Core Rulebook Version 0.2
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Note Thank you for downloading the core rulebook for The Fifth World . We hope you will enjoy it and help us de velop it further. The Fifth World is World is an open source role-playing game and an open-source setting. You can edit these rules, or the setting, or add your o wn adventures to the canon at http://thefifthworld.com Please note that this document is a beta; corners were cut, important things were left out, and some parts here will be significantly rewritten. That said, sa id, what’s what’ s prese nted here should be sufficient sufficien t to test the gam e (save the character sheet, which you can download from http://thefifthworld.com http://thefifthworld.com ). ). Let us know what you think— again, this is a beta, so your playtesting is crucial for making the final version as good as it can be.
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Note Thank you for downloading the core rulebook for The Fifth World . We hope you will enjoy it and help us de velop it further. The Fifth World is World is an open source role-playing game and an open-source setting. You can edit these rules, or the setting, or add your o wn adventures to the canon at http://thefifthworld.com Please note that this document is a beta; corners were cut, important things were left out, and some parts here will be significantly rewritten. That said, sa id, what’s what’ s prese nted here should be sufficient sufficien t to test the gam e (save the character sheet, which you can download from http://thefifthworld.com http://thefifthworld.com ). ). Let us know what you think— again, this is a beta, so your playtesting is crucial for making the final version as good as it can be.
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The Red Canyons were draped in lush greenery, vines pouring out the empty spaces between perfect squares of what must have once been rock. Walls of this strange material, nearly hollowed out completely, rose out of the water, vines and weeping willow branches cascading down the sides like waterfalls into the calm sea below. It was a human-sized honeycomb, as if at one time people had tried living like bees for a while. No one knew whether the ground far beneath the t he waterline had once been dry, or if the red skeletons had always risen out of the sea. No one knew what the honeycomb was made out of. It was rough to the touch, like a cat's tongue, and blood-colored, and evil spirits wove in and out of the holes, and a sickness filled the air. Even the life here was perversely dead. No one came here. Kateri paddled her boat slowly through the wreckage. One paddle dipped, carving circles into the water, the rhythm of the paddle inscribing a pulse, a heartbeat, into the death all around her. Everything was quiet. Kateri didn't dare breathe. Only after the pock-marked canyon walls fell away, by decay or design, did she get a good look at what she was after. The Water Oracle. She was a giant, a woman whose sheer size was beyond description, green, the color of the open ocean, with a crown like a twinkling star or a fistful of knives and a gleaming yellow torch. The Water Oracle rose from the water with fire in her hand. And where there is fire from water, there is wis- dom to be found—or found—or death. Kateri's boat drifted lazily as she sat motionless, staring up at this goddess she had been told about almost since birth. A rustle from a nearby canyon wall snapped her out of her reverie; there were rats as big as bears here, and twice as aggressive. They were startled by newcomers, and very suspicious of anyone with whom they weren't familiar. The key was to never become familiar. Kateri paddled forward, past the canyons, into the open ocean and into the Water Oracle's shadow. Dolphins played around the Oracle's stiff skirts, seemingly oblivious to the evil that squatted a mere stone's throw away. The canyons' sickness dissipated dramatically the closer Kateri got to the Water Oracle. This must have been part of her great magic. Kateri loosened her hideskin cape and undid her hood as she ap- proached, suddenly filled with a homelike sensation of comfort and safety. Her hood slid down her he r waist-long black hair, leaving it free to whip around her face in the wind. Finally remembering her humility, she averted her eyes from the Oracle, though surely it was too late to show such respect after she had spent so much time gaping at the spirit in awe. iii
Kateri felt the image of a warm, motherly smile creep up in the back of her mind. The language barrier be- tween humans and non-humans—plants, animals, spirits, and gods alike—proved a humbling foe, but com- munication always managed to get through in the intangible language of emotion. Some of Kateri's tribespeople translated the conversations into words, some into musical tones. Kateri herself needed little trans- lation, though—she always dealt with the communication of spirits in the gestures and facial expressions so basic to that language older than words. Apparently, the Water Oracle was amused by Kateri's last-minute reverence as a mother is amused by the follies of her child. And as Kateri returned with a grateful smile, an- other gesture appeared to state clearly that the Anayok girl was welcome here. In the same silent language, Kateri asked the frolicking dolphins if they would watch over her boat, and they cheerfully obliged. Few enough humans ever ventured here that it was a joy, not a burden, for them to make themselves useful in this way. After all, if they helped Kateri now, perhaps later on she would play with them when she was done with her boring human business. Kateri circled the Water Oracle, looking for the buttons she was told she could use to climb up the Oracle's body. When she spotted them, one graceful motion drew her paddle out of the water and into the boat and propelled Kateri into the air. With all four sets of fingers and toes, she latched onto the many round buttons that ran up the Oracle's side. Kateri turned to look below her, where the dolphins steadied her boat and took it to a safer place where the waves were calmer. She smiled, and looked up again, up at the Oracle's crown, barely visible through the low clouds and the distance and the glare of the sun. And she climbed.
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Contents CHARACTER S YMBOLS ........................................18 PERSONALITY T YPES ..........................................19 G AME OF T WENTY QUESTIONS .......................24 THE MECHANICS OF CHARACTER ...................27 TRAINING POINTS ...............................................27 TRAITS ...................................................................27 Force ...................................................................28 Grace...................................................................28 Power ..................................................................28 SKILLS ....................................................................28 HEALTH, S TAMINA & SPIRIT ............................29 BLESSINGS & C URSES .........................................29 ARCHETYPES........................................................30 Brave...................................................................31 Scout ...................................................................31 Shaman...............................................................31 Iconoclast.............................................................32 Are these classes? .................................................32 CULTURES & GROUPS ........................................32 CHARACTER CREATION .....................................33
Introduction: The Power of Stories ........................ 2 THE FIFTH W ORLD .............................................. 3 Post-Apocalyptic ................................................... 3 Pseudo-utopian...................................................... 3 Magical................................................................. 3 Open source........................................................... 4 A shared universe ................................................. 4 THE M YTHOS S YSTEM ......................................... 4 E THOS ..................................................................... 5 The First Virtue .................................................. 5 The Second Virtue................................................ 5 The Third Virtue ................................................. 6 The Fourth Virtue ............................................... 6 THEMES .................................................................. 7 Legacies of the Fourth World................................ 7 Human Passions .................................................. 7 Negotiated Reality ................................................ 7 W HAT IS IN THIS BOOK ? ...................................... 7
The Elements of the Soul ................................. 34
Emergence .......................9 THE GREAT PURIFICATION .............................. 10 THE NEW W ORLD .............................................. 11 THE R EDISCOVERY OF M AGIC ........................ 11 AFTERCULTURES................................................. 11 Old & New ....................................................... 12 The Solution to Unsolvable Problems.................. 12
SKILLS ....................................................................34 BLESSINGS ............................................................39 CURSES ..................................................................40
Negotiated Realities .. 44 W HAT IS M AGIC?.................................................44 SLEIGHT OF H AND .............................................46 ANIMAL COMMUNICATION ...............................47 SHAPESHIFTING ...................................................47 SPIRITS ...................................................................48 Totems.................................................................50 Familiars ............................................................51 Ancestor Spirits...................................................52 Spirit of Place......................................................52 Angels & Demons ..............................................53 THE SPIRIT W ORLD ............................................54 Axis Mundi........................................................55 Underworld .........................................................55 Overworld............................................................56 Traveling Through the Spirit World ....................56
P h ys i cs o f D re a m s . . .. . .. 1 3 W HAT Y OU NEED .............................................. 13 CORE MECHANICS.............................................. 14 Open-Ended Six ................................................ 14 Raises ................................................................. 15 TRAITS & SKILLS ................................................. 15 COMBAT ............................................................... 16 Weapons & Combat Skills................................ 16 Armor ................................................................ 16 EXTENDED T ASKS ............................................. 17
Psychogenesis ................. 18
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Badger .................................................................76 Bear ....................................................................77 Beaver .................................................................77 Bison ...................................................................78 Boar ....................................................................78 Coyote .................................................................79 Deer ....................................................................79 Fox .....................................................................79 Hare ...................................................................80 Mouflon...............................................................80 Neurochs .............................................................81 Oliphaunt............................................................81 Otter ...................................................................82 Squirrel ...............................................................82 Wolf....................................................................83
TECHNIQUES OF E CSTASY ................................ 57 Awakening the Sacred Fire ................................ 57 The Vision Quest ............................................... 58 Entheogens.......................................................... 59 THE Q UESTION OF THE FOURTH W ORLD..... 60
Spirits.............................. 62 FIRE ....................................................................... 63 MINERALS ............................................................ 64 Quartz ............................................................... 64 Iron .................................................................... 65 Obsidian............................................................. 65 FUNGI ................................................................... 65 Common Large Psilocybe .................................... 66 Common Morel................................................... 66 Fairy Ring Mushroom ........................................ 66 Old Man of the Woods....................................... 66 Parasol Mushroom.............................................. 66 PLANTS ................................................................. 67 Apple ................................................................. 67 Ayahuasca.......................................................... 67 Dandelion........................................................... 67 Dogwood............................................................. 67 Douglas Fir ........................................................ 67 Grape ................................................................. 67 Iboga................................................................... 68 Maple ................................................................. 68 Morning Glory.................................................... 68 Oak.................................................................... 68 Spearmint ........................................................... 68 Peyote.................................................................. 68 Plantain.............................................................. 69 Red Cedar .......................................................... 69 Strawberry .......................................................... 69 Willow................................................................ 69 Wood Sorrel ....................................................... 69 Yarrow ............................................................... 69 INSECTS ................................................................ 70 Giant Dragonfly ................................................. 70 Giant Beetle........................................................ 70 FISH, AMPHIBIANS & R EPTILES....................... 70 Frog.................................................................... 70 Salamander......................................................... 71 Salmon ............................................................... 71 Snake ................................................................. 72 Turtle ................................................................. 72 BIRDS .................................................................... 73 Crow................................................................... 73 Duck .................................................................. 73 Eagle .................................................................. 74 Forestfowl ........................................................... 74 Heron ................................................................. 74 Owl .................................................................... 75 Sparrow .............................................................. 75 Turkey................................................................ 76 M AMMALS ............................................................ 76
Technology....................84 FORAGING ............................................................85 TOOLMAKING ......................................................85 Knapping.............................................................85 Cordage ...............................................................85 SHELTERS..............................................................85 HUNTING..............................................................86 Tracking .............................................................86 The Kill...............................................................86 Braintanning .......................................................86 Antler & Bone ...................................................86 COOKING ..............................................................86 ART ........................................................................86 Rock Art ............................................................87 Body Modification ...............................................87
World of the Anayok 88 ORGANIZATION ..................................................89 TRIBES ...................................................................90 Hippunonga Tribe...............................................90 Judahonga Tribe ..................................................90 Adironga Tribe ...................................................91 Tacononga Tribe..................................................91 Vermenanki Tribe ..............................................91 CLANS ....................................................................92 SODALITIES ..........................................................92 Bugbear Society....................................................92 The Kossian Guard.............................................93 The White Vigil .................................................94 Society of Masks..................................................94 R ELIGION .............................................................94 Origin Myth........................................................95 Foundation Myth ................................................95 Gorge the Bear.....................................................96 Festival Cycle ......................................................96 FORAGING ............................................................97 CUISINE .................................................................98 ART ........................................................................98 2
Cave Painting ..................................................... 98 Hippunonga Tattoos ........................................... 99 Judahonga Tattoos .............................................. 99 Judahonga Torah ................................................ 99 L ANGUAGE .......................................................... 99 Names ................................................................ 99 AGING ................................................................100
R e co m m en d a ti o n s . . .. . .. 1 0 2 AFTERCULTURE ................................................102 BOOKS ................................................................102 ONLINE ..............................................................102 MOVIES ...............................................................103 DESIGN I NFLUENCES ......................................103
Tables T ABLE 1: T YPICAL TARGET N UMBERS ................... 14 T ABLE 2: E XAMPLE OF THE PERILS OF MOUNTAIN CLIMBING ......................................................... 15 T ABLE 3:
T YPICAL
TARGET
NUMBERS
FOR
EXTENDED TASKS .......................................... 15
T ABLE 4: MBTI PERSONALITY T YPES .................. 19 T ABLE 5: K IERSEY ’S TEMPERAMENTS ................... 20 T ABLE 6: TEMPERAMENTS & HUMORS .................23 T ABLE 7: TRAITS........................................................ 27 T ABLE 8: T YPICAL TARGET NUMBERS FOR VISION QUESTS ............................................................. 59 T ABLE 9: T ARGET NUMBERS FOR STARTING A FIRE WITH A BOW DRILL WITH VARIOUS TY PES OF WOOD. .............................................................. 64
T ABLE 10: COMMON L ARGE PSILOCYBE AS AN ENTHEOGEN ................................................... 66 T ABLE 11: A YAHUASCA AS AN ENTHEOGE N ....... 67 T ABLE 12: IBOGA AS AN ENTHEOGEN .................. 68 T ABLE 13: MORNING GLORY AS AN ENTHEOGEN ........................................................................... 68 T ABLE 14: PEYOTE AS AN ENTHEOGEN ............... 69 T ABLE 15: FORAGING IN ANAYOK TERRITORY ..97 T ABLE 16: ANAYOK CUISINE .................................. 98 T ABLE 17: COMMON ANAYOK MALE NAMES ...... 99 T ABLE 18: COMMON ANAYOK FEMALE NAMES ..99 T ABLE 19: ANAYOK AGING TABLE ......................100 3
Introduction: The Power of Stories
H
umans are story-telling creatures. Our brains reflexively create stories to unite disparate, random data points into a cohesive narrative: we see faces in rock formations, animals in the clouds, and we resort to magical thinking where complex, chaotic forces overwhelm our ability to consciously follow a progression. In our evolution, we came to rely heavily on meat for protein, fat and energy to keep unusually large brain working. We weren’t particularly fast or strong, and we lacked the razor-sharp talons of some other predators, but our biggest burden— our brains—also gave us our biggest advantage: stories, and communities to tell them to.
The other major advantage those brains gave us was t he ability to tell stories. Humans invented a way of hunting that relied on intelligence rather than raw strength, called tracking—and what is tracking if not a story? The tracker collects pieces of evidence—tracks, scat, signs, etc.—and weaves them together into a story that brings all the evidence together, fills in the gaps, and hopefully can be carried into the future to predict where the animal is now. Science works the same way: theories and hypotheses weave together evidence into a narrative, and we can judge the quality of those scientific “stories” based on how accurately they predict the future, just like we can test a tracker’s “stories” by how well they’re able to find the animal. The more evidence we have, the more likely our stories are to coincide with reality.
Robin Dunbar, a researcher at the University of Liverpool, discovered that the size of the neocortex in primate brains determines the size of the stable groups that species can form. Following the progression for humans gives us “Dunbar’s number” of 150, a number that appears again and again, all around the world, across all cultures, from the size of horticultural villages to the working size of military units throughout history. Forging a community is a lot of work—and it’s mental work, to boot. In a group of 10 people, each of you has 9 relationships (your relationship with each of the nine other people in the group), so the total number of relationships is 90. It’s not enough to just keep track of your relationship with everyone else; for a real, functioning group, you also need to keep track of their relationships with each other. But that number grows exponent ially with the number of people. Adding an eleventh person only adds one more person, but it adds 10 new relationships. At 150 people, there are 22,350 relationships to keep track of. To make it 151, you need to add 150 more. It takes brain power to make a community work, and that’s what that big, expensive brain gave hunter-gatherers: a community.
This is why humans are story-telling creatures— and why we find stories everywhere, in everything. As a conse quence of that, we use stories for everything else in our world. Stories form what we think of ourselves, of our world, of our community, and how those things all relate. The famous anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss suggested that both the psychoanalyst and the shaman operate by “stimulating an organic transformation which would essentially consist in a structural reorganization by inducing the patient intensively to live out a myth—either received or created by him— whose structure would be, at the unconscious level, analogous to the structure whose genesis is sought on the organic level.” In other words, we heal and create ourselves by our “personal myths,” the stories we tell ourselves that tie together our experiences and desires, telling us who we are. Personality itself is simply a specific kind of story, one that ties together our experiences with a narrative about who we are; we can always change our personality by inventing a new story, a new interpretation of our experiences, a new narrative that 2
The Fifth World
ties together our thoughts and actions in a completely different pattern.
inherit the next world. The Mexica, or “Aztecs,” believed that they lived in the Fifth World, while some Maya peoples agreed with the Hopituh Sinom, or “Hopi,” that we now live in the Fourth World.
In Ishmael , Daniel Quinn writes that culture is the story we live in. “ There’s no need to name it or discuss it. Every one of you knows it by heart by the time you’re six or seven. … And you hear it incessantly, because every medium of propaganda, every medium of education pours it out incessantly. … It’s like the humming of a distant motor that never stops, it becomes a sound that’s no longer heard at all. … Belief is not required. Once you know this story, you’ll hear it everywhere in your culture, and you’ll be astonished that the people around you don’t hear it as well but merely take it in.”
The Fifth World is a community project to tell the story of what comes next—some four centuries after the next cataclysm, in which our culture’s story finally undoes itself completely, and of the world created by those that did remember the older story about humanity’s place in the world, and what a world formed by that story would look like. The Fifth World is: Post-Apocalyptic
Stories are powerful. The stories we tell ourselves can put us at war with the world itself, or they can open the door and welcome us home to that very same world. Our personal myths can heal us, or they can shatter us. Our cultural myths can consume the whole world, or they can offer us an opportunity for healing and reconciliation with the same.
It is set after the collapse of civilization. Some try to rebuild it, but find it largely impossible to do so in a vastly changed world. Some mourn its passing and look to it still as a shining example of all that is good in humanity; others despise it as a great evil that nearly destroyed the human race, and m ost of the world with it. Most stand somewhere in between, recognizing its destructive nature, but still holding up symbols from it as the vague memories of a glorious past in which humans reached for godhood, and were ultimately punished for their hubris.
The Fifth World In Ishmael , Daniel Quinn explains the story that unites our civilization: the story of progress, of how humans (the ultimate endpoint of all evolution) eventually emerged and, after a long and uneventful opening act called “prehistory,” eventually claimed our divine destiny to conquer and rule the world as civilized people. Of course, not all people share this story; even today, there are other cultures that tell a very different story, a story about how humans are part of a living world, and everything around us—all other people, all other spirits, all other animals—are all relations. We’re rapidly wiping out these people, not out of malevolence, but because our story is one of conquest, and they are to be conquered. The problem, of course, is that our story doesn’t line up with reality very well, like a scientist with a bad theory or a tracker thrown off the trail. Our story has led to environmental devastation, and is rapidly undermining its own foundations.
Pseudo-utopian
The Fifth World is a world where disease, war, poverty, hunger and so many other problems we take for granted are primarily fading memories. Life isn’t perfect, and there are plenty of problems left, but it is basically a nurturing world that affirms our humanity, and our place in the world. Magical
The Fifth World is our own world in the future, but key to human survival has been humanity’s rediscovery of the basic magical nature of the world. Every culture has its shamans, and everyone knows the world is heavily populated with spirits and powers. This is not mere superstition, but a basic rediscovery of the sensuous reality of the world and the untapped potential of the human animal, the world around us, and the relationship they can forge. David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous is an excellent introduction to this topic for the skeptical, while the kinds of thinking Malcolm Gladwell describes in Blink compare to the shaman’s art in roughly the same manner that a
One story that’s often told throughout the American southwest is one of emergence: that there have been many previous worlds, and in each one, humans lost sight of their relationship with the rest of the world, and brought on a calamity that destroyed that world. Yet in each one, there was a handful that did remember, and they survived to 3
Introduction
baby’s rattle compares to a full symphonic orchestra.
adventure. More recently, as children who grew up playing these hyper-violent “dungeon crawls” have grown up, role-playing games have become more sophisticated, and begun to deal with other kinds of stories.
Open source
The Fifth World is released under a Creative Commons license. The last official word in canon is the wiki available at http://thefifthworld.com , a resource that anyone can edit at will. As such, the story the Fifth World tells becomes a communal story. With this kind of radical collaboration, we can infuse that critical element of communal genesis to turn the Fifth World into a fully functioning mythology.
One of the many media that the Fifth World is expressed in, is the role-playing game. Its synthesis of storytelling and gambling makes it the kind of pastime that people in the Fifth World might very well enjoy. More importantly, while the Fifth World’s open source nature lends itself towards the creation of a mythology, the role-playing game has proven a powerful means of creating personal myths within that. When a group of friends comes together to play a role-playing game set in the Fifth World, their social dynamics are already essentially tribal, and now they’ve come together to imagine what their lives could be like in such a tribal society. The game master is a storyteller who takes on the role of a tribal shaman, weaving the visions and fantasies of the players into a single, imaginal reality. The rituals of dice-rolling open the mystical portal of probability into the realm of the gods. The myth players weave in the Fifth World is a private myth pregnant with possibilities for personal transformation, and part of a larger story of a better way to live. In a sense, the pseudo-utopian dream of the Fifth World is self-fulfilling: in telling the story, we are also creating a new story to live in, and helping to make that story come true just by telling it. This social dynamic is an added dimension that is simply not possibly in books, short stories, or other media.
A shared univ erse
The Fifth World is a setting for anyt hing—novels, short stories, plays, poems, art, anything you can imagine is welcome. It is used by many different authors and artists, working in wildly diverse media, so don’t be afraid to join us!
The Mythos System Besides storytelling, humans have also long enjoyed another activity: gambling. Among the Hadza hunter-gatherers of southern Africa, for instance, gambling and storytelling have long been the primary means to spend their prodigious amount of leisure time. Humans have long used games of chance as a means of discerning the future, or the wills of the gods, from reading the future in chicken entrails or tea leaves, to the casting of the urim and thummim, the two lots described in the Torah used by the High Priest to determine the will of the God of Israel (Exodus 28:30 and Leviticus 8:8).
The Fifth World can be used as a campaign setting for various existing role-playing game systems, but of course, none of these systems espouse the same ethos as the Fifth World itself. The most popular systems, rooted in their wargaming history, are usually the least supportive of the mythologizing the Fifth World evokes. That is why we also have the Mythos System .
Since the 1970’s, though, a new blend of storytelling and gambling has emerged from the hobby of wargaming. Some wargamers began to deal with smaller and smaller engagements, eventually playing a single combatant rather than an army or unit; at which point, they were playing a role, just like the role-playing games children instinctively play, like “cops & robbers.” Wargaming rules provided a more formalized means of providing structure to pure imagination, and introduced games of chance to resolve probabilistic situations, particularly combat. The roots of the modern role-playing game in wargaming has left the hobby with a decided tone of action and adventure. The stories the average role-player engages in are stories of
The Mythos Sy stem provides a system of rules for role-playing games that foster the creation of mythology—personal mythology, group mythology, and the larger-scale mythology of the Fifth World itself. It aims to support an ecologically-inspired view of human nature, human communities, and the relationships between human and non-human communities. Most importantly, the Mythos System develops the same ethos as the Fifth World itself.
4
The Fifth World
recognize the concept of abstract ownership. What they do exhibit is the concept of “ownership-byuse.” This is an ethical control that one should only assert “ownership” over something that they must currently use to meet their basic needs. If we can begin the transition from abstract ownership to ownership-by-use, we will break down the centralized, hierarchal, stratified institutions of society and begin the return to a more egalitarian life.
Ethos The Fifth World project, and the Mythos System, is aimed at creating mythology. The Fifth World itself is a mythology, and the characters players create in it can be powerful personal myths. But mythology inescapably promotes certain virtues, and the virtues this mythology promotes have been very carefully selected and molded. They’ve found no better expression than in “the four virtues.”
Second is the simple instruction to “use little.” This is the first mention (the second virtue elaborates on this concept) of the merits of moderate consumption. It also provides the guidance for how much one should “own-by-using”: little. It does not suggest harsh self-deprivation, but rather the realization that:
These virtues may not often be spoken aloud in the Fifth World, but they are the underlying assumptions of nearly all Fifth World cultures—just as they were the unspoken assumptions of all human cultures before the Agricultural Revolution. The history described in the next chapter details how these virtues became ascendant in human society once again, but to summarize, it was not any kind of great spiritual awakening, but rather a terrible crisis. The only societies that survived were those that embraced these virtues—willingly or unwillingly, consciously or not.
Third, the joys of life are “derived from experience, not consumption.” Use little, experience much, do not assert ownership unnecessarily. This is an introduction to the depths of the first virtue, and the start of the return to a society that is compatible with our genetic ontogeny. The Second Virtue
Besides providing the basic assumptions of nearly all Fifth World cultures, the Four Virtues are also the ethos we’ve pursued in design the Mythos System, in the themes and stories told in the Fifth World, and even suggests what style of play would fit best into the Fifth World setting.
“Simplicity is virtue. The most beautiful form of simplicity is the elegant circle of self-sufficient consumption and crea- tion. In all forms of accounting, do not consume more than you have already created.” Simplicity is the necessary ethical opposite of the over-consumption that drives our civilization: specifically, the elegant simplicity of self-sufficiency. We must strive to achieve more and more localized self-sufficiency, both by localizing production and reducing consumption. This is the key step on the path towards establishing a rhizome world (as opposed to our hierarchal civilization). Rhizome is egalitarian, networked, sustainable. Rhizome can be beautiful: that is what you see when you look to nature.
For even more on the Fifth World ethos, see David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous , included in the bibliography. The First Virtue
“Own only that which you must presently use, for all else is deceit. Use little, as virtue is derived from experience, not consumption.” It’s actually three concepts, all grouped around the interesting use in our culture of the abstract concept of ownership—and the resulting feeling of entitlement to consume anything that we “own.”
The final sentence, “In all forms of accounting, do not consume more than you have already created,” attaches two more key concepts to the principles of self-sufficiency and rhizome. First is that the vaunted free market system of econom ic allocation does indeed work extremely well— if and only if the true nature of all costs are accounted for, as they impact everything and everytime. When making decisions, we must make them with the awareness of all externalities, all “hidden costs” (that are usually in plain sight, but we prefer to ignore them): pollution, loss of genetic capital, unsustainable use of environmental resources, impact on the mental
First is the concept of ownership-by-use. “Modern” civilization seems to accept the abstraction that a person can “own” something—a plot of land, some one else’s house, shares in a company, etc . This abstraction is the glue that holds together the hierarchal structures in our civilization. Without ownership, there can be no hierarchy, no centralization, no stratification, etc . We can see this in the remnant hunter-gatherer groups that do not 5
Introduction
health of people we have never met, etc . Only when all costs are accounted for in price can the free market provide “virtuous” guidance.
divert the stream. Remember: you do not own the stream, and you should not assert ownership-byuse as it is constraining the freedom of another.
Finally, the instruction to “not consume more than you have already created” provides guidance to “save first, then spend what you have saved,” rather than to enter the cycle of perpetual credit, growth and inflation that is the basis of the modern economic model. Elegant stability, not perpetual growth must be our goal, if we are to live sustainably, peacefully and with fulfilled ontogeny.
Finally, this virtue offers guidance in the area of punishment. Punishment in the form of constraint of freedom is worthless: it does not take responsibility for the cost of the act that is being punished. Instead, follow the model of most tribal people, and impose a sanction (such as “the silent treatment”) that is contingent upon the offender taking responsibility (making up for the cost) for the offending action. This can be tricky: how does someone “make up for the cost” of murder? It’s a long discussion, but the ethnographic record demonstrates that tribes do have an effective way of dealing with all forms of transgressions—even murder.
The Third Virtue
“Virtue is found not in secrecy or in the constraint of free- dom, but in acknowledgement, and accepting responsibility for all costs of one’s actions. ”
The third virtue is critical, as it provides the groundwork for a society that can enforce its own norms without the “assistance” of hierarchy or a state superstructure.
First, “Virtue is found not in secrecy.” Anything that you are doing, that should be done, can be done with full disclosure. Any action that is virtuous will actually benefit from a full and constant exposure to the scrutiny of everyone. Who knows—it might even let someone else provide feedback that illustrates a possible improvement. It also touches back on the concept of ownership: secrecy, as a form of intellectual property, is not accepted. Any information that is of value should be shared freely, as this prevents a relapse into the hierarchy of ownership, and ensures that the information provides its maximum benefit though open access by the entire community.
The Fourth Virtue
“Understanding the universe of connection is virtue. Connect with space through silence. Connect with time through expe- rience. Free yourself from ego through awareness. Protect transcendent beauty.” To start with, in order to explain the importance of these virtues, and to prevent the gradual reversion to hierarchy, it is necessary to maintain an ongoing discussion of the nature of the universe, politics, psychology, etc . That nature is one of connection.
Second, virtue is not found in “the constraint of freedom.” “Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law” (Crowley). No action should be proscribed that is not itself a “constraint of freedom.” In other words, you can’t make others act in the way you want them to, and they can’t make you. But you’re welcome to lead by example.
“Connect with space through silence.” Meditation, contemplation, awareness, spirituality, call it what you want, but our evolutionary development has instilled in us a deep desire for connection with nature, a strongly spiritual side. If it is not dealt with in a sustainable, healthy way, then it manifests in hierarchal religions like Consumerism. This must be prevented: go jogging, take a walk in the woods by yourself, try classical meditation. There is no one right way.
Third, the “acknowledgement , and accepting responsibility for all costs of one’s actions.” Ultimately, this comes back to not proscribing the freedom of others. Be aware of the true and total costs of any action (how it impacts others), and then take responsibility for ameliorating those costs—so that you are not constraining their freedom. For example, you’d like to divert a stream for irrigation. You must account for the fact that your neighbor downstream fishes there. Not only account for the cost of the loss of fish for your neighbor, but take responsibility for it: if you can’t ameliorate the cost (provide for another source of fish), then you’re placing a constraint on your neighbor’s freedom, and therefore you must not
“Connect with time through experience.” There’s two points here. First, our life is worth living because of the experiential, not the material. Second, we live a time-binded existence here on Earth. Meaning in time is necessary—tradition, family, seasons, festival, etc . Understanding and working with the experiential is critical to a healthy existence. 6
The Fifth World
“Free yourself from ego through awareness.” Back again to building a defense against hierarchy. The ego is the harness at which point the selfish-meme of society attaches to and controls humans. If we are to break free of that hierarchal pattern, and establish a sustainable pattern that fulfills our ontogeny, then we must break free of ego. Awareness of the nature of ego, combined with a connection to “silence” and “experience” is the key to this transformation.
thirst for revenge all still sit in the human heart, regardless of the society, and while the cultures of the Fifth World have much more nuanced and effective ways to address these problems than the simple cudgel of punishment, human passions can still form the beginning of great stories. The greatest strife most Fifth World cultures will ever see is a case of adultery, which often will end in murder. With a little work in cultural translation, most of Shakespeare’s plays can still be understood, even in the Fifth World (though for how much translation might be necessary, see Laura Bohannon’s article, “Shakespeare in the Bush,” originally published in Conformity and Conflict: Read- ings in Cultural Anthropology , though now available online).
Finally, “Protect transcendent beauty.” We also have a genetically ingrained desire to connect with something greater than ourselves. Lest that become some manifestation of hierarchy, we must appreciate the importance of the nature in our back yard, our family, tradition, place. The extreme mobility, the itinerant nature of modern life breaks down the stability of place in the human past, paving the way to humanity becoming nothing more than massed cogs in the machine. Place is another break on hierarchy. More importantly, place— both physical and psychological—is what makes us truly wealthy.
Negotiated Reality
The essential nature of the universe is conne ction, and how things relate to one another. This is the most basic core of ecology, and a lesson the inheritors of the Fifth World were forced to learn the hard way. Magic is nothing more or less than a negotiation with the non-human communities that surround the human race. Fifth World cultures are concerned, first and foremost, with the relationships between its members, while shamans are the gate-keepers of the human community, who negotiate the human boundaries with the neighboring, non-human communities. These negotiations may often be the source of grand adventure, for as anyone in the Fifth World knows, humans take their life from other spirits, and thus owe their lives to those other spirits. Those spirits may ask many great things in return, and it is incumbent upon humans to fulfill those obligations.
Themes The ethos of the Fifth World and the Mythos System is expressed in a number of common themes. Legacies of the Fourth World
The Fourth World has left many scars on the Fifth. Some spirits are still traumatized, and still nurse a bitter hatred of humans, leading some shamans to dedicate their lives to healing the wounds left by civilization. The Arcanists, for instance, are locked in a constant battle to control the very nanobots their magic relies on, lest they grow out of control and consume the whole living world. Sometimes weapons or ruins left over from civilization can still pose terrible threats, calling for heroic action to save the cultures of the Fifth World from the long shadow of civilization yet again. The Fifth World is mostly healed, but the wounds are simply too deep to expect no scars to remain.
What is in this book? This is the core rulebook for the Mythos System — a rule set for creating personal and small group mythology every week at the gaming table. The Mythos System rules can be used to tell stories in any setting, and creating campaign settings for the Mythos System is not only permitted, but encouraged. This book also contains an introduction to the Fifth World setting the Mythos System is specifically designed for.
Human Passion s
The most common cause for conflict in the Fifth World, though, has noth ing to do with the passage of worlds, and everything to do with the inescapable facts of human nature. Lust, love, and the 7
Introduction
EMERGENCE
TECHNOLOGY
This chapter introduces t he Fifth World setting. It puts the history of civilization into a very different story, and how our story ends. But the end of our story isn’t the end of all stories; the Fifth World is one filled with different stories, and this chapter will help introduce y ou to some of th em.
Humans have always been shaped by their use of tools, and that won’t change just because the world has. This chapter looks at some of the common technologies of the Fifth World for necessities like shelter and clothing, to arts and luxuries.
W ORLD OF THE ANAYOK
PHYSICS OF DREAMS
This chapter pro vides the information players need to run a game in one particular Fifth World culture, that of the Anayok—New Yorkers influenced by the same spirit of place that once inspired the Haudenosaunee (or “Iroquois”). The result is one of the most complex governments in the Fifth World: the Anayo k Union.
This chapter provides the basic rules for the Mythos System. The rules are simple by design, emphasizing the give-and-take dynamics of ecology, and the subtlety of mythology.
PSYCHOGENESIS This chapter details t he pr ocess of creating a character in the Fifth World, and the traits that define a character in game terms.
THE ELEMENTS OF THE SOUL Having covered the process of character creation in the previous chapter, this chapter details the skills, blessings and curses that help to define a character.
NEGOTIATED R EALITIES Once humans remembered that they were not the only living things in the world, they began to form relationships with the living communities around them, and in so doing, rediscovered what their ancestors had so intuitively known: that the world is magical. This chapter describes how the Mythos System implements magic.
SPIRITS A Fourth Worlder might describe this chapter as dealing with equipment or technology, but material possessions are distinctly less important in the Fifth World. Instead, this chapter describes some of the most friendly spirits to humanity; which rock spirits are best for axes or spearheads, which plant spirits will heal wounds and pains, and so forth.
8
The Fifth World
Emergence
H
umans have always intuitively understood history as a cycle, like the cycle of the seasons, or the stars. Many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas understood that in this cycle, many previous worlds had arisen and been washed away. Even in the “Old World,” myths like that of “the Flood” preserved memory of the great shifts in human life. While different cultures numbered which world they currently lived in differently, many kept sacred myths about their “emergence” into the succeeding worlds.
rice and corn: plants adapted to catastrophe. In a process civilized scientists would eventually come to call “succession,” there were sometimes catastrophes like fires or floods; after these swept through, the first plants would be these kinds of grasses. They would move in and spring up quickly, fixing the soil and stopping erosion. Then the brushes would come in, and small trees, and eventually it would become a “climax ecology” again, with maximal biodiversity. These first farmers usually lived near rivers where regular floods made this process a natural part of the annual cycle. The innovation of these farmers was learning that they c ould creat e catastrophes o f their own, and create new catastrophes every year, so their catastrophe-adapted plants could grow easily, and other plants would never succeed. Essentially, they learned to live off the pus and scab the Mother Earth would form to heal her wounds, and so they learned how to wound the earth, and pick the scabs, and continually cut the wound back open to see that it would never heal.
