Great Spirits
| Climate/Terrain: | Any |
|---|---|
| Frequency: | Very rare |
| Activity Cycle: | Any |
| Diet: | Sacrifices |
| Intelligence: | 18 |
| Alignment: | Chaotic neutral |
| No. Appearing: | 1 |
| Armor Class: | 0 |
| Movement: | 18 |
| Hit Dice: | 15 |
| THAC0: | 6 |
| No. of Attacks: | 1 |
| Damage/Attack: | 1d20 (see below) |
| Special Attacks: | See below |
| Special Defenses: | +4 or better to hit |
| Magic Resistance: | 50% |
| Size: | H |
| Morale: | Fearless (20) |
| XP Value: | 8,000 |
The great spirits are the most powerful and most distant of all spirit kind. Only powerful shamans can contact them, and those who attempt to use binding spells or other spirit-controlling magic on them come to bad ends.
Each great spirit is linked with a notable natural or supernatural phenomenon. Examples include the Four Winds (North Wind, South Wind, and so on). The Rain-maker, Fire, The Sun, Lightning, The Master of the Clouds, The Sky, and potentially dozens of others.
Each great spirit has its own appearance, inevitably mirroring its nature - the Four Winds as columns of wind, Lightning as a giant swinging a basket of lightning around his head, and so on.
Combat: The likelihood a great spirit will enter into combat against a player character is virtually nonexistent. Should the spirit choose to manifest itself to mortals who then do not show it the proper respect, the spirit will retreat to its home. Should the spirit be forced to fight, it may cast command three times per day, and may control any element or force intimately connected with it to inflict 1d20 points of damage to the offending characters each round. (For example. The North Wind may cause gale force, freezing winds to rise from the north and blow all kinds of debris at the characters.)
Accepted Alignments: Any.
Familiarity: A great spirit accepts any shaman of 3rd level or higher who has demonstrated that he or she shares the traits of that spirit. For example. The North Wind expects icy and merciless aloofness (preferring evil shamans); Fire demands that shamans be adaptable and powerful; Lightning only has time for those who are loud, foul tempered, and brash.
Demands: The great spirits require that shamans continue to display the same characteristics that earned the spirit's admiration, and take no other great spirit as a patron. They have no need for worship, as mortals' awareness of and awe over natural and unnatural phenomena is all they need to retain their existence.
Benefits: Great spirits grant any spells from the solitary shaman list, as well as tribal shaman spells up to 5th level. They may also grant priest spells of an appropriate sphere up to 4th level. "Appropriate" spheres are ones associated with the natural force the spirit represents: The Four Winds, for example, can grant Weather and Elemental Air spells, while Fire grants spells from the spheres of Elemental Fire and Chaos.
Further, on those rare occasions when a great spirit chooses a mortal champion to defend it or to advance its element in the natural world, mortal receives a permanent bless for the time that he or she serves the spirit.