Questions on Spirit Binding

[kalyptein]

I think Spirit Binding is a really cool flavor of magic and I'd like to make use of it, but I've got several questions. Hopefully you guys can help me out.

1) I'm not clear on whether a spirit's retribution is limited to domain or medium. If you bind the spirit of road X to aid you, could you suffer retribution on road Y (same domain), or could you just avoid road X (same medium) for the rest of your life and avoid the retribution?

2) When you use the Spirits Are Wise, you'd have to muster 8 dice to beat an Ob 2 wise test on average, since the 8 dice will probably get you a strength 4 spirit, who will get 2 successes. This seems kind of rough; Ob 2 isn't terribly impressive. Am I following this correctly?

3) The Enmity Clause for failure mentions that the spirit can take retribution on the spirit binder any time he enters its *domain*. Does that mean that if you botch a test summoning a road spirit, that you will get pummeled every time you ever set foot on a road? Ow. Short of using a prison circle, is there any standard way to make peace with such a spirit (offerings, etc?), or would you have to handle it through play?

4) If a spirit gets imprisoned, presumably it can't be summoned by anyone else, right?

Those are my mechanical questions, but I'm also curious to know what spirit binding is like in practice. I keep feeling like you'd have to be really stupid to bother with it. It's power isn't overwhelming, and even a successful binding leaves you with an enemy that can sandbag you with a hefty Ob bonus and gets to hang around waiting for the perfect moment to do so. Failure does the same, or even bans you from an entire terrain type.

Now you can reduce the retribution with successes, but just mustering a spirit strong enough to do something a person can do (B4 wise or strength or whatever) is going to take most of your dice. Unless people tend to have a lot more dice than I'm figuring.

So what's spirit binding like in play?

[Thor]

Hey kalptein!


1) I'm not clear on whether a spirit's retribution is limited to domain or medium. If you bind the spirit of road X to aid you, could you suffer retribution on road Y (same domain), or could you just avoid road X (same medium) for the rest of your life and avoid the retribution?

You could just avoid Road X. But the longer you're a spirit binder, the more those taboo places tend to accumulate...



2) When you use the Spirits Are Wise, you'd have to muster 8 dice to beat an Ob 2 wise test on average, since the 8 dice will probably get you a strength 4 spirit, who will get 2 successes. This seems kind of rough; Ob 2 isn't terribly impressive. Am I following this correctly?Well, first, 8D isn't terribly hard to muster for Spirit Binding, between Skill, Advantage dice from Circination, FoRKs, Help, Domain Bindings, Spirit Marks, and Artha. Not to mention the Spirit Binding test is open ended.

Secondly, once the Wise is transferred, you may use FoRKs, Help, the Carefully rule (BW p31), and Artha. And the test is open ended.

Also, an Ob 2 Wise roll can give you some pretty impressive results.



3) The Enmity Clause for failure mentions that the spirit can take retribution on the spirit binder any time he enters its *domain*. Does that mean that if you botch a test summoning a road spirit, that you will get pummeled every time you ever set foot on a road? Ow. Short of using a prison circle, is there any standard way to make peace with such a spirit (offerings, etc?), or would you have to handle it through play?Yes. The Enmity Clause is pretty nasty, but I believe the intent is for it to be confined to the particular Medium, not the Domain (though Luke may correct me on this). In one game, Dro's spirit binder incurred the Enmity Clause from the ship we were sailing on (he had the Domain, Ship, but the Enmity was contained to the particular ship we were sailing on). We burned the ship to the waterline because it was "haunted."



4) If a spirit gets imprisoned, presumably it can't be summoned by anyone else, right?Correct. At least the spirit of the particular medium the first spirit binder imprisoned.



Those are my mechanical questions, but I'm also curious to know what spirit binding is like in practice. I keep feeling like you'd have to be really stupid to bother with it. It's power isn't overwhelming, and even a successful binding leaves you with an enemy that can sandbag you with a hefty Ob bonus and gets to hang around waiting for the perfect moment to do so. Failure does the same, or even bans you from an entire terrain type.

Now you can reduce the retribution with successes, but just mustering a spirit strong enough to do something a person can do (B4 wise or strength or whatever) is going to take most of your dice. Unless people tend to have a lot more dice than I'm figuring.

So what's spirit binding like in play?

We've found it to be beautifully subtle and powerful in play. Spirit Binders have to be willing to take risks. Sometimes big ones. But when used with imagination and subtlety, it can work wonders. It's important to note, though, that good Spirit Binders never ask spirits to Harm unless they're desperate. And good Spirit Binders never get Desperate.

[EarthenForge]

Wow - I'm so glad you answered those questions! I have two spirit binders in my group who are still learning about it, and what you just said really helps!

[stormsweeper]

Hindrance. ::smiles wistfully::

[kalyptein]

Secondly, once the Wise is transferred, you may use FoRKs, Help, the Carefully rule (BW p31), and Artha. And the test is open ended.


Ah, that's good to know. I hadn't realized the wise was actually granted to the binder.

Borrowing a Wise seems like one of the best uses of binding. The retribution is the mildest and since its not the kind of thing you generally need immediately, you have time to muster a circle and so forth. Is spirit binding generally meant to be used in a ritual fashion, where you take your time and set things up, or is it effective on shorter notice as well? Or is having to be hasty the kind of desperation a good binder should avoid?