During the Fourth World (by the reckoning of the Hopi and some of the Maya), there was a great change in the climate of the world, and a new form of human society emerged. Those who practiced it imagined it to be the only way of life humans had ever known, but in fact its short ten millennia counted for less than one hundredth of the more than a million years that humans had lived on the planet. When they eventually discovered this, they relegated this fact to a footnote of “prehistory,” and still portrayed their life as the ultimate destiny of their species.
And so, their numbers grew. With that, they needed more food, so they cut more wounds into the earth, and had more food. With more food, their numbers grew again; and so, they cut still more wounds, on and on, and every time they increased their food, their numbers increased as well, until they swarmed over the face of the earth.
But this way of life—they called it civilization— was based on a thing called “farming.” Rather than eating freely of the fruits and plants and animals that were so abundant, the first of these people decided to settle down in a specific place, and give up the roaming nomadism of their ancestors. Some other peoples, as in Australia, walked these routes and called them “songlines,” dreaming themselves back into the creation of the world— and as one of them went on “walkabout,” he recreated the route and sang the same song as his mythical ancestor, making the world anew. From their point of view, settling as these ancestors of civilization did, was to abandon the ancient ways entirely, and to leave the world to eventually undo itself, with no one to renew creation.
Now humans had long lived off the meat of their hunt, and the plants they could gather, but they had never before lived off of wheat, or rice, or corn. It made them sickly and weak. Neither had they ever lived in such close contact with the animals they domesticated, so they became infected with epidemic diseases: plague, smallpox, and worse. But this did not matter, because t hey could always wound the earth more. These farmers were lucky if they lived more than three decades, and wherever farming spread, famine and disease followed close behind.
But settle they did, and before long, they were hungry. They discovered cereal grains like wheat,
9
Emergence
The farmers grew too numerous to be free, and so instituted kings over them, and for the first time, the human heritage of freedom was lost. To the farmers, the ways of the world were threats. The wilderness was land going to waste, land that harbored “pests” that would eat the crops, and the creeping enemy of succession, always trying to heal the wounds they’d so laboriously cut open. They lost their ability to hear the non-human voices around them; they could no longer hear the animals talking, or what the birds were singing about, or what the babbling brook was babbling for, and in time, they convinced themselves that the world was cold and dead, and that only they had intelligence or speech. They closed themselves off from the world, and spoke only to themselves, and became convinced that only human voices had anything to say.
ity’s true place in the world would survive it. The farmers scoffed, and chanted once more their sacred myth that theirs was the only way of life humans could live, their divine destiny given to them by the gods—that humans are set apart from nature, and destined to rule. But of course, they should have noticed the obvious truth, that all unsustainable practices have one thing in common: they’re never sustained.
The Great Purification The Maya pattern ed their calendar after the revolutions of the sun, the moon, and the Morningstar. From these, they devised cycles within cycles, and the greatest of these were the turning of the worlds. On the Winter Solstice in 2012, the Maya predicted that the Fourth World would end. The day came and passed as most days did in that time—200 species were wiped from existence, thousands of people died from war or famine or disease, and the world’s seven billion people toiled for the prosperity of a few hundred. This is what the farmers had come to call “normal.” Many were waiting for a grand cosmic realignment of consciousness in accordance with Maya prophecy; they were disappointed. The Maya calendar was dismissed, and the farmers went on their way. It was only in hindsight that they began to appreciate what had happened.
Such madness would be a quaint aberration, of course, had their ambitions not betrayed them, for those places they continually wounded eventually began to die. The Fertile Crescent became a desert, and the farmers moved. For thousands of years, they fought a losing battle, trying to stay ahead of the consequences of their actions, and all the while their numbers exploded. They discovered how to use the bodies of the dead for fuel, calling them “fossil fuels,” and they grew all the more. They were sickly and weak, but their numbers were overwhelming. They swept across the earth like a tide, washing away all other peoples, all other ways of life, everything and everyone that retained any memory of how to live as part of the world, rather than waging war upon it. Only in the remotest corners did some survive against the constant siege, clinging to the old ways, trying against all hope to preserve the memory of what humans truly always had been.
The same ways they had always lived began to cost more; more time, more energy, more money. There were already wars all around the world, wars in far-off places where oil was abundant. Recessions became more frequent, and lasted longer. The recessions became a depression, and eventually the depression became something unlike anyone had ever seen before. People moved closer to the cities because life there was cheaper than in the country, but the price of food kept going up. There were lines, and in time, the food lines became food riots, and gangs formed to give them leverage in those riots. No one ever challenged the government; it just faded away into obsolescence, as it failed to provide for the basic needs of the people. The farms were swallowed up by erosion and desertification. The Great Plains became the Dust Bowl, a new desert where farming had finally taken its toll, once they could no longer afford any more fertilizer. The food stopped coming to the cities, and once the gangs had taken all the food, they began to prey on one another. That kind of cannibalism could not last very long. The last days of the cities followed quickly after that.
Those peoples who survived were shocked at what the farmers had done to the world. Four tenths of the planet’s surface was criss-crossed by the wounds they had dug into it, to feed. A cataclysmic extinction was underway, as the voices that had enriched those peoples and taught them so much died away. The earth itself began to grow hot, as the farmers burned the bodies of the dead, and their angry spirits mingled in the air swearing vengeance upon the civilization that had done so much evil to the world. One of those people, called the Hopi, one that remembered that other worlds had been swept away, warned that this world, too, would be swept away. They called it “the Great Purification,” and warned that only those who remembered human-
10
The Fifth World
Some cities followed this path more quickly; the others watched on in horror as they saw their future played out for them. On the downward slope, through the recessions and depressions, many ways of conserving and producing were tried. Some cities turned into flourishing gardens in their own right, trying to produce their own food. Such measures slowed their descent, but could not stop it. Some cities were able to glide smoothly into the new world as horticultural villages, but even this was a process fraught with much anguish and despair. In 2012, the human species reached seven billion. By 2100, the human species numbered in the tens of millions.
insects emerged; even small dinosaurs appeared again, from iguanas and lizards grown to enormous sizes.
The Rediscovery of Magic The earliest humans had understood the essent ially magical nature of everything around them; only when the farmers went insane and started talking only to themselves were humans able to forget something so basic. Humans survived the end of their civilization—after all, humans have always been hardy and adaptable creatures, whatever fragile civilizations they may build—but they were forced to make incredible changes along the way. They found their concept of “leadership” to be not only unnecessary, but a cumbersome relic they could no longer afford. They slid easily into the tribal societies they were most adapted to, simply because they were the only ways that worked. Hierarchy and oppression were left behind, not out of idealism, but because they were too expensive. To survive, they needed to turn ultimately to methods like hunting, gathering, and permaculture, though most came to them only grudgingly, as other methods failed. To pursue those means successfully required a basic appreciation of the give-and-take, ebb-and-flow interdependency of ecology. They needed to learn the spirit of their place, and as they did so, whether they liked it or not, whether they wanted it or not, the spirit of the place infused them. They became native—they became part of that ecology.
The New World Perhaps the most crippling legacy the farmers left behind them was the great change of the world. They had pushed and pushed against the earth, burning all the bodies of the dead and making the planet hotter and hotter, until finally they pushed too far, and the planet itself took over. They began an avalanche they were powerless to stop. The earth became hotter and hotter, and as it became hotter, it simply accelerated the process. The ice melted; the seas rose and renegotiated their boundaries with the land; the world was utterly transformed. Only when the Deadlands emerged—an equatorial belt of desert so hot that nothing yet lives there, bleached white by the sun—did the albedo of the planet slow the heating, and reach a new, hotter equilibrium. The world was divided into north and south, and no one has yet crossed the Deadlands between.
To survive, they needed to relearn the magic of the world, and so many of them did. Others did not—and died. Those that survived, did so insofar as they relearned the ancient ability to hear the language of the spirits, the babbling brook, the birds’ songs, and the chatter of the animals. Shamans, though usually called by other names, emerged to tend the boundaries between the human communities, and all the non-human communities they shared their place with. They entered into their local communities of life; they became part of the spirit of their place.
Yet in most ways, the earth began to heal itself almost as soon as the damage stopped. The air became clean again, the waters purified themselves. Antarctica and Greenland became home to verdant forests, and most surprising of all, life returned in abundance. The farmers’ scientists had eventually puzzled out the process of evolution, and they knew that three things could cause sudden explosions of evolution: more energy in the system, as in a hotter world; a recent mass extinction leaving many niches open; and exposure to significant sources of mutation, as with radiation or pollutants. The legacy of the farmers, ironically enough, left all three for the first time. What followed was one of the greatest sudden bursts of evolutionary activity the world had ever seen. Domesticated cows went feral, and became the enormous, monstrous neurochs ; giant
Aftercultures In a few exceptional, isolated pockets, civilization has endured. Small, stone age villages reach as far as the Neolithic, with kings, armies, and diseased, 11
Emergence
sickly peasants who die in their twenties. They dream of conquest, but always find it beyond them. They may dominate a full river valley before they collapse.
taken their inspiration from the same scenes, the same places, the same creatures. The end result is that without planning or conscious direction, the aftercultures have synthesized a civilized legacy, the creativity and values of those who found a way to survive, and a native voice echoing through the spirit of place. Their languages sound like the tongues of their ancestors, trending towards the sounds of the native languages once spoken there. Their aesthetics combine civilized artifacts and artwork that is often startling in its similarity to the native arts that once flourished there.
Much more common are the horticultural villages. The largest villages sometimes exceed 300 people, but not by much. Everyone knows everyone else. Forest gardens and ingenious permacultural techniques provide food. Villages will often trade with one another, or enter into alliances, affiliations, leagues and confederations with one another. Some villages support chiefdoms invested with ceremonial power but bound by the will of the people, though most are bound by consensus.
The Solution to Unsolvable Problems
Egalitarianism is the heart and soul of any sustainable society. Humans simply aren’t adapted to being bossed around. Hierarchical command is a luxury that can only be afforded by specific modes of production, and those are largely the very same modes that ultimately destroy themselves, like agriculture. What remains in the Fifth World are sustainable societies built on permaculture and foraging, where everyone has different and unique talents but no one has the ability to force obedience from another. Those societies that still cling to the old ways of control are few and far between, the relics of a dying world ill-suited to the new reality. The simple reality of the Fifth World is that delusions of grandeur simply end in one’s own destruction.
The most common type of culture, though, is t he hunter-gatherer. Humans are primarily organized into band society: small, egalitarian bands making their way along the ancestral paths, mixing freely with members coming and going from one band to the next. Old & New
The Fifth World is not simply an atavistic throwback to the Stone Age, though; the legacy of civilization is evident, and in many ways, the “aftercultures” that moved beyond civilization owe much to the traumatic growing experience that so nearly wiped out the species. Many horticultural villages that now turn the swamps of the Sunken South into a blossoming Eden were once small, rural towns of the “Bible Belt.” They have of necessity become animists, but their unique past has given it a distinctive fla vor. The Bible is often retained, but interpreted as a pantheistic scripture. Jesus is conflated with First Shaman. The symbols and imagery of Christianity have become an animistic symbolism for them. They call their shamans “pastuhs.”
Disease is a much rarer thing in the Fifth World than in the Fourth. There are far fewer domesticated animals to pass on zoonotic epidemics, and smaller, human-sized commuities provide less opportunity for disease to spread. Other “diseases of civilization” created by the unhealthy lifestyle of civilized people have obviously fallen by the wayside. Even disorders which would seemingly not be affected, like Lyme disease, have dropped off: though carried by ticks, those same ticks are attracted primarily to the chemical signature put off by humans who eat grain. With the general abandonment of grain for a species that was never welladapted to eating it, immune responses and general health have improved greatly. For what diseases remain, there is herbal medicine and even fairly complicated surgery that can be performed by some shamans trained in that art, using obsidian scalpels.
Few pursued it directly, but all have been shaped by the same spirit of place as the indigenous peoples the aftercultures’ ancestors had once exterminated. Their languages were informed by the same ambience, the same winds through the same trees, the same brooks, the same animal calls, the same bird songs—they have had the same materials to make their shelter, the same medium for their art,
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The Fifth World
Physics of Dreams ven in dreams, things do not happen randomly. Mythology—whether it is the tales told by a culture, or the dream-life of one individual—has its own, internal logic. The rules of the Mythos System are intended to help turn the role-playing game into an opening for small group and personal mythology. As such, the rules of the Mythos System emphasize balance, psychological fulfillment, and connection to vast, ancient powers.
movie, or the narrator of a book. The storyteller is the referee for the game rules, provides the setting, and plays the roles of the whole supporting cast, called non-player characters or “NPC’s,” that the players will meet along the way. The rest take up the role of individual characters in the story, the protagonists of the story that the storyteller tells. These players explore the world the storyteller creates, interact with the NPC’s the storytellers plays, and solve the problems the storyteller lays out. The story that is produced is thus a collaborative effort: the storyteller sets the stage, but it’s the action of the players that bring that story to life and make it what it is.
The first and last rule of the Mythos System is: tell a good story . Everything else in this book is a suggestion on how to achieve that. If these rules get in the way of that, ignore them. The second rule is similar, and only slightly less important: the voice of the storyteller is the voice of the gods. What the storyteller says, goes. If the storyteller says the rules are a certain way, then it doesn’t matter what this book says, that’s the way the rules are. Remember, the goal of the game is to tell a good story; the storyteller shouldn’t be out to “get” the players. The storyteller and the players are working together. A role-playing game is a cooperative game. The players are cooperating with one another to fulfill some objective, and the storyteller is presenting obstacles to that objective, but in the final analysis, all of them are cooperating with one another towards the much more important goal of telling a story.
At least two players are necessary—one storyteller, and one player—though a player party is best with at least three. More than eight players may test a storyteller’s ability. Each of the players will need a character sheet, and a pencil. This book includes a character sheet you can copy, or you can download character sheets from the Fifth World wiki at http://thefifthworld.com Each player will also need a selection of ordinary, six-sided dice, which can usually be plundered from other board games, or purchased a dozen or more at a time even from a local convenience store.
With those basics established, we can move on to the “nitty-gritty” questions of playing a roleplaying game under the Mythos System.
This rulebook can be helpful, and other books provide guides for cultures and other aspects of the setting that may be useful to have on hand, but none of these are strictly necessary. The official canon is online, at the Fifth World wiki, at http://thefifthworld.com The wiki will always have the most up-to-date version of the Mythos System rules, and the full canonical treatment of the Fifth World. What source books provide is the convenience of a bound, physical volume to bring to the gaming table, or a consolidation of important information on a given subject into a single volume.
What You Need The Mythos System is designed to be very light on the necessary equipment for play. One player takes on the role of the storyteller, the main driver of the story. In other role-playing games, this person is sometimes called a “game master.” The storyteller is something akin to the director of a
13
Physics of Dreams
number to roll, the extra dice become bonus modifiers. So, for instance, rolling 4k7 is the same as 4k4+3.
Core Mechanics When you reach a point in the story where success or failure is in question, that is when the rules for the Mythos System come into play. The basic mechanic of the Mythos System is called roll and keep, expressed as x k y , for example, 4k2. This notation would indicate that four dice should be rolled; the roller gets to select any two of those dice to keep for his result, adding them together. In almost all cases, this would be the two highest values. So using our above example, you might roll four dice and get a six, a four, a three and a two. You would keep the two highest—the six and the four—for a total of ten. In this example, you rolled a ten.
Success or failure is determined by comparison to a target number , or “TN.” This number might be set by the storyteller, or it might be the result of another character’s roll (this is called a contested roll ). If you beat the target number by rolling a number higher than it, your action succeeds; if not, your action fails.Contested rolls occur in situations where two c haracters are in some kind of competition. If one character is trying to beat another at a foot race, for instance, that would require a contested roll. It’s possible in this case for both characters to roll the same number; this results in a draw, where the characters are exactly even, and neither one is able to succeed over the other.
Various circumstances might add modifiers to your roll. This would be expressed as x k y +z , as in 4k2+5. Let’s say that you rolled the same four dice as above, and got the same results; if you had a +5 modifier, that would indicate that you should add five to your roll. So in the previous example, you didn’t roll a ten; you roll a fifteen.
Open-Ended Six
If you roll a six on any die, you have the option of rolling that die again, and adding the value. So in the example provided above, one of the dice came up with a six. You have the option to roll that die again; let’s say you do, and you roll a two. The
Where the number of dice to keep exceeds the Table 1: Typical ta rget numbers TN
Difficulty
0
Mundane
6
Physical
Mental
Standing up
Remembering your name
Easy
Punching an unmoving target
Recognizing a friend
12
Average
Carrying half your own weight
Finding a misplaced item
24
Hard
Lifting your own weight above your head
Recognizing someone in disguise
36
Very hard
Climbing a mountain with no equipment
Deciphering a Fourth World inscription
48
Heroic
Diving safely from a waterfall
Reciting a speech perfectly, from memory
72
Unprecedented
Surviving a day in the Deadlands
Explaining quantum physics
96
Unbelievable
Lifting a mountain
Apotheosis
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The Fifth World
Table 2: Example of the perils of mountain climbing Roll
1-4
Peril
Nothing happens.
5
You lose your footing. Make a reflexes roll; typical TN of 20 to avoid injury. Failure incurs damage equal to 3k2.
6
You encounter a random mountain predator. Roll again; on another 6, he’s hungry .
value of that die is 6+2, or eight. So when yo u add the results of your two highest dice, you’re not adding six and four, but eight and four—twelve.
ice spirits weep would certainly require several raises. In the case of contested rolls, the raise is essentially a bonus modifier to the opposing character. So if two characters are engaged in a contested roll for some action that requires a 4k2 roll from both of them, and one player takes a raise, it is the same as comparing the result of a 4k2 roll to a 4k2+6 roll.
If you had instead rolled another six, you can roll it yet again. You can keep rolling that die, and adding the numbers together, as long as it keeps coming up with a six—that’s why it’s called openended. So if you re-rolled the six, and got another six, and then rolled it again, and got a three, the total result on that die would be 6+6+3, or fifteen. So the result of your roll in that case would be 15+4, or nineteen.
Traits & Skills The next two chapters will go into much greater detail about traits and skills. For now, it will suffice to say that traits define who a character is; skills define what a character knows.
Raises
A character can try to achieve a grander result at the cost of a higher risk of failure. This is called a raise . The effects are more spectacular, but the target number is increased by six for each raise. Singing a song might have an easy enough target number, but singing it so lyrically that it makes the
Some tasks test a character’s trait—who the character fundamentally is. Lifting something heavy, for instance, may not involve anything the character knows, but rather is a simple test of the charac-
Table 3: Typical target numbers for extended tasks TN
Physical
Mental
100
Running to the next campsite
Reciting an epic poem
500
Canoeing down a river
Carving a totem pole
1,000
Climbing Kilimanjaro
Achieving Enlightenment
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Physics of Dreams
ter’s strength in the purest sense. This would require a trait roll . In a trait roll, the character rolls t kt , where t is the character’s score in that trait. A character with a strength score of 3 trying to lift something heavy would roll 3k3; the target number would be set by the storyteller, based on how heavy the object is (for lifting things, a good rule is to set the target number as the object’s weight in pounds, divided by ten, or its weight in kilograms, divided by four).
life the character faces throughout the game, and handled in the same fashion. Players can just as easily make skill or trait rolls to use their environment as a weapon, as engage in direct mêlée. Close quarters combat, in its purest form, is simply a series of contested rolls. Normally, each player rolls her strength, and keeps her dexterity. The number by which one player exceeds the other is the amount of damage that player deals to his opponent.
More often, however, a task will test a character’s skills. These are skill rolls . Every skill is associated with a particular trait. The roll for any given skill is s +t kt , where s is the character’ score in the particular skill, and t is the character’s score in the rele vant trait.
For example, if Kateri, with a strength of 3 and a dexterity of 4, is fighting Sosen, with a strength of 5 and a dexterity of 2, then there is a contested roll of 3k3+1 for Kateri, and 5k2 for Sosen. If the result of Kateri’s roll is a 17, and Sosen rolls a 7, then Kateri wins that round of combat, and deals Sosen 10 points of damage. Damage and health points are discussed in the next two chapters on character rules.
If a player is trying to track a bear, this involves the tracking skill, which is associated with intelligence. If the player has a score of two in the tracking skill, and a score of three in intelligence, the player’s tracking roll is 5k3.
The storyteller may assign other modifiers at her discretion, to reflect advantages or disadvantages such as terrain, cover, concealment, flanking and other tactical considerations. Such modifiers should be decided before any dice are rolled.
Skills also have emphases, being a particular specialization in the skill. Characters are free to take no emphasis whatsoever in most skills, making them generalists. Generalists in a skill simply follow the rule above. For characters that specialize, however, the skill rank also becomes a modifier.
Weapons & Combat Skill s
For other types of combat, such as long range combat, the regular mechanics apply. A character firing a bow will need to make a roll against his archery skill; the target number would be set by the target’s reflexes roll, with bonuses for range, concealment, and other factors.
If the same player above had instead taken the tracking emphasis in big game, his emphasis would be an asset in tracking the bear (which counts as big game). Then, the roll becomes 5k3+2 (two is the character’s score in tracking). However, specialization can also hurt a character. If the same character were to next try to track a rabbit—small game—then his specialized training hurts him. His roll is now 5k3-2. He must subtract two from whatever result he rolls.
There are a number of combat skills which can modify this type of encounter. For instance, a character wielding a club, who has invested in the clubs skill, would be able to use a skill roll against clubs, rather than the usually strength/dexterity trait roll. If Sosen instead had invested 3 ranks in clubs (a strength-based skill), rather than rolling 5k2, she would be wielding her club for 8k5. With that, she might instead roll a 20. Instead of losing the fight with Kateri, she would instead deal Kateri three points of damage.
Combat War is a rare thing in the Fifth World, and even assault is a peculiar thing—almost always the result of a jilted lover, or a jealous rival, or a relative of some other family seeking revenge for a previous murder. Combat does happen, even in the Fifth World. The Mythos System can also be applied to other, more violent settings, as well. Even so, the Mythos System breaks from many other roleplaying game systems in that it does not give combat any special pride of place. Combat, when and where it occurs, is simply another part of the same
Armor
Hide and leather, shields, and other items are sometimes used as armor by Fifth Worlders. The effect of armor is to absorb some of the damage sustained in combat. If, in the example above, Sosen was wearing leather armor that absorbed 16
The Fifth World
two points of damage, then Kateri’s same club attack would only deal her one point of damage (3 points of damage – 2 points absorbed by Sosen’s leather armor = 1 point of damage actually dealt to Sosen).
At other times, each interval may come with its own possible perils. For example, climbing a mountain entails a number of dangers. Each roll constitutes an hour’s effort, and each roll brings with it a cha nce of some adverse event. Each time you roll towards the mountain-climbing goal, roll one die, and compare its result to the values on table 3 to see what happens. The storyteller may substitute similar tables for different mountains, or for other tasks entirely.
Extended Tasks Climbing a mountain, traveling up a river, meditating—there are many dramatic tasks a character may need to fulfill, where success is open to question. In these cases, several rolls are added against a single, very large target number. Each roll counts for some relevant measure of time— perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, as the task would indicate. The more rolls it takes to reach the target number, the longer the task takes to complete.
At still other t imes, a task may be simply be yond a given character. This limit is equal to the character’s skill score, plus the appropriate trait. For tasks of this nature, failing to meet the target number in that number of rolls constitutes a failure to complete the task itself. Some tasks—like cooking, building a shelter, etc .— are communal affairs where everyone works together. For these, the basic idea of adding together rolls until the TN is reached is still used, but a number of characters can all roll together to wards that goal.
Sometimes there may be no pressure to complete a task in a given timeframe. At other times, however, there may be constraints to take into consideration. A character may need to complete a task in some time frame decided by the storyteller— meaning that only a limited number of rolls are possible.
17
Physics of Dreams
Psychogenesis
T
he previous chapter established all the rules necessary for determining the interaction between characters in the Mythos System, but it has already raised the question of how those characters are defined in the system—how skills, traits, health points and other statistics are allotted.
First, it must be understood that every player character is a symbol. It is ultimately a persona , in terms of Jungian psychology: a symbol of the self, presented in order to interact in a given social setting. We all cultivate a persona that we use in dealing with others; our “public face,” the image of ourselves that we project to others and try to fulfill when we are not in private, not allowed to “be ourselves.” The player character is thus always a kind of persona—in this case, presented for the social setting of the role-playing game—but it can also be a powerful tool for exploring other parts of our minds.
The most important elements of a character in the Mythos System are precisely the same elements that define a character in literature or art: motivation, conflict, personality, and so forth. The mechanical expression of that character in game terms is a reflection of that, not its core. It is one level of expressing a character, just like a genetic sequence, a caricature, an autobiography, or an obituary might all be ways of reflecting a person in our world. The expression of the character on a character sheet is simply that reflection that fits into the game mechanics. In exactly the same way that a genetic sequence or a caricature or even an autobiography all provide an incomplete and imperfect picture of a p erson, so, too, does the character sheet. That’s why you should try to express your character in more than just game mechanics. Write out your character’s life story, interview your character, think of your character not just as a collection of statistics and abilities, but as a person.
Characters as players are a very simple kind, wherein the character’s personality is nearly identical to the player’s. It essentially places the player in a different setting, allowing the player to explore his or her own reactions to a different world. Aesthetic symbols are expressions of art on the player’s part—characters that are interesting, funny, dramatic, tragic and so on in their own right. Aesthetic symbols serve the same purpose as writing a good story or painting a beautiful landscape might, in the pursuit of art for its own sake. Cognitive symbols are exercises in empathy. They challenge the player to see the world from a very different point of view, and cultivate empathy for people and viewpoints they might not have much patience for at the beginning.
Character Symbols
Exaggerated symbols are paragons of what a player believes to be her own virtues: intelligent players create genius characters, or sociable players might create hedonistic, womanizing characters. Exaggerated symbols affirm a player’s sense of self worth, and can help train the player’s confidence and self-esteem by indulging in fantasies about the usefulness and scope of one’s talents.
In “Therapy is Fantasy: Roleplaying, Healing and the Construction of Symbolic Order,” John Hughes laid out a typology of player characters. As a player, it might be important to understand what kind of character you are playing, so you can tailor your character to better express that purpose. Each of the player character types has significance and value, but you as a player should understand what kind of character you are creating.
Compensating symbols are personifications of traits a player does not believe she has. The compensating symbol is one of the most difficult, and most rewarding, types. Though they require enormous 18
The Fifth World
emotional investment, they can also help the player learn how to express traits she might not think she has. The compensating symbol is a powerful tool for changing your personality, by training your responses and challenging your story about yourself.
the most famous books ever written about the nature of mythology, is perhaps one of the best known people to follow Jung’s work. Jungian psychology also reflects many of the same themes one finds in ecology, such as its emphasis on balancing opposing forces. Jungian psychology has provided a major influence in the rules for the Mythos System, so using Jungian psychology to help flesh out your character is a natural progression. One easy way to do this is with the MyerBriggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI begins with Jung’s work on opposing “complexes,” beginning with extroversion and introversion—terms that Jung originally came up with. These are often misunderstood, but refer most accurately to your “favorite world,” or where you draw your energy from. Are you energized by your interactions with other people, or do such interactions leave you feeling “drained”? Do you need to “recharge” with some time by yourself, or does time alone simply leave you feeling bored and tired? Jung later discovered two other axes, dealing with how we obtain information, and how we make decisions. When gathering information, do we rely on the direct sensuous experience itself, or do we add meaning and invest those impressions with the interpretations of our imaginations? This is the distinction between Sensing and Intuition. When making decisions, do we try to be deliberate and weigh the alternatives with careful consideration, or do we trust our emotions? This is the distinction between Thinking and Feeling.
Personality Types The work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung has had a far greater impact on literature and mythology than on scientific psychology. Joseph Campbell, the author of Hero With a Thousand Faces , one of Table 4: MBTI Personality Types Sensing
Intuiting
Thinking
Feeling
Thinking
Feeling
Introversion
ISTJ
ISFJ
INTJ
INFJ
Extraversion
ESTJ
ESFJ
ENTJ
ENFJ
Introversion
ISTP
ISFP
INTP
INFP
Extraversion
ESTP
ESFP
ENTP
ENFP
Judging
Perceiving
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Psychogenesis
Myers-Briggs added another dimension, based on structure—when dealing with the outside world, do we prefer to make a final decision, or remain open to new possibilities? This is the distinction between Judging and Perceiving.
two or three would indicate an introverted, sensing, thinking or judging personality, while a four, five or six would indicate an extraverted, intuiting, feeling or perceiving personality. Some skills also have bonuses for specific personality types—for instance, most social skills come with a +1 bonus modifier for extraverted personality types, while introverts enjoy similar bonuses for skills such as meditation.
According to Jung, all of these axes exist in relationship to one another, in what he called “inferior” and “superior” functions. They are all valuable, but they are also at odds with one another. So, an individual who is very good at Judging suffers at Perceiving, and the cost of Sensing is Intuition. Thus, none of these are “good” or “bad” in and of themselves—rather, a “healthy” psychology emphasizes the balance of these competing functions.
THE INSPECTOR MBTI: ISTJ (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging Type) Temperament group: Guardians (SJ) Dominant: Introverted Sensing Auxiliary: Extraverted Thinking Tertiary: Introverted Feeling Inferior: Extraverted Intuition
From these four axes of psychology, Myers and Briggs developed the test that bears their name, dividing personalities into one of sixteen broad types, indicated by a series of initials (I for intro version or E for extraversion; S for sensing or N for intuition; T for thinking or F for feeling; and J for judging or P for perceiving). David Kiersey’s work on temperaments has built on the MBTI, coming up with characteristics of what people are like when they combine certain superior functions from those four axes.
ISTJs direct their energy towards the inner world of ideas and information. They try to clarify concepts and information, seeking to have as clear a knowledge as possible. They often place a lot of trust in experience, but also envisage future goals providing there is a clear pathway to that goal.
THE SUPERVISOR
The MBTI can b e used in your game the same way that “alignment” is used in other role-playing games. Some spells may only affect introverted characters, or judging characters. Random character personalities can be generated by rolling four dice, and assigning one result to each axis; a one,
MBTI: ESTJ (Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging Type) Temperament group: Guardians (SJ) Dominant: Introverted Thinking
Table 5: Kiersey’s temperaments Sensing
Thinking
Intuiting
Feeling
Thinking
Feeling
The Rationals
The Idealists
Introversion
The Guardians
Judging Extraversion
Introversion
The Artisans
Perceiving Extraversion
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Auxiliary: Introverted Sensing Tertiary: Extraverted Intuition Inferior: Introverted Feeling
ESTPs direct their energy towards the outer world of actions and spoken words. The solve problems, take action and actualise ideas and concepts— bringing them more to fruition. They are therefore action oriented problem solvers, and often prefer to work with practical organizational issues.
ESTJs direct their energy towards the outside world of actions and spoken words. They introduce a logical organisation and structure into the way things are done. The y prefer dealing with facts and the present, and are likely to implement tried and trusted solutions to practical problems in a businesslike and professional manner.
THE CRAFTER MBTI: ISTP (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving Type) Temperament group: Artisans (SP) Dominant: Introverted Thinking Auxiliary: Extraverted Sensing Tertiary: Introverted Intuition Inferior: Extraverted Feeling
THE PROVIDER MBTI: ESFJ (Extraverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging Type) Temperament group: Guardians (SJ) Dominant: Extraverted Feeling Auxiliary: Introverted Sensing Tertiary: Extraverted Intuition Inferior: Introverted Thinking
ISTPs direct their energy toward the inner world of thoughts (and, maybe, emotions). They analyse situations and come up with explanations of how things work. They prefer dealing with tangible problems and proven experience - they often enjoy solving organisational problems that need to be thought through.
ESFJs direct their energy towards the outer world of actions and spoken words. They seek to build harmony in personal relationships, engendering team spirit and being an encouragement to others. They like dealing with people, and organise life on a personal basis.
THE PERFORMER MBTI: ESFP (Extraverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving Type) Temperament group: Artisans (SP) Dominant: Extraverted Sensing Auxiliary: Introverted Feeling Tertiary: Extraverted Feeling Inferior: Introverted Intuition
THE PROTECTOR MBTI: ISFJ (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging Type) Temperament group: Guardians (SJ) Dominant: Introverted Sensing Auxiliary: Extraverted Feeling Tertiary: Introverted Feeling Inferior: Extraverted Intuition
ESFPs direct their energy towards the outside world of actions and spoken words. They get things done, and get them done quickly, and they prefer doing things with and for people. They seek to live life to the full and create experiences for others as well. They enjoy solve urgent problems, such as fire-fighting or trouble shooting.
ISFJs direct their energy towards the inner world of thoughts and emotions. They try to clarify ideas and information, particularly when it relates to people and important relationships. They are quiet, serious observers of people, and are often both conscientious and loyal.
THE COMPOSER
THE PROMOTER
MBTI: ISFP (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving Type) Temperament group: Artisans (SP) Dominant: Introverted Feeling Auxiliary: Extraverted Sensing Tertiary: Introverted Intuition Inferior: Extraverted Thinking
MBTI: ESTP (Extraverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving Type) Temperament group: Artisans (SP) Dominant: Extraverted Sensing Auxiliary: Introverted Thinking Tertiary: Extraverted Feeling Inferior: Introverted Intuition
21
Psychogenesis
ISFPs direct their energy towards the inner world of thoughts and emotions. They give importance to particular beliefs or opinions, particularly those that relate to people that they know and current experiences. They tend to take a caring and sensitive approach to others.
ENTPs direct their energy towards the outer world of actions and spoken words. They try to create new potential, changing things to see if any improvement can be made, and generally working towards a better future. They are often trying challenging the status quo and instigating change.
THE FIELD M ARSHAL
THE ARCHITECT
MBTI: ENTJ (Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging Type) Temperament group: Rationals (NT) Dominant: Extraverted Thinking Auxiliary: Introverted Intuition Tertiary: Extraverted Sensing Inferior: Introverted Feeling
MBTI: INTP (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving Type) Temperament group: Rationals (NT) Dominant: Introverted Thinking Auxiliary: Extraverted Intuition Tertiary: Introverted Sensing Inferior: Extraverted Feeling
ENTJs direct their energy towards the outer world of actions and spoken words. They organise and structure the world according to logical principles, tending to control life - organising systems and people to meet task oriented goals and trying to improve the way things are done.
INTPs direct their energy towards the inner world of thoughts and emotions. They structure and organise their ideas, coming up with theories and explanations to explain new areas of scientific research or experience. They often seek to understand the full complexity of any situation and enjoy solving difficult intellectual problems.
THE M ASTERMIND
THE TEACHER
MBTI: INTJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging Type) Temperament group: Rationals (NT) Dominant: Introverted Intuition Auxiliary: Extraverted Thinking Tertiary: Introverted Feeling Inferior: Extraverted Sensing
MBTI: ENFJ (Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging Type) Temperament group: Idealists (NF) Dominant: Extraverted Feeling Auxiliary: Introverted Intuition Tertiary: Extraverted Sensing Inferior: Introverted Thinking
INTJs direct their energy towards the inner world of thoughts and emotions. They use their imaginations to come up with new ideas, possibilities and perspectives. They often organize their lives on a logical basis, and produce plans and strategies to put their ideas into practice.
ENFJs direct their energy towards the outer world of actions and spoken words. They try to build harmony in important personal relationships. Their lives are organised on a personal basis, see king to develop and promote personal growth in people they value.
THE INVENTOR
THE COUNSELOR
MBTI: ENTP (Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving Type) Temperament group: Rationals (NT) Dominant: Extraverted Intuition Auxiliary: Introverted Thinking Tertiary: Extraverted Feeling Inferior: Introverted Sensing
MBTI: INFJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging Type) Temperament group: Idealists (NF) Dominant: Introverted Intuition Auxiliary: Extraverted Feeling
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Table 6: Temperaments & humors Hippocrates’ four humors
Blood
Black Bile
Yellow Bile
Phlegm
Seasons
Spring
Autumn
Summer
Winter
Characteristics
Courageous, amorous
Despondent, sleepless
Easily angered
Calm, unemotional
c. 325 BCE
Aristotle’s four sources of happiness
Hedone (Sensuous pleasure)
Propraitari (Acquiring assets)
Ethikos (Moral virtue)
Dialogike (Logical investigation)
c. 190 CE
Galen’s four temperaments
Sanguine
Melancholic
Choleric
Phlegmatic
c. 1550 CE
Paracelsus’ four totem spirits
Changeable Salamanders
Industrious Gnomes
Inspired Nymphs
Curious Sylphs
1905 CE
Adicke’s four world views
Innovative
Traditional
Doctrinaire
Skeptical
1914 CE
Spränger’s four value attitudes
Artistic
Economic
Religious
Theoretical
1920 CE
Kretchmer’s four character styles
Hypomanic
Depressive
Hyperaesthetic
Anaesthetic
1947 CE
Erich Fromm’s four orientations
Exploitative
Hoarding
Receptive
Marketing
1958 CE
Myers’s cognitive types
SP
SJ
NF
NT
1978 CE
Kiersey’s four temperaments
Artisan
Guardian
Idealist
Rational
c. 400 BCE
23
Psychogenesis
Tertiary: Introverted Thinking Inferior: Extraverted Sensing
If you’re not sure where to go with your character, you may want to work in reverse—rather than starting with a character concept and fleshing that out in game terms, you may prefer to fill in the game terms (particularly blessings & curses), and fill in your character’s personality by trying to weave a story around those tracks, connecting the dots into a narrative of the character’s history, outlook and attitude.
INFJs direct their energy towards the inner world of thoughts and emotions. They use their imagination to come up with new ideas, possibilities and insights, especially in relation to people and important beliefs. They are often good at developing insight into people, though it can often remain unexpressed.
1. W HAT CULTURE ARE YOU FROM?
THE CHAMPION
Cultural homogeneity was one of the hallmarks of the Fourth World, as the farmers wiped out all other ways of life. In the Fifth World, cultural diversity has been restored, and each culture differs incredibly from the next. Even in other settings, the Mythos System still places a great deal of emphasis on culture. Culture can change a lot about a character, and in the Fifth World especially, not all cultures are realistically in contact with one another, so your storyteller might designate a culture your character comes from. You need to understand the ideas of this culture, how they live and think, to understand the world your character is coming from.
MBTI: ENFP (Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Percieving Type) Temperament group: Idealists (NF) Dominant: Extraverted Intuition Auxiliary: Introverted Feeling Tertiary: Extraverted Thinking Inferior: Introverted Sensing
ENFPs direct their energy towards the outer world of actions and spoken words. They seek to de velop new potential, explore new possibilities and create new situations that yield the expectation of something better. They often enjoy work that in volves experimentation and variety.
THE HEALER
2. W HAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR CUL TURE?
MBTI: INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Percieving Type) Temperament group: Idealists (NF) Dominant: Introverted Feeling Auxiliary: Extraverted Intuition Tertiary: Introverted Sensing Inferior: Extraverted Thinking
Even in the Fifth World, not everyone is satisfied with their cultural heritage. Most cultures have some kind of outlet for that. Is your character the kind of person to take those routes? Is your character an iconoclast? Does your character lurk at the edges of her culture, or is she a pillar of her community?
INFPs direct their energy towards the inner world of thoughts and emotions. They give importance to particular ideas or beliefs, focusing on those things that they belief in most strongly. They prefer dealing with patterns and possibilities, especially for people. They prefer to undertake work that has a meaningful purpose.
3. W HAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT HUMAN NATURE? Does your character believe that humans are basically good, evil, or indifferent? Some people in the Fifth World believe that the sins of the Fourth World prove the essential evil of humanity; others say that humanity’s rehabilitation in the Fifth World proves our capacity for good. None can any longer afford to ignore the fact that humanity is inseparable from the ecology they inhabit, just like any other creature that lives in that ecology.
Game of Twenty Questions Once you understand what kind of character you’re creating, it’s time to get to know your character. Sit down with your character and ask her some questions; get to know her. 24
The Fifth World
mental illness that sometimes afflicts the young. As such, some cultures have arranged marriages, some have ideas about marriage quite similar to contemporary ones, and still others are conflicted between competing notions of what marriage means.
4. W HO ARE YOUR PARENTS? Does your character know her parents? Who are they? What does she think of them? In most Fifth World cultures, discipline is handled by uncles, or diffused across the entire community, leaving little of the resentment that arises for a sole disciplinarian. Autonomy is usually respected, so the tension of adolescence is abated, and “teenage angst” relatively unheard of. Even so, conflicts do arise between children and their parents all the same. A cheating father or a promiscuous mother can lead to the sort of feelings of jealousy, hurt and eventually violence that can tear even a tribal family apart. These things can still affect children in the Fifth World every bit as powerfully as they do in the Fourth.
8. W HAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR ENERGY ? Everything in the universe is energy; the diversity of the universe lies in all the forms that energy can take. As we’ll see later on, the Mythos System has three basic uses of energy: projecting it (Force), controlling it (Grace), and storing it (Power). Each of these has physical and mental aspects, and each has an archetype associated with it. Which of these uses of energy is most important to your character is the best indication of which archetype your character best falls into.
5. DO YOU HAVE ANY SIBLINGS? Brothers and sisters share more than just genetic material, they also usually share your experience and trials. Tribal cultures often extend the definition of “sibling” in a number of ways. “Blood brothers” are respected as much as birth brothers, and in some cultures, sharing the same name creates a bond of kinship. In many cultures, twins are believed to share a magical connection.
9. W HO DO YOU TRUST MOST? Who is closest to yo ur character? Who do es your character trust? The previous questions about siblings, parents, and spouses might provide an obvious answer to this question, but again, they might not answer it at all. Is it a respected elder? A secret lover? Your best friend? Who your character trusts will tell you a great deal about who your character is.
6. W HAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE ? Just as it does now, appearance counts for quite a bit in the Fifth World. What does your character look like? What distinguishing characteristics does your character have?
10. W HAT IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH ? What is your character’s m ost valuable asset ? What is he best at? What can he do better than anyone else? This is more than just what others think his strength is—or even what he himself thinks it is. What is really his greatest strength? And if it isn’t what he thinks it is, why is that? Is his greatest strength something he has trouble accepting?
7. ARE YOU MARRIED? Some cultures are monogamous; most are polygamous. Your character may have several spouses, or you may be part of a harem. Your character may be a bachelor. Much of this will have to do with your character’s age, and your culture’s attitude on marriage. The idea that marriage has something to do with love is a very peculiar notion to Western Europe, having arisen only in the Middle Ages with the troubadours. However, it proved a powerful concept, and the spread of civilization before its collapse has left a lingering memory of this powerful idea. Many more cultures embrace the idea of love forming the foundations of marriage in the Fifth World than before civilization’s spread, while others retain the more traditional view that romantic love is a passing
11. W HAT IS YOUR GREATEST WEAKNESS ? What is your character’s deepest vulnerability? Does you character know what it is? If your character were thrown into a tragedy, what would be his “tragic flaw”? Is his weakness a physical defect? A past trauma? A personal failing?
25
Psychogenesis
12. W HAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING ?
17. W HAT IS YOUR GREATEST AMBITION?
What does your character most enjoy doing? Most cultures in the Fifth World enjoy far greater leisure time than people did in the Fourth; how does your character spend that time? Is he a storyteller that stays near the campsite? Are you the one usually asked to watch the children? Do you spend most of your time gambling and playing games of chance, or do you prefer to spend your time training and exercising?
Even in the Fifth World, people have ambitions. They have hopes and aspirations, goals they are working towards. They may aspire to achieve some goal for their community, or prove themselves in some way. The tribal cultures of the Fifth World support personal quests for individual achievement, so long as you risk no one but yourself. What does your character hope to achieve in his life? It may be simple or grand, secret or public, but to understand your character, you will need to understand where your character is hoping to go.
13. W HAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING?
18. W HAT IS YOUR STANDING IN YOUR COMMUNITY ?
What is it that your character hates doing? What does he most try to avoid? What activities will he only engage in under duress, when he absolutely has to?
Community is much more important in the Fifth World, and your character’s standing in his community is incredibly important. Fifth World cultures supply many roles, and normalize many ways of life that are marginalized in the Fourth, but they do expect everyone to fulfill their role. What does your tribe or band or clan think of your character? How does that impact him?
14. W HAT ARE YOUR PREJUDICES? Most Fifth World cultures nurse prejudices against their neighbors. What are your character’s prejudices? Does she share the prejudices of her culture (as would be most likely), or does she nurse prejudices of her own?
19. W HAT IS YOUR MAIN MOTIVATION ? 15. W HAT ARE YOUR QUIRKS?
What motivates your character, at the most basic level? Strong motivations, like love, revenge, or redemption, will give a character the strength to persevere even in the face of terrible adversity. What drives you?
What are your character’s distinctive mannerisms? What are her quirks? What does she do with her hands or feet when she’s bored? Nervous? Does she have any ticks or compulsions? Rarely does this kind of behavior reach the level of pathology where it interferes with regular functioning, but most of us have at least some unique habits of this sort.
20. W HAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR CHARACTER ? If you could sit down with your character now, what adv ice would you give her ? You can see her better than she can see herself—you know the secrets she keeps from herself, the things in herself she refuses to see. She might not be willing to listen to you, or she might not be able to listen to you, but what advice would you offer her, nonetheless?
16. W HAT SETS YOU OFF? We all have our emotional “buttons,” sore points relating to things we’re sensitive about, usually because of some buried trauma in our past. What are your character’s “buttons”? What is she liable to “blow up” over? These things needn’t be logical or rational, at least not on a conscious level, but it should be rooted in something painful—all the more so if it is a pain your character is unwilling (or unable) to come to terms with.
26
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The Mechanics of Character
points it takes to advance a rank varies, but is al ways some multiple o f ten. When the threshold is reached, the rank increases by one.
Now that you’ve started to understand your character, it’s time to describe your character in game terms. The Mythos System captures a character in terms of four things:
Traits
• • • •
Everything in the universe is energy. The diversity of existence is provided by all the forms that energy can take. The Mythos System recognizes three basic things that can be done with energy: you can project it, or you can control it, or you can store it. Each of these can be expressed in physical or mental aspects—you can project physical or mental energy, you can control physical or mental energy, or you can store physical or mental energy. Every character has at least some capacity in each of these regards, but as Jung argued, there are infe- rior and superior functions. Traits are related and connected to each other, so a gain in one trait can help some traits, but hinder others.
Traits Skills Health, Stamina & Spirit scores Blessings & Curses
We’ll next describe the rules that govern these measures of character, though such specifics as what skills a character can learn, or what blessings a character may receive, are left for the next chapter.
Training Points
Another measure of a culture is how it honors three basic human urges: the inclination towards beauty of art, the desire to measure and manipulate the manifest world, or science, and the pull of the in visible and transcendental which animates religion. Art, science and religion each generate marvelous insights and experiences—and each is susceptible to obsession and to marginalizing the others. When this happ ens on a grand scale, h istory has its moments of obsession such
Every skill and trait is defined by a numerical score or rank; this number is used in trait or skill rolls, as an expression of your character’s proficiency, familiarity, or talent. These ranks are advanced by allotting training points, an expression of your character’s experience with that trait or skill. Every successful skill roll generates a training point in that skill; every successful trait roll generates a training point in that trait. The number of training Table 7: Traits Trait
Aspect
Strength
Physical
Base
Analogue
Inverse
Charisma
Intelligence
Force Charisma
Mental
Strength
Dexterity
Dexterity
Physical
Intelligence
Wisdom
Grace Intelligence
Mental
Dexterity
Constitution
Constitution
Physical
Wisdom
Charisma
Constitution
Strength
Power Wisdom
Mental
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as the Inquisition. These unbalanced times are easy to spot in hindsight, but we tend to be hypnotized when they happen in the present (as in our blindness to today’s dictatorship of Big Science).
The inverse function of Force is Grace: the more energy one is manipulating, the more difficult it is to direct in a precise manner. Grace
When these three forces are gracefully balanced, they free our attention to move in another direction, which in the Triple Ripple design of the Afterculture is the opening at the very center of the three ripples. This might be called the directionless direction—the Great Mystery— and it lies beyond the confines of any discipline or methodology. Moving in this direction, people and institutions flower, wisdom grows, and golden ages unfold.
Grace is an individual’s ability to control or manipulate energy. When expressed physically, it is called Dexterity ; mentally, Intelligence . As physical dexterity, Grace moves energy through the body in a precise and controlled fashion. As intelligence, Grace moves the mental energy of cognition and intellect in precise and controlled ways. The application of Grace is Art : the careful sculpting of energy toward a desired effect.
In game terms, the balance of these traits, and the notion of superior and inferior functions, is expressed in terms of the training points required to advance a given trait.
The inverse function of Grace is Power: it is easier to manipulate the energies around oneself if one has less of it in oneself to worry about.
To raise a trait’s rank by one requires ten t imes its inverse. The inverse of a specific trait is the opposite aspect of its base’s inverse. So, for example, strength is the physical aspect of Force. Force’s inverse is Grace, and the opposite aspect of physical is mental, so the direct inverse of strength is the mental aspect of Grace—intelligence. This can be hard to keep track of, so table 7 can be helpful. So if a character maintains a low intelligence score, it can be easy to advance a very high strength score, but this would be a very unbalanced character—extremely strong, but also very dim-witted. Meanwhile, strength is itself the inverse of wisdom, so that character’s high strength score comes at the cost of making wisdom very difficult to gain (since each new rank in wisdom will require a number of training points ten times the character’s high strength score).
Power
Power is an individual’s ability to contain energy. When expressed physically, it is called Constitution ; mentally, Wisdom . As physical constitution, Power makes a body tougher, more resistant to the outside elements or pain, with greater health and endurance. As wisdom, Power is the potency of one’s spirit. The application of Power is Religion : the cultivation of one’s own power through connection to other powerful beings. The inverse function of Power is Force: the more energy one has, the less one needs to exert it, leading to atrophy.
Skills
The result of this is, as in Jungian psychology, the importance of maintaining a balance across a character’s traits.
While traits d efine who a character is, skills define what a character knows. Skills are things that a character can train at or learn.
Force
Every skill is associated with a given trait—the trait required to use that skill. Since skills require learning or training, they are subject to diminishing returns. That is, the higher your rank becomes in a skill, the harder it becomes to raise that skill higher. The number of training points it takes to raise a skill is equal to the next rank times ten. So to raise a skill to one requires ten training points; but to raise it from one to two takes twenty.
Force is an individual’s ability to project energy. As physical strength , Force exerts the energy of a creature’s muscles against a material object. As cha- risma , Force is the “strength” or “force of personality” one uses to exert psychological energy on another. The application of Force is Science : the understanding and manipulation of the world’s energies. 28
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Some skills have emphases. Such skills can be learned as a generalist, or you can choose to take an emphasis. When the emphasis applies, your skill rank counts as a bonus modifier to your skill roll, as described in the previous chapter; however, when it does not apply, your specialized focus counts against you, and your skill rank counts as a penalty modifier.
At zero health points, a character is dying. He is immobile, but still alive and conscious, but now he is losing a health point every turn. A first aid skill roll, against a TN of 12 – the dying character’s constitution rank, will stabilize the character so he stops losing health points every turn.
Any skill in which a character has invested six or more ranks becomes a religion (if it’s a constitution- or wisdom-based skill), an art (if it’s a dexterity- or intelligence-based skill), or a science (if it’s a strength- or charisma-based skill) for that character. This allows the character a deeper insight into the skill, and allows the trait’s analogue rank to be counted as a bonus. So, if a character has six ranks in running, a constitution-based skill, then running is a religion to that character. Running becomes a way of connecting with something greater; some might call it “runner’s high,” but this character has attached spiritual significance to running. While running is normally based entirely on constitution, as a religion, the character learns to apply his wisdom as well. He knows how to pace himself; he knows how to manipulate his body’s responses and how to maximize his effort through choices like footfall, route to take, taking advantage of slope, and so forth. When this character runs, his wisdom score becomes a bonus modifier to his roll.
Stamina measures a character’s physical vitality, based on your dexterity trait. Every time a character makes a roll against a physical trait or a physical trait’s skill, it costs a point of stamina. An hour’s rest will restore a character’s stamina completely, but continuing to exert one’s self with no stamina instead takes its toll on health—rather than reducing stamina points, each physical roll costs a health point.
At -12, the character dies.
Spirit is a measure of a character’s psychological health and mental exhaustion, based on your wisdom trait. Every roll against a mental trait or a mental trait’s skill costs one spirit point. Casting spells also cost spirit points. Spirit can also be damaged in the same manner as health, by subjection to trauma or some deeply disturbing event or image. When spirit points are reduced to half of their total capacity, a character becomes mentally exhausted, and suffers a -1 penalty on all mental trait rolls and mental trait-based skill rolls. At one quarter, this becomes a -3 penalty, and for the last 6 spirit points, the penalty becomes -6. If a character reaches zero spirit points, he becomes catatonic. If the character reaches -12, he gains the Madness curse.
Each skill includes notes on its use as a religion, science or art, and some have special mechanics involved at these levels.
Restoring spirit points requires eight hours of rest so that dreaming can take place, or an hour of meditation, prayer, or religious activity. If the character gains the Madness curse, such rest can restore spirit points, but nothing will remove the curse.
Health, Stamina & Spirit A character’s current state is measured in three dimensions: health, stamina, and spirit. Each can be used, and each can sustain damage.
Blessings & Curses
Health measures a character’s physical well-being, and is based on his or her constitution trait. Physical damage reduces a character’s health, as does exertion beyond the point of exhaustion. A full day’s rest is required to restore a number of health points equal to a single die roll. When a character suffers damage equal to half of his total health points, he begins to suffer penalty modifiers on all rolls: -1 when less than one half of your total health points remain, -3 when less than one quarter remain, and -6 when down to the last six points.
Everything else that makes a character who he is, is a blessing or a curse . These may have purely stoyline impacts, and can help flesh out a character, or they may have an effect on game mechanics. See the descriptions for each individual blessing or cure in the next chapter. Each blessing or curse is listed with some number of training points. At character creation, blessings cost that number of training points. You can also “buy” that number of training points by suffering 29
Psychogenesis
the curse. After character creation, these training points are irrelevant; further blessings or curses arise from the storyline.
tive guise used to smooth over social relations, and thus inherently a function of the scout god, the Trickster. The core of consciousness is the Ego, the personal sense of oneself as an individual. Such a sense is rooted firmly in the scout’s primary function as an explorer. The notion of individuality arises as a psychological response to an infant’s exploration, discovering its fingers and toes, and its physical separation from the things around it. The cure for this necessary illusion is, of course, further exploration, revealing the subtle interconnections and interdependencies the individual ego shares with others and the world around it—that no individual is ever quite so independent, but bound into a whole holarchic, fractal spirit of relationships.
Archetypes Jungian psychology is based heavily on the concept of archetypes. As Jung described them: Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time. An archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed for centuries, digging a deep channel for itself. The longer it has flowed in this channel the more likely it is that sooner or later the water will return to its old bed.
Unconsciousness in Jung’s model is guarded by the anima or animus, and dominated by the shadow. Unconsciousness is what projects psychological forces, and thus is most obviously correlated with Force. The challenge of unconsciousness is to tame such incredible power and use it towards useful ends—as selfcontrol is the only control a human has that isn’t a mere delusion (born, like all delusions, from the unconscious). That challenge is at the heart of Science, and making conscious knowledge out of what was before only unconsciously intuited, or even entirely unknown. The “gatekeeper” of unconsciousness is the Anima or Animus, depending on the gender. It is the idealized form of the desired gender. It is the source of projection and fantasy. The brave lives his life inside these projections and fantasies, struggling to attain affirmation and acceptance by fulfilling these fantasies. The brave is motivated by the need to match the idealized projection in his mind, and in the minds of those around him. The fact that the brave so often does not fully understand himself who it is he is so eager to prove himself to only goes further to show how powerfully the unconscious mind drives the brave, moreso than the other two archetypes. The core of unconsciousness is the Shadow, the exiled elements of one’s own psyche relegated to the unconscious because they do not match our ideals, the parts of ourselves we do not like. The less we acknowledge them, the more powerful their grip on us becomes. When there is war, braves are at its
In the Mythos System, characters can choose to take one of three archetypes—the Scout, the Shaman or the Brave. Each one excels at one of the three basic traits: the Shaman in Power, the Scout in Grace, or the Brave in Force. Jung’s theory of the personality rested on the concept of archetypes, but was also keenly founded on the division of the mind into conscious and unconscious spheres. Like other psychoanalysts, Jung stressed the importance for balance between these two elements, because while psychological energy and power seems to be more powerful in the unconscious, it can only be properly controlled and used by the conscious mind. At the center, neither conscious nor unconscious, Jung suggested the Self, which was the root of the person, the inner axis mundi that connects the individual mind to the collective unconscious. Consciousness in Jung’s model is guarded by the persona, and dominated by the ego. Consciousness is what controls psychological forces, and thus is most obviously correlated with Grace. The challenge of consciousness is to integrate and understand the powerful and often frightening realm of the unconscious, a task most commonly achieved in Art. The “gatekeeper” of consciousness is the Persona, the “social face” we show to the world. The Persona is, itself, a trick, a protec30
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forefront and in its ranks. Where there are Big Men, they are usually braves. The pure psychological force of their charisma makes them at once the embodiment of Fifth World ideals, and the greatest threat to them—a conclusion that any Jungian would expect.
form the armies and their commanders. More often, braves are athletes, adventurers, and blustery, proud individuals who command respect. Braves usually follow the example of their sun god. •
The Self in Jung’s model is a unified, godlike center; the “god within” or Imago dei . The Self is the source of psychological forces, and thus is most obviously correlated with Power. The challenge of the Self is to connect to the source of power, and to commune with other beings of power (spirits), whether the spirit of place, the Human spirit, or even the Great spirit itself. This is the raison d’’être of religion. The Self is inseparable and whole; it is only Itself. It is the core of both body and mind, approachable only by the wounded healer whose calling has summoned him to the innermost sanctuary of the soul. The Self is simultaneously center of the soul, the personal axis mundi and world na vel, and also its boundary, because it attaches the individual soul to the collective unconscious, whether this is merely a psychological relic, or a living Human spirit, the next level of the spirit holarchy.
•
•
•
If you create a character in the brave archetype, add +1 to your Charisma and Strength traits. Each culture provides a list of free blessings for the brave archetype. Choose one from your culture’s list. Each culture provides a list of skills for the brave archetype. Add +1 to your rank in each of these skills for free. If an intuitive feeling character (the MBTI type includes “NF”) takes the brave archetype, you receive a synergy bonus of an extra 30 training points.
Scout
Scouts are based in Grace. They push the limits of their society and its knowledge. The Trickster is often a favorite god of scouts. Scouts are usually motivated by curiosity: what’s over the next ridge, or what secrets lie long-forgotten in the ruins of the Fourth World. While many Fifth Worlders have come to think that some knowledge is better off lost, the scout knows that ignorance is never a blessing.
Each of the three basic archetypes here are the Heroes of the monomyth, and thus symbols of the ego. At the same time, of course, every player character is intractably a persona used in a specific social context: the role-playing game. The question that each poses is the direction the hero’s journey must take. The brave is lost in the unconscious, and must journey out into consciousness to achieve balance. The scout is rooted in the conscious mind, but must explore the unknown “wilderness” that represents her own unconscious. The shaman is balanced —often by lack of alternatives—and is now sworn to protect and maintain that balance. In each case, these forces are mirrored at every level. Scouts really do want to explore physical wilderness, and shamans maintain not only the balance of their own, inner psychological life with the larger Human spirit, but the spiritual balance of their communities to the larger community of life.
•
•
•
•
Brave
Braves are based in Force. Braves are pillars of their communities. They are usually motivated by a desire to prove themselves—to their lineage, their culture, their tribe, a love interest, or possibly just themselves. Often, a brave isn’t even sure himself who he’s trying to prove himself to. War is rare in the Fifth World, but when it does happen, braves
If you create a character in the scout archetype, add +1 to your Dexterity and Intelligence traits. Each culture provides a list of free blessings for the scout archetype. Choose one from your culture’s list. Each culture provides a list of skills for the scout archetype. Add +1 to your rank in each of these skills for free. If a sensing-percieving character (the MBTI type includes “S” and “P”) takes the scout archetype, you receive a synergy bonus of an extra 30 training points.
Shaman
Shamans are based in Power. Shamans mediate and guard the boundaries of their societies. They are the ambassadors to the spirit world who culti-
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vate relationships and alliances with the spirits. Shamans heal and gather information, but these are incidental to their primary role. Shamans help maintain the balance of the universe itself. Their power is a double-edged sword: it is often both blessing and curse. The position of shaman is both an honor, and a terrible burden. They often identify with the Psychopomp or the Wounded Healer, whose roles they often share. •
•
•
•
prefer to associate them as manifestations of the three primary traits: Force (the brave), Grace (the scout) and Power (the shaman). Moreover, the differences between the Fourth World and the Fifth World shift the understanding of fighters, thieves, and magic users. •
If you create a character in the shaman archetype, add +1 to your Constitution and Wisdom traits. Each culture provides a list of free blessings for the shaman archetype. Choose one from your culture’s list. Each culture provides a list of skills for the shaman archetype. Add +1 to your rank in each of these skills for free.
•
If an intuitive-thinking character (the MBTI type includes “NT”) takes the shaman archetype, you receive a synergy bonus of an extra 30 training points.
Iconoclast
A character doesn’t necessarily have to take any archetype whatsoever. Archetypes come with bonuses at character creation. Some blessings are dependent on a specific archetype, and traditional cultures may not respond well to an iconoclast— shamans may only tell other shamans some things, scouts may not divulge their secrets to other scouts, and braves may not always appreciate the company of non-braves. All the same, some players may prefer the lack of limitations to be found in being such an iconoclast. •
•
•
•
Choose one free blessing that is other wise permitted for your character. You may allot an extra 80 training po ints. If a sensing-judging character (the MBTI type includes “S” and “J”) chooses not to take an archetype, you receive a synergy bonus of an extra 30 training points.
While war is not entirely unknown in the Fifth World, it is drastically reduced in both scale and frequency. With that, the need for warriors is also greatly diminished. Braves are not simply “fighters”— though they often fulfill that role, as well—but charismatic adventurers and glory-seekers out to prove themselves with heroic feats of prowess. Braves are more concerned with glory and adventure than simple combat, like a fighter. Scouts accentuate dexterity and agility like the thieves in other role-playing games, but theft is almost entirely unknown in the Fifth World. Those cultures that have survived have done so by becoming egalitarian and adopting a reciprocity economy. There are exceptions, of course, but in most societies, theft has no benefit whatsoever. Instead, scouts are explorers, using their skills to explore the landscape, or just as often, to expand their knowledge in more purely intellectual pursuits. Magic is a matter of negotiation with the spirit world—that makes shamans not just magicians, but ambassadors to the spirits, deeply ambiguous characters that, even in their benign form, are touched by “the Other,” and have an air of mystery that frightens the very people they protect. Though our concept of a “wizard” owes much to shamanism, the shaman is less a wizard, and more a wounded healer on the outskirts of society who stands between his people and the unknown.
Cultures & Groups The importance of culture in forming the perception, experience, and personality of any individual is truly profound. Even things we might presume to be basic, biological perception of objective reality, such as the perception of color, or the ability to connect a two-dimensional representation to its three-dimensional subject, are culturally constructed. Culture plays a profound role in the
Are these cla sses?
Gamers familiar with other role-playing games may notice in these three archetypes the common combination of fighter, magic user and thief. We
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formation of a person’s outlooks and personality—far more profound than we usually presume.
ture has an age table. For each age range, certain curses are listed. Roll two dice; if you roll the number of some curse in your chosen age range, you suffer that curse (without receiving any training points for it).
Within cultures there are often groups, be they clans, pan-tribal sodalities, or otherwise. Characters may belong to any number of these groups. Groups provide not only support and camaraderie, but also a source of prestige and attainment. Many groups have ranks, and (often secret) initiation ceremonies for each rank, with blessings conferred on individuals who attain a given rank. Depending on the culture, some group memberships may take place at character creation—such as clan affiliation—while others may be a goal for your character to achieve in-game. To progress to the next rank in any group requires that a character first fulfill the requirements and the initiation ceremony for that group. Oftentimes, cultures as a whole will have such an initiation ritual just for consideration as an adult. When that rank is achieved, the benefits of the new rank are conferred.
C ALCULATE YOUR TRAITS. All of your traits start with a base of two (2). Modify these according to your archetype and age range entry.
ALLOCATE TRAINING POINTS . Now you can spend your training points. You can take curses to get more training points, or you can spend your training points on blessings, or to increase your traits or skills. A complete list of skills, blessings and curses can be found in the next chapter.
Character Creation
C ALCULATE YOUR STARTING HEALTH, SPIRIT AND STAMINA SCORES .
So now, let’s create a character! Make a copy of the Mythos System character sheet included in this book, and follow these steps.
Now that you have set your traits, you can calculate your starting health, spirit and stamina scores. For each rank you have in constitution, roll 1 die; the sum of this roll is your maximum health score. Every time you increase your constitution rank, roll one more die, and add it to your maximum health score. Spirit works the same way, only with your wisdom trait, and stamina with dexterity. Remember to include any effects from blessings or curses you have taken.
CHOOSE A CULTURE. The Mythos System places a great deal of emphasis on cultural diversity. The first decision to make is which culture your character comes from. Your storyteller may choose a culture and require all players to create characters from that culture; in that case, this decision has already been made for you.
THAT’S IT! Your character is ready to go!
CHOOSE AN ARCHETYPE. The three main archetypes—shaman, scout and brave—provide bonuses and starting packages at character creation. Pick which one best suits your character, or you may prefer to play an iconoclast that defies such archetype s. Even these characters receive bonuses, as described above.
CHOOSE YOUR AGE. Your starting pool of training p oints is determined by your age times ten—but there are limits to how many years you can add on. Since “old” is a relative term from one culture to the next, every cul33
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The Elements of the Soul
I
Emphases: Any specific species.
n the previous chapter, we covered the rules that allow the Mythos System to describe a character. Many details were left out of that mechanical discussion, however: the listing of skills, blessings and curses needed to create a character. This chapter supplies those details.
As a religion, the character’s relationship with the animal spirits allows her to more fully understand the animal’s experience, to empathize with it, and ultimately, to understand its communication in its own terms, as well as to communicate with it in the same. Doing so can often be a feat of constitution, as the human body is moved in ways evolution has given to other species.
Skills Skills are things that characters learn. Every skill is based in some trait—that is to say, every skill is either primarily physical or mental, and every skill focuses on either projecting, controlling, or storing energy. Skills are subject to diminishing returns; it becomes harder to perfect a skill, the better you know it. At high enough levels, skills can become religions, sciences or arts to those that use them.
ARCHERY (DEX ) Archery is the skill need ed to make and use a bow and arrow. Emphases: Bowyer, Shortbow, Longbow, Horse archery. As an art, the character’s intelligence aids her in calculating trajectory, wind, and gravity when firing a bow, or the materials and methods used to create bows and arrows, allowing her to fire more gracefully, and to make more beautiful bows and arrows.
This is the core set of skills; most cultures will expand this list with further skills. There are further skills available on the Fifth World wiki at http://thefifthworld.com
ACROBATICS (DEX ) ASCETICISM (CON )
Acrobatics is the skill used to perform flips, jumps, and other death-defying tricks of aerial and dextrous skill.
Asceticism is the skill used to control one’s physical urges, and endure pain and deprivation for long periods of time—usually for religious purposes.
As an art , the character learns to apply her intelligence to her acrobatics, and how to move more gracefully and with greater attention to detail.
Emphases: Fasting, Flagellation, Sleep deprivation, Torturous clothing As a religion, the character’s wisdom reinforces her physical constitution in her religious commitment to finding spiritual truth through bodily depravation.
ANIMAL COMMUNICATION (W IS ) This skill is used by characters when attempting to communicate with a non-human animal.
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only account for it, but actively use it in her favor, to produce a more effective result.
A THLETICS (S TR ) Athletics is the skill a character uses to perform various specific feats of p hysical prowess.
BUTCHERY (DEX )
Emphases: Weight lifting, Rock hurling, Wrestling. Butchery is the skill needed to dress animals and cut them into pieces for cooking.
As a science, the character learns to leverage her understanding of physical forces to more effectively compete, allowing her confidence to add bluster to her feats.
As an art, the character’s intelligence plays a greater role, as he learns how and where to cut the animal for greater effect.
AXES (S TR )
CLIMB (S TR )
This skill is used to create and wield axes. This is the s kill characters use to climb up various surfaces.
Emphases: Axe-making, Axe throwing, Hand axes. As a science, the character understands how to choose better methods and materials to create higher quality axes, or how physics and environment can help land a more effective ax-blow.
Emphases: Mountaineering, Bouldering, Caving, Tree climbing.
B ALANCE (DEX )
As a science, the character’s understanding of climbing increases and increases with her confidence and ability to understand and harness the forces involved, leading to more expert climbing.
Balance is the skill characters use to stay on their feet, even under duress.
CLUBS (S TR )
As an art, the character’s intelligence helps the character understand the forces trying to throw her off balance, and counter them with the illusion of effortlessness.
This is the skill characters need when using clubs in combat, or making them. As a science, the character’s understanding of the physics involved in the swing and impact of the club allows her to make more effective clubs, and use them more effectively.
BLUFF (CHA ) Bluff is the skill characters use to project sufficient confidence to fool others into thinking they have, or are, more than they truly do.
COOKING (INT ) This skill is used to prepare a good m eal.
As a science, the character’s physical strength helps to add to the image she projects as she learns how to better understand and manipulate the psychological responses of others.
As an art, the character’s manual dexterity is combined with her knowledge of proper seasonings and techniques to make the proper adjustments just in time.
BODY MODIFICATION (DEX )
DIPLOMACY (CHA )
This is the skill used to perform modifications to another’s body: piercings, tattoos, ritual scarification, and so forth.
This is the skill characters use to convince others of their point of view.
Emphases: Tattooing, Ritual scarification, Piercing.
Emphases: Rhetoric, Spirit negotiation, Political negotiation, Persuasion, Tact.
As an art, the character learns more about the body’s reaction to such trauma, and so can not
As a science, the character’s understanding of psychology gives her the upper-hand in verbal con35
The Elements of the Soul
flicts, allowing her to use her strength to properly control her posture and body language for maximum effect.
FIRST AID (W IS ) The first aid skill is used to help stabilize dying characters, stop bleeding, and help deal with immediate medical conditions.
