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The people of the woods know that shamans are powerful people who are always surrounded by birds. Once a year, they journey to the depths of the earth to battle the evil forces of those who skulk in darkness.
The people of the caves know that shamans are powerful people who are always surrounded by spiders. Once a year, they journey into the sunlight to battle the evil force of the surface-dwellers.
The shamans say that they are all the same kind of people, regardless of whether they attract birds or spiders, and that they meet twice a year to talk about the natural cycles of the world. Of course they do. They're tricksters, always pushing against what society considers to be normal, so they have to dress up their epic battles as boring conferences. Everyone knows that even if those bastards from the other realm had the wits to talk to one of ours, someone as respected and powerful as our shaman wouldn't give them the time of day!
The Shaman's Need
Shamans feel a powerful need to connect with nature. No, more powerful than that. That's not something that you can solve by getting a potted plant or a hamster. A shaman needs several living creatures to be in direct contact with their skin at all times.
If the shaman lives in the woods, these creatures will likely be birds, and they will be seem as majestic.
If the shaman lives in the caves, these creatures will likely be spiders, and they will be seen as menacing.
The shamans don't care how they look. They need this to feel well.
The creatures also feel a need to stay close to the shaman, and they estabilsh a low-level mental connection, so the shaman can sleep without worrying they'll turn around and crush their nature friends to death. They'll still be constantly covered in poop though.
If you feel the desire to connect to nature and you ignore it, that's fine. Hold out for a few weeks, two months at most, and you'll stop being a shaman. The secrets of nature will again be closed to you and you will not spend the rest of your life covered in poop.
A shaman that's not covered in the animals that chose them will feel unfocused and bad, but it's not deleterious to their health. If they're apt in the ways of shamanism, they won't lose their abilities. They might, however, become so low-key distressed that they'll be unable to access them.
While most shamans live in a settled area, those few that decide to travel (perhaps with a band with adventurers) always travel with a special tool for their animals to rest. Some of them use special bags with a slot prepared for it. A small dark hole for spiders takes up as much space as one item, a birdhouse takes up twice that space.
Shamans don't have any compulsion or oath not to attack animals, but most of them prefer not to anyway. Hunting for sustenance is considered an exception to this by many of them. Birds and spiders do that, after all.
The Shaman's Abilities
Here are some things a shaman can do as they become more powerful:
1. Understand the communication of their kindred species. Bird shamans can understand birdsong, and spider shamans can understand the weaving of webs (spiders use them to note down their thoughts). They can't translate them to sentient language, it's a bit subconscious, but a shaman will always know if a danger lurks in their area and where exactly it is, unless it's taking active steps to hide itself from animals.
2. Their body becomes accostumed the animal presence. They become immune to allergies and poisons from their kindred animal. (This ability is, of course, notably more useful for spider shamans.)
3. Even larger, aggressive species of their kindred animal will not be aggressive towards them unless they have good reason. They also stop seeing the shaman or their creatures as trespassing in their territory. These do not apply to the shaman's companions.
4. The shaman can sustain themself for weeks on end on their kindred animal's diet - seeds and little fruit for bird shamans, small insects for spider shamans. Volume is still a problem.
5. Shamans can finally communicate telepathically with their kindred animal. They won't do what the shaman asks willy-nilly, but they're usually helpful. They'll never do anything they understand will bring them mortal danger, which is fine because most shamans wouldn't ask that anyway.
6. The shaman becomes immune to allergies, venoms and poisons from any animal source.
7. No animal will willingly attack the shaman without reason. Training can overcome this, but even then the animal will be hesitant. Some animals of magical origin will not be affected, nor will sentient creatures. Crows, octopuses, dolphins and some species of monkey are sentient.
8. The shaman's kindred animal will perform a ritual to sacralize the shaman and have them devour whole a corpse of one of them. From then on, if the shaman dies, they will be reborn as one of their kindred animal, who will sprout out of their mouth. (This will not happen if the manner of death is grievous enough, but as long as the corpse's head is intact it will). The shaman does not become a sentient creature in an animal's body; their mind also becomes that of the animal, albeit they keep memories of their previous life. If the shaman has important information to impart, it's likely only another shaman will be able to understand them. Most likely, they'll just enjoy their second life as a simple creature.
9. If the shaman becomes reincarnated as an animal, they may direct their kindred animals to construct a new body for them, out of pebbles, little bones, feathers and silk. This takes a few months and causes the shaman to return to life as a human. They'll reappear emaciated and likely unable to speak properly for a few days, but their memories and abilities will be intact. A shaman will refuse to do this unless something great is at stake.
The social life of shamans
It is said that shamans only constitute families with other shamans.
That's not true, but it's difficult to find non-shamans who will even consider a casual date with someone constantly covered in animals, let alone something longer-lasting.
While bird shamans and spider shamans consider each other brethren, they rarely date across these lines, simply because the birds tend to keep eating the spiders.
Mosaic Strict
This is not even necessarily an RPG guide, it may just be some weird fiction, but it's not mosaic strict unless I explicitly say it is, so I'm doing so right now.
