One of the older spirits on the island, though it's even more wild and exuberant these days than when it was young. Contrary to some stories, it does think things through - it's just far more concerned with the process of life than with things like 'consequences".
It's not unfriendly to the Dahan, but its idea of a good time is to smother their buildings in all manner of inconvenient greenery, and its notion of "help" transforms careful cultivated areas into overgrown thickets. Entire villages have been known to move to fresh planting-sites years early if a spirit-speaker suspects that Rampant Green is going to stay in the area for too long.
A Spread of Rampant Green is an ancient and enthusiastic spirit of growth and renewal that is extraordinarily difficult to keep down. It can play up to 3 Presence a turn under the right circumstances, and may return its destroyed Presence to play. It assaults the Invaders directly and bodily: clogging water supplies, tearing down buildings with creepers, and overgrowing the land so badly that it brings everything to a standstill: anywhere it has a Sacred Site, it can destroy one of its Presence to flatly prevent a Ravage or Build.
A Spread of Rampant Green is a force of continual renewal and regeneration, a jungle so thick and verdant you can barely see five feet ahead with plants overgrowing your path behind as you walk. Wherever it goes, creepers and greenery twine their way across the land, and the leaves rustle with sounds of laughter; for all that it's ancient and primal, it loves life with the same wholehearted exuberance as a toddler, and shows up at human villages with all the enthusiasm of a kid doing a flying belly-flop atop an unsuspecting parent.
In the open spaces of Spirit Island, the night sky, when clear, blazes with light from the moon and stars - but not all of this light reaches the earth. From time to time an ever-shifting shadow writhes across the land, bringing a darkness deeper than found under any jungle canopy. It seeks out those who are isolated and alone, and swallows compatriots and communities alike into its lightless void. Some return, others do not.
Many Dahan suspect this may be another form and Shadows Flicker Like Flame - its whispery voice crackles like fire, among other signs - but keep cautiously clear of it, as it has made no requests of them.
Fear of the dark - and of being alone in the dark - is something really primal. On Spirit Island, it’s also really sensible: not just because there are things in the dark that might hurt you, but because the dark itself might swallow you, never to return. It is not a mere absence of light, but an actual thing unto itself.
Or, perhaps, multiple things, but here we’re discussing just one: Breath of Darkness Down Your Spine.
Breath of Darkness is an Incarna Spirit, its tangled locus a fearsome creature of living shadow that is not exactly physical, but not exactly intangible - it can rend and tear, but also slip through tiny openings, suddenly unfurl itself to a vaster shape, or evaporate away altogether. This may be because it is not entirely here - there is a realm of shadows that may exist inside of it, or on the other side of it, or which it partially exists in, or to which it is connected?… even the Dahan aren’t sure, and have little desire to try and find out. What they do know is that some of those trapped by darkness return - eventually - while others never do.
When the moon is bright, and the leaves overhead are thin enough to let stray beams fall to earth, the Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares may sometimes be spied, an apparition of pale light and deep shadow. Seen this way, it will neither stop nor acknowledge attempts to communicate with it, whether by Dahan or Spirit. It might not even be there at all: perhaps it's a reflection of a self somewhere else entirely; the realm of the The Pathmaker, or some strange road that borders it.
But beings which dream hear from the Bringer frequently, even if they rarely remember it. Certain patterns may even call its attention, if drawn with sand and scatters with breath before sleep. Since the Invaders came, it has tended towards more terrifying forms, even well before the current conflict arose.
Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares draws a distinction only between dreams it carries to slumbering minds and those which arise independent of its touch. It may bear visions of wonder or terror, of prophecy or muddled echoes of past experience; they may illuminate or deceive or simply confuse. It has existed since long before the Dahan arrived, bearing dreams to those few Spirits which receive them from without, but there is little question that its nature changed - and enlarged - once humanity began living on Spirit Island. Some speculate that it is related to those which prey upon the not-yet-departed souls of the dead, though others counter that it does not seem to feed off dreams, merely carry them.
Even amongst other Spirits, it communicates almost entirely through the touch of dreams, either by manifesting in some form suitable to the dreamscape, or by taking a few moments of its mind-to-mind contact for more direct - if often no less cryptic - communication. Spirits are generally better able than humans to retain these fleeting memories, though humans sometimes help interpret a vexing conversation for some Spirit poorly suited to nuanced interpretation.