DISGUISE (CHA )
As a religion, the character sees beyond the immediate situation, to a deeper conflict of spirits. With this understanding, she can help lend her own physical constitution to help stabilize another’s.
This is the skill characters use when trying to c on vince someone that they are someone they are not. As a science, the character’s knowledge of common materials involved in disguise and the illusory effects possible allows her to apply her strength to create more convincing disguises, and to force herself physically into the subtle elements of disguise often overlooked by amateurs.
G AMES (INT ) This skill is used to play any game that does not require any great physical exertion. Emphases: Any specific game.
DIVINATION (W IS )
As an art, the character develops an appreciation for the aesthetics of game design, and an understanding of the basic probabilities and strategies common to all games. She learns how an easygoing manner can put an opponent in a distracted mindset, and allow her the opening to win so gracefully onlookers aren’t entirely sure what happened.
This is the skill characters use to try to predict the future. Emphases: Augury, Cleromancy, Anthropomancy, Astrology, Extispicy, Scrying, Dowsing, Pyromancy, Scatomancy. As a religion, the character’s devotion to divination as a means of spiritual achievement allows her to suffer various pains and indignities in its pursuit, adding to her resolve and allowing her to better pursue her art.
HERBALISM (W IS ) This skill is used to understand, find, and use herbs for medicinal purposes.
ESCAPE ARTIST (DEX )
As a religion, the character develops a rapport with the spirits of the herbs she most often uses, allowing her to apply her constitution in various ways in that relationship, so that the herbs will be more helpful.
This skill is used whenever a character attempts to escape from some confinement. As an art, the character’s knowledge about various confines, traps, cords and knots allows her to escape with a flourish.
HIDE (DEX ) Hide is the skill characters use to make themselves unseen by others.
FIRESTARTING (S TR ) This skill is used to successfully start (and tend) a fire.
As a science, the character learns that invisibility is simply a matter of patience and agility. She learns how the choice of environment, light, shadow, and other factors can aid her in hiding. She begins to apply not only her dexterity, but her intelligence to the task.
Emphases: Bow drill, Hand drill, Fire piston, Flint & steel, Fire saw, Fire thong, Kindling. As a science , the firestarter’s knowledge of the behavior of the flame and the forces involved pro vides the kind of confidence needed to keep at the sometimes uncertain task, adding charisma to strength.
JUMP (S TR ) This skill is used to make leaps.
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Emphases: Distance jumping, Height jumping.
NETS (DEX )
As a science, the character learns how to apply the physics, aerodynamics, and other forces involved in her jump to jump higher or farther.
This skill is used to make and use nets. As an art, the character’s knowledge of knots, cordage and other materials and methods allows her to make more beautiful, and more effective nets, and to throw them in a more effective manner.
K NAPPING (DEX ) This skill is used to make stone tools, particularly blades, scrapers, hand axes, axe-heads, arrow points and spearheads.
PERFORM (CHA )
As an art , the flint knapper understands the importance of his own knowledge of flint, where to acquire high quality flint, how to strike it properly to make a more effective, and more beautiful, tool.
Perform is used by characters to put on a performance. Emphases: Acting, Poetry, Rhetoric, Singing, Dancing, Storytelling, any musical instrument.
K NOWLEDGE (INT )
As a science, the character’s understanding of psychology becomes certain, and she is able to methodically tweak her performances for greater effect, often relying on her physical strength for greater force, or more air volume in speaking or singing.
This skill is used whenever a character must determine if she knows something or not. Emphases: Any specific subject. Knowledge cannot be used as an art.
P AINTING (DEX ) LISTEN (W IS )
This skill is used to create pigments from various minerals or vegetables, and to use those pigments to produce artistic results.
This skill is used to determine if a character can hear something or not.
Emphases: Pigments, Rock art, Tool painting, Body painting.
As a religion, the character understands that listening is the root of all wisdom, and has learned to better control her body and endure physical pain and deprivation in order to more keenly hone her hearing.
As an art, the character’s intelligence helps inform both his choice of pigments and his brush strokes, to create a more graceful work of art.
M YCOLOGY (W IS )
R UNNING (CON )
This is the skill characters use to identify and prepare mushrooms. Even master mycologists often misidentify poisonous mushrooms, so consult the section on mushrooms in the “Friendly Spirits” chapter for misidentification rolls, regardless of skill rank.
This is the skill characters use to run. Emphases: Sprinting, Distance running, Fell running. As a religion, running becomes the character’s means of connecting with something larger than himself, and finding peace with himself. This insight and wisdom allows him to better ignore the pains of running, and keep at it longer and faster.
As a religion , the mycologist’s relationship with mushrooms deepens, and she learns how to handle the toxins that are so often in mushrooms. Her physical constitution becomes part of her ability to relate to mushrooms, as she learns how to ingest and identify small amounts of poison safely.
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SEARCH (INT )
SPOT (W IS )
This skill is needed by players to search a given area.
This skill is used to determine if a character can see something or not.
As an art, the character learns that the missing piece could be anywhere at any time, and learns to look in unseen places, and to use her dexterity to search places others might not even be able to reach, much less think to check.
As a religion, the character understands the importance of observation on the path to wisdom. She learns to watch closely, ignoring the needs of her body while she focuses her sight.
S TEALTH (DEX )
SHELTER MAKING (INT )
Stealth is used by characters to move without being noticed.
Use this skill to construct any kind of shelter; the permanency of the shelter increases the TN.
As an art, the character learns to use her intelligence to know when and where to move, how sound travels through various substances, and so forth. She is able to move gracefully, quietly, and without being seen in a beautiful dance that no one will ever be able to appreciate.
As an art, the character becomes an architect, whose physical dexterity is employed to make more effective and more beautiful shelters.
SLEIGHT OF H AND (DEX )
SURGERY (DEX )
Sleight of hand is used for any number of sneaky moves or basic magic tricks.
Surgery is the skill used by a character to perform in-depth medical procedures on another. Even surgeries as intricate as trepanning were performed as early as the Mesolithic.
As an art, the character learns that effective sleight of hand has as much to do with her knowledge of her subjects and their surroundings as her own dexterity, and applies misdirection, smoothness and grace to hide her motions.
Emphases: Any given body region. As an art, the character’s understanding of human biology becomes increasingly important, allowing the surgeon to bring her intelligence to bear on her manual dexterity.
SLINGING (DEX ) Slinging is the skill characters need to prepare and use slings.
S WIMMING (S TR )
As an art, the character applies her knowledge of methods and materials to make more effective slings, select better bullets, and use better techniques for given conditions, creating the appearance of effortlessness and grace.
Swimming is the skill a character relies on to move through the water. As a science, the character’s understanding of how water moves around him boosts his confidence, allowing him to apply his charisma to the task.
SPEARS (DEX ) This skill is needed to create and use spears.
TRACKING (INT )
Emphases: Atlatl , Javelins, Throwing spears, Longspears.
Tracking is the skill a character uses to follow tracks, scat and signs to their end.
As a science, the character learns what woods make the best poles, and what stones make the best spearheads. She learns the importance of graceful, artful movement in her spearwork, and raises the use of her spears to a thing of beauty.
Emphases: Big game, Small game, Any specific environment (e.g., forest, plains, etc.)
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As a science, the character’s knowledge of tracks, signs and scats allows him to better follow the trail, while his dexterity provides a bonus to overcom ing the various obstacles that block that trail.
CLEAR THINKER 30 training points You are a very precise and methodical thinker. You are not easily confused or con founded. Add a +2 bonus modifier to all of your intelligence or intelligence-based skill rolls.
TRANCE (CON ) Trance is the skill used to enter the spirit world through prolonged rhythmic movement, usually dancing to exhaustion. This differs from dancing as a performance ( see Perform) because the dancing is erratic, but much more physically intense and prolonged. This practice usually involves a painful burning sensation traveling up the spine, associated with the endocrine glands and identified as “charkas” or other nodes in various cultural experiences of the phenomenon, from Kundalini Yoga to the n/um tchai of the Kalahari Bushmen. Dancing sticks are sometimes required when it becomes too painful, and nosebleeds and other physical signs of distress often follow.
D AREDEVIL 50 training points You live for danger. A ny time you make a successful dexterity or dexterity-based skill roll with at least one raise, you can restore a number of spirit points equal to the number of raises.
DEATHWALKER 50 training points You have no fear of death. You have faced your own mortality, and are at peace with it. When you are seriously injured, you begin to enter a death trance. You do not suffer the normal penalties from serious damage; rather, when half of your health points have been lost, the death trance begins, adding +1 to all of your rolls.
As a religion, trance is the character’s primary means of accessing the spirit world. Her wisdom and relationship with the spirit world give her the resolution to continue the dance even in the face of exhaustion and overwhelming pain.
EMPATHY 40 training points
Blessings
You can put yourself into another’s place easily. You relate to others well. Add a +3 bonus to all of your charisma and charisma-based skill rolls. Everything you do in the spirit world receives a free raise.
Blessings help your character in various ways. Each blessing is different. The training point cost listed with each blessing is relevant only at character creation; if you gain a “free blessing” in game, it costs you nothing. Cultures, groups and archetypes also provide free blessings that may be taken without any training po int cost.
FORBIDDEN K NOWLEDGE 20 training points You know something that is n ot proper to know. Perhaps you know how to conduct a blood ritual, or how to read the magical inscriptions of the Fourth World. Whatever it is, it’s important to never let it get out that you know this thing. All the same, it may be a very helpful thing to know one day, and so long as you don’t act on it, the knowledge itself can’t be wrong, can it?
A TTRACTIVE 30 training points You are especially attractive. You gain a free raise on all charisma or charisma-based skill rolls, and a +3 bonus when dealing with anyone attracted to your sex.
BLACKMAIL
HEARTLESS
40 training points
20 training points
You have the dirt on someone. You know a secr et about someone, and they want very much for that secret to not come o ut.
An odd blessing—heartlessness makes a character’s will unshakeable. He is immune to the pleas of others, but the cost is his humanity. The heart-
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less character cannot take raises on charisma or charisma-based skill rolls.
familiar or totem, who will restore your spirit points as well.
INHERITANCE
SPIRIT L OVER
100 training points
100 training points
You have received some cherished item that has been passed down through your family for generations.
To receive this blessing, you must first have a familiar. With the spirit lover blessing, your familiar is more than just your guide in the spirit world; you enjoy an especially intimate and privileged relationship. Celtic stories of men with fairy wives contained a memory of the sexual relationship some shamans enjoyed with their familiar spirits.
10 training points - Memento 20 training points - Useful, mundane item 50 training points - Relic of the Fourth World, including weapons such as swords; medicine bundle of a famous shaman
SPIRIT MENTOR 100 training points You have a teacher in the spirit world; perhaps a familiar or totem, or perhaps one of the ancestral spirits. The most powerful spirit mentor (costing 200 training points) would be First or Second Shaman.
LUCID DREAMER 40 training points Not only do you understand the importance of your belief in the spirit world, you have learned to master it. When in the spirit world, you may spend an extra spirit point to roll (but not keep) as many dice as you like for any physical trait or skill roll.
SOUL BOND 100 training points There is another with whom you share a special connection. Neither of you suffer any ill effect from low spirit points unless both of you are sufficiently diminished to warrant the penalty; so, for example, penalties to mental rolls do not affect either of you until you have both lost more than half of your spirit points.
QUICK HEALER 20 training points You heal from wounds or illness more quickly than most. A single night’s rest will restore 1 die roll’s amount of health points; a full day will restore the amount of 2 dice rolled.
T ALENTED 20 training points
SHAMANIC SICKNESS
You have a spec ial talent. Pick a skill. In that skill, you always receive a free raise.
0 training points Only characters with the shaman archetype can take this “blessing,” though it costs no training points, because it’s every bit as much a curse as a blessing. You have suffered some major illness of the spirit, and the only way you were able to recover was to become a shaman. You did not choose the shaman’s life freely—you took it as your only means of avoiding death. As a result of your experience, you receive a free raise on everything you do in the spirit world, but if you don’t enter the spirit world at least once every month, you will start to grow sick again. While suffering from the sickness, you lose 1 spirit point every day. Nothing can restore your spirit points as long as the sickness continues. The sickness will only end when you go into the spirit world to meet your
TOUGH 30 training points You are able to withstand a great deal of physical punishment. Add ten to your total possible health points permanently.
Curses Curses are the opposite of blessings; they harm your character in various ways. Accepting a curse at character creation is a way to buy extra training points. You may also suffer curses in-game, or 40
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from age. You receive no training points for curses in these cases.
You have some psych ological addiction, a compulsion you cannot ignore. When faced with it, it takes a wisdom roll to ignore it; the target number is how many training points you buy with this curse.
ADDICTION 30 training points You have an addiction—perhaps to an entheogen or some other substance, or perhaps simply to a given behavior. Whatever your addiction is, any day in which you do not indulge your addiction costs a spirit point, and you cannot regain spirit points normally except on days on which your addiction is sated. To break an addiction requires going for a number of days without sating the addiction equal to the number of your spirit points. For some addictions, this may involve withdrawal. Since the span of time involved would normally reduce a character to zero spirit points, entailing madness, recovery from addiction requires some alternate form of restoring lost spirit points— usually in the form of a shaman’s aid.
D ARK SECRET 50 training points You possess some dark and terrible secret that would ruin you if it ever came out. You must make sure it never does.
DOUBT Variable Pick any skill. You are self-conscious about that skill, and doubt your ability in it. All of your rolls in that skill take some penalty. You pick what that penalty is; the number of training points this curse buys is equal to that number times five. You cannot use the “Lucid Dreamer” blessing to enhance your roll on any skill you have applied this curse to.
B AD HEALTH 20 training points You always seem to be sick. Permanently remove 6 points from your maximum health score.
ENEMY Variable
B AD SIGHT
You have an enemy, someone you despise, whom you are determined to destroy. That enmity may or may not be shared. The number of training points you receive for this curse depends on how deep the enmity goes.
Variable You can't see very well. Pick a penalty to subtract from all of your Spot skill rolls; the number of training points this curse buys is equal to that number times five.
Rival: 10 training points. This is a fairly minor enemy, a competitor you would like to embarrass and overcome, but little more. When confronted with a rival, you take a -1 penalty to your mental rolls.
BLIND 40 training points You cannot see at all. All Spot rolls immediately fail. Skills that require vision immediately fail. Skills that usually rely on vision can sometimes be relearned, but still carry a -6 penalty.
Adversary: 30 training points. This is your average enemy. When confronted with an adversary, you take a -2 penalty to your mental rolls.
BRASH
Nemesis: 50 training points. This is your arch-enemy. You may have dedicated your existence to his destruction. When confronted with your nemesis, you take a -3 penalty on all your mental rolls.
20 training points You are reckless and overconfiden t. You wade in where you should not, and throw caution to the wind. You suffer a -2 penalty to all of your wisdom and wisdom-based skill rolls.
EPILEPSY 30 training points You have seizures. To some cultures, it’s a sign of someone touched by the gods; among others, it’s a sign of infernal influences. At the storyteller’s
COMPULSION Variable 41
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whim, though, your character will go into a seizure.
severely impairs your ability to interact with others; you cannot take a raise on any charisma or charisma-based skill roll.
FRAIL MIND
MISSING E YE
50 training points
20 training points
You are a very simple person. You find most mental tasks boring or difficult. You cannot take a raise on any mental roll.
You’ve lost an eye. Your vision is off, particularly your depth perception. You cannot take a raise for archery, atlatl or other skills dependent on depth perception. Your disfigured appearance also entails a -1 penalty on all charisma-based skill rolls or charisma rolls.
JEALOUS 50 training points You are the jealous type—not only in your love life, but in every sphere. If someone else is praised and you are not, if someone achieves something you could not or simply chose not to, they become your enemy. List them on your character sheet with the “Enemy” curse at the “rival” level, though you receive no more training points for the addition. If your love life is involved—your enemy has successfully courted, or stolen away from you, someone you love—then he is an enemy at the “nemesis” level, again with no additional training points.
MISSING LIMB 100 training points You’ve lost a hand, a foot, a leg or an arm. Your abilities are significantly impaired; the loss of a hand or an arm would make the use of a bow impossible, and greatly complicate most other tasks. If a task requires two hands, you can’t do it. If a task normally requires two hands, but is possible with one, you can try to do it with a -12 penalty. Tasks that have noth ing to do with your hands are unaffected.
L AME
PHOBIA
50 training points
Variable
You can’t walk very well. Running is impossible, and even for normal walking you often use a walking stick or other aid.
You are deathly and irrationally afraid of something. Pick your penalty; the training points you receive for this curse is equal to that penalty times two. You may also, in time, overcome your phobia; every time you face some traumatic version of your fear (for example, climbing a cliff-face for an acrophobe), your penalty is reduced by one, until it reaches zero.
LOST LOVE 50 training points Some say it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. They are fools.
SENILE
LOW P AIN THRESHOLD
Variable
30 training points
Your mind has begun to slip with age. Pick a number; that is the penalty you receive on all mental rolls. The training points bought with this curse are equal to that number times ten.
You don't handle pain very well. All constitution and constitution-based skill rolls come with a -6 penalty. You cannot take raises on such rolls.
M ADNESS
UNLUCKY
100 training points
30 training points
You have gone insane. You have completely lost your mind. Your ability to reason is utterly lost; you automatically fail at any intelligence-based skill, or intelligence roll. Your tendency to mutter, talk to yourself, and make bizarre pronouncements
Things just don't go your way. Whenever you roll a five (5), you must re-roll the die.
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UNSETTLING 30 training points There is something unsettling or disturbing about your physical appearance, and people who see you are mildly shocked by your appearance. You cannot take a raise in any charisma or charisma-based skill roll.
W OUND 10 training points You have an old wound that never quite healed right. It’s left a scar, and there’s been a permanent loss of health points equal to one roll of a single die. You may have any number of wounds.
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Negotiated Realities E
ven children intuitively understand the magical nature of the world. As humans, we fundamentally experience the world around us as a living thing. Our empathy, our ability to put ourselves in another’s place, is the only way we can appreciate even another human being as sharing the same experience of life we know firsthand. When left to their own devices, children extend that empathy to animals, plants, even “inanimate” objects. It takes intense training to beat this natural understanding out of our children, to grow deaf to the other, non-human voices around us. Humans have always had a hard time believing that only human voices say anything worth hearing.
Well, we’ve all heard of psychic surgeons, these folks who use a certain style of what we could call magic. In the Philippines, for example, they extract illness from a person’s body by passing their hand over it and making a kind of invisible incision. Then they reach into the body and draw out some bloody, gory object, and fling it into the fire. This is sleight-of-hand. These so-called psychic surgeons are using a very often-used technique that one finds around the world. Unfortunately, many of these folks in the Philippines are using this very old technique just to make money for themselves. So it isn't often as effective as it can be when it is genuinely used in service not just to human health but to the health of the whole web of life. …
And ye t, the Fourth World ma naged to prove that feat was possible. One of the most unique features of farming culture was its bizarre selfabsorption and complete deafness to all nonhuman voices—they didn’t even believe in magic!
[T]he magician is one who works with perception. Sometimes he works with the senses of a single individual, sometimes a group of people, and sometimes with many other beings — humans and other. It's important to realize that the magician himself, or herself, is often experiencing the very same things that the others watching are experiencing. It's only by the magician entering deeply into that trance that the others will be led to experience the trance as richly and as deeply as the magician. So it's not as if he's standing apart from the whole thing manipulating it from outside, as a hypnotist would be thought to be doing here in the West.
In the Fifth World, of course, human cultures have rediscovered the obvious reality of magic. Techniques vary widely from culture to culture, but in the Fifth World, the obvious, forgotten wisdom has been regained: humans are not the only things alive in this world. Neither have they lost the implication of that: that it is possible to negotiate with communities besides those of humans.
What is Magic? Undoing the careful training most Fourth Worlders underwent as a matter of course is a difficult task. Even the most basic questions known to every newborn child becomes a complicated affair, like “What is magic?”
But this kind of event that you're referring to is already very different from the uses of magic in a fully indigenous, tribal context where the magic is not being used ever for entertainment. It is being used as a way of keeping the world alive and healthy, and of keeping humans in a
Of course, everything is magic. As one perceptive Fourth Worlder who enjoyed the benefit of contact with hunter-gatherer magicians, named David Abram, put it: 44
The Fifth World
healthy connection with the rest of the natural world. …
The prac tice of farming left Fourth Worlders with some notions about the way the world works that were nothing short of bizarre. To yield a larger crop, a farmer could always simply cultivate more acreage. The farmers developed the notion that they could achieve anything if they simply worked hard enough at it. Of course, the world constantly betrayed such an idea. Billions toiled in pursuit of that false promise, without ever receiving their reward; others worked little, and received all they could want. When they could not bear such injustice, they turned to hopes of an afterlife where rewards—and punishments—would be inescapable.
I discovered that very few of the medicine people that I met considered their work as healers to be their primary role or function for their communities. So even though they were the healers, or the medicine people, for their villages, they saw their ability to heal as a by-product of their more primary work. This more primary work had to do with the fact that these magicians rarely live at the middle of their communities or in the heart of the village. They always live out at the edge or just outside of the village—out among the rice paddies or in a cluster of wild boulders—because their skills are not encompassed within the human modality. They are, as it were, the intermediaries between the human community and the more-than-human community—the animals, the plants, the trees, even whole forests are considered to be living, intelligent forces. Even the winds and the weather patterns are seen as living beings. Everything is animate. Everything moves. It's just that some things move slower than other things, like the mountains or the ground itself. But everything has its movement, has its life. And the magicians were precisely those individuals who were most susceptible to the solicitations of these other-than-human shapes. It was the magicians who could most easily enter into some kind of rapport with another being, like an oak tree, or with a frog.1
Abram’s work focused on a powerful magic the farmers developed: magical symbols that would allow the drawer’s voice to echo in the mind of the reader, even thousands of years after they were drawn. They called this power an “alphabet,” and were so enamored of it that they lost all other forms of magic. They stopped listening to nonhuman voices, and turned only to the magic of their own letters. Their discussion turned inwards, they grew deaf to the communities around them, and so, began to despoil the whole world—and thus speed towards their own destruction. Of course, hunters had a very different view of the world. They were acute ly aware that the world was a sacred covenant. They knew that their lives were bought by the deaths of others, and they thanked and offered praise to the spirits of the plants and animals that supported them, and they understood their part of that bargain. In return for that life, they were pledged to protect the land that gave them life, and one day, to sacrifice their own flesh for the life of others. That was the shaman’s primary role—an ambassador between the human community, and the nonhuman communities around it. The shaman’s trances, entheogens, dreams and visions are all means to that all-important end.
Fourth World anthropologists who studied the shamans of remaining hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists focused on their methods, rather than their roles. They deigned them masters of consciousness, due to their use of a “shamanic state of consciousness,” but ignored the reasons shamans used such states in the first place. As Abram mentioned, the magician deals with perception, but to what end that perception is manipulated is all the difference.
So what is magic? Magic is the essence of life, the spirit that animates everyone and everything. It’s pregnant in the invisible air that surrounds us and breathes with us, binding us and every other animal, with every plant that provides our oxygen and takes in our carbon dioxide. Magic is the web of relationship, partnership, symbiosis and predation that unites everything. It’s the ongoing negotiation of realities.
1 You can read the rest of Scott Lond on’s interview with David Abram at the “Ecology of Magic” link provided in the “Recommendations” at the end of this book. Abram’s book, The Spell of the Sensuous , is also listed there.
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ing in sequence around them as they played their flashy music. Magic has been reduced to that in the West. It really doesn't exist for us anymore. …
Sleight of Hand Shamans often use sleight of hand to deal with perception and belief, a practice maintained even by the farmer magicians of the Fourth World. Farmer skeptics often looked on this derisively as proof that such shamans were hucksters and charlatans, and while some were, this owes more to a fundamental culture misunderstanding than anything else. As David Abram explained the connection between magicians in farmer and hunter societies, and the use of sleight of hand and other tricks of perception common to both:
One thing [that happens to a culture bereft of magic] is that its relation to the natural landscape is tremendously impoverished. In fact, by our obliviousness, by our forgetfulness of all of these other styles of awareness—the other animals, the plants, the waters—we have brought about a crisis in the natural world of unprecedented proportions— not out of any meanness, but simply because we really don't recognize that nature is there. It seems to us, in our culture, to be a kind of passive backdrop against which all of our human events unfold, and it's human events that are meaningful and what happens in nature, well, we don't really notice it, it's not really there. It's not vital. How different that is from the awareness of a magical or animistic culture for whom everything we do as humans is so profoundly influenced by our interactions with the earth underfoot and the air that swirls around us and the other animals.
[T]he magician is one who works with perception. Sometimes he works with the senses of a single individual, sometimes a group of people, and sometimes with many other beings—humans and other. It's important to realize that the magician himself, or herself, is often experiencing the very same things that the others watching are experienc ing. It's only by the magician entering deeply into that trance that the others will be led to experience the trance as richly and as deeply as the magician. So it's not as if he's standing apart from the whole thing manipulating it from outside, as a hypnotist would be thought to be doing her e in t he West.
Obviously, such a state of affairs could not long continue, and this was one of the main reasons why the civilization of the Fourth World destroyed itself, and why the survivors who inherited the Fifth World rediscovered magic, regardless of what beliefs their ancestors began with.
But this kind of event that you're referring to is already very different from the uses of magic in a fully indigenous, tribal context where the magic is not being used ever for entertainment. It is being used as a way of keeping the world alive and healthy, and of keeping humans in a healthy connection with the rest of the natural world. …
“Psychic surgery” is one particular form of sleight-of-hand used in shamanic practice that has been routinely misunderstood. To the uninitiated, the shaman seems to draw an invisible line in the patient’s stomach with his hand, and then remove diseased organs and throw them on a fire. At a slightly deeper level, the investigator discovers that this is a sleight of hand trick. But the initiated shaman understands the full process: that the spirits afflicting the patient are drawn out, “sucked up” by the shaman, who relies on the fetish to trap the evil spirits, lest he become infected with them himself. So when he proudly displays the diseased organ as the evil spirit he pulled out of the patient’s body, he isn’t lying at all—he’s referring to a non-physical level of the disease.
But we tend not to believe in magic in Western c ivilization. And so we've largely forgotten the place of magic. Most magicians end up performing somewhere like Las Vegas. They see themselves as “illusionists”—as people trying to create the illusion of magic. But they themselves don't believe in magic. What a sad state the craft of magic has fallen into in the world. It would be as if most musicians and concert artists didn't really believe that real music existed. Then you would have pianists who had pianos with flashing lights all over them and women danc-
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Anthropologists of medicine discovered that there was significant legitimacy to such concerns, and began to use illness , sickness and disease to denote three different aspects of ill health: disease is the biological level, illness is the psychological level, and sickness is the social level. While biomedicine excelled at its treatment of the biological level of disease, most traditional ethnomedicines use herbalists and healers to address the biological level of disease, shamans using sleight of hand tricks as above to address the psychological level of illness, and ritual and ceremony to address the social level of sickness.
Many bird calls are interpreted as Koyukon words ... what is striking about these words is how perfectly they mirror the call’s pattern, so that someone outside the tribe who knows birdsongs can readily identify the species when the words are spoken in Koyukon. Not only the rhythym comes through, but also some of the tone, the “feel” that goes with it. As we ponder such correspond ences, we come to realize that the sounds and rhythyms of the Koyukon language have been deeply nourished by these nonhuman voices.
Thus, sleight of hand does play a significant role in many shamanic ceremonies, but to understand this use from the shaman’s perspective, we must think of it not in terms of charlatanism, but instead bear in mind that for cultures that reject Cartesian dualism, the biological disease is only one level of a multifaceted problem that must be addressed on all fronts simultaneously.
Hence the whirring, flutelike phrases of the hermit thrush, which sound in the forest thickest at twilight, speak the Koyukon words sook’eeyis deeyo —“it is a fine evening.” The thrushes also sometimes speak the phrase nahutl-eeyh —literally, “a sign of the spirit is perceived.” The thrush first uttered these words in the Distant Time, when it sensed a ghost nearby, and even today the call may be heard as a warning.
Animal Communication The most basic form of magic is one that almost anyone in the Fifth World can do: speaking to animals. Hunter-gatherers learn the calls of various animals very intimately. They know the call an animal makes to signal danger, or the call an animal makes to call its mate. Not only do hunters learn the calls well enough to understand what they mean, they learn them well enough to make them in turn.
Even more important than the interpretation of calls, however, is body language. The assumption of life in the other, and the extension of empathy, can be very powerful in successful communication with non-human animals, even without the utterances humans so often rely on. Animal communication is often a kind of intricate dance of gestures and motions to convey meaning and intent, a “language older than words” that is shared by all animals.
This often becomes a part of hunter-gatherer language. Abram wrote of how bird songs influenced the Koyukon language:
Fifth Worlders have especially strong relationships with their totems. Not on ly do they have a special knowledge of their totem animal’s calls and habits, but they also are much more familiar with the body language of their totem animal. When dealing with their totem, characters receive a free raise on their “Animal Communication” skill.
The Artic tern ( k’idagaas ’), the northern phalarope ( tiyee ), the rusty blackbird ( ts’u- hutlts’eegga ), the blackpoll warbler ( k’oot’anh ), the slate colored junco ( k’it'ot’t’ahga )—all have such names. Written transcription, however, cannot con vey the remarkable aptness of these names, which when spoken in Koyukon have a lilting, often whistle like quality. The interpenetration of human and nonhuman utterances is particularly vivid in the case of numerous bird songs that seem to enunciate whole phrases or statements in Koyukon.
Shapeshifting Shapeshifting is generally the domain of the shaman, but so intimately and universally tied into that role that in the Fourth World, memories of shamanic shapeshifting inspired tales of were47
The Elements of the Soul
wolves, and fascinated later civilized folk with images like that of “The Sorcerer,” a cave painting from Les Trois Freres. Shapeshifting remains an important and nearly universal element in the shamanic experience. It was used by nearly all the shamanic cultures that sur vived into the Fourth World, and among those cultures that rediscovered shamanism in the Fifth World, it is equally universa l.
tioned the founding axiom of the entire line of thinking. Magicians in every society, however, have long understood the importance of perception. The heart of the magician’s trade is working with perception, be it from simple sleight of hand, to the more masterful manipulations of consciousness used by trance and ecstasy more commonly remarked among shamans. One of the greatest hurdles that humans overcame in the rediscovery of magic was the misconception of what a “spirit” was. As David Abram wrote:
To shapeshift, shamans will wear elaborate costumes made from the ornaments of their To be sure there has totems or familiars (see next always been some section on spirits); furs, confusion between our shells, feathers, and so on, giving them Western notion of the fantastic appearance of enormous half“spirit” (which so often human, half-animal creatures. Then, the dance is defined in contrast to begins; usually in the dark of night near a large fire, matter or “flesh”), and the the shaman begins a dance in which he mimics the mysterious presences to which movements of the animal, entering a sort of ectribal and indigenous cultures stasy where his empathy is united powerfully with pay so much respect. Many of the the animal he imitates. As he slips into an ecThe Sorcerer of earliest Western students of these static state, the shaman’s spirit travels, and Les Trois Freres other languages and customs were enters the body of the animal. The shaman Christian missionaries all too ready shifts his shape into that of the animal, and is to see occult ghosts and immaterial spirits able to run or fly, and to see the world as that ani where the tribespeople were simply offermal sees it. ing their respect to the local winds. While Shamans have reported their flights as birds, and the notion of “spirit” has come to have, sights they could not possibly have seen unless for us in the West, a primarily anthropotheir flights were true. The actions they perform morphic or human association, my in animal form leave evidence of having actually encounter with the ants was the first of been done. By whatever mechanism this dance many experiences suggesting to me that allows, most Fifth World cultures take the shathe “spirits” of an indigenous culture are man’s account at face value, because it so often primarily those modes of intelligence or leaves material evidence of itself. awareness that do not possess a human form. To perform the dance, a character must use his “Trance” skill in the proper attire. The character As humans we are well acquainted with must have either a totem or a familiar. The dance the needs and capacities of the human is an extended task with a TN of 100. When the body—we live our own bodies and so target is reached, the character takes on the form know, from within, the possibilities of of his or her totem or familiar, at some location of our form. We cannot know, with the the storyteller’s choosing. The character can resame familiarity and intimacy, the lived turn to his catatonic human form, still in the locaexperience of a grass snake or a snapping tion where he danced, at will. turtle, nor can we readily experience the precise sensations of a hummingbird sipping nectar from a flower, or a rubber tree soaking up sunlight. Our experience Spirits may well be a variant of these other modes of sensitivity; nevertheless we In the Fourth World, humans believed that there cannot, as humans, experience entirely was such a thing as an “objective reality,” separate the living sensations of another form. We from one’s perception. This road of inquiry evendo not know, with full clarity, their detually led them to quantum physics, which ques48
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sires or motivations—we cannot know, or can never be sure that we know, what they know. That the deer experiences sensations, that it carries knowledge of how to orient in the land, of where to find food and how to protect its young, that it knows well how to survive in the forest without the tools upon which we depend, is readily evident to our human senses. That the mango tree has the ability to create or bear fruit, or the yarrow plant the power to reduce a child's fever, is also evident. To humankind, these Others are purveyors of secrets, carriers of intelligence that we ourselves often need: it is these Others who can inform us of unseasonable changes in the weather, or warn us of imminent eruptions and earthquakes—who show us, when we are foraging, where we may find the best food or the best route back home. We receive from them countless gifts of food, fuel, shelter, and clothing. Yet still they remain Oth er to us, inhabiting their own cultures and enacting their own rituals, never wholly fathomable. Finally, it is not only those entities acknowledged by Western civilization as “alive,” not only the other animals or the plants that speak, as spirits, to the senses of an oral culture, but also the meandering river from which those animals drink, and the torrential monsoon rains, and the stone that fits neatly into the palm of the hand.
That is the power of perception, and that is what the spirit world is—another plane of perception. It’s empathy with another way of being that allows you to plumb another view of the world. It’s shapeshifting and seeing the world with other eyes. To call this anything less tha n a complete and utter transformation of the universe itself is to greatly downplay the profundity of it. This is what humans rediscovered when they rediscovered magic—that the world is fundamentally alive, that everything in it is a spirit, another way of being, something that we can communicate with, something we can empathize with, something we can relate to. To share the experience of a mountain, a deer, a stream as fundamentally as we share the experience of another human being; to query the intelligence of birds, and to hear the voices of the ancestors echoing in the soil itself—that is, at its most fundamental core, what magic is. The question of what a spirit is speaks to the fundamental question of what a person is. To quote Jeff Vail’s excellent summation of where the Fourth World’s sciences eventually led it: The networks of connections, not the elements connected, appear to constitute a more accurate map of reality. Consider this a critical paradigm shift: the connections, not the parties connected, may best represent our world. Take the seemingly simple nature of this very book. All of our senses confirm that it “is” a solid object, with little mysterious about it. Another of our models of reality represents its composition as that of a web of billions of atoms; nearly entirely empty space speckled with clusters of subatomic particles. Other models exclude the concept of a concrete “particle” entirely: quantum mechanics provides us with a model of rea lity without fixed particles at all, using instead a nebulous web of constantly changing energies and waves of probability. These energies and connections may represent all that actually exists! The connections, the powerrelationships between perceived “entities” make up the world around us, not the illusion of particles. This concept of the connection, and the powerrelationship it represents, extends to our genes, our culture and our technology. It wields great power over all areas of our lives. Our thoughts, desires and self-
Imagine if, instead of picking up “visible” light, by some accident of evolution, the rods and cones in your eyes instead reacted to electromagnetic radiation with just a slightly longer wavelength. This would be a very minute change, but imagine the effects—now, instead of “visible” light, you see infrared. You see patterns of heat, rather than patterns of color. Imagine how different the world would b e. Consider how different the same place is just in the night versus the day. The Mona Lisa would be a blank piece of c loth to yo u, but a radiator might be the greatest masterpiece, etched with a beauty that might move you to tears. Would you ever use the word “is”? Would the word even be intelligible, in a world that is constantly changing, always in flux? Sure, you could write things, and they would linger a moment from the heat of your hand, but they would quickly fade as the heat left them.
