vaelora/Rules/Spirits & Dominion/Dominion Almanach.md

“To understand a spirit, understand what it embodies. Its dominion is its heartbeat, its hunger, and its chain.”
– Liraen, Eldsinger of the Green Table

What Are Dominions?

A dominion is the soulprint of a spirit—the fundamental force, idea, or natural phenomenon it embodies. It is more than a portfolio of powers; it is the reason the spirit exists, the lens through which it sees the world, and the tether that binds it to reality.

• A spirit may embody one, two, or three dominions.
• A single dominion makes a spirit dangerously focused, its mastery deep and absolute.
• Multiple dominions grant versatility, but its strength in each is more diffuse.

Dominions are as varied as the world’s own truths. They may be:

• Elemental: primal forces such as Fire, Water, or Stone.
• Conceptual: intangible ideals like Fear, Oaths, or Memory.
• Natural: living cycles such as Growth, Hunger, or Weather.
• Cultural: shaped by mortal belief, like Hospitality, Reverence, or Grief.

To understand a spirit is to understand its dominion. It hungers to see that dominion expressed, preserved, or expanded—and when thwarted, it may lash out with the fury of an unfulfilled truth.

Spirit Abilities

A spirit’s dominions shape every power it can wield. These powers—its abilities—are the ways a spirit leaves its mark on the world. Some are deliberate acts of will; others are effortless ripples of its presence.

Active Abilities

Active abilities are the spirit’s chosen manifestations, the moments when it reaches out and imposes its dominion on the world.

• Environmental: Shifting weather, warping emotions, or reshaping terrain.
• Offensive: Inflicting harm, laying curses, or seizing control through possession.
• Defensive: Healing wounds, shielding allies, or cloaking itself in illusions.
• Utility: Granting visions, unearthing hidden knowledge, or blessing objects and places.

Active abilities consume the spirit’s strength (see Manifestation Dice). They are conscious actions, deliberate extensions of the spirit’s will.

Passive Abilities

Passive abilities are constant, woven into the spirit’s presence. They shape the scene even when the spirit remains silent.

• A Fear-spirit might make mortals uneasy simply by drawing near.
• A Forest-spirit may cause the undergrowth around it to grow thick and tangled.
• A Grief-spirit might draw the sorrowful to its side, like moths to a flame.

Passive abilities require no effort to maintain. They are the inescapable truths of the spirit’s existence—the world bends, subtly or dramatically, simply because the spirit is there.

Ability Slots

A spirit’s potential is not limitless. Each has a number of Ability Slots equal to its Power Rating (PR), and each slot holds one active or passive ability. These are the signature ways its dominion touches the world.

• PR 1–2: Minor effects—subtle and local, often triggered by specific conditions.

• PR 3–4: Significant effects—abilities capable of shaping communities, large areas, or groups of mortals.

• PR 5–6: Mythic effects—manifestations that can alter fate, reshape entire regions, or permanently twist mortal minds and bodies.

A single Ability Slot may hold a scaling ability, growing in magnitude with the spirit’s PR. A PR 2 Fire-spirit’s Flame Lash might scorch a single foe, while the same ability in the hands of a PR 5 Fire-spirit could immolate an entire battlefield.

GM Note:
Ability Slots help define a spirit’s personality as much as its power. Consider how each ability reflects its dominion, and how the combination of abilities gives the spirit a distinct presence in play.

Manifestation Dice (MD)

A spirit’s strength is a river of meaning made manifest, but even rivers run dry when forced through a narrow channel. This current is represented by the spirit’s Manifestation Dice (MD)—the finite wellspring it draws upon when it chooses to act.

The Pool

A spirit’s MD pool is equal to its Power Rating (PR) × PR.

• PR 1 → 1 MD
• PR 2 → 4 MD
• PR 3 → 9 MD
• PR 4 → 16 MD
• PR 5 → 25 MD
• PR 6 → 36 MD

This pool refreshes at the beginning of each scene, ensuring that Greater Spirits can sustain their awe-inspiring displays of power as long as the story remains fixed upon them. Lesser Spirits, by contrast, burn through their strength quickly and must choose their manifestations carefully.

Each active ability costs 1 MD unless noted otherwise. Cataclysmic effects—calling down a hurricane, breaking a sacred geasa, tearing open the Veil—may cost 2 or even 3 MD at the GM’s discretion. Passive abilities cost nothing; they are the inevitable truths of the spirit’s existence and continue even when the spirit has nothing left to give.

