Spirits (Promptober 2025 #8)

A meeting of spirits.

Many early human cultures share the idea that all instances of an animal share a direct connection with the primordial ur-animal. Australian aboriginal culture call the early history of the world the Dreamtime, where early humans deal with ancestral spirit figures who create and shape the land. So many native American stories from the southwest tell of Coyote playing tricks and getting caught by other spirits and even a few clever early humans.

What if this idea held true in your tabletop game?

Let's assume that every animal, insect, and plant that exists is actually a tiny shard of the same spirit. So this flock of starlings are all pieces of Starling, the unified spirit of all starlings across the world. This field of corn is a collection of tiny shards of the spirit humans call Corn. What would they know? What would they want from humanity?

Now what if your player characters could talk with the spirits and ask them?

You could grant them access to a ritual to call forth the spirits. It takes at least 10 minutes to enact, and if the target is an area, a random spirit will show up to talk. The spirits can't be bothered to stay, so the summoner can only talk with them for a minute before their attention wanders off.

What can the spirits do? Mostly request services in return for information. They can know anything any one of their kind knows, so Rat would know everything any rat has ever seen. In return, Rat might want more food for a colony having a lean winter, or killing troublesome cats or snakes to prevent these efficient hunters from wiping out an entire nest. And if they help a spirit by attacking another spirit, they could hurt their reputation with that spirit so Cat or Snake might not want to talk with them at all.

If you want weird ways to get information into your characters' hands in exchange for some legwork, this might work as a solution for you. It's more work as a GM, true. But it's a funky option for your toolkit.

Part of the Promptober project for 2025.