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perceptions, our very identity, stems from this enigmatic web of connectivity.
must be in constant vigilance of these evildoers. 2
Likewise, we are not discrete things, but s ystems of other things. We are made up of biological systems: a skeletal system, an endocrine system, a digestive system, a neural system, and so on. These are made up of organs; the organs, of tissues; the tissues, of cells; the cells, of molecules; the molecules, of atoms—so on, down to the level of quantum mechanics, where matter begins to dissolve into shifting waves of probability. We are not discrete things—we are a cognate, a summation, a living, thinking ecology.
The individual soul, though, is in reality, nothing more than the “spirit” of one’s own internal ecology—ecologies within ecologies, like Russian ma- trioshka , nested dolls. In the process of speciation, a new population begins to form; mirroring that process, a new spirit begins to emerge from the original spirit. The depth, personality, and power of the spirit is directly related to the diversity of its set. Newly emerged populations, such as subspecies, are not entirely differentiated yet, and have not yet developed much diversity. The spirit of a subspecies or race is typically embryonic at best. It is often preconscious, and relatively weak. Spirits of ancient, diverse species, like the Dragonfly spirit, are immensely powerful.
Our sense of self is an emergent property of a complex system—so, too, the systems of relationships around us. Such relationships are all there truly is in the universe. Spirits form as a kind of accretion or gestalt from well-worn patterns of material relationships, grooved into familiar patterns and habits from millennia of iterated relationship. They are living archetypes, which Jung compared to “riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which it can find again at any time.” As one native person described his people’s belief in spirits:
Humans partake of the human spirit just like other species. The human spirit is useless as a totem to humans, but the human spirit is nonetheless sometimes encountered, especially as a means of reaching the Great Spirit. The human spirit is often encountered in the forms of such powerful figures as Jesus Christ, the Buddha, or First Shaman.
By spirit, however, there is no sense of ghost as is common among Westerners. The “spirits” are nature persons and indwelling “spirit” is cognate of species. For example, every wolf partakes of the wolf spirit, as every corn plant partakes of the corn spirit, and every thunderstorm partakes of the thunder spirit, ad infinitum , throughout the natural world. Spirits are thus tied with their organic referent or biological form; moreover, spirits are linked to organic species that may be mineral, element, plant, or animal that is in composite the Nature Persons. The notion of indwelling soul, however, is unique and individual. Everything, all nature persons, have a soul and evidence of this unique soul is often linked to fingerprints and other such whirls like the hair at the top of the head. In some cases, fingerprints, as soul stuff, are taken from a corpse and ground into powder for witchery. The Navajo, for instance, give reference to such practices and persons knowing them as “skinwalkers” and one
The nested nature of spirits often leads to a pantheistic (or panentheistic) notion where the entire universe has a spirit, often called the Great Spirit, of which all other spirits partake in the same manner that individuals partake of their various spirits. When the pro cess of spiritogenesis is reversed, one can trace the history of the universe as increasing diversity of the Great Spirit. Since lesser spirits have been observed becoming more conscious and powerful as they gain diversity, and all other spirits exist as a holarchy within the Great Spirit, some shamans have ventured that the “meaning of life” or “purpose of existence” is the growth of the Great Spirit—the increase of the universe’s diversity, and the ultimate fulfillment of the cosmos’ potential in us, all the different ways of being. Totems
Understanding that the world is fundamentally a question of relationship, most Fifth World culture place the greater part of their wealth in one an-
2 You
can read the rest of Jay Hansford C. Vest’s article, comparing native totems to college mascots, at http://www.multicultural.vt.edu/proceedings/2005_Papers/Br aves_or_Brave_Hawks.pdf
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other. The fact that most Fifth World cultures rely, to one extent or another, on hunting makes this a much easier sentiment to come by—it is easier to “store” your wealth in your friends, by keeping them close and healthy by sharing all you have, so that they will share similarly with you when the tables are turned, than to try to devise some bulky food storage system. Because of this, various form s of fictive kinship are very common. The Bushmen of the Kalahari say that any two people who share the same name share, too, the closeness of siblings.
ier for a human to communicate with animals of one’s totem species (free raise on Animal Communication); totems are even more important in the spirit world, where they are a human’s patron and guide. Totems play pivotal roles in shapeshifting as well; people typically only take the form of their totem. Each animal is listed with totemic effects. These include a personality type, a list of rivals, a list of allies, a list of blessings, and a curse. A totem’s personality type is the most common MBTI type for people who have that totem. It is the personality that totem reinforces. If you have the exact same MBTI type as your totem, you are likely honored by your clan as an exemplary member. On the other hand, it can be difficult to have a totem that challenges your personality. For each dimension in which you differ from your totem, you receive five extra training points at character creation—so, for instance, if you are an INTJ type with a Salamander totem (ESTP), then you differ from your totem on three different dimensions, so you receive fifteen extra training points.
Such bonds do not stop at other humans, though. The role of the shaman is to oversee the relationship between the human community, and the nonhuman communities around it—a community’s ambassador to the spirit world, if you will. Fifth Worlders see everyone and every thing in the world as a relation. Often, an animal’s spirit will adopt a human as one of its own. Such spirits are called totems . A totem gives a human a second spirit. Humans already partake of the human spirit, so a human totem would be redundant. By the same token, most great ape spirits are too closely related to humans to make a difference, hence the lack of chimpanzee, orangutan and gorilla totems. On the other extreme, non-animal spirits, and even invertebrate spirits, tend to be too distant and alien to work well with humans. For this reason, human totems are almost exclusively mammals, birds, fish, and occasionally reptiles.
Rivals and allies are those other totems that this animal’s spirit sees as enemies or friends. Allied totems usually have clans on friendly terms; rival totems often have clans at odds with one another. The first blessing a totem gives is given to everyone who belongs to that totem, whether adopted or born into a clan, when any individual is consecrated to the totem, they receive the first blessing. The second blessing is bestowed on those who become comfortable with the totem’s form. If you shapeshift into your totem’s form 10 times, you will receive the second blessing. The third blessing is reserved for those who undertake some great quest for their totem, and is bestowed as a reward only to the most faithful of that spirit’s followers.
A human partakes o f his totem’s spirit in the same manner as an animal. Individual wolves partake of the Wolf spirit; humans with a Wolf totem partake of the Wolf spirit just like an individual wolf. In a profound way, such a human is adopted by the spirit into its species. For this reason, most cultures have strong taboos against harming one’s totem—the same taboos governing human relationships extend to one’s totem. Killing another animal might be perfectly normal, but killing an animal of one's totemic species is usually classified as murder.
The totem’s curse befalls those who betray the totem by breaking its taboos. Killing the totemic animal is the most common taboo, but each totem has its own list of other taboos, and in some cultures, specific clans may add their own offenses to that list. Breaking any of these tattoos brings down that totem’s curse.
Sometimes, an individual human’s relationship with an animal spirit will be so profound that the spirit will not only adopt that singular human, but extend its patronage to his entire clan. Such humans are legendary ancestors, the seed of whole new clans. New humans born into that clan have a totem from birth.
Familiars
Familiars are somewhat like totems, but only magicians (shamans) have them. A magician’s familiar is the spirit that he looks to most ardently as a teacher. The familiar can be much more broad
Totems provide wisdom and strength to their human supplicants as part of their kinship. It is eas51
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than a totem—monkeys, insects, even thunderstorms or winds.
know turns in a great cycle, sprouting out from the spirit of their ancestors.
Shamans can often look to their familiars for the same purposes as totems. They can take the form of their familiar in shapeshifting, and they receive a free raise for Animal Communication rolls to speak with their familiar.
The ancestors have passed on to a profoundly different way of being—mingling with all the long lines of their own ancestors to become the living soil, the foundation from which all life flows. For the animist, every meal, every scrap of sustenance, carries with it the most sacred covenant to the land that gives up its life for them—to defend it, to honor it, and in time, to go down with one’s ancestors and become it.
The familiar’s most important role is in the spirit world, where it is the shaman’s special guide and tutor. A familiar can become a spirit mentor or a spirit lover (see appropriate blessing). Where totems are communal, familiars are personal. A familiar is a relationship each shaman must arrange for him or herself with the familiar he aspires to.
Spirit of Place
Spirits arise from common patterns—so, just as your internal ecology creates its own spirit, so, too, do the patterns of relationship that form the ecology of a given place. In the Fourth World, Joel Garreau attempted to plot the sociological boundaries of North America, coming up with The Nine Nations of No rth America . Observe the overlap between the sociological groups Garreau suggested, and the culture groups of Native Americans. With little to no cultural continuity between the original natives and the descendants of European settlers, the recognizable groups not only broke down along similar fault lines, but even often shared many of the same distinctive traits.
Ancestor Spirits
David Abram addressed the seeming exception of the ancestor spirits. This objection trades upon certain notions implicit in Christian civilization, such as the assumption that the “spirits” of dead persons necessarily retain their human form, or that they reside in a domain entirely beyond the material world to which our senses give us access. However, many indigenous, tribal peoples have no such ready recourse to an immaterial realm outside earthly nature. For most oral cultures, the enveloping and sensuous Earth remains the dwelling place of both the living and the dead. The “body”—human or otherwise—is not yet a mechanical object. It is a magical entity, the mind’s own sensuous aspect, and at death the body's decomposition into soil, worms, and dust can only signify the gradual reintegration of one's elders and ancestors into the living landscape, from which all, too, are bor n.
For Fifth Worlders, this is only common sense. Every place has a spirit, a genius loci in Latin. Regardless of culture or genetics, a group of people living in the same ecology must live with the same animals, the same plants, the same resources, the same climate, etc., leading to very similar cultures, even when there is no conscious emulation going on. This is one of the primary reasons that the cultures of the Fifth World so often resemble the native cultures their forebears had so ruthlessly wiped out: whether they consciously emulated native ways or not, the collapse forced people to adopt those ways simply because they worked so well, the very same reason the natives had turned to those ways in the first place. Even in concerns as seemingly transient as fashion and language, native patterns emerge. Fifth World cultures still hear the same sounds as the natives that lived there before them, which influences their language through the same onomatopoe ic sounds. Fifth World languages converse with the same animals that informed and enriched native languages. Decoration and art is influenced by access to the same materials, and the same setting for inspiration.
As Abram goes on to explain with profound wonder, for the animist, the past is literally buried in the living soil—the foundation of all life. The people of the Fifth World, like the animist people of the previous worlds, are always aware of the fact that all the life of their land is based in that land , land made from the flesh and bones of their ancestors—both human and otherwise. The ancestral lands of an animist people are more than just a homeland; they are the landscape of their entire culture, a mythic cartography of their entire being, and all the life they have and all the life they
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Shamans know that there is more to the spirit of place than simple ambience, though, or even ecological reality. On a material level, one can note the complex systems that make up an organism; yet shamans know that such creatures have spirits. Ecologies, too, develop spirits. Places have spirits as surely as individual beings, but being the spirit of a larger system makes them far more powerful than the spirits of their component elements. In essence, they are the gods of shamanism, and not to be trifled with.
physical ignition, these spirits follow a psychological process, resulting in a psychological ignition. In this case, the creation of a whole personality around that unifying, psychological principle. These entities were often known in the Fourth World as “angels” and “demons,” the distinction made between “positive” and “negative” psychological forces. In fact, no psychological force is ever positive or negative in itself, and so the distinction between angels and demons are often illusory. That said, the psychological ramifications of civilization drew definite demarcation lines, such that two new proto-spirits, more often referred to as spiritual zones than spirits, began to emerge—“Heaven,” the system of alliances among the “angels,” and “Hell,” the system of alliances among the “demons.” This demarcation, of belonging to one of two opposed alliances, has proven a far more precise means of separating angels and demons than the previous reliance on the arbitrary moral judgments on emotion.
Cultures of the Fifth World are moved by the very same spirits of place that once moved native cultures, and they have moved along similar, though wildly innovative, lines. In surviving collapse, those who have inherited the Fifth World had to learn how to become native—a process that meant ceasing to be an alien, and becoming part of the spirit of that place, and allowing it to transform them and the way they live. Angels & Demo ns
Civilization resulted in some psychological forces—anger, hatred, pride, bigotry, fear, etc.— becoming far more commonplace than they had previously been in the world. As a result, those demons grew far more powerful. Asmodai of Rage was once little more than a blustery imp, but the passions of the Fourth World turned him into an archdemon.
Like energies attract like energies. One person’s happiness can be infectious and raise the spirits of everyone around her; by the same t oken, one angry man can spoil the mood of a whole village. This works on a cosmic scale with an em otional equivalent of gravity, ultimately giving rise to the psychological equivalent of stars. As like psychological energies attract one another, becoming even more attractive, they eventually ignite—but whereas stars follow a physical process and result in a
Like other spirits, angels and demons exist in a holarchy: those holons at the highest, most ab-
A comparison of Joel Garreau’s Nine Nations of North America (left), a sociological analysis of twentieth-century North America and the ma or Native American culture rou s ri ht . 53
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stract levels are also the most powerful. Minor imps might personify something as simple as the frustration of stubbing one’s toe, while minor angels may be something as simple as the joy of a fresh spring rain.
vidual specimen we encounter is but a pale reflection. This idea might be considered a distant and perverse relative of the spirits that animists made such deep relationships with, but the entire process is backwards—spirits arise from patterns of relationship, while Plato’s “Forms” imposed some notion of perfection, from which all examples were inherently fallen. This notion had profound philosophical and religious implications for the farmers as they became increasingly removed from their own direct experience, and more and more enveloped in a strictly human dialogue. Even when their own science proved the inseperable nature of mind and body and betrayed the very foundation of Cartesian dualism on which the entire enterprise was launched, they continued to act as if the world were essentially dead, and the things in it mindless—since the animating force had been removed from the material world, and placed in the “spiritual” world, to which only humans had access. Even the so-called “free thinkers” among them did not dare to venture the possibility that if the animating spirit they knew of their own existence was an emergent property of their complex neurology, then the same animating spirit might be found in everything else around them.
Monotheistic religions of the Fourth World saw angels as messengers of their god, and demons as rebels against their god. The focus of monotheists have patterned their appearance, and the names they respond to most commonly, after the expectations of Abrahamic belief. Most Fifth Worlders, if they are concerned with angels and demons at all, see them as two opposite poles of the Great Spirit’s psyche battling for dominance in the same way that an individual might struggle to balance his own personality between two extremes. With the collapse of civilization, hell was all but destroyed. The demons have been greatly reduced in power from their once near-dominion of existence. This has led to a very dangerous situation, where demons plot to restore civilization, and in so doing, to restore hell and possibly “win” their unwinnable war. Angels and demons are most often encountered as a prescence—an angry room, or a joyful aura, they are simply an ambient emotional energy that infects all those present. However, they are sometimes encountered in a much more physical aspect, taking on an appearance arbitrated by the cultural expectations of the observer. This is called an incarnation of the angel or d emon, whether encountered in normal, waking reality, or in the spirit world.
This is an important history to outline in brief, because the farmers so often imposed their superstitions on animist beliefs about “the spirit world,” just as they supposed animist spirits to be as superstitious a collection of anthropomorphic forces as they feared themselves. This is, of course, a projection that owes everything to the illusions cast by the power of the farmer’s alphabet magic, and nothing whatsoever to the animist understanding of the spirit world.
The Spirit World
The unity of the world might seem trite, but when its implications are truly followed through, the animist’s departure from farmers’ thinking is profound. The animist experiences her own life, and when she trusts h er sensuous experience, what she encounters is a fundamentally living world—a world every bit as alive as herself. It takes great training to wipe out this natural intuition, training that farming cultures relied on heavily, but are simply not employed among animists before or since. Thus, the world is not simply a dead clock work—it is every bit as much alive as one’s own self, and experienced always and everywhere as such. Given the animist understanding of spirits—a non-human way of being—the animist understanding of “the spirit world” should follow immediately: a non-human view of the world. Or,
The farmers of the Fourth World embraced a bizarre superstition that they eventually came to call “Cartesian dualism,” by which the physical, sensuous world that we experience is presumd to be a cold, dead, mechanical thing, while “the mind” is safely tucked away into another world, a plane of existence wholly separate, often referred to as a spirit world. This reflected an implication of their most powerful magic, the alphabet, that was formulated by one of the very first literate philosophers, a man by the name of Plato. When the farmers’ alphabet allowed them for the first time to separate the notion of a thing entirely from all sensuous experience of it, the distinction between the abstract and the material became a concern. This Plato supposed a world of “Forms,” as he called them, being “ideals,” of which every indi54
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symbol derived from the axis mundi , with snakes coiling around it to go into the upper world to obtain knowledge, reflecting the role of the shaman.
at the very least, a view of the world other than the one we experience in our waking lives. An excellent example is provided by the aboriginal peoples of Australia, whose theological sophistication easily compares to the thick tomes produced by such farmer philosophers as Saint Augustine. This theology centered on the notion of the Dreamtime. They held that time does not flow from the past into the future, but that we order it as such when we are awake because we cannot deal with it all otherwise. We encounter the world as it truly is, they say, in our dreams, where past, present and future are all co-existent. Thus, “the Dreamtime” can be the distant past when the ancestors created the world, or it can be the dream one had last night, or it can even be the distant future. It is simultaneously ancient and contemporary. Moreover, because of this overlap, whenever one of these people walks the songlines of her ancestor, signing the same song the ancestor sang, she is not simply casting herself in the imago dei ; she is the deity, taking part in creation itself.
Many cultures found an astrological expression of their cosmology, identifying the Milky Way with the axis mundi , and imagining it to contain a multitude of other worlds. Of particular significance was Cynosure—som etimes in the northern hemisphere (depending on the procession of the equinoxes) identified with Polaris, which was often identified as the First Shaman, or at other times, and always in the southern hemisphere, that area of darkness at the center of the night sky’s dome that the Maya called “the Heart of the Sky.” It was commonly held that it was a peg from which the world hung, or a hole in the heavens through which a shaman might pass into the Overworld, if he could climb the World Tree so high. Underworld
The Underworld the farmers so demonized was the sensuous embodiment of their own past. We dig into the past; we uncover it; the past is buried . The spirits of the ancestors mingle into the living soil, the soil that is the foundation of all life, just as the past is the foundation of the present. To quote Toby Hemenway:
Axis Mundi
One nearly universal element found in reports of the spirit world is the axis mundi —the navel of the world. Sometimes it is a tree, as with the Norse Yggdrasil, or the Wacah Chan of the Maya, or the bodhi tree to Hindus and Buddhists, or the Tree of Life in Egyptian, Greek and Hebrew myths, or the Sephirothic tree in Kabbalh.
In other words, we can think of biomass, complexity, and the other indicators of maturity as measures not only of the resilience of a system, but as a form of wisdom. That’s because as ecosystems mature, the aftermath of environmental tumult such as storm or drought depends more on the richness of the ecosystem than on the nature of the disturbance. A drought that withers a weedlot doesn’t faze an old-growth forest—the forest has learned what to do with drought. It has grown structures, cycles, and patterns that convert nearly any outside influence into more forest, and that protect key cycles during bad times. It has become wise.3
Sometimes, however, the axis mundi is a mountain, such as the Temple Mount for the Abrahamic religions, the Black Hills for the Lakota, or the Shaman Rock on Olkhon Island in Baikal Lake for the Buryat shamans of Mongolia. The pyramids at Giza, as well as the pyramids in the Americas, tie into the same motif. The pyramids at Giza are thought to recreate the Egyptian tale of creation, while the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan was built over a cave that even as late as the Aztecs was still revered as the place where all life began. The role of the axis mundi is to bind together our Middle Earth with the Underworld below the earth, and the Overworld above the heavens. The shaman might climb the World Tree into the Overworld, or descend through the caverns beneath the Sacred Mountain to enter the Under world; in either direction, the journey up or down the axis mundi was one fraught with peril, undertaken to ensure the relationship between the shaman’s human community, and the various nonhuman communities around it. The caduceus
Is it any wonder, then, that the farmers so vilified the Underworld? It was the painful memory that they had not always been criminals exiled from
3 You
can read the rest of Toby Hemenway’s “Urban vs. Rural Sustainability” online at http://energybulletin.net/3757.html
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their natural state; it was the home of their ancestors, eager to welcome them home if ever they could end their war upon all life. Their farming eroded and poisoned the living soil, killing it and turning it to desert, as they tried to kill the past it pained them so to remember.
Rather, the animating force of the world, what makes it alive and vital and vigorous is experienced in the air itself—an invisible presence that flows through and in us all, binding us into a single existence. There is no empty space between us; that space is filled and pregnant with life, with the moving, living winds that animate us all with their spirit. Our own spirit is not an intelligence that dwells within us, it is that part of the sacred wind that we partake of—that wind that moves inside us, that animates us, our spirit.
The Underworld is the domain of the past—the place where wisdom has been accumulated as a gift from the ancestors. Shamans find the spirits of plants, animals, and their own ancestors buried in the Underworld, from which all life flows, where the ancestors of all species rest and mingle and become one in the living soil, to give life and wisdom to their descendants. The Underworld is where a shaman journeys to confer with the ancestors, to learn wisdom, or to make peace with an angered totem. Snakes and other things that burrow into the earth are often looked to as messengers between Middle Earth and the Underworld— this is why snakes are sacred to so many shamanistic religions, and why it was demonized by farmers so terrified to hear what their ancestors might have to say about their war.
The Overworld, too, was attacked by the farmers, though less directly. From the earliest days, the clearing of forests for crops and grazing lands shifted the balance of the living winds, and began to poison the Overworld. Later, when the farmers learned to burn their ancestors for fuel, the vapors so offended the living winds that they grew hot with anger, and transformed the world, sending great floods and calamities to wipe out the farmers—and if need be, end the entire hominid experiment. It was not the mercy of the winds, but the adaptiveness of the Fifth World cultures that emerged, that proved humanity’s worthiness to endure, even if its temporary, disastrous, folly could not be tolerated.
It may be that the Underworld is but the experience of our own unconscious, the seat of our own vigor and energy just as it is experienced as the spring from which the world’s life flows. Or, the unconscous may simply be, itself, a microcosmic reflection of the underworld.
Shamans journey to the Overworld to seek the counsel of the holy winds themselves, to plead with the spirits of storm, rain, wind and snow. The spirits of the Overworld are divinatory spirits who know what lies beyond the horizon, in the future. The vault of heaven, decorated with stars, is often interpreted by astrologers as the messages of the divinatory spirits. Birds travel on the winds, and are looked to as messengers between Middle Earth and the Overworld—the English word for “spell,” as in a magical spell, comes from the German word for a bird song (and the other meaning of the word, to arrange the letters of the alphabet to form a word, derives from the understanding that the alphabet is a very potent form of magic, and using it to lock an idea on the page is a powerful magic spell). If the Underworld is associated with the unconscious, then the Overworld must be associated with a kind of hyper-conscious synthaesia; but again, whether the Overworld is a psychological illusion, or whether its psychological dimension is a reflection of cosmological truth, must remain forever inconclusive.
Overworld
If the Underworld is the past, where the ancestors mingle to create the animate soil and the vitality and wisdom which sustains the life of the present, the Overworld contains the broad horizon which births the future; it is the abode of the living winds. Is it any mistake that the word for “spirit” is so often the word for “breath”? The English word, “spirit,” comes from the Latin spiritus , meaning “breath.” The Latin word for “soul,” anima , is the root for our words “animate” and “animism”; is the same as the Latin word for “breath.” In Biblical Hebrew, the word used for the soul— nephesh — means “vital breath.” The Greek verb psycho meant “to blow,” giving rise to the Greek word for soul or spirit, psyche —one’s last breath. The concept most often taken for the “soul” among the Navajo, nilch'i hwii'siziinnii , means, “the Wind within one.” These etymo logies harken back to an ancient, animist understanding that was later clouded by the superstition of Cartesian dualism, and the notion that implied of a personal soul.
Traveling Through the Spirit World
The spirit world is a universe of pure empathy. Though the techniques of ecstasy differ (see next section), they all succeed in turning the normal 56
The Fifth World
sensuous experience inwards, and eventually folding out into a whole world of spirits—whether, as most Fifth World cultures believe, a miniature axis mundi exists in the center of the mind that grants access to a purely empathetic level of the same, sensuous reality we normally know, or whether it is a map of that world inside the shaman’s own mind, who can definitively say?
requires faith and gives none, that defends against religious experiences, that promulgates the bizarre superstition that humankind is in some way separate, di vorced from the rest of creation, that heals not the gaping wound between Body and Soul, but would tear them asunder … is no religion at all!
While mental traits and skills are unaffected, physical traits and skills do not tax stamina in the spirit world; instead, they take away spirit points. The spirit world also contains many places and means to replenish the spirit; strange fruits and magical streams frequently restore lost spirit, the same way such sustenance in the waking, sensuous world sustains health and stamina. Death in the spirit world is quite real—unlike the physical world where reaching zero spirit points brings with it mere madness, reaching zero spirit points in the spirit world means soul loss. The connection between the spirit and the body is severed; if a shaman does not intervene to rescue the lost soul within the next day, the soul is lost forever—and the character dies.
The mea ns by which such a state is reached varies greatly from culture to culture, but owing perhaps to commonalities in human physiology, there are a few methods which are particularly common, primarily: the trance, the vision quest, and the use of entheogens. What all of these methods have in common is one basic goal. The spirit world is open only to the dead; to access it, a human has to die. The key to all these techniques is to suffer a “little death” in such a way that resuscitation is possible. As one might expect, all of these are inherently dangerous, as the “little death” might at any time easily slip into a more permanent variety. Awakening the Sacred Fire
Among the Bushmen of the Kalahari, it is called the n/om tchai . They say there is a power that lives in the base of the spine, called n/om ; the ecstatic dance begins to excite this burning power, which then begins to boil up the spine. It is incredibly painful. Rock art and ethnographic reports show the intense bleeding associated with it. When the n/om reaches the stomach level, it will sometimes begin to burn inside the belly so violently and painfully that the dancer will double over in agony. Dancing sticks are then employed, so that the dancer can keep going. The goal of all this is to allow the n/om to boil until it explodes out the top of the head, “killing” the dancer in such a way that he is free to roam the spirit world, but can still return to his body later on.
Techniques of Ecstasy Ecstasy—sometimes called “soul flight”—is one of the primary means by which the shaman works with human perception. The word comes from the Greek ekstasis , “to stand outside,” and refers to a rapturous experience of being outside one’s own body, allowing a human being to experience a different way of being. Ecstasy is the means by which shamans travel t hrough the spirit world and journey up or down the axis mundi . The shapeshifting dance is a type of ecstasy, as well. As Jonathan Ott wrote: Shamanic ecstasy is the real “Old Time Religion,” of which modern churches are but pallid evocations. Shamanic, visionary ecstasy, the mysterium tremendum , the unio mystica , the eternally delightful experience of the universe as energy, is a sine qua non of religion, it is what religion is for! There is no need for faith, it is the ecstatic experience itself that gives one faith in the intrinsic unity and integrity of the universe, in ourselves as integral parts of the whole; that r eveals to us the sublime majesty of our universe, and the fluctuant, scintillant, alchemical miracle that is quotidian consciousness. Any religion that
Christians described the rapture of the Holy Ghost in terms of fire; Quakerism, Shakerism, Judaic Shuckling (in which the supplicant rocks to and fro while praying), the swaying zikr and whirling der vish of Islam, all contain faded memories of this sort of practice in the Abrahamic tradition. The Muslim poet Rumi wrote: You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. The concept of Kundalini is even more immediately relevant to the Bushman experience of n/om tchai—a fiery “serpent” (Kundalini comes from 57
The Elements of the Soul
the Sanskrit for “serpent”) imagined to be coiled at the base of the spine, which is “awakened,” and enticed to move up the spine, through the charkas, to reach the Crown chakra, at which point enlightenment is achieved.
his body at any time, and awaken from his “little death.”
In the Fourth World, some noticed that the reported charkas lined up with the major glands of the endocrine system, not only in physical location, but in reported function, suggesting the possible physiological basis for such a widespread phenomenon.
The vision quest is not as universally common a means of ecstasy as the trance, but it has enjoyed particular popularity in North America. The vision quest relies on asceticism, rather than intense dance. The vision quest takes much, much longer, involving fasts,, steam lodges, sleep deprivation, and various other forms of physical privation. The goal is to gain the sympathy of the spirits, that they might be willing to grant some boon. One story from the Ho-Chunk illustrates both the mechanism by which this works, and the limits of such favors. A boy fasted for many days, until a spirit took pity on him and came to him, promising to grant any wish he desired if he would eat, lest he die. The child wished to live forever; the spirit begged him to ask something else, for such a wish could never be granted, but the child would not budge. He would not eat until the spirits gave him this gift, to live forever. Many other spirits came, and offered him great power and wisdom, but he refused all of these, remaining steadfast—he wanted to live forever. And there, he eventually died, and a tree sprouted out of his body, and the spirits said they had granted the child’s wish in the
The Vision Quest
This sort of ecstatic trance dancing is the most common means of achieving a state of shamanic ecstasy. To use this in the game, a character needs the “Trance” skill. To achieve an ecstatic state— the “little death” in which the fire at the base of the spine rises up and “kills” the dancer—requires an extended task, wherein the dancer must unlock each of the seven charkas in turn. The TN increases for each chakra; 10 for the first, 20 for the second, and so on, until a TN of 70 is required for the Crown chakra. Thus, the total TN for this trance is 280, over a minimum of seven rolls, with each roll representing an hour of dancing. When that is complete, the fire explodes in a painful con vulsion, and the dancer falls, to all appearances dead. The dancer enters the spirit world, and is able to travel through it. The dancer can return to
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only way it could be—for only trees live forever.
means by which non-shamans might accompany a shaman into the spirit world. In these cases, a group of people using entheogens might be guided and protected through the spirit world by a more experienced, more powerful shaman who enters through trance.
Vision quests typically take several days. As an extended task, the storyteller should set a TN appropriate to the boon the quester is seeking (see table 9 for some example TN’s). Each roll represents a single day’s privation.
One of the most important things to consider when using e ntheogens is set and setting . As Timothy Leary described it:
Entheogens
The word “entheogen” comes from the Greek for “the god within,” and was used by the Greeks as an appellation for inspired poets and other artists. In the 1960’s, it came to be a term for hallucinogenic and psychoactive substances used in a religious context.
The nature of the experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure and his mood at the time. Setting is physical—the weather, th e room's atmosphere; soc ial— feelings of persons present towards one another; and cultural—prevailing views as to what is real.
Such plant allies are powerful, often revered by the cultures that use them as gods in their own right. In ingesting them, a human partakes of that power, and is aided into the spirit world. This means of entering the spirit world is much simpler and less painful than the trance dance, but carries with it other risks. Many entheogens are highly toxic, and require an antidote to be administered correctly, or it will kill the user. Many shamans have also noticed that those who journey in the spirit world with the aid of entheogens often report much darker, alien experiences, suggesting that the plant spirit may not always be a benevolent guide in the spirit world.
Thus, the traditional use of entheogens is never recreational, and always tied to a specific ritual context. Following ritual procedure inadequately, much less using entheogens without such context, is a virtual guarantee that one’s experience will result in the kind of horrors that will scar a person for life, or even end that life. If you want to reflect the importance of set and setting in game mechanics, try making skill rolls for body painting, performance, etc., as your culture’s rituals require, to determine how successfully the ceremonial context has been established—and then reflect that in the entheogenic experience.
Still, unlike the trance dance or the vision quest, ingesting an entheogen does not require any great skill or personal sacrifice. For this reason, spirits in the spirit world often react more suspiciously towards humans who come by the patronage of an entheogen. Often, entheogens are seen as a sort of crutch for weak or inexperienced shamans, or a
When presented with mechanics in the Mythos System, entheogens have two statistics: dose and addictiveness. Dose is the prescribed dosage for that entheogen;
Table 8: Typical target numbers for vision quests TN
Favor
TN
Favor
100
Healing a sick relative.
400
Adding +1 permanently to a skill.
200
Rain to break a drought.
500
Adding +1 permanently to a trait.
300
Taking a new blessing worth 30 training points.
600
Revelation of a hidden power of a plant spirit hitherto unknown.
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this number is modified by tolerance (see below), as well as the character’s constitution, to derive an “average” dose for the entheogen, x . The entheogen’s dose also includes a modifier, +/- y . If the character ingests a dose between x - y and x + y , it works normally. At x -2 y , the entheogen fails to produce any effect, but at x +2 y , the character suffers an overdose . See the specific entheogen’s entry for what effects an overdose entails.
The Question of the Fourth World For the people of the Fifth World, like the tribal peoples who preceded them, magic is the selfevident and undeniable way of the world, yet in the Fourth World, things like shapeshifting, talking to animals, totems and so forth were deemed mere superstition. How can the experience of the Fifth World be reconciled with that of the Fourth?
As already mentioned, dose is also related to toler- ance . The character sheet includes several lines for entheogenic experiences, one line for each entheogen a character has ever used. Each use fills in one or more tolerance points (as indicated by the entheogen’s table), with the tolerance rank for that entheogen increasing every time ten tolerance points are filled in (somewhat similar to training points for skills).
The nature of magic is ambiguous, and should always remain so. It operates at multiple levels, simultaneously. We might take the Fifth Worlder’s own view, and say that a shaman enters the spirit world through a trance dance, goes into the forest, and converses with the Deer Spirit, who tells him how many of his people the shaman’s tribe can take down this year. Or, we might imagine that the shaman’s trance merely puts him in an exquisitely powerful state for consulting his unconscious mind; that the shaman, trained so well in his life as a hunter and observer of ecological interactions, has been noting the subtle signs of the deer population unconsciously all year, that he has “thin sliced” the evidence, and in his ecstatic state is able to consult this knowledge—now processed through the visual elements in his brain and matched with a recognizable symbol, that of a Deer Spirit. But the most accurate view must surely be that both views are, simultaneously, correct, in the same sense that a psychological view of someone’s emotional distress is just as accurate a portrayal as a neurological mapping of which parts of the brain are involved.
The formula for the “average” does of an entheogen is thus: Dose x Tolerance Constitution Thus, while each e ntheogen has a baseline dosage, the amount a character requires for the effect increases with use; moreover, characters with higher constitutions will require higher doses than those with lower—or, in reverse, that characters with more tolerance or higher constitution can take higher doses without fear of an overdose. The final statistic used for an entheogen’s description is addictiveness. Most entheogens are nonaddictive, and thus have addictiveness ratings of zero, or else very low addictiveness. This is not universal, however, and some may form a habit. Each time an entheogen is used, you must make a Wisdom roll against a TN set by the addictiveness score of the entheogen, multiplied by your tolerance score for it. If you fail to beat that TN, you become addicted to the entheogen, and must take the Addiction curse for that entheogen.
The questions of mechanics do not interest people of the Fifth World nearly as much as they did the Fourth. Our assumption that the world is an unloving machine, rooted in Cartesian dualism, is the very opposite of animism. Hence our fascination with mechanical explanation, and hence the Fifth World’s lack of regard for them. They are much more interested in why things happen as they do, and the system of relationships that bind them all together, than in the mechanical level of how chemicals and peptides express such relationships.