In one game, Dro's spirit binder incurred the Enmity Clause from the ship we were sailing on (he had the Domain, Ship, but the Enmity was contained to the particular ship we were sailing on). We burned the ship to the waterline because it was "haunted."


That puts it a bit more in perspective for me. I had been thinking about the magicians in Tim Powers _Anubis Gates_, with their inability to touch the earth. They could walk around on stilts or clogs, but I didn't think a trick like that would get a BW binder out of retribution so easily. Restricting it to the medium seems nasty without being crippling.



We've found it to be beautifully subtle and powerful in play. Spirit Binders have to be willing to take risks. Sometimes big ones. But when used with imagination and subtlety, it can work wonders. It's important to note, though, that good Spirit Binders never ask spirits to Harm unless they're desperate. And good Spirit Binders never get Desperate.

Can you relate any particular uses of binding you've seen, and/or the retributions that they produced? I'm trying to get an idea of the scope of what you can do with a binding. Also, as a GM, do you tend to spring retribution on someone at the earliest moment it would cause at least some problem, or do you save it up looking for the absolute worst moment, risking that it might never get used if that moment doesn't arrive?

Regarding the duration of a binding, could I bind a fire spirit to grant succor for an indefinite span, or have a forest spirit grant forest-wise usable for many tests? Even the shortest binding would last for days. If you're going to suffer for it later, it seems like you might as well go for everything you can get. Or is the duration meant to be how long the spirit will wait for a chance to fulfill its task? For example, the fire spirit would hang around waiting for you to need succor from fire, then leave after it's protected you once or the time runs out.

[Thor]

Is spirit binding generally meant to be used in a ritual fashion, where you take your time and set things up, or is it effective on shorter notice as well? Or is having to be hasty the kind of desperation a good binder should avoid?

Spirit Binding is instant and so definitely effective on short notice. But Circination is not. A smart Spirit Binder always wants to have a Summoning Circle on hand when dealing with a spirit. Creating the Summoning Circle is a ritual, though you could create a permanent circle specific to a particular spirit and reuse it.


Can you relate any particular uses of binding you've seen, and/or the retributions that they produced? I'm trying to get an idea of the scope of what you can do with a binding. Also, as a GM, do you tend to spring retribution on someone at the earliest moment it would cause at least some problem, or do you save it up looking for the absolute worst moment, risking that it might never get used if that moment doesn't arrive?Probably the coolest use of Spirit Binding was when Dro had his character summon the wind off a hillside (from his Hills domain) to provide Succor from the plague-wind emanating from an enchanted amphora created by a wicked wizard. The spirit created a vortex that wrapped around the plague-wind and carried it straight up into the sky. That bought us six months to discover a way to destroy the amphora.

Mechanically, the binding provided succor against the Natural Effect of the sorcery.

We've also seen grasses and tussocks from Fields catch at the feet of hostile forces, providing an Obstacle penalty to Positioning. The spirit of Roads has given its Road-wise to allow a Spirit Binder to see who travels ahead or behind, anywhere along its length. I've seen a spirit of Ship swing its boom around to smite a pirate, or stick its doors so that an invader in its hold can't escape. I've seen a spirit of Sea help a drowning man keep his head above water.

As a GM, I hold onto retribution and dole it out when it's thematically appropriate. I generally ask the spirit binder to keep a list of Retributions and share it with me at the end of each session.



Regarding the duration of a binding, could I bind a fire spirit to grant succor for an indefinite span, or have a forest spirit grant forest-wise usable for many tests? Even the shortest binding would last for days. If you're going to suffer for it later, it seems like you might as well go for everything you can get. Or is the duration meant to be how long the spirit will wait for a chance to fulfill its task? For example, the fire spirit would hang around waiting for you to need succor from fire, then leave after it's protected you once or the time runs out.It really depends on the Intent of the test. I'd let the fire spirit hang around for the duration of service. But I'd only let it protect you from a specific fire. If you summon the spirit of a forest fire, I'd let it protect you from that forest fire, but not another fire.

At one point, Luke and I had discussed a limitation on the number of spirits you could summon and have hanging around you at any one time. I don't remember the details but I think it was based on either your Will exponent, Spirit Binding exponent, or Spirit Taint exponent. It doesn't seem to be in the text now though.

[kalyptein]

Creating the Summoning Circle is a ritual, though you could create a permanent circle specific to a particular spirit and reuse it.


How specific is a circle? When you say particular spirit, do you mean "the spirit of this particular tree" or "spirits of trees in general" or "spirits of trees in this forest"?



Probably the coolest use of Spirit Binding was when Dro had his character summon the wind off a hillside (from his Hills domain) to provide Succor from the plague-wind emanating from an enchanted amphora created by a wicked wizard. The spirit created a vortex that wrapped around the plague-wind and carried it straight up into the sky. That bought us six months to discover a way to destroy the amphora.


That's very cool. Was the six months the result of the roll for duration, or was it something the binder specified? I also hadn't realized that a domain can include multiple elements, the wind off the hills in this case, but it makes a lot of sense.



I've seen a spirit of Ship swing its boom around to smite a pirate


Is that considered asking for harm? Or was it more of a push?

This is all very helpful, thanks!

Alex