[!hint] GM Advice: Narrative Feel
With this system, Lesser Spirits feel skittish and brittle, their reserves small enough that clever mortals can exhaust them. Greater Spirits and Archspirits, by contrast, can dominate entire scenes without fear of depletion, their strength cycling endlessly like the seasons they often embody.

Recovery Beyond the Scene

A spirit’s MD pool refreshes fully at the start of the next scene, but depletion carries weight beyond the moment. A spirit that ends a scene with its pool entirely spent enters a state of Dormancy—a period of withdrawal where it must gather the threads of its essence before it can act again.

Dormancy

Dormancy is a time of silence. A dormant spirit cannot use active abilities, respond to summoning, or leave the place to which it is anchored. It exists only as a dim echo of itself, its presence faint but not gone.

• Lesser Spirits (PR 1–2): Dormant for 2d6 days, their fragile forms needing long stretches of belief and memory to reform.
• Simple & Complex Spirits (PR 3–4): Dormant for 1d6 days, tethered between forgetting and renewal.
• Greater Spirits (PR 5–6): Dormant for only 1d6 hours, their dominion too vast to remain diminished for long.

Resonance and Renewal

Not all spirits linger in weakness. Some are so deeply rooted in their dominion that they drink in strength the moment it is offered.

• Fed by Dominion: A spirit nourished by the world around it—fire spreading through a forest, a city gripped by terror—skips Dormancy entirely, restoring its full MD pool at once.
• Cut Off from Dominion: Conversely, a spirit severed from its essence takes far longer to heal. Double its Dormancy duration if the land or circumstance denies it access to what it is.
• Offerings and Rituals: Mortals may rouse a dormant spirit immediately with acts of reverence, sacrifice, or powerful rites tied to its dominion.

Striking While Weak

Dormancy is both a blessing and a danger. A dormant spirit is far easier to bind, banish, or destroy, yet its locus may remain perilous. Passive abilities do not fade, and the land itself often moves to defend what sleeps within it.

[!hint] GM Guidance:
Dormancy should feel like a rare window of opportunity. Use it to reward clever players who push a spirit to the brink—but never make the victory trivial. Even a Greater Spirit slumbering in its sanctum should feel like an act of myth to confront.

Overreach

A spirit whose MD pool is empty is hollowed out, yet mortals can be relentless. Binders, pact-mages, or those who hold a spirit’s true name may force it to act despite its exhaustion.

This is called Overreach, and it is as dangerous for the summoner as it is for the spirit.

• Each forced act beyond the spirit’s MD adds one Corruption Die.
• If the spirit is in Dormancy, each act also extends its Dormancy by one step:
  • Lesser Spirits: +1d6 days.
  • Simple & Complex Spirits: +1d6 days.
  • Greater Spirits: +1d6 hours.
• Corruption may manifest immediately—bindings rupture, void-taint floods the area—or fester until the spirit’s dominion warps into something darker.
• Greater Spirits rarely endure Overreach in silence. Many turn their full fury on those who dared to exploit them, unleashing devastation that can mark the world for generations.

[!hint] GM Guidance:
Overreach is the lever mortals pull when they crave power now, heedless of the cost. Make the consequences visible: void-tainted abilities, flickers of the spirit’s true form breaking through, the land warping around it. Overreach should feel like playing with a live wire.

Corruption of Dominion

When a spirit is forced beyond its limits, its essence can fracture. This phenomenon—called Corruption of Dominion—is the slow or sudden twisting of the spirit’s nature.

Each time a spirit is compelled to act through Overreach, add a Corruption Die. When any Corruption Die rolls a 1, the spirit’s dominion becomes tainted:

1. Visual and Narrative Signs: The dominion shows unnatural manifestations.
   • Fire burns black and cold.
   • Oaths sour into curses.
   • A harvest-spirit’s fields sprout blight instead of grain.
2. Mechanical Shift: Choose one:
   • Passive Abilities: Gain a void-tainted edge (GM chooses a new effect).
   • Active Abilities: One ability now has a darker, more destructive variant.
   • Resonance: The spirit now feeds on fear, pain, or despair rather than its original sources.

Corruption effects are permanent until cleansed by a powerful ritual or act of meaning aligned with the dominion. Each subsequent instance of corruption worsens the transformation.

[!hint] GM Guidance:
Use corruption to make Overreach feel dangerous for everyone. A tainted dominion should warp the spirit’s relationship with mortals and the world around it. Over time, the corrupted spirit may become a true voidspawn—alien, predatory, and nearly impossible to reason with.