One common effect of entheogenic overdose is the flashback, in which you will be pulled back into the spirit world at times of significant emotional stress. The general mood and ambience of your original foray will set the tone for the flashback, as well. If an entheogen has a chance of producing flashbacks, its description will provide a TN for a Wisdom roll. If you beat the TN, you will not suffer any flashbacks; if you fail to bea t the TN, you will s uffer a number of flashbacks equal to the TN – the result of your roll. These will occur at the storyteller’s discretion.
The most haunting thing about primitive magic, for the civilized skeptic, is that it undeniably works. In Original Wisdom , Robert Wolff relates this story of a Sng’oi who went with him to see the ocean. I saw Ahmeed standing very quietly among the casuarina trees that fringed 60
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the beach. I started in his direction, but turned back when I saw how intensely he was concentrat ing, his face toward the ocean. I was not sure he had his eyes open. It seemed he did not want company.
phenomenological black box in your stories just as it does in our contemporary ethnography . The crucial element is that in the Fifth World, there is no doubt to its reality, for the simple reason that it’s an inescapable element of their direct experience—because it works .
When they returned to the villages, though, Ahmeed began to describe the ocean for his fellow tribespeople. “Animals that are flat”—he clapped his hands once—“and animals that are like snakes, but bigger, much bigger. But do not be afraid—the Big Ocean cannot eat the land. The land floats, and the animals in the Big Ocean can live only there; they cannot come on land.” He repeated in a singsong, “Do not be afraid. The Lord of the Great Ocean has told me, do not be afraid because the land floats on the water, and the animals in the ocean cannot come on land.” Many times he repeated that the land floats on the ocean, do not be afraid. I could not imagine how he might have learned these facts about the ocean and the animals that lived in it in the short time we had been there. Could anyone have told him? I did not think so—there had been few people there, and every time I looked for him, he was standing alone under the ironwood trees, watching the ocean. He obviously had not read the information in a book—he could not read. Then where did he get such detailed information about something that he could not have seen with his eyes? Ahmeed described currents, whales, even submarine trenches and mountain ranges, all of which he had learned simply by sitting there, concentrating on the sea. The Sng’oi had never seen the ocean, knew nothing of it, and had only recently been contacted by the outside world. We might imagine that Ahmeed was using the same sort of “thin slicing” that Malcolm Gladwell describes in Blink, or that he really did speak to the “Lord of the Great Ocean” as he claimed. And of course, both are true—and neither. The Fifth World is an anthropology of the future; if our current anthropology cannot explain the magic experienced by animist peoples, why should this? There is no need to make any pronouncement as to the reality or unreality of magic. It can remain a 61
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Spirits
S
pirits—all those ways of living and experiencing the world that do not take a human shape—are all around us. Our sensuous experience of the world is an animistic one; we experience everything in the world as having its own life and perspective. It takes specific training from an early age to disable that basic intuition. While it may fall to the shaman to act as the principal intermediary and ambassador who delineates and maintains the boundaries between the human community and all the non-human communities around it, everyone in the Fifth World has daily, intimate contact with several communities of spirits, each with their own dispositions, temperaments, perspectives and outlooks. The primary part of any Fifth World child’s education, in any culture, is a familiarization with the spirits they share the world with.
from the south, and all of them have been pushed polewards by the change. The end o f the Holocene Ext inction, global warming, and the radiation released by civilization’s pollution, reactors and other excesses, have yielded a very significant side effect, however. Evolution does not operate simply with slow, gradual change; it is a punctuated equilibrium, in which periods of stress lead to significant, rapid adaptation. Warmer areas have always seen greater evolution; more energy from the sun provides more energy in photosynthesis, which provides more energy throughout the entire food chain. Even the farmers’ scientists noted that most of the Fourth World’s biodiversity lived in the tropics. Throughout history, the greatest explosions of evolution have occurred in the wake of mass extinctions. Such mass extinction lives many niches that were formerly full, empty—and thus, available for another species to fill. Of course, evolution doesn’t simply happen —it is driven by mutation, and the radioactive legacy of civilization created a great deal of that.
The planet has changed significantly since the Fourth World. Civilization began an ecological escalation it could not stop—tipping points, those points where negative feedback loops (processes that extinguish themselves and create balance) become positive (where each round of the cycle reinforces the next in a runaway escalation), were easy enough to reach, but they were more than the farmers could handle.
The end of the Fourth Wor ld saw all three of these converge—warmer climates around the globe, high mutation rates from civilized pollution, and the end of a mass extinction. The unwitting legacy of civilization was an evolutionary explosion unparalleled in the earth’s history.
Antarctica and Greenland are now covered in forests. The ice caps are completely gone. The sea is over 60 meters higher than it once was, drastically redrawing the boundaries of land and sea. The earth’s climate came back into balance eventually—it always does—but only when a band about the planet’s equator was baked white from the heat, providing the albedo to begin cooling the planet. That white desert—the Deadlands—have cut the earth into two clear hemispheres, with only the most adventurous brushes yet adapting to such intense heat. There are still plenty of habitats where humans, adaptable as they are, can make their living, but they can no longer claim the whole earth as their demesne. No northern Fifth World culture has ever had any contact with any culture
Domesticated species rewilded—cows became the giant neurochs, chicken became the fierce forestfowl, etc. Other species regained the same enormous dimensions their ancestors had before the Ice Age (or its Holocene interglacial), like the giant dragonfly or the giant beetle. Some lizards have achieved enormous size, like the ancient thunder lizards that the birds once descended from. Of course, most of the spirits of the Fifth World are the same spirits that shaped the Fourth. Many voices were silenced forever in the Holocene Extinction; others have come from the brink of extinction. For the rewilded domesticates, the farm62
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ers’ rampage greatly swelled their numbers. The elephant stood on the brink of extinction at the end of the Fourth World, but when civilization ended, escaped elephants from zoos and private ranges found themselves in the same plains that had once been home to their mammoth ancestors, and profligated as quickly as wild horses once did, when the Spaniards reintroduced them to their ancient homelands.
The aborigines of Australia used fire sticks to burn off less desirable plants, and encourage those plants they preferred. The California Indians used fire to promote seed production in grasses and wildflower, to thin brush for better hunting, and to promote the growth of tubers. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) used fire extensively, as did the natives of the Amazon—indeed, increasing evidence suggests that the lush, tropical rain forest of the Amazon is an artificial creation, a vast food forest created by humans with the help of the fire spirits. Fire has been used to cook food that would otherwise be inedible or simply taste bad; it straightens arrows and spears, hardens digging sticks, bends basket rims, waterproofs tanned hides, purifies, deodorizes, cast light in the darkest night, gives warmth, and pulls the people together.
Fire The story of creation told by the Bushmen of the Kalahari recalls a time when humans lived in perfect harmony with all other spirits, as in the mythologies of many other animists. Kaang, the creator, instructed them all to live in harmony, and told the people not to build any fires, lest a great evil befall them. But when the sun disappeared below the horizon, the people grew frightened. They were cold without the fur of other animals. In their fear and cold they forgot Kaang's instructons, and built a fire that warmed them, and gave them light to see to keep their fears away. But the fire frightened the animals. Where once was friendship, now is fear. The ability to communicate with the animals is lost.
The firestarting skill is n ecessary to s tart a fire. If you are using a piece of flint and a a piece of steel or iron, the TN is usually around 30. This may be higher if the kindling is wet, there are excessive winds, or other inclement conditions. For friction fires involving two types of wood, such as with bow drills, the TN is determined by the types of wood used. Willow, Dogwood and Grape have excellent relationships with the fire spirits; Huckleberry and Apple have extremely poor relationships with the fire spirits. See table 10 for example target numbers.
For the Greeks, it is Prometheus that steals fire from the gods for mankind. To the extent that humans are a unique species (as every species is unique in its own ways), much of that is bound in the relationship between humans, and the spirits of fire. All other animals instinctively flee fire; at some point, one of our ancestors overwhelmed that instinct with her conscious will, and walked towards the fire instead. In time, humans learned to summon fire spirits, the same way they would be so often summoned by the lightning. This was perhaps the most important moment in the history of our species--our alliance with the fire spirits.
If you’re unfortunate enough to catch on fire, you can make a Dexterity roll against a TN of 16 to put out the fire by rolling on the ground. Failure to make that throw entails damage equal to the roll of 3 dice. Every second, you have another chance to make the Dexterity roll; every second you’re on fire, you lose another 3 dice of health point damage. If you are on fire for more than three seconds (three rolls), you gain the “Unsettling” curse for the permanent burns you have received.
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Table 9: Target numbers for starting a fire with a bow drill with various typ es of wood. Hearths
s l l i r d w o B
e l p p A
r i F s a l g u o D
y r r e b e s o o G
32
24
8
32
32
24
16
32
24
Apple
24
32
Douglas Fir
16
Gooseberry
w o l i W
r a d e C d e R
y r r e b e l k c u H
e p a r G
24
40
16
32
24
16
32
24
24
40
32
32
24
24
32
16
40
32
32
32
16
40
16
24
40
24
32
32
8
16
32
16
16
24
24
32
16
32
24
16
24
40
24
24
16
Willow
8
32
40
32
8
32
16
24
40
40
Red Cedar
16
16
8
24
24
32
24
24
32
16
Huckleberry
8
32
32
8
32
32
32
24
32
24
Grape
32
16
24
16
16
16
24
32
16
16
e l p a M
d o o w g o D
t u n l e z a H
Maple
16
24
Dogwood
8
Hazelnut
Quartz
Minerals
The quartz crystal has long been one of humanity’s closest allies. Quartz has been revered as a godlike intellect, giving it the sort of honor usually reserved for enthogenic plants. They are often believed to be a kind of condensed, solid light. Shamans would often place quartz over their eyes for divination. In some tribes, a piece of quartz would be surgically inserted between a shaman’s ribs; when that shaman died, the quartz would be removed and passed on to another shaman—it was
Mineral spirits take the very long view. They’re never in any particular hurry, and they move so slowly that many animals mistake them for not moving at all—of course, to the mineral spirits, animals zip past so quickly it’s sometimes hard to notice their presence before they die.
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believed that this procedure would carry with it all of the old shaman’s knowledge on to his successor. For those cultures that used “medicine bundles,” a piece of quartz was often the centerpiece of the entire sacred collection, the potent, living axis around which the other spirits revolved.
Bog iron is still available in many places; it is created by bacteria in bogs and lakes that deposit iron over the years. Bog iron must be harvested sustainably, placing a cap on the amount available. Charcoal fires burn hot enough to work bog iron, and enough metallurgical knowledge has survived to make iron tools and weapons. Still, the supply of iron is small enough that iron tools are rare and revered as sacred. Even more sacred are those iron tools crafted from ores extracted from meteorites—one of the other common sources of workable iron ore. Iron tools receive a +1 bonus for their hardiness.
Quartz crystals are piezoelectric: they produce an electrical charge when under pressure. This also results in triboluminescence, causing quartz crystals to light up when rubbed against one another. For this reason, some of the most sacred objects some cultures have are rattles filled with quartz crystals, which begin to glow as they are shaken.
Ochre is also important as a pigment. Some of the earliest signs of the stirring of humanity’s spiritual life was the red ochre found on their skeletons, what had once been worn as body paint. Yellow ochre, when burned, will turn first orange, and then a bright red. Many cultures revere ochre as a sacred pigment, and favor its use for rock paintings or ritual body paintings.
In a cryptocrystalline form, quartz often forms chalcedony—various forms of chalcedony include bloodstone, jasper and flint. Flint, the most essential stone for toolmaking, is but a slightly different variety of the same quartz crystals so beloved by shamans all over the world. In this form, quartz has played a major role in the formation of human beings. Making stone tools is one of the most defining characteristics of the human species. In the Fourth World, the manufacture of stone tools was used to differentiate the genus Homo from its ancestors in the genus Australopithecus . Toolmaking gave rise to humans’ unique handedness, and is tied in their brain structures to the division of their left and right brains, and to language. Thus, in a very real way, the quartz spirit is humanity’s patron: quartz is one of our most direct and powerful creators.
Obsidian
Even at the height of the Fourth World, civilized surgeons could do no better for their most delicate surgeries—on the eyes, or on the heart—than obsidian. This black glass is not truly a mineral, but its spirit certainly acts like one. It forms from the cooled lava flows of a volcano, forming a black glass that shatters into extremely sharp blades. Humans turn to obsidian for the sharpest tools possible. Arrow points, spearheads and ax heads made of obsidian receive a +1 bonus for their keenness.
Iron
Iron is one of the most plentiful spirits in the earth’s crust, but it rarely remains alone. It has a very close relationship with oxygen, and it is much more common to find iron oxide, also called ochre or rust, than iron itself. Red water or rocks are usually evidence of iron in the soil. Iron is absorbed by plants, eaten by animals, and important for the maintenance of life. In the Fourth World, iron was an essential element for tools, often alloyed with other metals to create steel. In the Fifth World, without industrial methods or fossil fuels, it is usually impossible to create fires hot enough to work these alloys, which have since rusted beyond usefulness. There were several centuries in which scavenging the iron and steel tools of civilization, often reworking them by simply pounding them into a slightly different shape, was a viable approach, but this has become harder and harder. Many such reworked relics remain, but they have ceased to be the foundation of cultures.
Fungi The fungus kingdom is a strange, alien realm for most animals, and yet they are integral to the living world. Fungi are often great psychopomps who guide the spirits of the dead to the underworld, even as they break down their bodies into the living soil from which the green plants grow. Nor do fungi merely open up the spirit world to the dead, for many of them are also powerful entheogens. The mycology skill is used to identify different types of fungi. Fungal spirits are often encountered in the form of fairies, elves, pixies of other fae. Where they grow in circles, the perceptive can sometimes see the fairies dancing at night to sanctify that circle. Most cultures maintain strict taboos about violating such 65
The Elements of the Soul
circles, and tell “fairy tales” about the consequences such violations may entail.
success leads to your character being incapacitated with sickne ss for 24 – x days, where x is the value of your original constitution roll. Eating a regular morel restores a number of stamina points equal to one die roll.
Common Large Psilocybe
Psilocybe cubensis Cooking bonus: +1 The Common Large Psilocybe is the most common mushroom entheogen. This spirit prefers to make its home in dung, or in manured soils in humid grasslands, though it sometimes ventures into sub-tropical or even tropical climes. It can be found in North America, the highlands and river valleys of South America, the Indian subcontinent, southwest Asia, and Australia. The Mexica revered this mushroom as teonanácatl , meaning “divine flesh.”
Fairy Ring Mushroom
Marasmius oreades While many mushrooms grow in fairy circles, this is the most well-known. Fairy ring mushrooms that have been dried out can still come back to life when they are moistened again. Like the same fairies that live so closely with these mushrooms, they are mischevious tricksters; while the fairy ring mushroom itself is perfectly edible (with a crunchy texture), it has several poisonous look-alikes. A TN 24 mycology check is required to identify a fairy ring mushroom positively. Failure may lead to muscarine poisoning—two hours of sweating, nausea, and abdominal pain, though rarely death. Eating a true fairy ring mushroom restores a number of stamina points equal to one die roll.
Table 10: Common Large Psilocybe as an entheogen Dose
3g +/- 2g
Tolerance
5 points per use
Addictiveness
0 Old Man of the Woods
Strobilomyces strobilaceus Effects
Effects take 20-60 minutes to begin, and last 4-5 hours, depending on dosage. While it is practically impossible to overdose on common large psilocybe (consuming an amount equal to one’s body weght can cause death), larger doses can lead to an overwhelming emotional experience that may lead to the madness curse.
This evil-looking fungus prefers to grow in dark hardwood and coniferous forests from midsummer into fall, making it a very elusive spirit. It’s edible, but tastes awful when it is young, and worse as it ages. Fortunately, its appearance is usually enough to encourage hungry mushroom hunters to move on. Parasol Mushroom
Macrolepiota procera The parasol mushroom likes to grow in welldrained soil; it is large and relatively easy to identify, making it a favorite edible. A TN 6 mycology skill roll will distinguish it from the shaggy parasol, which if ingested will cause a mild sickness for a number of days equal to one die roll. During that sickness, all rolls entail a -2 penalty. Eating a true parasol mushroom restores a number of stamina points equal to one die roll.
Common Morel
Morchella esculenta Morels are tasty morsels that sprout up in the second or third year following a fire, or in smaller groups where there has been no recent fire, year after year. The morel spirit has a special, symbiotic relationship with ash trees, and is often found with them. When identifying a morel, make a TN 9 mycology skill roll to distinguish it from the false morel. False morel can be eaten if properly parboiled, but if eaten raw, can cause death. If you eat a false morel, you must make a TN 16 constitution roll; failure results in immediate death, while 66
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Plants The plant spirits have long been some o f the closest allies of the animal spirits. What animals breathe out, plants breathe in; what plants breathe in, animals breathe out. The plant spirits are the foundation of animal life; while all animals take their food from plants (or other animals), plants take their food from the sun itself. Some plants are poisonous spirits of disease, but it is from plants that animals also take powerful medicine. Apple
1 point per use
Addictiveness
0
Effects
Ayahuasca begins to take effect in 20-60 minutes, and its effects can last for up to eight hours.
Dandelion
Malus relictii
Taraxacum officinale
The wild ancestor of the domesticated apple tree came from a small, specific place in Kazakhstan called Alma-Ata, “father of the apples.” Its spirit has long been associated with fertility and fecundity, and for this reason became an icon of temptation and sin to various priggish religions that viewed sex as an inherently polluting act. The domesticated apple tree inherited a weak and frail spirit that was often wracked by disease and infirmity. The rewilded apple tree species, however, has grown strong again. Their fruit blossoms in autumn, though rarely as red as the sickly domesticated strains once bred specifically for that scarlet hue. Instead, the fruit takes on a much more varied color and provides much greater nutrition. One fruit will restore a number of stamina points equal to one die roll.
The common dandelion is one of the most nutritious sources of food that humans have ever known. Its leaves can be bitter, but they possess enormous amounts of vitamin C, vitamin A and iron. Dandelion flowers can be fermented into wine, while its root can be used as a diuretic, or dried and ground as a replacement for coffee that cleanses the liver. Regular use of dandelion will reduce the incidence of illness by one full day. Dogwood
Genus Cornus Mythology has often enshrined the dogwood as a sacred tree—Christian tradition made the dog wood volunteer to be the wood of the cross. Dogwood has an especially good relationship with fire spirits, who come quickly when dogwood summons them. It is also a spirit much inclined to make tool handles, or any manner of tools that require a strong, hard wood.
Cooking bonus: +1 Ayahuasca
Banisteriopsis caapi The “vine of the dead” (as the name translates from Quechua), grows in the jungles of South America, where it is revered as a powerful entheogen.. It is sometimes used to induce vomiting and diarrhea to expel parasites, but it is its entheogenic use which is most well-known. The vine is prepared in a thick, foul-tasting brew which is used in religious ceremonies. Strict dietary taboos must be observed prior to these ceremonies, not only for the proper observance of set and setting, but to avoid dangerous interactions.
Douglas Fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii Douglas fir possesses a strong spirit that remains green even in the deep of winter. That strength is seen even in its wood, which is often put to use where wood must support heavy loads. These trees dominate the forests of the Pacific North west, with deep roots, covered in mosses and lichens.
Table 11: Ayahuasca as an entheogen Dose
Tolerance
Grape
Vitis relictii
1 cup
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The r ewilded grape combines the heritage of both the wild and the domesticated grape, and grows very aggressively. Its woody vines produce fruits that are edible in themselves, or can be turned into wine or jellies. Eating a bunch of grapes will restore a number of stamina points equal to one die roll.
The beautiful white, blue and purple flowers of the Morning Glory open up for the dawning sun, and the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees that pollinate them. Each morning, a new flower blooms, and dies in the afternoon. The small, brown, oval seeds of some morning glory plants are entheogenic.
Cooking bonus: +2
Table 13: Morning Glory as an enth eogen Dose
3.5g +/- 2g (100-400 seeds)
Tolerance
5 points per use
Addictiveness
0
Effects
Effects last 4-8 hours, with another 4 hours of aftereffects. TN 6 times tolerance to avoid suffering flashbacks.
Iboga
Tabernanthe iboga The powerful entheogenic spirit of black bugbane was onc e worshipped as a god by the Bwiti. One Bwitist, Nengue Me Ndjoung Isidore, said of it, “The Catholic church is a beautiful theory for Sunday, the iboga on the contrary is the practice of everyday living. In church, they speak of God, with iboga, you live God.” Table 12: Iboga as an entheogen Dose
1g +/- 0.5g
Tolerance
1 point per use
Addictiveness
0
Effects
Effects can last for up to two days, with intense nausea and vomiting.
Oak
Genus Quercus The oak tree was once sacred to the druids, a symbol of Zeus to the Greeks, and a symbol of strength and endurance to many others. It has struck a very strong alliance with the squirrel spirit that none may interrupt, but oak does not disdain humans, either. The wood of oak is often sought out for furniture and shelter. Its bark is rich in tannin, useful for tanning leather. Its dried bark is also a powerful medicine; pulverized and made into a tea, it treats diarrhea and, as a gargle, sore throats.
Maple
Acer macrophyllum The distinctive ma ple tre e provide po llen and nectar for honeybees, and food for caterpillars. Its sap can be turned into syrups, sugars or candies. Its wood is excellent for spears; its spirit is a great lover of song, and its wood is excellent for the creation of instruments. As a tonewood, instruments made of maple provide a +1 bonus for performance rolls.
Spearmint
Mentha spicata Consuming some of this delicious mint will restore a single point of stamina, but only once per day. Oil of spearmint is a carminative oil that helps against digestive cramps and flatulence, or it can be steeped in a tea to cure stomach aches.
Cooking bonus: +3
Cooking bonus: +3
Morning Glory
Peyote
Rivea corymbosa
Lophophora williamsii
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This powerful cactus spirit takes many years to mature, and so was nearly wiped out by the lost, desperate farmers who harvested it to ease their pain as their society collapsed. Since then, proper respect for the power of this entheogen has allowed it to establish itself once again. The disc shaped buttons that make up the plant's crown must be carefully harvested, or the entire plant may be uprooted and killed. These may be chewed, or more often, boiled in water to produce a tea. The tea is extremely bitter, and generally causes nausea before the entheogen has opened the spirit world.
since the end of the Fourth World. Its fragrant, light wood makes for an excellent bow. The native peoples of North America once used red cedar poles to mark out agreed tribal hunting territories, leading the French to name one of their outposts “Red Stick,” or in their language, Baton Rouge . Red Cedar managed to thrive even during the Fourth World because, once the full extent of farming's damage began to show, farmers began planting red cedar as a wind break between their plots. Strawberry
Fragaria vesca
Table 14: Peyote as an entheogen Dose
1 button
Tolerance
1 point per use
The leaves and roots of strawberry have various medicinal uses, but it is the delicious fruit that this spirit is most beloved for. One fruit will restore a single lost point of stamina. Cooking bonus: +3
Addictiveness
0 Willow
Effects
Salix alba
Effects last up to 12 hours. TN of tolerance score to avoid flashbacks.
The spirit of willow is lethargic and depressed by some ancient wound, yet this only endears it all the more to shamans, who see some of their own nature reflected in this “wounded healer.” The “Weeping Willow” does not simply succumb to its depression, but offers healing to others through it. One of the most effective medicines that civilized doctors ever discovered was aspirin, derived from the willow's bark.
Plantain
Plantago major Plantain is a very powerful plant, one of the greatest all-purpose medicines one will ever find. Its leaves can be chewed into a poultice with mud for bee stings, insect bites, poison ivy rashes, minor sores or boils. It is anti-toxic, antibacterial, antiviral and anti-inflammatory; the seeds are a laxative; the leaves stop diarrhea. Its leaves also treat colds, flu, asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, fevers, hypertension, rheumatism, bladder problems, gastritis, ulcers, irritable bowel, cystitis, sinusitis, coughs, kidney stones, intestinal complaints, goiter, PMS, hoarseness, congestion, and hay fever; they regulate menstrual flow and stabilize blood sugar.
Wood Sorrel
Oxalis acetosella The common wood sorrel packs a strong, citrus burst in its green, clover-like leaves. It has a cheerful and rambunctious spirit, but it is also mischevious—be sure not to eat too much wood sorrel, or it will make you sick. Cooking bonus: +1
Red Cedar
Yarrow
Juniperus virginiana
Achillea millefolium
In poor soil, the red cedar may never become more than a bush, but if the soil is rich and healthy, the cedar will slowly grow as tall as 25m; the oldest red cedars live for three centuries. It springs up quickly in land that has been cleared, eroded or damaged, and so has been very busy
In Greek mythology, Chiron the centaur was tutor to the heroes of myth; among other arts, he first taught humans how to use herbs, and specifically taught Achilles how to use yarrow on the battlefields of Troy. Yarrow can stop most bleeding
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with a TN 12 herbalism roll. The Chinese revered yarrow for its use in divination, while later European connected it with devils and witchcraft. Yarrow was used as a powerful medicine by the Plains Indians and the Navajo; it's been found in 50,000 year old Neanderthal tombs. It is, in sum, one of the most powerful medicinal spirits humanity has ever known.
T YPICAL GIANT BEETLE Str 3, Cha 1, Dex 3, Int 2, Con 4, Wis 1. Spot 1, Lis- ten 1, Hide 1. 20hp, 5sp, 15st.
GIANT BEETLE AS PREY Tracking: 12 Butchery: 14
Insects
Cooking bonus: 0 There are very few insect s who bear any good will towards humans. For some animals, they are food; for many plants, they are pollinators and valued allies who ensure the survival of their species, but to humans, they are almost without exception spirits of pestilence, disease, and pain.
Fish, Amphibians & Reptiles The fish, amphibian and reptile spirits tend to be too distantly related to humans to make proper totems—they are simply too far removed from human experience, there is too little to form such a close kinship out of. There are a few, however, whose impact on the human world is sufficient to form such a relationship.
Bees are insects that many foraging humans have a very checkered relationship with, striking an uneasy truce to gain their honey and wax. Most horticultural societies also have a complex web of agreements with the insect spirits, providing offerings on one hand, while also punishing those who do not abide by the agreement (just as the insects often punish those humans who do the same).
Frog Giant Dragonfly
Frog’s watery metamorphosis from tadpole is an example of the kind of wonders that the spirit hides away. This water spirit’s call is known to summon the spirits of the rain, and to generally form a close kinship with the flowing waters.
The evolutionary explosion of the Fifth World has provided conditions for the dragonfly to regain the enormous size it had in ancient times.
T YPICAL DRAGONFLY
T YPICAL FROG
Str 2, Cha 1, Dex 2, Int 3, Con 1, Wis 2. Spot 2, Lis- ten 1, Hide 1. 5hp, 10sp, 10st.
Str 1, Cha 1, Dex 3, Int 2, Con 1, Wis 2, Spot 3, Listen 3, Hide 2, Jump 5. 5hp, 10sp, 15st.
DRAGONFLY AS PREY
FROG AS PREY
Tracking: 18
Tracking: 24
Butchery: 24
Butchery: 8
Cooking bonus: 0
Cooking bonus: +2
Giant Beetle
FROG AS TOTEM
Some beetles now grow to four or five feet, heavily armored in their shells, bound to an alien culture all their own that stretches back millions of years before the first hominid ever walked the earth.
Personality: The Performer (ESFP) Rivals: Owl, Snake, Heron
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Allies: Turtle, Salmon, Salamander
First Blessing: Salamander’s Touch. You have your totem’s fiery touch. You receive a +3 bonus to all firestarting rolls.
First Blessing: Frog’s Talent. Like your frog totem, you have a hidden talent. Pick any skill you like. You receive a free raise for any ro ll on that skill.
Second Blessing: Salamander’s Skin. You have gained the Salamander's protection from fire. All fire damage you receive is cut in half.
Second Blessing: Frog’s Croak. You have learned the song that the frog spirit uses to summon the rain spirits. You can make a Wisdom roll to summon the rain; the storyteller should set the TN for this roll according to local climate conditions, with an average case of 18 for a temperate, deciduous forest in late summer or early autumn.
Third Blessing: Salamander’s Fire. You have gained the full kinship of salamander and the flame. Fire no longer damages you whatsoever. Curse: Salamander’s Wrath. All of your firestarting rolls take a -12 penalty.
Third Blessing: Frog’s Metamorphosis. You can go into a kind of hibernation for one cycle of the moon (28 days), during which you are completely comatose. For each day, roll one die; you receive that many training points. You can only do this once in your life.
Salmon
Salmon live their lives in the ocean, but they will swim very far distances, up rivers, to lay their eggs in the same place where they were born—and then die. Thus, the salmon spirit speaks strongly to the kinship we all share with a special, sacred place; however far we wander from that place, it is part of us, and will always draw us home.
Curse: Frog’s Wrath. It will not rain in any place where you are. If you stay in one place for too long, you will cause a drought. Frog’s Wrath will thus condemn you to wander the rest of your life.
T YPICAL S ALMON
Salamander
Salamanders make their homes in rotting logs, so when these are tossed on th e fire, salamanders are observed emerging out of the flames. The salamander spirit has a strong kinship with the fire spirits, a kinship shared by those humans who have the salamander as a totem.
Str 1, Cha 3, Dex 2, Int 4, Con 1, Wis 3, Spot 1 Listen 2, Hide 2. 5hp, 15sp, 10st.
T YPICAL S ALAMANADER
Butchery: 12
S ALMON AS PREY Tracking: 12 (During a run, 3)
Cooking bonus: +4
Str 1, Cha 2, Dex 2, Int 2, Con 1, Wis 2, Spot 1 Listen 3, Hide 4, Running 3. 5hp, 10sp, 10st.
S ALMON AS TOTEM S ALAMANDER AS PREY
Personality: The Teacher (EN FJ)
Tracking: 24
Rivals: Bear, Eagle, Owl
Butchery: 6
Allies: Frog, Turtle, Duck
Cooking bonus: -2
First Blessing: Salmon’s Direction. Like the salmon out in the ocean, you always know which direction home is.
S ALAMANDER AS TOTEM
Second Blessing: Salmon’s Knowledge. The legend of Fionn mac Cumhail and the Salmon of Knolwedge reveals the ancient wisdom of the salmon spirit. You receive a free raise on all of your knowledge checks.
Personality: The Promoter (ESTP) Rivals: Owl, Snake, Badger Allies: Turtle, Frog, Fox 71
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Third Blessing: Salmon’s Sanctuary. While you are within one mile of the place of your birth, your spirit points are completely restored, and cannot be lost again until you move more than one mile from your birthplace. This does not apply to the spirit world.
Curse: Snake’s Wrath. You are gullible and especially easy to fool. Any roll to trick or fool you in any way has its TN reduced by 12.
Curse: Salmon’s Wrath. You cannot find your way back home. You become confused and lost; if you are ever going to get back home, you will need to be led there by someone else.
The slow, long-lived spirit of the turtle is an ancient, powerful one that rarely sees any need for swift action. It is slow, deliberate, methodical, and takes the long view and the larger perspective on life. It is a defensive spirit that often coops itself up in its shell, but also a strong spirit of endurance.
Turtle
Snake
T YPICAL TURTLE
The snake is the primary messenger of the Under world, and has long been sacred to shamans the world over—hence its demonization by farmers haunted by the reproach of their ancestors. The snake is a cunning spirit that possesses great knowledge, but it can also be treacherous and deadly.
Str 1, Cha 1, Dex 1, Int 3, Con 3, Wis 3, Spot 1 Listen 2, Hide 1. 15hp, 15sp, 5st.
TURTLE AS PREY Tracking: 14
T YPICAL SNAKE
Butchery: 24
Str 1, Cha 3, Dex 3, Int 3, Con 2, Wis 2, Spot 1 Listen 3, Hide 4. 10hp, 10sp, 15st.
Cooking bonus: 0
TURTLE AS TOTEM
SNAKE AS PREY Tracking: 18
Personality: The Counselor (INFJ)
Butchery: 18
Rivals: Boar, Wolf, Coyote
Cooking bonus: 0
Allies: Salmon, Frog, Salamander
SNAKE AS TOTEM
First Blessing: Turtle’s Endurance. Add +1 to your Constitution trait permanently. Second Blessing: Turtle’s Shell. In combat, you can choose to simply defend. This eliminates your possibility of doing any damage if you win the roll, but it will add +12 to your roll.
Personality: The Mastermind (INTJ) Rivals: Owl, Hare, Badger Allies: Eagle, Salamander, Turtle
Third Blessing: Turtle’s Longevity. When you receive this blessing, roll one die for each point of Constitution you have. All aging effects are delayed by that many years, though you cannot drop to a pre vious age rank.
First Blessing: Snake’s Wisdom. Add +1 to your Wisdom trait permanently. Second Blessing: Snake’s Sting. You are impervious to poison.
Curse: Turtle’s Wrath. You become prematurely old. Roll one die for each point of Constitution you have. All ageing effects are hastened by that many years. If this puts you into a new age class, roll for new curses that may entail.
Third Blessing: Snake’s Cunning. You can see through the plots of others. You have an uneasy feeling around anyone with a secret plot, regardless of how well they hide it.
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Second Blessing: Raven’s Eyes. You begin to acquire the raven’s attention to detail. You receive a free raise to all of your spot rolls.
Birds The avian spirits are closely related to the Over world. Descended from ancient thunder lizards that once roamed the primordial earth, today’s birds bear messages from the Overworld down to Middle Earth. Their songs inspire and teach language to human tongues, and are frequently the tutors of shamans.
Third Blessing: Trickster’s Smile. You have pleased the Trickster. Once a day, you can reroll any roll you make. Curse: Crow’s Wrath. Your reputation is ruined. No one trusts you. Whether you actually are sneaky and untrustworthy or not, everyone thinks you are.
Crow
Duck
The Trickster spirit of the crow is one of the most intelligent there is—their language is as complex and nuanced as human speech, and they even use tools, like humans do. To the Norse, the ravens Hugin and Munin—Thought and Memory—were the companions of the shaman-god and Allfather, Odin. They also often play the role of psychopomp, escorting the souls of the dead into the Underworld. As such intelligent tricksters, they often plagued farmers, leading them to invent “scarecrows” to frighten them away—a ruse that crows were generally far too intelligent to fall for.
The humble duck is one of the sacred diving spirits that trudged the earth up from under the waters. His dual spirit unites water and air, moving between the Overworld and the Underworld with ease. It is a spirit of resiliency—“like water off a duck's back”—and good humor, grounded in hidden strength.
T YPICAL DUCK Str 1, Cha 1, Dex 2, Int 3, Con 2, Wis 3, Spot 2 Listen 2, Hide 1. 10hp, 15sp, 10st.
T YPICAL CROW DUCK AS PREY
Str 1, Cha 2, Dex 3, Int 5, Con 2, Wis 4, Spot 3 Listen 3, Hide 4. 10hp, 20sp, 15st.
Tracking: 36 Butchery: 20
CROW AS PREY
Cooking bonus: +3
Tracking: 30 Butchery: 24
DUCK AS TOTEM
Cooking bonus: -6 (the phrase “eating crow” is thought to come from how stringy and unappetizing its meat is)
Personality: The Provider (ESFJ) Rivals: Fox, Eagle, Coyote Allies: Badger, Hare, Forestfowl
CROW AS TOTEM
First Blessing: Duck’s Diver. You receive a free raise on all swimming rolls.
Personality: The Performer (ESFP) Rivals: Owl, Eagle, Raccoon
Second Blessing: Off a Duck’s Back. If you are about to receive some kind of damage that would diminish your spirit points in the physical world, you may make a Wisdom roll with the TN equal to the amount of damage times three. If you beat the TN, you do not suffer the damage.