The people of the caves know that shamans are powerful people who are always surrounded by spiders. Once a year, they journey into the sunlight to battle the evil force of the surface-dwellers.
The shamans say that they are all the same kind of people, regardless of whether they attract birds or spiders, and that they meet twice a year to talk about the natural cycles of the world. Of course they do. They're tricksters, always pushing against what society considers to be normal, so they have to dress up their epic battles as boring conferences. Everyone knows that even if those bastards from the other realm had the wits to talk to one of ours, someone as respected and powerful as our shaman wouldn't give them the time of day!
The Shaman's Need
Shamans feel a powerful need to connect with nature. No, more powerful than that. That's not something that you can solve by getting a potted plant or a hamster. A shaman needs several living creatures to be in direct contact with their skin at all times.
If the shaman lives in the woods, these creatures will likely be birds, and they will be seem as majestic.
If the shaman lives in the caves, these creatures will likely be spiders, and they will be seen as menacing.
The shamans don't care how they look. They need this to feel well.
The creatures also feel a need to stay close to the shaman, and they estabilsh a low-level mental connection, so the shaman can sleep without worrying they'll turn around and crush their nature friends to death. They'll still be constantly covered in poop though.
If you feel the desire to connect to nature and you ignore it, that's fine. Hold out for a few weeks, two months at most, and you'll stop being a shaman. The secrets of nature will again be closed to you and you will not spend the rest of your life covered in poop.
A shaman that's not covered in the animals that chose them will feel unfocused and bad, but it's not deleterious to their health. If they're apt in the ways of shamanism, they won't lose their abilities. They might, however, become so low-key distressed that they'll be unable to access them.
While most shamans live in a settled area, those few that decide to travel (perhaps with a band with adventurers) always travel with a special tool for their animals to rest. Some of them use special bags with a slot prepared for it. A small dark hole for spiders takes up as much space as one item, a birdhouse takes up twice that space.
Shamans don't have any compulsion or oath not to attack animals, but most of them prefer not to anyway. Hunting for sustenance is considered an exception to this by many of them. Birds and spiders do that, after all.
The Shaman's Abilities
Here are some things a shaman can do as they become more powerful:
1. Understand the communication of their kindred species. Bird shamans can understand birdsong, and spider shamans can understand the weaving of webs (spiders use them to note down their thoughts). They can't translate them to sentient language, it's a bit subconscious, but a shaman will always know if a danger lurks in their area and where exactly it is, unless it's taking active steps to hide itself from animals.
2. Their body becomes accostumed the animal presence. They become immune to allergies and poisons from their kindred animal. (This ability is, of course, notably more useful for spider shamans.)
3. Even larger, aggressive species of their kindred animal will not be aggressive towards them unless they have good reason. They also stop seeing the shaman or their creatures as trespassing in their territory. These do not apply to the shaman's companions.
4. The shaman can sustain themself for weeks on end on their kindred animal's diet - seeds and little fruit for bird shamans, small insects for spider shamans. Volume is still a problem.
5. Shamans can finally communicate telepathically with their kindred animal. They won't do what the shaman asks willy-nilly, but they're usually helpful. They'll never do anything they understand will bring them mortal danger, which is fine because most shamans wouldn't ask that anyway.
6. The shaman becomes immune to allergies, venoms and poisons from any animal source.
7. No animal will willingly attack the shaman without reason. Training can overcome this, but even then the animal will be hesitant. Some animals of magical origin will not be affected, nor will sentient creatures. Crows, octopuses, dolphins and some species of monkey are sentient.
8. The shaman's kindred animal will perform a ritual to sacralize the shaman and have them devour whole a corpse of one of them. From then on, if the shaman dies, they will be reborn as one of their kindred animal, who will sprout out of their mouth. (This will not happen if the manner of death is grievous enough, but as long as the corpse's head is intact it will). The shaman does not become a sentient creature in an animal's body; their mind also becomes that of the animal, albeit they keep memories of their previous life. If the shaman has important information to impart, it's likely only another shaman will be able to understand them. Most likely, they'll just enjoy their second life as a simple creature.
9. If the shaman becomes reincarnated as an animal, they may direct their kindred animals to construct a new body for them, out of pebbles, little bones, feathers and silk. This takes a few months and causes the shaman to return to life as a human. They'll reappear emaciated and likely unable to speak properly for a few days, but their memories and abilities will be intact. A shaman will refuse to do this unless something great is at stake.
The social life of shamans
It is said that shamans only constitute families with other shamans.
That's not true, but it's difficult to find non-shamans who will even consider a casual date with someone constantly covered in animals, let alone something longer-lasting.
While bird shamans and spider shamans consider each other brethren, they rarely date across these lines, simply because the birds tend to keep eating the spiders.
Mosaic Strict
This is not even necessarily an RPG guide, it may just be some weird fiction, but it's not mosaic strict unless I explicitly say it is, so I'm doing so right now.
