Summoning a teacher

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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Spader
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Summoning a teacher

Postby Spader » Wed May 28, 2014 6:35 pm

Since the ghostmaster ritual knack is derived from the summoning abilities of the nethermancer, can the Summon (ally spirit) talent be used to summon any kind of trainer (providing the summoner has taken a blood wound for the spirit can stay enough time)?
(sorry for the long sentance)

Let say I, a nethermance, summon a spirit to:
-Train my comrade warrior for his next circle.
-Learn (and put ranks) in the jewelry skill.
-Raise my Charisma to a +3.
-Learn Elementalism, than Illusionism, than Wizardy cause I'm a f***ing human.
Would that be abusive? (I know, the answer is "YES") But would it still be possible?

I ask this as a GM cause I fear the matter could raise in my game and I'm not sure how I should handle it.
My first though would be "why not" since it involves a Blood Wound. And I know my characters hate... despise Blood Wounds (bad therans with death magic).

But hey, what's your thoughts?

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Kasbak
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Re: Summoning a teacher

Postby Kasbak » Wed May 28, 2014 6:48 pm

Trainers will be Namegivers, and Namegivers can be summoned as spirits, so it is entirely possible to call up the spirit of someone who has been used as a Ghost Master (assuming you have the necessary key knowledges and can make the roll).

I would say training up Circle is a definite no; that is a specific ritual that is enacted between the student and the teacher. Even a Nethermancer summoning a teacher to train them up Circle must use the Ritual of the Ghost Master Talent rather than their normal Summoning.

Learning skills, I would say yes, you just have to convince the spirit to stick around long enough to make use of the effort.

Raising attributes I would say no, mostly because as I have played and run it in games, the attribute raise is done at the time of training, and thus would fall under the going up Circle point above.

Learning Talents through Versatility... that is a toughy. I would say yes, if they can convince the spirit to teach it to them. That being said, it's already difficult to negotiate with adepts of other Disciplines to get them to share knowledge of their Talents. Spirits are tougher still to negotiate with, and can bargain in ways that can get quite costly, so trying to get something out of them that is already tough might make it not worth it.

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Re: Summoning a teacher

Postby Spader » Wed May 28, 2014 7:21 pm


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Re: Summoning a teacher

Postby Kasbak » Wed May 28, 2014 11:17 pm


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Re: Summoning a teacher

Postby Panda » Thu May 29, 2014 1:21 am

While the description of Ally spirits indicate they come from a wide variety of sources (excluding elemental and nature spirits), I would suggest limiting them to conceptual style spirits (e.g. blood, fear, hunger) and exclude Namegiver spirits from the mix. It will keep things from running afoul of the Ghost Master Ritual and the messier bit which can come along with summoning spirits. Summon is already incredibly powerful as it is; it doesn't need any more help. This interpretation is explicitly not what is listed in the GM Guide, but it is something which will probably prevent headaches. I have never been a fan of how Ally spirits function, particularly when Named. The cosmology around death is more than a little inconsistent and unfortunately it is somewhere between boring and frustrating (imho).

From a strict reading of the rules, to get a spirit which could help with learning something specific, this would require a Name and repeated summoning. Day after day for the time it is required to learn. For skills, this is going to get messy quickly, as eight hours of instruction are required each day for a number of weeks equal to the rank. The difficulty of this task is going to get ugly rather quickly.

As guidelines, the spirits may possess the knowledge, but they no longer possess talents. They are no longer adepts and while they may have spirit powers which mimic talents, they are not actually talents. This means they explicitly cannot instruct adepts in talents. The Ghost Master Ritual represents a method to take the spirit and channel it through the discipline, thus reweaving the thread between the two which existed in life and granting the spirit access to the discipline and magic they once possessed. There is certainly room for other interpretations of the metaphysics behind this process, but this is the most internally consistent I have managed over the years.
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Re: Summoning a teacher

Postby Spader » Thu May 29, 2014 1:19 pm

Thanks for both answers.

That helps making my mind.

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Re: Summoning a teacher

Postby daedalron » Sat May 31, 2014 7:30 pm

I wouldn't say that it would be abusive to be able to get training in those aspects by a spirit.

Remember that just being able to summon the spirit isn't enough.
First you need to get the required knowledge to summon a spirit who knows what you want to learn (might be hard depending on what you're learning). As others said, it should require to summon a Named spirit (so find his true name or one of his pattern item (which could begin a quest if it's a lost knowledge)).

Then the real hard part: get the spirit to agree to teach you...
To get a namegiver to teach you, you can always try to pay him in silver. For a spirit it might be a lot trickier to get something that he might want / need, and as with a namegiver, if you're trying to learn something not many people know, what you'll have to offer in exchange will be that much more.

And if I were the player, I'd rather not try to coerce a spirit to teach me with a contest of will... He might then do exactly as you ask. And then you better be real good at wording your orders, or the spirit will use any little mistake or omission to screw you, like you screwed him with the contest of will...
You asked to learn a skill, but forgot to mention you also needed to learn all the required knowledge and capacity to use that skill ? Too bad... :twisted:


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