Player Knowledge

Whether players know a spirit’s MD pool is up to you.

• Visible: If the pool is open information, players can plan their strategy around exhausting the spirit.
• Hidden: If the pool is secret, the spirit’s dwindling strength must be conveyed through description—its voice faltering, its form dimming, its abilities weaker or more frantic.

Both approaches work; choose whichever best fits the tension of your story.

Example

A PR 2 Grief-spirit begins the scene with 4 MD.

1. It uses Wail of Mourning (1 MD) to cripple mortals with despair, draining one die from its pool.
2. It follows with Grave Fog (1 MD), cloaking the battlefield in thick, choking mist. 2 MD remain.
3. A desperate binder orders it to intensify the fog, blotting out the last light from the campfires. The spirit obeys, spending 2 MD in a single overwhelming surge—its pool now empty.

Drained, the Grief-spirit staggers. Its passive aura of sorrow lingers, but it can no longer act. If left alone, it will enter Dormancy at the end of the scene, retreating to its locus to reweave itself over the coming 2d6 days.

But the binder pushes further. One more command, forcing the spirit to strike at a fleeing foe. The GM allows it—but adds a Corruption Die.

The spirit’s voice distorts into a jagged void-screech as it lashes out, its mist seething with an unnatural chill. When the scene ends, the Grief-spirit collapses entirely, its Dormancy extended even longer by the violation. Its dominion may not be the same when it wakes.

How Mortals Leverage Dominions

Most mortals cannot bind, bargain, or meld with spirits. Yet they are not powerless. Through ritual and offering, they can appeal to a spirit’s dominion—though the results are rarely guaranteed.

Ritual and Offering

Dominions respond most strongly to acts of meaning. Common folk may attempt to sway a spirit through offerings or rituals that resonate with its essence:

• A Harvest-spirit may be honored with the first sheaf of grain.
• A Fear-spirit may be driven away with loud celebrations and masks.
• A Memory-spirit might be nourished by a vigil of stories and song.

Making an Appeal:

• A mortal may spend at least an hour preparing and performing a ritual or offering.
• The GM sets a Difficulty equal to the spirit’s Power Rating (PR).
• The player rolls a suitable skill (often Attune, Spirit, or Ritual) with modifiers if the offering is especially fitting (+1 die) or insulting (–1 die).

Outcomes:

• Success: The spirit grants a minor boon or refrains from harm.
  • Examples: fair weather for a journey, a vision of safe passage, silence from a haunting.
• Failure: The spirit is unmoved, or worse, angered. It may retaliate with its passive abilities or a small display of power.
• Critical Success: The spirit takes notice. It may grant a significant favor, such as guiding the community for a season, or mark the mortal as one who has earned its respect.

[!hint] GM Guidance:
These interactions should feel consequential. A successful ritual might set a tone of safety or abundance for a village, while a failure could sour relationships with the unseen for years.

The Role of Traditions

Magical traditions such as Binding, Pact Magic, and Melding can influence spirits more directly, shaping their will and wielding their power. These paths are detailed in their own chapters.

How to Use This Almanach

The entries in this Almanach are designed as a complete toolkit for understanding and presenting each dominion at the table. Each entry offers both narrative depth and mechanical clarity:

1. Themes: What the dominion embodies and how it manifests in the world. This sets the tone for spirits tied to it—their personality, presence, and purpose.
2. Resonance: What strengthens or weakens spirits of this dominion. Resonance reflects the conditions, places, and emotions that feed the dominion—or starve it.
3. Corruption: How the dominion twists when touched by void-taint or prolonged overreach. Corruption reveals the dark mirror of the dominion, the signs that it has been perverted into something more dangerous and unstable.
4. Active & Passive Abilities: A menu of abilities tied to the dominion, scaled by Power Rating. Each ability is framed for both mechanical impact and narrative weight.
5. Interaction Notes: How mortals typically engage with this dominion. This includes the influence of rituals and offerings by common folk, as well as how magical traditions (Binding, Pact Magic, Melding) may manipulate or exploit it.
6. Example Spirits: Ready-to-use spirits at PR 2–4, complete with personalities, goals, and ability sets.

[!hint] GM Guidance:
When in doubt, let the dominion lead. Its themes and resonance should color every interaction, every ability, and every consequence. A well-realized dominion makes a spirit feel inevitable—a living truth of the world, not just a stat block.