Spirit Contact
Spell, Low Magic, level 4
Lets the caster ask up to three questions of a dead person's spirit, with the odds of an answer depending on their relationship; hostile spirits may lie or try to possess someone nearby.
From the book
The caster reaches the spirit of one dead individual and may ask up to three questions. Whether the spirit answers depends on its tie to the caster: a personal friend always replies; a stranger of the same alignment does so 75% of the time, one of a different but not opposing alignment 50%, and one of opposing alignment 25%. A former enemy answers 75% of the time but is 90% likely to lie or mislead.
Contacting a spirit of opposing alignment is dangerous. If its chance to answer fails, the hostile spirit tries to possess the closest living creature, and an unprotected target must save vs Will or be taken over. Slaying the possessed host or exorcising the spirit sends it back to its own plane. Otherwise it roams the material plane hunting for a body, with up to three tries at possession; if all three fail, it is left bodiless and stuck on the prime material plane.
At a glance
- Questions
- Up to 3
- Answer chance
- Friend 100%; stranger of same alignment 75%; different but not opposing alignment 50%; opposing alignment 25%; enemy 75% (but 90% liable to lie)
- Risk
- Failed contact with opposing alignment: spirit tries to possess the nearest living being (save vs Will), up to 3 attempts
- Save
- None
- Spell type
- Non-variable
A scene
Everyone in Thule knew the drowned sorcerer was a wicked man, but only he knew where the stolen ring was hidden, so the shaman Hrafna calls his spirit anyway. The lamps flicker. She asks her first question and waits. No answer comes. Instead the air grows cold, and her apprentice by the door goes suddenly rigid, eyes rolling. Then he gasps, shudders, and shoves the cold thing out of himself by sheer stubbornness. Somewhere in the dark the spirit hisses and slips away through the smoke hole, looking for a softer body.