Allies: Wolf, Coyote, Fox First Blessing: Crow’s Sense. You pick up the crow’s innate sense of death. You can sense when someone is about to die.
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Third Blessing: Duck’s Resilience. Once per day, you may regenerate one die roll’s number of health points.
and has begun to appear as a totemic spirit. The bravery of the cock and its vigilance for the morning sun have become the salient features of the Forestfowl spirit.
Eagle
T YPICAL FORESTFOWL
The Eagle is a powerful bird of prey, a mighty hunter of the skies, and one of the clearest patrons of shamanism. First Shaman was identified as Brother Eagle by many cultures, and the Eagle totem remains a vital one for many shamans. The eagle soars higher than nearly any other bird, going deeper into the Overworld, and returning to earth with its messages.
Str 2, Cha 1, Dex 2, Int 2, Con 2, Wis 1, Spot 3 Listen 2, Hide 2. 10hp, 5sp, 10st.
FORESTFOWL AS PREY Tracking: 16 Butchery: 8
T YPICAL E AGLE
Cooking bonus: +6
Str 3, Cha 3, Dex 2, Int 3, Con 3, Wis 3, Spot 6 Listen 2, Hide 1. 15hp, 15sp, 10st.
FORESTFOWL AS TOTEM
E AGLE AS PREY
Personality: The Protector (ISFJ)
Tracking: 24
Rivals: Eagle, Owl, Fox
Butchery: 18
Allies: Duck, Turkey, Sparrow
Cooking bonus: -1
First Blessing: Cock’s Courage. You have th e courage of the forestfowl—according to legend, a bravery that even the lion fears. You receive a +1 bonus to all combat rolls.
E AGLE AS TOTEM
Second Blessing: Cock’s Crow. When the sun is shining, you can let out a cry that can be heard by everyone for a mile around. This also intimidates enemies, who suffer a -1 penalty to all their combat rolls for the next ten minutes.
Personality: The Champion (ENFP) Rivals: Owl, Wolf, Crow Allies: Bear, Snake, Neurochs First Blessing: Eagle’s Patronage. The favor of the Eagle spirit makes you strong in his world. You receive a free raise on everything you do in the Overworld.
Third Blessing: Cock’s Guard. In many religions, the cock was a guardian against evil spirits. Now, you are immune to harm in the spirit world. Curse: Cock’s Wrath. Your courage deserts you when you need it most. In combat, all of your rolls have a -3 penalty.
Second Blessing: Eagle’s Eye. Your own eyes have begun to take on the keenness of your totem. You receive a free raise on all spot rolls. Third Blessing: Eagle’s Splendor. The overwhelming aura of the eagle spirit shines forth from you now. You receive a free raise on all charisma or charisma-based rolls.
Heron
The wise heron is a close relative of the ibis that the Egyptians once worshipped as Thoth, god of wisdom. The heron’s spirit is diplomatic, but its powers of diplomacy are based in its strength and independence.
Forestfowl
The spirit of the rewilded ch icken has gro wn much stronger than its cowardly domesticated ancestor, 74
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Butchery: 18
T YPICAL HERON
Cooking bonus: 0
Str 2, Cha 3, Dex 3, Int 3, Con 2, Wis 2, Spot 3 Listen 3, Hide 1. 10hp, 10sp, 15st.
O WL AS TOTEM HERON AS PREY
Personality: The Field Marshal (EN TJ)
Tracking: 16
Rivals: Fox, Eagle, Squirrel
Butchery: 18
Allies: Duck, Crow, Raccoon
Cooking bonus: 0
First Blessing: Owl’s Augury. The owl is an omen o f death; your totem lets you know if someone around you is going to die soon.
HERON AS TOTEM
Second Blessing: Owl’s Wisdom. Add an extra point permanently to your wisdom score.
Personality: The Architect (INTP) Rivals: Fox, Wolf, Coyote
Third Blessing: Owl’s Song. You have been taught the owl’s song. When you sing it to someone at night, they are marked by death. Roll one die. For that many days, the marked one must make a Wisdom roll at the same hour that you sang the song. On the first day, the TN is 6, but it increases by 3 each day (9 on the second day, 12 on the third day, 15 on the fourth day, up to a maximum of 21 on the sixth day). If the marked one fails to make the roll, he dies immediately.
Allies: Duck, Beaver, Otter First Blessing: Heron’s Speech. You have picked up the diplomatic nature of your totem. All diplomacy rolls come with a free raise. Second Blessing: Heron’s Legs. You receive a free raise for all swimming rolls. Third Blessing: Heron’s Strength. You have the independence of your totem. Any roll geared towards your personal survival while on your own (hunting alone, starting a fire alone, etc.) comes with a +3 bonus.
Curse: Owl’s Wrath. The owl’s song has marked you for death. Follow the same rules set for the third owl blessing, Owl’s Song.
Curse: Heron’s Wrath. You are especially dependent on others. When you’re on your own, all of your rolls come with a -6 penalty.
Sparrow
The sparrow is a bright opportuist, daring and quick. It is a small but noble spirit, all too often overlooked and underestimated.
Owl
T YPICAL SPARROW
The spirit of the owl is an especially potent one. This nocturnal bird of prey inspires equal parts fear and awe, but always respect. It has been re vered for its wisdom and feared for its ferocity. It is just as often a symbol of death or sorcery.
Str 1, Cha 2, Dex 2, Int 3, Con 1, Wis 2, Spot 3 Listen 3, Hide 4. 5hp, 10sp, 10st.
SPARROW AS PREY
T YPICAL O WL
Tracking: 18 Str 3, Cha 2, Dex 2, Int 4, Con 2, Wis 2, Spot 4 Listen 3, Hide 3. 10hp, 10sp, 10st.
Butchery: 16 Cooking bonus: 0
O WL AS PREY Tracking: 26 75
The Elements of the Soul
First Blessing: Turkey’s Flight. Turkeys are strikingly strong fliers—over short distances. A short, powerful burst of energy leaves them drained. The first gift of the Turkey totem is this ability to spend a spirit point on any physical roll for a free raise.
SPARROW AS TOTEM Personality: The Crafter (ISTP) Rivals: Eagle, Owl, Fox Allies: Duck, Heron, Forestfowl
Second Blessing: Turkey’s Intellect. The Turkey is a remarkably intelligent bird. Add one point to your intelligence permanently.
First Blessing: Sparrow’s Surprise. Like your totem, you are often underestimated. When you make a successful contested roll against a non-sparrow, the other party is stunned.
Third Blessing: Turkey’s Sacrifice. You can choose to die in order to bring another back from the dead.
Second Blessing: Sparrow’s Song. Your speech is c lear and unmistakable, but at the same time, irreproducible. You receive a free raise on all of your charisma or charisma-based rolls, but the TN for someone to imitate you is raised by 12.
Curse: Turkey’s Wrath. You are sleepy and lethargic. You can only stay awake for 8 hours a day. Every hour beyond that requires a Constitution roll against an increasing TN starting at 6, and increasing by 6 each successive hour. Fail the roll, and you fall asleep right then and there, regardless of what’s happening.
Third Blessing: Sparrow’s Perspective. The sparrow teaches the nobility of the mundane and the power of the everyday. You have learned this lesson well, and can see through the pretense of haughty arrogance. All disguise rolls fail against you.
Mammals
Turkey
The closest spirits to humans are our closest relatives—the furry mammals that are our primary companions, our sources of food, clothing and shelter, our guides and our brothers and sisters.
Even before Europeans made it the central dish for their feast of thanksgiving, the natives of North America revered the turkey for its excellent meat. Its self-sacrificing spirit, laying down its life for their own, was not lost upon them. The Turkey’s spirit is one of self-sacrfice and compassion. It is one of the most honored totems.
Badger
The badger sp irit prefers the dry, open expanses o f the prairies where it can dig its holes. These nocturnal predators are aggressive and put up quite a fight, but their borrowing holes (and perhaps their pugnacious habits) have taught them the healing properties of the herb spirits.
T YPICAL TURKEY Str 3, Cha 1, Dex 2, Int 4, Con 3, Wis 2, Spot 2 Listen 2, Hide 1. 15hp, 10sp, 10st.
T YPICAL B ADGER
TURKEY AS PREY
Str 2, Cha 1, Dex 1, Int 1, Con 1, Wis 1, Hide 2, Herbalism 3. 5hp, 5sp, 5st.
Tracking: 16 Butchery: 12
E AGLE AS PREY
Cooking bonus: +5
Tracking: 16
TURKEY AS TOTEM
Butchery: 18
Personality: The Healer (INFP)
Cooking bonus: 0
Rivals: Fox, Bobcat, Coyote Allies: Duck, Forestfowl, Sparrow 76
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B ADGER AS TOTEM
Rivals: Wolf, Coyote, Salmon
Personality: The The Promoter (ESTP)
Allies: Eagle, Snake, Boar
Rivals: Squirrel, Snake, Sparrow
First Blessing: Bear's Skin. You may summon the bear spirit to fortify you in battle. Roll one die; that is how many rounds the berserk lasts. During the berserk, you may roll and keep twice as many dice in combat--but you must fulfill that many rounds of combat. If the nearest person is a friend, you attack your friend. The berserk can end prematurely only if there is nothing left alive in sight. Many bear clans tell tragedies of berserkers who kill their friends while possessed by the bear's ferocity.
Allies: Beaver, Boar, Otter First Blessing: Badger's Aggression. When confronted by an enemy, you exude an aggressive eagerness that puts your opponent off. He suffers a -3 penalty on all his rolls during your encounter. Second Blessing: Badger's Medicine. You have come to share the badger's special relationship with the healing herb spirits. You receive a free raise on all herbalism rolls.
Second Blessing: Bear's Strength. Strength trait permanently.
Add +1 to your
Third Blessing: Badger's Strength. The aggressive assertiveness of the badger spirit now shines through in all you do. You receive a free raise on all charisma or charisma-based skill rolls.
Third Blessing: Bear's Dream. In the spirit world, your actions drain your stamina points, rather than your spirit points.
Curse: Badger's Poison. You have provoked Badger's wrath, and he's told the p lant spirits all about you. You take a -2 penalty on all your herbalism rolls.
Curse: Bear's Wrath. You are haunted by terrible nightmares; you cannot sleep more than 4 hours at a time without being woken by one.
Bear
Beaver
You might underestimate a bear's speed because of its enormous size; this is a deadly mistake. Bears are as graceful as they are strong. They are fierce warriors, but their ferocity is almost entirely for defense. The bear spirit is not one of a conqueror, but a protector. Because of its long wintertime slumber, the bear is particularly a guardian of dreams.
The spirits of streams are often tightly bound to the beaver spirit--a healthy river is usually a series of pools, from one beaver's lodge to the next. Thus, the beaver's is the grand spirit of engineering, design and construction.
T YPICAL BEAVER Str 1, Cha 1, Dex 1, Int 3, Con 1, Wis 2, Hide 2, Swim 4, Shelter making 6. 5hp, 10sp, 5st.
T YPICAL BEAR Str 6, Cha 4, Dex 5, Int 4, Con 6, Wis 5, Spot 2 Listen 1, Hide 3, Climb 3, Swim 2. 30hp, 25sp, 25st.
BEAVER AS PREY Tracking: 8
BEAR AS PREY
Butchery: 22
Tracking: 6 Butchery: 24
Cooking bonus: +6 (beaver’s tail can be cooked into a delicious gelatin-like food)
Cooking bonus: +6 (bear liver is renowned as an especially delicious dish)
BEAVER AS A TOTEM Personality: The Inventor (ENTP)
BEAR AS A TOTEM
Rivals: Wolf, Fox, Coyote
Personality: The Healer (INFP) 77
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Allies: Badger, Otter, Squirrel First Blessing: Beaver's Intellect. Add +1 to your Intelligence trait permanently.
Third Blessing: Bison's Sacrifice. You have learned the importance of self-sacrifice. You may sacrifice any number of health points, and give them to another.
Second Blessing: Busy Beaver. You have inherited the beaver's industriousness. Tool-making, construction, and similar tasks no longer tax your stamina.
Curse: Bison's Wrath. The Bison's anger curses you with foolishness. You permanently lose one point from your Wisdom score.
Third Blessing: Beaver's Gift. You are a master builder. You receive a free raise on any skill roll to produce something--a tool, a shelter, etc.
Boar
Though once domesticated, the pig was never far from his wild spirit. Feral pigs would rewild in a matter of weeks, and since the fall of civilization, boars have proliferated across the whole world. It is a ferocious animal, but also greatly desired for its tasty meat, tough skin, and beautiful tusks. But you'll need to kill it first, and boar always puts up a vicious fight.
Curse: Beaver's Wrath. The anger of the Beaver spirit disrupts your thoughts. All intelligence and intelligence-based skill rolls come at a -2 penalty. Bison
The gentle giants of the plains, the great herds of buffalo are among the most sacred animals in many native cosmologies. Their enormous frames remind us of the earth that supports them.
T YPICAL BOAR Str 4, Dex 3, Con 5, Cha 1, Int 2, Wis 1, Running 3, Listen 1, Spot 1, 25hp, 5sp, 15st.
T YPICAL BISON Str 4, Cha 1, Dex 2, Int 1, Con 5, Wis 3, Listen 2, Running 3. 25hp, 15sp, 10st.
BOAR AS PREY Tracking: 16
BISON AS PREY
Butchery: 18
Tracking: 14
Cooking bonus: +3
Butchery: 18
BOAR AS TOTEM
Cooking bonus: +2
Personality: The Protector (ISFJ)
BISON AS TOTEM
Rivals: Coyote, Wolf, Fox
Personality: The Protector (ISFJ)
Allies: Bear, Badger, Neurochs
Rivals: Wolf, Fox, Coyote
First Blessing: Boar's Charge. You can begin a battle by charging at your enemy. This causes one die's roll of damage before the rest of the combat even begins.
Allies: Neurochs, Boar, Hare First Blessing: Bison's Prayer. Your connection to such an important game animal has given you a connection to all other prey animals. The Bison's Prayer summons game animals to you, and gives you a +6 bonus to your tracking checks to find something to hunt.
Second Blessing: Boar's Wild. The wildness of the boar was never entirely domesticated; so, too, are those favored by the boar freed from the command of others. The TN to compel, persuade, or otherwise manipulate you is raised by 12.
Second Blessing: Bison's Frame. The bison's spirit strengthens your own. Add +1 to your Constitution trait permanently.
Third Blessing: Boar's Hide. Any damage you receive is reduced by the value of one die roll. If the roll is
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Curse: Coyote's Wrath. For some reason, your social network seems to fall apart. You find yourself alone, without friends to call on.
higher than the amount of damage you would receive, then no damage is suffered at all. Curse: Boar's Wrath. The Boar spirit stirs your anger, even at inopportune times. Your Storyteller will tell you when you fly into an irrational rage, up to three times a day.
Deer
The gentle spirit of the deer is one often associated with the shaman, the forests, and communication with the gods.
Coyote
Though relatives of wolves, coyote live alone. Since the end of civilization, there has been significant hybridization between rewilded dogs and wolves, but the coyote has generally profited from the lands abandoned by wolves during the Fourth World. Living alone has made the coyote resourceful and adaptive, so many cultures have re vered coyote a s the Trickster.
T YPICAL DEER Str 2, Dex 6, Con 3, Cha 3, Int 2, Wis 4, Running 4, Hide 2, 15hp, 20sp, 30st.
DEER AS PREY Tracking: 20
T YPICAL COYOTE
Butchery: 12
Str 3, Dex 3, Con 2, Cha 3, Int 8, Wis 6, Running 4, Listen 3, Spot 2, Hide 4, 10hp, 30sp, 15st.
Cooking bonus: +2
COYOTE AS PREY
DEER AS TOTEM
Tracking: 22
Personality: The Composer (ISFP)
Butchery: 16
Rivals: Wolf, Coyote, Fox
Cooking bonus: -1
Allies: Moose, Mouflon, Oliphaunt
COYOTE AS TOTEM
First Blessing: Deer's Sense. Add +1 to your Wisdom trait permanently. Second Blessing: Deer's Light. You can see twice as far in the dark.
Personality: The Performer (ESFP) Rivals: Hare, Fox, Squirrel
Third Blessing: Deer's Domain. You receive a free raise on all rolls in the spirit world.
Allies: Wolf, Crow, Boar
Curse: Deer's Wrath. The Deer spirit is angry with you, and it's warned all the other animals about you. You suffer a -3 penalty to all tracking checks to find something to hunt.
First Blessing: Coyote's Stealth. Add +1 to your Dexterity trait permanently. Second Blessing: Coyote's Call. You can make a loud, piercing call that can be heard for a mile around, and understood by coyotes and humans with a coyote totem, but all others will think it came from somewhere else. Choose any place within a half mile of your location; anyone who does not share coyote's spirit will believe the call came from that location.
Fox
Like coyote, fox is a trickster that lives alone, by his wits. In many tales, they are shapeshifters, but they always depend on their ability to blend into their surroundings and disappear.
Third Blessing: Coyote's Cunning. You receive a free raise on all charisma and charisma-based skill rolls.
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T YPICAL FOX
H ARE AS PREY
Str 2, Dex 2, Con 3, Cha 4, Int 6, Wis 4, Running 5, Listen 4, Spot 2, Hide 4, 15hp, 20sp, 10st.
Tracking: 24 Tracking: 24 Butchery: 8 Butchery: 8 Cooking bonus: +1 bonus: +1
FOX AS PREY Tracking: 22 Tracking: 22
H ARE AS TOTEM
Butchery: 16 Butchery: 16 Personality: The Personality: The Crafter (ISTP) Cooking bonus: -1 bonus: -1 Rivals: Fox, Rivals: Fox, Eagle, Snake
FOX AS TOTEM
Allies: Crow, Allies: Crow, Beaver, Otter
Personality: The Personality: The Performer (ESFP)
First Blessing: Hare's Swift. Add +1 to your Dexterity trait permanently.
Rivals: Forestfowl, Rivals: Forestfowl, Hare, Coyote Allies: Wolf, Allies: Wolf, Boar, Crow
Second Blessing: Hare's Conviction. You receive a free raise on any roll you make in the face of possible death.
First Blessing: Fox's Shadow. You receive a free raise on all rolls to conceal yourself, whether in hiding, disguise, moving silently, etc.
Third Blessing: Hare's Luck. Once a day, you can redo any one roll you make. Curse: Hare's Wrath. One of these days, when you least expect it, your luck will abandon you utterly. Your Storyteller Storytel ler will pick th e roll, even e ven after you've yo u've rolled, and every die comes up with a 1.
Second Blessing: Fox's Fire. Add +1 to your Dexterity trait permanently. Third Blessing: Fox's Shape. The fox is a master shapeshifter. If you can slip off to some place where no h uman eye can see you, you can emerge from that shadow in a fox's form without the usual ritual--or slip back into a human skin the same way.
Mouflon
The rewilded sheep has regained much of what it once lost. lost. The fluffy, tame animals that once yielded so easily to the farmers' dominion has since regained its pride as the mouflon, much more akin to rams than their wooly ancestors. Their strong herds remain, but no human would ever herd them.
Curse: Fox's Curse. Fox has been spreading nasty rumors about you. Everybody thinks you're dishonest, even when you're telling the truth. Hare
T YPICAL MOUFLON
The hare is another trickster who often escapes its many hunters hunters through wit and guile. guile. They are well-known for their fecundity, but this only balances how many things try to eat them. The hare spirit is ever mindful of how short its life can be. It lives life in the present and always seizes the moment, because it knows all too well that any day could be its last.
Str 4, Dex 3, Con 4, Cha 3, Int 2, Wis 2, Running 3, 20hp, 10sp, 15st.
MOUFLON AS PREY Tracking: 16 Tracking: 16
T YPICAL H ARE
Butchery: 8 Butchery: 8
Str 1, Dex 5, Con 2, Cha 3, Int 6, Wis 5, Running 3, Jump 4, Hide 4, Listen 4, Spot 1, 10hp, 25sp, 25st.
Cooking bonus: +4 bonus: +4
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MOUFLON AS TOTEM
Rivals: Bear, Rivals: Bear, Wolf, Coyote
Personality: The Personality: The Inspector (ISTJ)
Allies: Bison, Allies: Bison, Mouflon, Eagle
Rivals: Wolf, Rivals: Wolf, Fox, Coyote Allies: Neurochs, Allies: Neurochs, Forestfowl, Oliphaunt
First Blessing: Neurochs' Wild. The revitalized, wild spirit of the neurochs gives you a +6 bonus to any roll to remain free of someone's influence.
First Blessing: Mouflon's Vigor. Your stamina regenerates at double the normal rate.
Second Blessing: Neurochs' Strength. Add +1 to your strength permanently.
Second Blessing: Mouflon's Horns. You have the force of the mouflon. Your bonus for using a skill as a science is doubled.
Third Blessing: Neurochs' Rage. You may summon the neurochs spirit to fortify you in battle. Roll one die; that is how many rounds the berserk lasts. During the berserk, you may roll and keep twice as many dice in combat--but you must fulfill the number of rounds of combat indicated by the die roll. If the nearest person is a friend, you attack your friend. The berserk can end prematurely only if there is is nothing left alive in sight. Many neurochs clans tell tragedies of berserkers who kill their friends while possessed by the neurochs' ferocity.
Third Blessing: Mouflon's Sacrifice. The farmers used sheep and rams as sacrifices to their gods. Sheep and rams have always been symbols of new beginnings, and this has only been deepened by the journey of the mouflon back into the wild world. You may choose to die in order to bring another person back from the dead. Curse: Mouflon's Wrath. You become as dependent and gullible as the mouflon's domesticated ancestors. You take a -6 penalty to any roll to avoid being talked into something.
Curse: Neurochs' Wrath. You become as dependent and gullible as the neurochs' domesticated ancestors. You take a -6 penalty to any roll to avoid being talked into something.
Neurochs Oliphaunt
The neurochs are the rewilded descendants descendan ts of domesticated cows. Their fierce wild ancestors, the aurochs, were giants, mean and monstrous, once hunted by young boys to prove their worthiness as men. The rewilded rewilded neurochs has has revived that ancient tradition: they are far larger than domesticated cows, with a terrible temperament, covered in hair with massive, curved horns.
The oliphaunts are the descendants descendant s of elephants left in zoos and private ranches in North America that escaped and quickly repopulated the continent that had once been home to the mammoths. These giants roam the plains in tightly-knit, matriarchal herds.
T YPICAL OLIPHAUNT
T YPICAL NEUROCHS
Str 8, Dex 5, Con 12, Cha 3, Int 4, Wis 5, Running 3, 60hp, 25sp, 25st.
Str 6, Dex 3, Con 8, Cha 2, Int 3, Wis 2, Listen 2, 40hp, 10sp, 15st.
OLIPHAUNT AS PREY
NEUROCHS AS PREY
Tracking: 6 Tracking: 6 Tracking: 14 Tracking: 14 Butchery: 32 Butchery: 32 Butchery: 8 Butchery: 8 Cooking bonus: +3 bonus: +3 Cooking bonus: +4 bonus: +4
OLIPHAUNT AS TOTEM
NEUROCHS AS TOTEM
Personality: The Personality: The Counselor (INFJ) Personality: The Personality: The Supervisor (ESTJ) 81
The Elements of t he Soul
Rivals: Bison, Rivals: Bison, Neurochs, Coyote
Second Blessing: Otter's Stroke. You learn to swim as effectively as an otter. Add +6 to all of your swimming checks.
Allies: Deer, Allies: Deer, Mouflon, Badger First Blessing: Oliphaunt's Charge. When you charge into battle, you receive a +3 bonus to your attack roll.
Third Blessing: Otter's Dive. In many myths, the otter is the primordial diver that dives to the ocean's bottom and digs digs up the land. Your service service to the otter spirit gives you a similar gift: the ability to dive within yourself and dredge up your innermost core. On one roll per day, you can double the dice you roll and keep.
Second Blessing: Oliphaunt's Hide. Your skin starts to become thick and strong like an oliphaunt's. You absorb a point of damage whenever you are hurt, nullifying it.
Curse: Otter's Wrath. You have an otter's appetite. You are always drive n to eat.
Third Blessing: Oliphaunt's Compassion. You know when another is in pain, pa in, no matter ho w much they try to hide it.
Squirrel
Curse: Oliphaunt's Wrath. You are driven insane with rage for one day, during which you have no control over your actions--or memory of what you did.
The Squirrel spirit is o ne of preparation and cleverness. Squirrels are clever, cagey animals well known for their collection of nuts for winter.
Otter
T YPICAL SQUIRREL
The otter ott er is a whimsical, watery spirit with a voracious appetite and a lively sense of play. Otters just want to have fun!
Str 1, Dex 3, Con 2, Cha 2, Int 4, Wis 1, Hide 4, Run- ning 4, Jump 3, 10hp, 5sp, 10st.
SQUIRREL AS PREY
T YPICAL O TTER
Tracking: 16 Tracking: 16
Str 2, Dex 2, Con 2, Cha 2, Int 1, Wis 1, Swimming 3, Hide 2, Listen 1, Spot 1, 10hp, 5sp, 10st.
Butchery: 8 Butchery: 8 Cooking bonus: +2 bonus: +2
O TTER AS PREY Tracking: 12 Tracking: 12
SQUIRREL AS TOTEM
Butchery: 8 Butchery: 8
Personality: The Personality: The Provider (ESFJ)
Cooking bonus: +1 bonus: +1
Rivals: Badger, Rivals: Badger, Coyote, Fox Allies: Beaver, Allies: Beaver, Otter, Deer
O TTER AS TOTEM
First Blessing: Squirrel's Memory. Squirrels hide their nuts in many, dispersed caches, but their memories are terrible--they remember where the caches are by remembering remember ing spatial cues. Those who learn from the Squirrel spirit quickly learn to organize their own memories in such a way, and can thus remember even extraordinarily long sagas that take days to recite, and do so perfectly.
Personality: The Personality: The Crafter (ISTP) Rivals: Coyote, Rivals: Coyote, Fox, Eagle Allies: Squirrel, Allies: Squirrel, Beaver, Hare First Blessing: Otter's Joy. You always see the fun in life, and it shines through you. Add +1 permanently to your Charisma score.
Second Blessing: Squirrel's Caginess. Squirrels are incredibly clever creatures, able to break into almost anything. Once a human human has spent enough time in a squirrel's skin, she can begin to learn this skill, as 82
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well--adding +6 to all rolls to open or break any kind of door, cage, or other impediment.
cent, a -1; during a quarter moon, there is no effect; during a gibbous moon, you have a +1 bonus; during a full moon, you have a +2 bonus to all your rolls.
Third Blessing: Squirrel's Bounty. The Squirrel spirit shares its secrets with you. You know where the caches are kept, and can find food even in the dead of winter. The Squirrel spirit does ask that you replace any food you take with something else for your squirrel siblings, so they won't go hungry, though.
Third Blessing: Wolf's Way. You are accepted by a particular pack of wolves as one of their own. You can call them with a howl, and they will try to come to your aid. Curse: Wolf's Wrath. You are cast out of your community. You have become a lone wolf.
Curse: Squirrel's Wrath. You become obsessed with fear of not having enough, and begin to hoard all you can gather. Such greed will quickly turn a community's sympathy against you. Wolf
The Wolf spirit is that of a noble killer. Wolves became the dominant predators in the world because they learned to cooperate and hunt in packs. They taught humans to live in tribes, and the close relationship between humans and wolves remains the closest alliance the human species has ever found.
T YPICAL W OLF Str 4, Dex 4, Con 3, Cha 4, Int 3, Wis 5, Listen 4, Spot 2, Hide 2, Running 3, 15hp, 25sp, 20st.
W OLF AS PREY Tracking: 22 Butchery: 16 Cooking bonus: -1
W OLF AS TOTEM Personality: The Field Marshal (ENTJ) Rivals: Deer, Mouflon, Bear Allies : Fox, Coyote, Eagle First Blessing: Wolf's Pack. The Wolf knows that strength comes from community. Add +1 permanently to your Charisma score. Second Blessing: Wolf's Moon. You have spent so much time in wolf form that your own strength waxes with the moon. During a new moon, you suffer a -2 penalty on all your rolls; during a cres83
The Elements of the Soul
Technology
T
he concept of a chapter on “equipment,” as a Fourth Worlder might expect, would be utterly alien to the very idea of the Fifth World. Fifth Worlders have little use for property in the sense we mean it. Elegance has triumphed over flashiness. The pace of technological innovation in civilization was driven by the old adage, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and no one needs more than a civilized person. The pace of technological innovation before civilization was nearly non-existent, simply because there was no need to innovate: their technology was simple and effective, relying on elegant simplicity rather than the brute force that marks so much of civilized technology. Fifth World technology is deeply integrated with their culture, but the new stone age isn’t quite like the old one, either. The Fifth World is full of brilliant elegance and reformed civilized technology, from hang-gliders to windmills.
tendency to be sloppy about their possessions. They have the kind of nonchalance that would be appropriate to a people who have mast ered the pr oblems of production. Most of the items salient to forager life are easily lost, but just as easily replaced. They are often crafted ad hoc and on site. Take, for instance, this account by Wade Davis of a certain Inuit on Baffin Island: His family took away his tools and implements, hoping that it would oblige him to go into the settlement. Did it work? No. He simply stepped out into the arctic night and in the darkness, pulled down his trousers and defecated into his hand. As the feces froze he shaped it into a blade. He put a spray of saliva along the edge and as the shit-knife took form he butchered a dog. He skinned the dog with it and made a harness, he took the rib cage of the dog and made a sled and harnessing the sled to an adjacent dog he took off over the iceflows.
Sharing is not just a virtue for the Fifth World; it’s the necessary foundation for the reciprocity economies that every sustainable society uses. While some redistributive economies exist (wherein all resources are given to a central chief who d oles th em back out to the people), the market economies of civilization are confined to the few, isolated civilizations that remain. As such, theft is all but unheard of, since it serves only to cut one off from the community one needs to survive, and any object you might need can be had simply by asking. Hoarding, too, is a quick way to find oneself ostracized from the community.
There are a few prized, personal possessions, such as medicine bags, jewelry, and items with sentimental or spiritual value that individuals do take good care of, but in general, items are not valuable, important, or particularly cared for among nomadic groups.
Material items themselves are far less important in the Fifth World. In “The Original Affluent Society,” Marshall Sahlins explained the ambiguous place items hold in nomadic societies:
This trend is less severe among permacultural societies, where settled villages are possible. Some of these cultures even have some kind of currency, though such abstractions of material value are the exception, rather than the rule. Transhumant groups sometimes even have established, permanent villages they move between. However, in general, the hoarding and prizing of items is something that is quite uncommon in the Fifth World.
Mobility and property are in contradiction. That wealth quickly becomes more of an encumbrance than a good thing is apparent even to the outsider. ... Here then is another economic “peculiarity”— some hunters at least, display a notable
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Because the cultures of the Fifth World have rediscovered magic and the animist sense of the living world, they do not see their transient possessions and elegant technologies as things they “own”—“ownership,” if it means anything at all, is denoted by use , more than anything else. In other words, “ownership” of something means, “I have a relationship with this spirit, and we are having an exchange right now—please don’t interrupt until we’re done.” Thus, the question here is not abo ut the equipment or technology available in the Fifth World, but of the spirits that are friendly to, and have a relationship with, the people of the Fifth World.
stone knife that will give you a +1 bonus on all skill rolls you make using that knife. However, to increase that bonus to +2, the TN increases to 150 (60 + 30 + (30x2)); for +3, it becomes 240. Knapping
Materials: Flint, hammerstone, bone or antler (optional) TN: 60 TN Increment: 30 Flint knapping is used to make stone tools, like knives, arrow or spead heads, hand axes, and so forth. Flint knapping requires a piece of flint, and a hammerstone, usually made of granite, quartzite or greenstone. Antler is helpful for pressure flaking for finer detail. If you use an antler or bone for pressure flaking, you receive a +1 bonus on your flint-knapping rolls. Each flint knapping roll represents an hour of work.
Foraging Tools, shelters, and most anything else you need is offered up freely from the earth—the key is finding it. Foraging is an extended task that uses your Spot skill; what TN you need to reach varies according to what it is you’re looking for, and the type of environment you’re in. Cultures are not simply arbitrary ways of life—they are rooted in a particular ecology. The last chapter in this book introduces an example Fifth World culture, the Anayok, and provides a table of TN’s for various materials one might forage in Anayok territory.
Cordage
Materials: Fibrous plant material (hemp, yucca, etc .) TN: 60 TN Increment: 40
Toolmaking
Cordage is how you create rope, twine, string, and other cords. Cordage must be created before they can be turned into nets. To create a net, you will need a sufficient number of ropes, with a TN of 100 and a TN increment of 50. Cordage relies on Dexterity rolls.
Most toolmaking is a simple matter of an extended task; there is a certain TN that must be met through a number of rolls, once the proper materials have been collected. For most tools, you have the option of making a better tool by pursuing a higher TN. For each of the toolmaking techniques below, there are three statistics specified:
Shelters
1. The materials yo u need to gather to begin making the tool,
Creating a good shelter is, like toolmaking, an extended task that uses your shelter making skill, or if you have no points in that, a roll of your intelligence, keep dexterity. Every culture builds shelters adapted to their own habitat, from easily available materials, so no foraging is required. Each roll on your shelter making skill constitutes an hour of work. The shelter yo u create, and how effective it is, is determined by the TN you reach. A shelter will last a number of days equal to one tenth the result of the shelter-making roll that produced it, so rolling 100 will produce a shelter that will last
2. The TN to make a useable tool, 3. And the TN increment to make higher quality tools. Higher quality tools will give you a bonus on your skill rolls using those tools, but there’s a diminishing returns curve on your investment: each bonus increases the TN by the bonus times the increment. So, in the first example, a TN of 60 will produce a perfectly useful stone knife. A TN of 90 (60 + 30, where 30 is the TN increment) will give you a 85
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for 10 days. If you roll less than ten, you have made an inadequate shelter even for one night. The number you rolled is also the number of hours’ rest you can get inside your shelter before it collapses.
Braintanning
Once you have killed an animal, you can make leather from its body with a technique known as “braintanning.” Rubbing the animal’s brains against the skin tans the leather. If you let it dry, it becomes stiff and white, good material for turning into leather armor or teepee covers. If, on the other hand, you pour water over the leathers while they tan, you will have softer, more pliable leathers for things like shoes, clothing, and so on.
Hunting One of the primary activities of most Fifth Worlders is hunting. The first part of hunting is to find an animal to hunt in the first place. This starts with the foraging roll discussed above. A hunter might go hunting for something specific, or just anything at all. If a hunter is looking for anything, the Storyteller should tell the hunter he found tracks for every animal whose TN he beat during his foraging roll, and let the hunter choose which to track.
Antler & Bone
Antler and bone make for fine materials for tools, from fishing hooks to combs.
Cooking The Fifth World did not abandon culinary achievement; on the contrary, foragers enjoy a much more varied diet, with tastes and textures from a much wider range of possibilities. Good cooks are highly prized in most cultures.
Tracking
While other animals hunt by scent and a final quick burst of speed, humans pioneered a unique approach to hunting that emphasized intellect and empathy. Once you start tracking an animal, the Storyteller should determine how many successful tracking checks it will take to finally find the animal (rolling a single die is a good way to do this); some animals are harder to track than others, but how recently the tracks were laid is largely a matter of luck. As each roll succeeds, the tracks become more recent, and easier to track. If the Storyteller determines that an animal is five checks away, then the fifth check should come at no penalty whatsoever, but the fourth check should have a -1 penalty. That means that the first tracking check would have a -4 penalty.
