[Spoiler?] The nature of spirits

Salve,

I am a 4th Ed. Ars veteran, though a 5th Ed. newbie. In the new edition, the "ROP: INfernal" seems to be lacking adecent description as to what a spirit is. I mean, the magical nature of a spirit. How does a spirit come into existence, why is it around, where does it hang out? If I want to summon "The spirit of my dead grandmother" - how do I do it? What happens, if she was buried in a christian ritual? What happened if she sold her soul to the devil?

Can anybody give me a page reference or - even better - an answer?

Greetings,

Polemikus

Spirits, by the 5th ed stuff so far published, are incorporeal entities and exist for all four realms. Beyond that, the published stuff is riddled with inconsistencies. Spirits may, depending on where you look, be summoned by Form spells, Mentem spells or Vim spells. The Mysteries Revised has some extra info on spirit summoning on p28, but I suspect we'll see yet another iteration in RoP:Magic since it seems that it's going to have a nice chunky section on spirits.

Nevertheless, there exists in the core the "Incantation of summoning the dead" on p152. A spell which is, I point out, a ritual for no reason and also possesses a nearly useless duration since whilst while concentrating the spirit can't leave, you also can't really command it, or cast other spells on it. You really need a preprepared, warded summoning circle and either an instantaneous spell or one with some other duration to act in its stead whilst you get on with the important tasks which required the spirit.

Once the soul has been claimed by the Dominion or the Infernal (or presumably the other two realms), you can't summon their spirits (despite spirits and souls being distinctly different.). Thus, if your beloved nana had a christian burial or had sold her soul, you can't summon her.

Well, first of all thanks for supporting my initial feeling: that there is no consistent description. One more thing, though: Any idea how spirits come into existence. In the 2nd Edition [SPOILER, tried to hide it] [color=white]spirits were the stuff that held body and soul together. If the body died and the soul went to hell oder heaven, the spirit normally went with it - though only if the burial was decent and nothin prevented it from going (a shocking murder or something like that).

How can you "become" a spirit in the 5th edition? Any ideas or references?

Thanks again for the quick response,

Greetings,

Polemikus

Ascendency To The Hall Of Heroes and, arguably, the Living Ghost are both mysteries that'll ultimately transform you into a spirit. After Final Twilight, a Bjornaer magus with an "elemental" form of Inner Heartbeast will leave behind something you might deem a spirit. Similarly with Merinita magi and their Guardian of Nature mystery which explicitly turns one into a spirit. Additinoally, with faerie Becoming - they could very well become incorporeal along the way.

I do bbelieve that was errattaed. I scratched it out in my book anyway.

Work on your Concentration score, and Master your spells! As long as it is not a Ritual, I am fine with the spell as is. A little high level, but the only character of mine interested in Necromancy is a 4th edition convert that is almost 80 years old, so level is not an issue.

Note that Hermetic spells also include some Intellego spells to "awaken" or "speak to" the "spirit" of the lake and so on. Spirits of conceptual ideas were alluded to in HoH:S (see Titanoi).

I don't think a very consistent treatment is needed. There are, IMHO, simply all sorts of spirits, answerable to various sorts of magic and with various origins and nature.

Here is an article I wrote for me own saga, but it's purely "in my saga" thing: