Spirits
_The living manifestation of Seln, born from the land itself. The living echo of spring’s first blossom and autumn’s last leaf. _
The first spirits were born when Seln rose from the Akashic Sea, and their kind will endure until the land sinks once more. Though they take the forms of animals (or, less common, plants), they commune and reflect with the land.
Nature
Spirits begin their lives as simple beasts. However, by mysteries not yet understood to Kingdom scholars, a beast might consume a fragment of pure element and transform. This transformation elevates the beast into a thinking creature but not yet a spirit.
These elemental beasts are still mortal and bound by tooth and claw. Their cunning must guide them, for their bodies are prized by alchemists and their meat considered a delicacy. If the elemental beast is unfortunate enough to grow adjacent to an existing spirit Realm, they often must flee before the spirit removes a competitor the old-fashioned way.
If an elemental beast somehow manages to consume a second pure element, then they are consumed and reborn by the spark inside as a spirit. The new spirit carries within them the seed of a Realm. If they can survive long enough to find unclaimed territory and plant that seed, a new Realm is born and that spirit transfigured into its immortal ruler.
A few theories on how the spirits might eat elements:
- By consuming a crystal seed
- By surviving an elemental storm
- By consuming another elemental beast
- By consuming a Path master
- By living to be a thousand years old
This cycle can continue, granting the spirit a third element, a fourth element, etc. The eldest spirits, capable of controlling all six elements, are known as Titans. These Titans are terrible foes, equal in power to an entire team of Path masters!
Unfortunately, the cycle can degrade as well. A spirit can lose control of elements and weaken as the result of elemental interference, foul magic, or great strain. If it should fall below two elements, it can no longer maintain its existence and dies.
Familiar cycle
A beast that elevates its nature by dwelling upon and internalizing the elements to create a new internal balance? Weird. That sounds kind of like cultivation, doesn’t it?
Food
You are what you eat
Spirits are extremely picky eaters for a simple reason: their nature comes from their food! Predators must continue to hunt; grazers must continue to forage. To eat outside their nature causes drift. A deer that eats a carcass might begin to hunger for meat; a tree that drinks blood might begin to desire bone meal among its roots.
However, spirits also consume the ambient elements of their Realm. As a result, spirits are deeply concerned with the ley lines of their territory. A shift in the ley lines can cause an involuntary shift in their nature away from their controlled elements!
Spirits must therefore always attempt to balance their growth against their nature. They need additional elements to continue their growth into a Titan, but those additional elements can destabilize what they’ve gained.
Thus, even as immortals, spirits continue to live by the ironclad rule of nature.
Harmony
The great rift among spirits is the question of Harmony. Why would so many spirits choose to ally with the Kingdom instead of hunting mortals for their own growth?
According to the Kingdom, Harmony regulates the ley lines. In stability, the spirit can take a slower but far less dangerous road to growth. Alternatively, scholars sometimes argue that Harmony is a bribe to the spirits.
Regardless, many spirits reject Harmony as a leash for domesticated runts. They instead embrace the tooth and claw of their first days until the end. Within the Inner Wards, the Kingdom is able to defend against these savage spirits. In the outer wards and beyond, they pose a great threat to unwary travels and have a particular taste for Path warriors…
Another answer
You speak of Harmony as a thing standing still, mortal one. Perhaps it is your short lives that blind you to its movement.
You ask why I would tolerate Harmony and the machinations of your Crown. Here then is my reply: because I am interested to see what it creates at its culmination.
Knowledge
Spirits gain intuitive understanding of their Realm and its mortal territory. As such, they learn many secrets of their territory from the whispers of the land. Spirits automatically learn any language spoken by more than a handful of mortals in their territory; have broad awareness of movement for both wild things and folk; and can predict shifts in weather or elements with precise accuracy.
Lordship
Those spirits that subscribe to Harmony consider themselves an integral piece of the Kingdom. As such, they often act like minor lords, demanding oaths of the folk, handing out quests, and requiring regular tithe. They shower particular attention (good or bad) on those Path warriors with an Affinity close to their own.
The Kingdom characterizes this relationship as the older and younger sibling. The spirit, older, grants wisdom, guidance, and protection to the younger. The younger acts respectfully and gives free support to the older.
Most commonly, this support is known as “a seat at the table”. When a village builds homes, a shrine is set aside for the spirit. When a group gather to eat, a plate is set aside for the spirit. When the elders confer on a problem, a chair is set aside for the spirit.
Whether the spirit ever shows up to claim these honors and tithes is immaterial. What matters is the respect shown.
Realms
Spirit realms reflect the primordial wilderness of Seln. The trees grow taller, the wind blows stronger, and the natural world surges with vigor. Here a man might cut down trees to build a lean-to and find the structure overgrown with vines and roots by the next morning.
Mortal works
Inside the Realm, mortal works fade and decay before nature’s inexorable march. Roads fade; a lively town in the mortal world may reflect into the Realm as crumbling ruins, overgrown with flowers; and mortal tools swiftly degrade.
Two structures are notable exceptions:
- Shrines to the spirit exist in both worlds concurrently
- Wards remain, though often transfigured
One form of mortal tool resists the decaying effect: metal.
Wilderness in the Ruler’s image
Naturally, the wilds shape themselves to the tastes of their Ruler. Wise explorers can glean understanding of the spirit by walking the lands.
For some spirits, this becomes a form of art. They devote their time to crafting the perfect path along the breath-taking mountains (or the perfect jungle for the hunt). When combined with Harmony, this gives rise to Realms of surpassing splendor. Many mortals liken these Realms to a dream.
Some are whispered to stay forever.
Dangerous and fruitful
Being exalted wilderness, spirit Realms offer the rarest and most powerful of raw materials. Rumors always swirl of Realms where metalbloom trees grow freely or the most fantastic of beasts leave their feathers and talons scattered on the ground.
These rumors are dangerous because they are sometimes proven true! The greedy and the foolish risk angering the spirit by despoiling the Realm in search of trinkets.
Those who stay too long in spirit Realms begin to absorb its bestial nature. What begins as odd cravings for specific foods or a shift in temperament gradually escalates. Changes mount, by fur or fang, until eventually the mortal transforms into another denizen of the Realm.
This process is much slower for cultivators, but only fools think themselves immune.
Kingdom Redoubts
Among Kingdom-aligned Titans, several have agreed to transfigure their Realms into the final bastions of defense against all threats. These towering fortress Realms are the Kingdom Redoubts. Though too few to protect the entire Kingdom, the Titans settle these Realms at strategic choke points (mostly along the borders of the Inner Wards).
Though mysterious arts, the Titans of these Realms evince a superior power: they can cloak the mortal world, drawing the territory entirely into their Realm. The mortal world fades, all the normal folk apparently vanish, and cultivators find themselves drawn into the Realm.
Whatever threat prompted such an extreme measure then must face the wrath of a Kingdom Titan!