Cooking is a time-limited extended task, with the number of rounds permitted determined by the dish being prepared. Each culture has its own cuisine, with statistics for such dishes; see the chapter on the Anayok for examples. Using quality ingredients certainly helps, and that’s why each of the plants and animals listed in the previous chapter included a “cooking bonus.” Using these in your dishes will add a bonus to your cooking roll. The higher your roll, the more impressive and savory the meal you have prepared. Everyone who eats your meal has a number of stamina points restored equal to your cooking roll.
Compare this to the TN for the animal to be tracked; if the hunter beats that TN, he stays on the trail. If not, he loses the trail and must give up the hunt.
Art The creation of art has become more, not less important in the Fifth World. Art suffuses everything. Gone is the notion of art for its own sake, or the elitist snobbery of what is or isn’t art. In the Fifth World, art is a stream that flows through everything else, splashing it with meaning and beauty. At the same time, art never exists solely in itself: it is always for a purpose. Art can teach; paintings may explain tribal secrets, or explore the dreams of shamans long-dead. Art can also communicate more generally: ritual art is often a crucial
The Kill
After all that, the hunt er finally comes with in sight of his quarry. Here, you’ll need to use your combat skills against the animal to bring it down. Then, you’ll need to prepare the animal, carry it back to camp, and butcher it. This uses the butchery skill; the TN is set by the animal killed.
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component of the rites to contact the spirit world, and skilled artists are often necessary to make that connection. Rock Art
Many cultures find in rock a contact point between themselves and the spirit world, and the spirit of the earth itself. Rock paintings can appear on stones or deep inside caves; such paintings may sometimes play a part in initiation rituals or teaching young shamans, but they are always an offering to the Underworld, where the past is buried. They may be markers of past events, or memorials to the ancestors, but always, again, they are an offering made to the Underworld. Rock art is most often made with ochre (red ochre creates red; yellow ochre can be heated, which changes the color from yellow to orange), wood charcoal (for black), and chalk, gypsum, kaolin or porcelain clay, or burned bone or shell (for white). Painting on rocks requires not just paints, but an extended task against your painting skill (the rock painting emphasis applies here). Each roll represents a full day’s effort, and the TN is set by how grand the painting is intended. Body Modification
Tattoos, piercing, body painting, ritual scarification and other means of body modification are popular among many Fifth World cultures. In some cultures, it is customary for heroes to record their achievements on their own bodies; in many, participants must be properly prepared—often in volving elaborate body paint—for rituals. Such decorations are an extended task, with each roll representing an hour of preparation. The TN is set by the type of modification undergone; the chapter on the Anayok provides some examples.
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World of the Anayok W
hat we today call upstate New York was once home to the Haudenosaunee— “People Building a Longhouse,” better known to Western ears as the Iroquois. At one time, they tore each other apart with war, until they accepted the Great Law of Peace, and formed the Iroquois Confederation: a “tribe of tribes” that united the Six Nations into one of the most powerful, elegant, and impressive political unions the world had ever seen. The “Founding Fathers” of the United States were inspired by the Haudenosaunee’s example, and patterned much of the government they founded on it.
The ones who are sent to Congress are usually men, but true power lies with the old women of the Anayok—the clan mothers, the tribal elders, and the village matrons. They are the ones who arbitrate the day-to-day disputes that arise, and decide who will go to represent their people at Congress. As the Fourth World ended, there were several groups that fled New York City, seeking a more sustainable life in upstate New York. Others already had roots there, and were beginning to form ecovillages with permacultural techniques. As time went on, as diverse as these groups were, commonalities emerged as they all adapted to the same ecology and harmonized with the same spirit of place. The Anayok live in small villages of any where from 100 t o 200 people, tending forest gardens and hunting and gathering the balance of their food. Villages often have colorful histories and relations with one another, as new villages form from splintering off of others.
The very sam e sp irit yet moved the European settlers who wiped out the Haudenosaunee, betrayed their treaties with them, and herded them onto reservations. The Hudson Valley was a hotbed of hippies, liberals and leftists whose faith in the governmental system of the United States so inspired by the Haudenosaunee example was as irrational as it seemed ill-fitting. To the end, they pinned their liberal hopes to issues of political reform.
The Anayok have many kinds of elegant technology. They typically build wigwams and communal longhouses that take advantage of passive solar energy to stay heated in winter, and cool in summer. The Anayok know how to build a special hole in the ground to make ice, even on the hottest summer days. Anayok villages typically keep polished steel plates from the Fourth World to power solar ovens, windmills to process food and drill wells, and even hang-gliders.
Such is the Fourth World heritage of the Anayok; though their identities as New Yorkers clung strong, nonetheless their language shifted to match the rhythms of the natural world around them, adopting many of the same nasal, vowel-filled sounds that once graced the Iroquoian languages. Likewise, the Anayok Union is one of the most elaborate forms of governance in the Fifth World—bearing the trappings of an American legacy, but reflecting more deeply the spirit of place that gave birth to the Six Nations. Even so, power in the Union reflects the will of the tribes, the clans and the Union; individuals are always free to defy that will if they choose. Even in the Anayok Union, t he decisions made at Con gress are matters of consensus, not enforced law.
Global warming moved all the earth’s climates polewards; the Anayok now live near the St. Lawrence River (which is much wider now), and throughout what was once New England; essentially, what was once the northern boundary of the Haudenosaunee is now very near the southern boundary of the Anayok. To the north, the 88
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Anayok Union faces constant hostility from the Kibikwa (drawing from Algonkin and Québécois influences). To the east, the Union is normally on friendly terms with the Cunook (survivors from Ontario province). The Union’s southern border is the range of a reclusive hunter-gathering people they know as the Alleghaanee. To the west, the Union is generally friendly with the Massachoots.
Anayok life. They are often the healers, story tellers, and wise elders, but these roles are secondary to their primary role: to negotiate the balance between the Anayok and the living communities they depend upon for survival. Anayok shamans revere Second Shaman as the re-discoverer of their heritage. At character creation, Anayok shamans receive free ranks in Animal Communication, Asceticism, Diplomacy, Divination, Herbalism, Mycology, Sleight of Hand and Trance.
Archetypes Organization
The three broad archetypes —shaman, scout and brave—take on a more specific, localized dimension among the Anayok.
The Anayok Union is made up of five tribes, crisscrossed by ten clans. Each of these are represented in the annual Congress (usually used as a verb, rather than noun) at Alahbanee—the sacred, unoccupied ruins of Albany, New York. Every year, the clan mothers convene to select one of their clan to send as that year’s Representative at Congress; such Representatives have no power to speak on their own behalf. Their duty is to represent the will of their clan and the clan mothers, not
Anayok braves rarely go to war, but when war is decided at Congress, it’s the braves that go off to battle. They are not an organized or recognized group in Anayok society; they are simply those who seek to prove themselves through feats of physical prowess. For this reason, they spend most of their time engaging in athletic competitions and trying to outdo one another with displays of strength and courage. Braves often revere the Bear god, Arto, and the Bear clan is especially supportive of their kind. At character creation, Anayok braves receive free ranks in Athletics, Climb, Jump, Nets, Running, Swimming and one long-ranged weaponry skill (Archery or Slinging) and one melee weaponry skill (Axes, Clubs or Spears). Anayok scouts are not an organized group, either, but rather, those adventurous and curious souls who are rarely comfortable around the village fire, and prefer to push the boundaries of Anayok society. They often revere Mikhalo, the Trickster Hare god of the Anayok, and they are particularly welcome among the Hare clan. At character creation, Anayok scouts receive free ranks in Balance, Climb, Hide, Listen, Running, Search, Spot and Tracking. Anayok shamans are usually called prests (singular prest ), though the Judahonga refer to their shamans as rabbans . Anayok shamans maintain the boundaries of
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their own. The Senators, however, do have such power. Every village sends a candidate, chosen by the village matrons, to the tribal seat, where the tribal elders converge, and select which two of them will go to Congress as the tribe’s Senators.
image of the animal. This grants the Hippunonga the first blessing of that animal as a totem (the Hippunonga’s totem remains the same). Hippunonga can assume the shape of their totem or any of the animals that have been tattooed on them.
At Congress, the Senators and Representatives decide issues relevant to the whole Union— arbitrating long-standing disputes between tribes or clans, relations of the Union itself, or changes to the Code.
Judahonga Tribe
At the end of the Fourth World, some Hasidic Jews began to adapt the kibbutzim model from Israel for permaculture in upstate New York. Their kibbutzim along the coasts of Lake Ontario attracted many Orthodox Jews from New York City. The Judahonga tribe blend Jewish culture with the rest of the Anayok culture. For instance, Judahonga shamans are called rabbis, and mix elements such as kabala with their practices.
The Code is the body of Anayok law; though unenforced, it is still important as the standard of Anayok behavior, expectation and taboo. It is limited to the memory of a single elder—the Codemother—who opens each Congress with a complete recitation of the Code. Any rules the Codemother forgets to recite cease to be law. The Code generally provides means of rectifying transgressions; of course, any Anayok has the right not to make such renumeration—and be branded as a Code-breaker, outside the Code’s protection.
R ITES OF THE JUDAHONGA Bar/bat mitzvah ritual. The initiation ritual of the Judahonga takes place once a y outh learns how to read the Torah.
Tribes
Marriage ritual. Two adults may undergo the marriage ritual, creating a Soul Bond (see the description for this blessing in the “Elements of the Soul” chapter).
There are five tribes in the Anayok Union, each from a different Fourth World heritage.
Rite of the Letters. Each of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet has a special meaning to the Judahonga. If a member of the tribe learns the meaning of a letter, he can have it tattooed on him, granting him a special benefit.
Hippunonga Tr ibe
The Hippun tribe lives in the Catskill mountains, descended from ecovillagers and permaculturalists who once lived in the Hudson Valley.
Hebrew
R ITES OF THE HIPPUNONGA
English
Aleph
Initiation ritual. The Hippunonga initiation ritual takes place after the first nocturnal ejaculation for boys, or the first menarche for girls. The youth must then undergo a vision quest until the child’s totem comes to him or her, to accept him or her into the tribe.
Beit Gimmel
Free rank in…
Animal communication Shelter making Running
Marriage ritual. Two adults may undergo the marriage ritual, creating a Soul Bond (see the description for this blessing in the “Elements of the Soul” chapter).
Dalet
Asceticism
Hei
Tracking
Tattooing ritual. If one of the Hippunonga encounters an animal spirit in the Spirit World, and successfully hunts that animal in the next 24 hours, the animal’s blood can be used in a special ritual, where the Hippunonga can be tattooed with the
Vav
Perform
Zayin
Divination
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Heth
Diplomacy
(see the rules for a vision quest). They may then descend the mountain and be accepted as adults.
Tet
Disguise
Marriage ritual. Two adults may undergo the marriage ritual, creating a Soul Bond (see the description for this blessing in the “Elements of the Soul” chapter).
Yodh Kaf
Spot Trance
Lamed
Knowledge
Mem
Knowledge
Nun
Swimming
Mountain’s Mouth. Adironga who choose to live apart from the village up on the mountain might one day return to the village, bearing prophecies from the mountain. Such people are tested by the village with a trial of ascetic endurance, typically lasting up to a week. If survived, the prophet is accepted by the village as the Mountain’s Mouth. Tacononga Tribe
Samech
Listen
Ayin
Search
Pei Tzadik Kuf
Perform Knapping
R ITES OF THE T ACONONGA
Bluff
Reish
Hide
Shin
Firestarting
Tav
The great mythological founder of the Anayok, Second Shaman, is said to have begun the Tacononga tribe, separated from most of the Union by the Muhudeson (formerly the Hudson River), living in the Taconic Mountains. The Tacononga produce more shamans than an y of the other tribes in the Union.
Initiation ritual. The Tacononga accept as adults only those who prove themselves by their ability to complete a trance and return with the blessing of Second Shaman. Marriage ritual. Two adults may undergo the marriage ritual, creating a Soul Bond (see the description for this blessing in the “Elements of the Soul” chapter).
Surgery
Quartz-bearer ritual. Exceptional Tacononga may become quartz-bearers. A piece of quartz is inserted between the Tacononga’s ribs, and removed at death to be passed on to another quartz-bearer. The Tacononga believe that the quartz absorbs some of each quartz-bearer’s power and memory, and speaks to the new bearer, creating a line of shamanic memory and accumulated power back to Second Shaman.
Adironga Tr ibe
The Adironga tribe lives in the Adirondacks, descended from environmentalists and romantics. Adironga v illages all sit in the shadow of a specific mountain, and that mountain’s spirit is taken as the guardian of that particular village.
R ITES OF THE ADIRONGA
Vermenanki Tr ibe
Child of the Mountain ritual. The Adironga accept as adults only those accepted by the village’s mountain. Youths must travel to the top of the mountain, and wait until the mountain speaks to them
The Vermenanki tribe is descended from Vermont’s population, living on the eastern side of the Muhudeson with the Tacononga. The Vermenanki are skilled, pious artists who are utterly devoted to the Union, and enjoy an especially 91
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strong relationship with the Tacononga. At the same time, the gentle Vermenanki also produces some of the most free-thinking radicals in the Union.
Sodalities The Anayok have a number of sodalities, usually in the form of secret societies, that provide an additional layer of advancement and social cohesion in the Union.
R ITES OF THE V ERMENANKI Initiation ritual. The Vermenanki accept a youth as an adult when he has descended into the village’s sacred cave, and added a painting of his own totem to the cave wall.
Bugbear Society
The Bugbear Society takes its name from the legend of Gorge the Bear and the bugbears that are supposedly his monstrous spawn. The Bugbear Society is a secret society of the Anayok. Besides their forays into the northern woods to hunt bugbears, they also keep a close eye on those individuals in the Anayok Union who begin to gather power. They see it as their duty to make sure that no one ever again aspires to Gorge's ambition, and they have been responsible for the assassinations of several would-be chiefs. This puts them at natural odds with the Kossian Guard.
Marriage ritual. Two adults may undergo the marriage ritual, creating a Soul Bond (see the description for this blessing in the “Elements of the Soul” chapter). Magical Paintings. Vermenanki totems know how to paint tools and other objects to give them magical powers. This ritual takes a full 24 hours, but results in an object that beautifully painted and pro vides a +1 bonus when used for a roll.
R ANKS IN THE BUGBEAR SOCIETY
Clans
Initiate (Rank 0). Adults in any of the Anayok tribes can be admitted to the Bugbear Society, so long as they have never served in a Congress; if they do, they are expelled. Initiates must be suggested by a standing member of the society, and approved by that village’s Deer. All members of the Bugbear Society receive the blessing Bugbear’s Shadow , granting a free raise on all stealth rolls.
In addition to the five tribes, there are ten clans, each descended from a different totem. Members of each clan can be found in any of the tribes; every Anayok belongs to both a tribe and a clan. Clan membership does not change, and determines questions like what would constitute incest (if your would-be spouse is of a different clan, he or she is considered unrelated, and it’s not incest). The ten Anayok clans are:
Bear
Beaver
Boar
Deer
Eagle
Hare
Heron
Salmon
Bugbear Slayer (Rank 1). The rank-and-file of the Bugbear Society are those who have reached the age of 18 and proven themselves to the Society by killing six bugbears. Slayers receive the Death walker blessing for free. Deer (Rank 2). Every village has a Deer, the local leader of the society. Deers must be 35 or older, and must have intimidated a corrupt Representative or Senator to prove his faithfulness to the Society’s true mission. Deer receives the Heartless blessing for free.
Turtle
Watchman (Rank 3). The highest rank in the Bugbear Society goes to the Watchmen, the elders who lead the society. Watchmen are 50 or older, and have either been voted to their position by the unanimous consent of the other Watchmen, or have proven themselves by assassinating a Representative or Senator who grasped at power.
Wolf
Membership in a clan gives you allies you can call upon (as well as relations who might call upon you), as well as a totem.
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Guard (Rank 1). The rank and file of the Kossian Guard is made up of the guards who graduate from their cadet training by succeeding in a secret mission chosen by their sergeant. Guards receive the Tough blessing for free at this rank.
The Kossian Guard
The Kossian Guard operates out of the ruins of Alahbanee. They are united by their devotion to the ideals of the Anayok Union, and provide covert military protection to Alahbanee, to ensure the Congress proceeds without interruption. They protect Senators and Representatives from harm, and bring swift vengeance upon those who corrupt the processes of consensus that drive the Union's political process. This puts them at natural odds with the Bugbear Soc iety.
Sergeant (Rank 2). After age 18, those guards that prove themselves in service may be promoted to the rank of Sergeant by any Captain. Sergeants may command up to four guards. Captain (Rank 3). The main generals of the Kossian Guard are the Captains. Captains are chosen only by the Guard-General, who is himself elected by the Captains. Captains can command up to four sergeants, who can each command up to four guards, so a Captain’s command totals 16 guards and 4 sergeants, or 20 men. There are typically about half a dozen Captains in the whole Kossian Guard.
R ANKS IN THE K OSSIAN GUARD Cadet (Rank 0). The Kossian Guard accepts any initiated adult of the Anayok Union as a recruit, and begins training them, giving them one free rank in any one combat skill.
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smeared on their faces. They do not speak or display any facial expression.
The White Vigil
The White Vigil is a secret society concerned with the dead and dying. A person who is dying must learn certain songs and prayers to purify themselves for the journey to the spirit world. A person who does not learn the songs or have them sung over his or her body after death is doomed to wander the earth as a ghost. However, it is considered spiritually risky to learn the songs if you are not dying. Members of the White Vigil gladly take this risk upon themselves. They are responsible for transmitting this knowldege and for performing rituals after a person has died. Most members of the White Vigil are over forty years old.
Spirit Clowns are active during Fotojellei. They are pranksters who especially delight in embarrassing Senators and Representatives. They are also very jolly and hand out treats to children.
Raspberry Clowns are active during Elloi. They dress inappropriately and are very rude and disrespectful, especially to their elders.
Beyond their festival duties, the Society of Masks is especially dedicated to the Anayok trickster god, Mikhalo the Rabbit, and the preservation of knowledge.
R ANKS IN THE W HITE V IGIL R ANKS IN THE SOCIETY OF M ASKS
Singer (Rank 0). Those willing to learn the death songs are taught them. Singers receive the Death walker blessing for free, in reward for the risk they take on behalf of others.
Unmasked (Rank 0). Would-be initiates of the Society of Masks must first be initiated by their tribe. Their first task is to create an appropriate mask that will be accepted by the local Mask. If the youth’s mask is seen by anyone who is not in the Society, or if his creation arouses any suspicion, the mask is destroyed.
Psychopomp (Rank 1). Most members of the White Vigil are psychopomps, who help guide th e s pirits of the dead to their rest. At this rank, the psychopomp gains empathy as a free blessing.
Clown (Rank 1). The clowns make up most of the Society of Masks; their order is determined by the festival at which they are accepted into the Society. All clowns rec eive a free raise on all their sleight of hand rolls.
Ghost Walker (Rank 2). Psychopomps who prove themselves to the White Vigil by seeking out the tormented ghosts of the already passed and putting them to rest are promoted to the rank of Ghost Walker, and encouraged to do more to heal the tortured spirits still suffering from the Fourth World. They are trained for t his task, and receive one free point to their Wisdom trait for it.
Mask (Rank 2). Those clowns who impress the Rabbit’s Bastards become Masks, the local head of their Society. They are tasked with keeping life in their village merry and lively by instigating enough mayhem and mischief to keep things interesting.
The Vigilant (Rank 3). The elders of the White Vigil may be Ghost Walkers or simple psychopomps. They are elected by the rest of the Vigilant, who oversee the White Vigil collectively.
The Rabbit’s Bastards (Rank 3). Said to be the bastard children of the trickster god Mikhalo, the “elders” of the Society of Masks are promoted to that rank only when they manage to outwit another of the Rabbit’s Bastards.
Society of Masks
The Society of Masks is a gro up of sacred clowns. There are four types of clowns, each associated with a different festival.
Religion
Bone Clowns are active during Krissmiss. They are frightening specters dressed in white.
The tribes of the Anayok come primarily from Judeo-Christian religions, but they have, of necessity, become animistic and shamanistic cultures. That said, their particular type of religion is still deeply influenced by the imagery and beliefs of
Ash
Clowns are active during Ista. They are solemn, hooded figures with ash 94
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their Judeo-Christian heritage: much of the imagery around Second Shaman is reminiscent of Jesus, and he is sometimes even called “Sesu,” as the Anayok pronounce the name.
ancestors remained angry, and refused to trust the creatures that had brought so much pain to the world. When Second Shaman sealed the wound that the Dark Shaman had inflicted, the Inner Darkness withered, and the bone people began to crumble into dust, including those that had followed Second Shaman. When the spirit ancestors saw that Second Shaman had sacrificed himself to save the world, they became convinced that his testimony about his followers was true. They infused the bone ancestors with living spirit to replace the dying darkness that the Dark Shaman had created them with. While the rest of the bone people died, Second Shaman's people became human, and sur vived to becom e the first Anayok.
Origin Myth
The Anayo k creation myth is an interesting way of approaching the problem of cultural appopriation. According to the legend, the Dark Shaman discovered the Lords of the Outer Darkness in his exploration of the spirit world. All experienced shamans eventually come into contact with these evil, reptillian beings at some point. But Dark Shaman came too close, and his mind was shattered by the sheer horror. He became a slave to the Lords of the Outer Darkness, and did their bidding by letting loose the Inner Darkness, which was their plan to destroy the universe.
This lead s to a se vere dualism in Anayok thought. They see themselves as inheriting from two very different heritages: the evil of their bone ancestors, and the nobility of their spirit ancestors.
By taking bones, and binding them with the Inner Darkness, the Dark Shaman was able to create a terrible army of beings that appeared to be hollow shells that only vaguely resembled humans. The bone ancestors swept across the world, powered by the Inner Darkness, and cruelly massacred the spirit ancestors who had once lived in the land.
Because of this, white is seen as an evil color associated with death and evil; red, as a lucky color used at weddings, festivals, and joyous occasions. Anayok mourning rituals involve covering oneself in white, including the face; mourners are called “bonefaced.” A common retort to someone acting meanly or cruelly is to say, “Your bones are showing.”
Second Shaman is said to have been the greatest warlord in the service of the Dark Shama n, and to have killed all the shamans himself. Then, the stories say, the Hawk-mother came, and he fell in love with her, and she led him up a mountain, where First Shaman confronted him in the form of a hawk, and afflicted him with a terrible disease. To save himself, Second Shaman learned to journey, and so, learned how the Dark Shaman had opened up the world, and let the Outer Darkness flow into the world and begin to kill everything. Second Shaman saw that the sickness First Shaman had given him was tied to this sickness of the world.
Each of the ten clans claim descent from a particular ancestor who once traveled with Second Shaman, and then became the totemic spirit of that clan. Foundation Myth
Separate from the Anayok origin myth is the myth of how the Anayok Union was formed. Widanong is the mythical founder of the Anayok Union. Said to be from the Eagle clan as the only son of Second Shaman and the Hawk-mother, Widanong spent his early years among the Tacononga tribe. He watched as the tribes of the Anayok, following their salvation by the Spirit ancestors, began to fall into warfare. Widanong seeks out the spirit of the earth itself to learn what he can do to end the violence. When his quest is finally fulfilled, he returns to his village to prepare on another journey.
Upon his conversion, Second Shaman called many of these bone people away from the Dark Shaman. Those bone people who followed Second Shaman renounced the ways of their former master and the Inner Darkness. Second Shaman taught them to live as the spirit ancestors once had, but this angered the spirit ancestors. When they began attacking the bone people, Second Shaman confronted them. They told Second Shaman that they were angry to see their ways aped by the very monsters that had slaughtered them. Second Shaman pleaded for mercy on his followers, saying that they had repented of their former, dark ways, and needed to live in peace with the world. The spirit
Accompanied by a young brave, Arcas the Bear (son of Arto the Bear, founder of the bear clan and once companion to Second Shaman), Widanong begins a long and epic quest to visit each of the tribes, to bring them together at Alahbanee. 95
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There, Widanong sees over the first Congress, which manages to not only peacefully resolve the wars amongst the Anayok tribes, but even forms the Anayok Union.
event. Instead, he lives on, hunted across the sky and in great agony, with his cubs close behind.
With that accomplished, Widanong fulfills the last part of the vision he was given: to sail down the Muhudeson Bay to the Red Canyons to join his mother, so that he might live on as legend, but not as ruler. Arcas went with him, and though some legends say they still live in the Red Canyons, most Anayok see Widanong as a wise leader, Arcas as a brave and devoted warrior, and both as mortals eventually claimed by old age.
The Adironga tribe reports half-man, half-bear monsters in their woods, which they call “bugbears.” They claim these monsters are descended from Gorge's cubs and perverse liasons with overly proud Adironga. In fact, the “bugbears” are some of the most absolute victims of collapse—a group left even without culture or language, savage, violent humans who are far more vicious than any wild animal. They are some of the few groups in the Fifth World that truly deserve to be called savages.
Gorge the Bear
Festival Cycle
A cautionary legend in the Anayok corpus popular among the Adironga tribe is that of Gorge the Bear. Gorge was a Senator for the Adironga tribe from the Bear clan, the first Senator in the Anayok Union to be re-elected to the position for a second year, despite a deep Anayok taboo against more than one term, set by Widanong’s example. The legend says that the spirits were angered by Gorge’s pride, and so an evil spirit possessed him. He began hoarding food and abusing his power, leaving the other Adironga Senator for that year, Wakarat the Deer, to seek a shaman to expel the evil spirits. When she finally found Saro the Wolf and brought him down from the mountains, Gorge fled into the woods to escape the exorcism.
The Anayok have four major holidays that they celebrate. It should be noted that the Judahonga have their own holidays and celebrate none of the holidays listed below but Fotojellei.
K RISSMISS (KRISS-miss) - celebrated on the winter solstice Based on a formerly widespread, but now forgotten, Fourth World holiday, Krissmiss commemorates the salvation of the bone ancestors by the intervention of the spirit ancestors. Gifts are exchanged to remind Anayok of the gift of life given by the spirit ancestors. Celebrations include much red and white, symbolizing the union of their (white) bone ancestors and (red) spirit ancestors.
Wakarat, however, set off to hunt down Gorge. Gorge ran from Wakarat until he found the world tree, and began running towards the Sky's Heart, guarded by the great Bear god, who reprimanded Gorge not only for his pride as a Senator, but for his presumption in approaching the Shaman Star. The Bear god transformed Gorge into a hideous monster, half-man and half-bear. The Bear god then threw him off the world tree, leaving him to run around it. Wakarat continued to chase him until her body fell apart, and her spirit became stars.
ISTA (IST-ah) - celebrated on the vernal equinox A fertility festival commemorat ing the sacrifice of Second Shaman. Sealing off the Inner Darkness allowed life to return to the world, just as spring restores life after winter. This is a common time for weddings.
This is the story the Anayok tell of the constellations Boötes and Ursa major . Ursa minor is the Bear god, keeping careful watch of Gorge, lest he try to move towards the Shaman Star (Polaris) again. The three stars at Ursa major 's tail are explained as the cubs planted inside Gorge's stomach by the Bear god’s overwhelming fertility when he was transformed. Being male and lacking a birth canal, the cubs instead ripped their way out of Gorge’s body; being transformed by the Bear god, however, made Gorge immortal, so that he survived the
FOTOJELLEI (foh-toh-jeh-LIE) - celebrated on the summer solstice The yearly festival that brings all of the Anayok tribes together for politics, trade, intermarriage, and merriment. It is held at Alahbanee. The colors red, white, and blue symbolize unity between the spirit ancestors, the bone ancestors, and the earth,
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just as Fotojellei unifies the Anayok people and the Anayok land. Fotojellei commemorat es the first Congress organized by Widanong.
Parasol Mushroom Plant
20 TN
ELLOI (EL-oh-wee) - celebrated on the autumnal equinox Similar to the Latin Day of the Dead, Elloi is viewed as a night in which the se paration between the spirit world and the material world is particularly thin, and ancestors can visit the living. Children dress up as ghosts, angels, and other beings of the spirit world, and adults give them gifts to bring to relatives' graves.
Apple tree
20
Dandelion
5
Dogwood tree
16
Maple
12
Morning Glory
30
The Anayok are part of a temperate, deciduous, northwest forest that reached its ecological climax only a few centuries ago after recovering from the trauma of the Fourth World. The TNs below should be used against a forager’s spot roll, to see if the forager can find it in an hour of looking. The TN’s reflect how common these things are in the Anayok territory.
Oak
16
Spearmint
20
Table 15: Foraging in An ayok territory
Strawberry
20
Willow
20
Foraging
Mineral
Flint Quartz Steel relic
Plantain
TN
24 Wood sorrel
8
Yarrow
6
30 30 Bird
Obsidian Fungi
Common Morel Fairy Ring Mushrooms Old Man of the Woods
8
TN
45 Crow
20
Duck
10
Eagle
30
Forestfowl
12
TN
20 20 40
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Heron
30
Owl
20
Sparrow
10
Turkey
20
Animal tracks
Bugbear (outside the Adirondac ks)
100
Cuisine Anayok cuisine may not be terribly surprising or exotic, but it has expanded greatly in the foods it employs.
TN
Table 16: Anayok cuisine
Badger
10
Dish
TN
Rolls
Bear
40
Steak
30
2
Any meat
Beaver
15
Salad
15
1
Greens (+1 for fruit, +1 for nuts, +1 for dressing)
Boar
30 Stew
20
4
Any meat, vegetables
Pizza
30
3
Corn or nut meal, tomatoes
Nova lox & bagels
15
4
Salmon, corn or nut meal
Meatball soup
15
3
Any meat, water (+1 for fowl meat)
Sushi
30
2
Raw fish & seaweed
Coyote
40
Deer
20
Fox
30
Hare
20
Squirrel
10
Wolf Associated
40 TN
(Add TN to TN for associated item)
Dead wood associated with a particular tree Other
Bugbear (in the Adirondacks)
Ingredients
Art 5 Art is an important part of Anayok culture. Below are some of the important art elements for the Anayok.
TN
50
Cave Painting
The Vermenanki caves are renowned for their elaborate paintings; such underground paintings 98
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are extraordinarily difficult—the TN can range from 400 to 1,000 depending on how elaborate the painting is. Vermenanki initiation paintings must take at least a TN of 800; higher TN’s make for more impressive paintings, and greater prestige in initiation.
conception is less that this is a Willow, than, this is the trees that says “Whoosh.” Influenced by the same ambient sounds and integrating themselves with the same ecology as the Haudenosaunee, the Anayok have trended English towards the same earmarks that identify Iroquoian language: lots of vowels, and a more nasal sound.
Hippunonga T attoos Names
The r itual tattoos o f the Hippunonga tribe require body modification TN’s of at least 400, wood charcoal from a willow tree, and a bone needle carved from the bones of the recipient’s totem animal.
Anayok define themselves primarily in terms of clan affiliation. Clans provide the primary means of determining kinship, so intra-clan marriages are forbidden as incest, while extra-clan marriages are permitted. Anayok names take the form “Personal the Clan ,” as in “Kateri the Hawk”
Judahonga Tattoos
Table 17: Common Ana yok male names
The Judahonga tattoo Hebrew letters onto themselves to channel kabalistic power. These tattoos require body modification TN’s of at least 100, using ink made from wood charcoal from a dog wood tree. Judahonga Torah
The Judahonga tribe pride themselves on the creation of elaborate and beautiful Torah. This requires ink made from the wood charcoal from a dogwood tree, and vellum made from a neurochs. Since neurochs live primarily on the Great Plains, Judahonga often travel far and trade with other tribes. Because of this, the Judahonga are often the one tribe of the Anayok Union that non Anayok have had an encounter with.
Anayok Name
English Antecedent
Krisose
Christopher
San
John
Saro
Charles
Saso
Jason
Sawes
James
Sose
Joseph
Language Nearly five centuries ago, the plays of Shakespeare helped define modern English as separate from Middle English; today, many English-speakers have a hard time understanding those plays. The massive transitions in the most basic essentials of human culture must necessarily also transform language in fundamental ways. Though Anayok is descended from English, it would be difficult for a modern English speaker to follow along. The transformations of the conservatively preserved tribal names, from Judah to Judahonga, or from “Adirondacks” to Adironga, already hint at the transformation. Nouns are far less important in Anayok than verbs; for instance, most of the Anayok words for trees come from the sound wind makes when blowing through them, so their
Table 18: Common Ana yok female names
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Anayok Name
English Antecedent
Anen
Anna
Kateri
Catherine
Onadah
Wanda
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Orenta
Rita
10
Wound x2
Sosan
Susan
11
Lost love
12
Missing eye
0-6
None
7
Wound
8
Wound x2
9
Missing eye
10
Addiction
The Anayok have a fairly normal aging curve.
11
Compulsion
Table 19: Anayok aging table
12
Enemy (Rival)
Wari
Mary
Wakarat
Margaret
41-60
Middle-aged
Aging
Ages
0-2
3-12
13-18
19-25
26-40
Class
Infant
Child
Adolescent
Young adult
Prime
Roll
Curse
0-4
None
0-11
None
5
Senility
12
Epilepsy
6
Frail mind
0-10
None
7
Lame
11
Bad health
8
Bad sight
12
Phobia
9
Blind
0-8
None
10
Enemy (Rival)
9
Unsettling
11
10
Low pain threshold
Enemy (Adversary)
12
Wound x2
0-2
Bad health
Elder
61-90
11
Jealous
12
Brash
3-5
Senility
0-8
None
6
Frail mind
9
Wound
7
Lame
10
Lost love
8
Bad sight
11
Lame
9
Blind
12
Frail mind
10
Wound x1
0-8
None
11
Wound x2
9
Wound
Ancient
100
91+
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12
Missing limb
101
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Recommendations (2000). Beyond Civilization . New York: Three Rivers Press.
Afterculture
Vail, J. (2004) A Theory of Power . Lincoln: iUni verse, Inc.
The original inspiration for The Fifth World was Afterculture, an art exhibit created by artist Michael Green. Much of the exhibit can be seen online at http://art.afterculture.org We are deeply indebted to Green for his example and inspiration, and we hope his work will affect you as deeply as it has us.
Wolff, R. (2001). Original Wisdom: Stories of an An- cient Way of Knowing . Rochester: Inner Traditions.
Online Books We’ve also made reference to some online work. These, too, can help deepen your appreciation for the Fifth World and the Mythos System, or at least where we’re coming from with all of this.
Here’s the complete list of books we’ve referred to. They’ve provided a lot of the inspiration and theory for the Fifth World and the Mythos System. If you’re looking for further insight into the flavor or soul of the Fifth World, or just want to know where we get such crazy ideas, this list is a great start.
“Shakespeare in the Bush” by Laura Bohannon http://wwwstatic.cc.gatech.edu/~idris/Essays/Shakes_in_Bus h.htm
Abram, D. (1997). Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World . New York: Vintage Books. Campbell, J. (1972). The Hero With a Thousand Faces . Princeton: Princeton University Press.
“The Fifth World Manifesto” by Jason Godesky http://anthropik.com/2006/05/the-fifth-worldmanifesto
Fine, G.A. (1983). Shared Fantasy: Roleplaying Games As Social Worlds . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
“The Thirty Theses” by Jason Godesky http://anthropik.com/thirty
Gladwell, M. (2005). Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking . New York: Little, Brown & Co.
“Afterculture” by Michael Green http://art.afterculture.org/
Quinn, D. (1995). Ishmael . New York: Bantam.
“Therapy is Fantasy: Roleplaying, Healing and the Construction of Symbolic Order” by John Hughes http://www.rpgstudies.net/hughes/therapy_is_fa ntasy.html
(1997). The Story of B. New York: Bantam. (1998). My Ishmael . New York: Bantam.
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