User:Diarik/Spiritweaving/Spirit System Proposal

The Clerical Mandate

The foundation of the very universe is the Immortals' work. They rule over their own planets, and upon Truffenyi's world, they oversee the doings of mortals. Thus it should be that their servants, their vicars, their hand in the the mortal realm of Elanthia, should also be the foundation upon which rests the roving adventurers.

What is spirit?

There are a number of fundamental secondary attributes amongst the members of the Eleven Races. Vital health, fatigue, spirit health, concentration, mana attunement. Most of these do alright.

Spirit is the divine breath of the Immortals, invigorating those of the Races to be more than merely sentient, but also spiritual. Thus it is that the Elotheans are even able to begin to make the claim that they are sprung full grown from the thought of the Gods. Thus it is that the Dwarves call themselves Kertigen-blessed, that sailors hail Eluned and fear Drogor.

Spirit is the conduit through which a spellcaster can manipulate mana; without this connection to the divine, there is effectively no mana attunement. To a lesser extent, spirit sustains vitality and durability, and its lack can slow down the regenerative ability of both these other attributes. More than mere attunement to mana, spirit also forms the basis for such things as the Inner Fire, Khris, and Speculation.

Law of Attraction

Spirit on the Plane of Abiding has, overall, always attempts to gather in one place.

The Vigil Spell

If the Law of Attraction holds, then why is it the Vigil spell causes the levels of spirit between the two connected individuals to balance out? This is because the Vigil spell does a little more than merely connect the two; it also serves as a mediator.

Two reservoirs of spirit, connected together, are obviously going to attract one another. The larger reservoir, however, will undoubtedly have a greater inertia than the smaller reservoir, and without some sort of mitigating factor, the smaller reservoir would surely be annihilated by its connection to the larger. The Vigil spell thus acts to reverse the Law of Attraction; in the presence of a smaller reservoir, Vigil shepherds spirit to it, seeking to achieve a state where both reservoirs are of exactly equal size. It maintains a vigil to make sure the smaller reservoir does not overflow, though.

What it means to be alive

Life, with respect to this document, is literally the Elanthian body's capacity to capture and hold onto spirit, maintaining a delicate balance between its own tiny reservoir and the infinite reservoir of the Starry Road. Casting Vigil upon oneself simply increases the body's capacity to retain spirit and moves some spirit from the Eerie Abyss into the body (thus the shaft of light upon casting the spell).

Upon death, this ability to maintain a proportion fades. All that is left is the will to survive, which the soul uses to maintain some distant connection to its body. Spirit, denied the balancing factor provided by life, begins to siphon itself back to the larger reservoir of the Starry Road. The size of the reservoir is really the only thing that determines the speed of the process. If a cleric casts Vigil upon the corpse, they slow this process down simply by bolstering the amount of spirit left to drain into the Starry Road.