayer manifests and the saint himself does not exist, or if St. George is an independent entity that acts upon the world through the medium of the psychic construct that is known as 'Dragonslayer' is unknown, unknowable, and it's a truth that's less important than what the individual character believes to be the truth.

CraterShip

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« Reply #3 on: <04-04-16/0846:38> »
I guess the issue is that the 5e list of mentor spirits is quite a bit smaller than the older editions' lists. I was specifically interested in making a mouse shaman, found the URL below that lists out info, but I'm thinking it's outdated, probably from an older edition, and there's no way to create a mentor spirit in chummer as far as I can tell.

http://denver.wikidot.com/info:animal-totems

Beta

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« Reply #4 on: <04-04-16/1034:18> »
I hear you – I dearly miss Racoon.

The challenge in transferring from older editions is totems used to be only a shaman thing, and helped with spells and some domain of spirit.  Now with no spirit domains, and adepts able to get totems (err, mentor spirits), the format for bonuses, and hence the balance of things, has changed quite a lot.  (granted: this hasn’t stopped me from having NPC mouse and horse magicians in my game)

Now, this could be an interesting thread for people to make suggestions and let the mob review them for balance?

ETA: for what it is worth, in the 5th CRB the disadvantages seem to me to come out to be roughly equivalent to a nine or ten point negative quality, based on those that have a reasonable comparable.  Which makes sense, in that +2 to a skill seems to be about a seven point quality usually (i.e. Catlike), and a specialization giving +2  on spell type costs 7 points.  So for casters the value of a mentor spirit could be ball parked as around 14-15 points, you only pay five for it, so the nine-ten point negative brings the values in line.

But do note that this is a hidden advantage of awakened characters: they can effectively take ~35 points of negative qualities instead of 25, provided that the overage is part of the package deal of a mentor spirit.

« Last Edit: <04-04-16/1040:09> by Beta »

CraterShip

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« Reply #5 on: <04-04-16/1224:19> »
Interesting take, I'd love to see what people come up with. If anyone wants to take a swing at it, please post it here and we'll see what comes out of it. In the meantime, I'll start building some negative quality pairings with some boosts to see what I think works. I'm not as familiar with adept power totems though, so that may take some time.

Blue Rose

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« Reply #6 on: <04-04-16/1400:14> »
Also keep in mind, the names on mentors are mutable. If you want to play a Coyote shaman,bathe book says straight up, use the rules for Raven.

Reaver

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« Reply #7 on: <04-04-16/1825:39> »
Sit down with your GM and hash out your mentor.
The lists in the book are only a small sample of possible mentors.
And, even among similiar cultures, the mentor spirits role changes. (To the Haida, Raven is a trickster, to the Shuswap, Raven is a Sage. Yet both are Native American tribes that shared territory)
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

CraterShip

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« Reply #8 on: <04-04-16/1849:44> »
Good points, both of you. I hadn't really thought about the variations by simply changing the name but keeping the same build. I could see both raccoon and mouse being similar at least to rat.

As for my other idea of constructing them here as a repository, I'll start with mouse.

Mouse: +1 to illusion and health spells, +2 to either field or hearth spirits.
.   Adept: 1 level of danger sense and traceless walk
.  Disadvantages: Collector (willpower [2] test to not take something shiny) (interpret shiny as you will)