[FOCI]
Cypher System Rulebook 1e
Wandering souls, nature spirits, and elemental beings aid and support you. You have a spiritual connection to the Night Vault, where dead souls wander in an extensive series of subterranean tunnels beneath Ardeyn, chased by umber wolves until caught or collected by the Court of Sleep... or caught by you. You have a way with wandering souls, almost as if you were a member of the Court of Sleep yourself, and you can call dead spirits to you.
Shepherds usually wear distinctive robes and a variety of symbols, often with macabre imagery. Runes stitched across your cloak help you concentrate on your abilities.
Shepherds of the dead are most often paradoxes and spinners.
In some settings, the Shepherds Spirits focus applies to only one kind of spirit, such as spirits of the deceased, nature spirits, and so on.
If this is your starting focus, choose one of the following connections.
Ardeyn clothing, light armor, one weapon of your choice, an explorer's pack, incense and 10 matchsticks, and 400 crowns.
When you perform moves, revisions, or twists that would normally use force or other energy, they instead use spirit energy. For example, an Exception attack is a confluence of fundamental forces, but when you use it, the effect appears as if delivered by a ghostly revenant whose touch drains life energy. This alteration changes nothing other than the type of damage.
You can ask an additional question of a spirit you question.
The spirit you are questioning knows a surprising amount of information about the topic.
You can call a spirit to you and petition it to answer a few questions (usually no more than three before the spirit fades).
First, you must summon a spirit. If it is a spirit of the dead, you must have personally known the creature, have an object that was owned by the creature, or touch the physical remains of the creature. For other spirits, you must know the spirit’s full name or have a great deal of an element (such as fire or earth) that the spirit is associated with.
If the spirit responds, it can manifest as an insubstantial shade that answers for itself, it can inhabit an object or any remains you provide, or it can manifest as an invisible presence that you speak for.
The spirit may not wish to answer your questions, in which case you must persuade it to help. You can attempt to psychically wrestle the spirit into submission (an Intellect task), or you can try diplomacy, deception, or blackmail (“Answer me, or I’ll tell your children that you were a philanderer” or “I’ll destroy this relic that belonged to you”).
The GM determines what the spirit might know, based on the knowledge it possessed in life.
Action to initiate.
A level 3 spirit accompanies you and follows your instructions. The spirit must remain within immediate range—if it moves farther away, it fades at the end of your following turn and cannot return for a day. You and the GM must work out the details of your spirit accomplice, and you’ll probably make rolls for it when it takes actions. The spirit accomplice acts on your turn, can move a short distance each round, and exists partially out of phase (allowing it to move through walls, though it makes a poor porter). The spirit takes up residence in an object you designate, and it manifests as either an invisible presence or a ghostly shade. Your spirit accomplice is specialized in one knowledge skill the GM determines.
The spirit is normally insubstantial, but if you use an action and spend 3 Intellect points, it accretes enough substance to affect the world around it. As a level 3 creature with substance, it has a target number of 9 and a health of 9. It doesn’t attack creatures, but while substantial, it can use its action to serve as an asset for any one attack you make on your turn.
While corporeal, the spirit can’t move through objects or fly. A spirit remains corporeal for up to ten minutes at a time, but fades back to being insubstantial if not actively engaged. If your spirit accomplice is destroyed, it reforms in 1d6 days, or you can attract a new spirit in 2d6 days.
Choose one:
You can command a spirit or animated dead creature of up to level 5 within short range. If you are successful, the target cannot attack you for one minute, during which time it follows your verbal commands if it can hear and understand you.
Action to initiate.
or
While you are conscious and able to use an action, you cannot be surprised. In addition, you are trained in initiative actions.
At your command, the spirit from your Spirit Accomplice ability wraps itself around you for up to ten minutes. The spirit automatically inflicts 4 points of damage to anyone who tries to touch you or strike you with a melee attack. While the wraith cloak is active, all tasks to evade the perceptions of others are eased.
At your touch, the remains of a creature dead no longer than seven days appears as a manifest (and apparently physical) spirit, whose level is the same as it had in life. The raised spirit persists for up to a day (or less, if it accomplishes something important to it before then), after which it fades away and cannot return again.
The raised spirit remembers everything it knew in life and possesses most of its previous abilities (though not necessarily its equipment). In addition, it gains the ability to become insubstantial as an action for up to a minute at a time. The raised spirit is not beholden to you, and it does not need to stay near you to remain manifest.
Action to initiate.
Choose one:
You summon a spirit creature that manifests for up to a day (or less, if it accomplishes something important to it before then), after which it fades away and cannot be summoned again. The spirit is a creature of level 6 or lower, and it can be substantial or insubstantial as it wishes (using an action to change). The spirit is not beholden to you, and it does not need to stay near you to remain manifest.
Action to initiate.
or
When you kill a creature or destroy a spirit with an attack, if you choose, its spirit (if unprotected) immediately infuses you, and you regain 1d6 points to one of your Pools (your choice). The spirit is stored within you, which means it cannot be questioned, raised, or restored to life by any means unless you allow it.
GM Intrusions: Common people are scared of dead spirits, and they look warily on those who consort with such things. Hauntings and the dead rising from the grave are real hazards, and those with this focus are easy to blame.