A traveling Spirit of movement and movement's deep power, circling a bright leap of flame, dancing atop dark mysteries of night and earth. It roams the island as its visions and will to motion bid, dancing with and among whomever it finds: the waves on the shore, the animals of the jungle, the Spirits, the trees, the Dahan, and - especially - the earth itself.
The Dahan learned long ago that if the land-dancer was aware of them, village-wrecking earthquakes became much rarer. Through this, they found that many Spirits appreciate - and gain power from - various patterns of dance and rhythm, in addition to those of line, shape, and word.
Dances Up Earthquakes is a Spirit of rhythm, inexorable crescendo, and the earthquake - a sudden unleashing of ground-shaking energy. It is patient, but nearly always in motion; it exults in movement, movement grounded in the earth, but so powerful that eventually the earth itself also moves to the dance, becomes a dancer partnered with Dances Up Earthquakes.
The earth is hardly the only thing it dances with: it will dance with the swaying trees, with the pounding ebb and flow of the surf, with the flickering flames of a wildfire, with humans who shuffle and stomp leap to the beat of drums and hands. It may leap atop a cliff's edge as gulls cry overhead, or pound across sand dunes under starlight. But the living earth and stone beneath seem to be the partner it circles back to, time and again.
It is rarely not dancing.
The Dahan observed long ago that where it went, earthquakes tended to follow - but that if it was dancing with things upon the earth that its devastation rarely touched the area. (It would be a poor dancer that harmed its partner or bowled them over, and Dances Up Earthquakes does not dance poorly.) So if it approaches one of their villages it is made welcome; if it is observed nearby then fires are lit and a dance started in hopes of attracting it - and if that does not work, preparations are made equally swiftly for the quake which will quite likely follow.
Dancing with it is exhilarating, wild, and exhausting; a physical meditation of motion where nature is experienced-but-not-contemplated as movement drives out conscious thought. Its presence may allow humans dancing with it to surpass their usual limits of endurance and grace, though even so, no flesh-and-blood being can hope to match it for sheer indefatigability.
It does not (or will not) command others to the dance, only inspire them. It has tried to dance with the Invaders, multiple times, and has found that as more of them gather together, the less they heed the call to motion. After being fired upon by guns as it approached an Invader City, it has decided that they no longer belong in the dance here.
Long ago, the being which would become Devouring Teeth Lurk Underfood was a small, territorial Spirit of the sand-by-water. It waited patiently for small prey to approach, then frightened them towards its waiting maw; when fresh prey was scarce it would scavenge.
Most such Spirits stay tiny, but this one happened to take a bite out of Ember-Eyed Behemoth. It slowly grew larger and more mobile, slithering below the land's surface in a way impossible for normal animals.
The deluge. As the Dahan say, "When the very air turns to water and the sound of rainfall drowns out all but the loudest of thunder, at that moment when it could not conceivably pour any more - and then suddenly, impossibly, it is raining twice as much - that is the downpour."
A Spirit of the high skies bridging to the earth below with a cascading torrent of water, rain blowing on the wind and soaking the ground. Flies back and forth across the boundary between water which brings life and growth, and water which overwhelms everything save the plants and soil entwined in each other's protection.
Spirit Island has a dry season and a wet season, but those descriptions are very broad. The wet season brings more frequent and heavier rains, but it doesn’t pour constantly - the skies do clear from time to time. And specific areas of the island have their own local variations in climate and rainfall.
Some variation also comes from the travels of Downpour Drenches the World, which flies across Spirit Island (and sometimes beyond), settling down in one place or another for days or weeks. It is, for the most part, a content Spirit. rolling around in the greenery and nosing rain-glossed leaves aside to see what might be growing beneath. Wherever it goes, there is rain, for it is rain: an ongoing pouring from the heavens, sometimes light and sometimes heavy, but never stopping. During its stay, the ground grows muddy, plants explode into verdancy, and many Dahan among those-who-stay spend a great deal of time in a common-lodge, cooking and crafting and telling stories while watching the downpour through the lodge’s open sides. If those-who-travel are caught out near Downpour Drenches the World, they sigh and make the best of a wet situation - its rains may cause inconvenience and discomfort to travelers, or force them to take different paths, but usually don't make journeying outright impossible.
Usually.
Sometimes, the rains grow torrential for days at a time rather than minutes. Riverbeds flood, cleared ground erodes, and the ground turns to vast reaches of impassable mud. A Dahan proverb cautions against sleeping on one’s back in such weather, lest one drown. Spirit-speakers have learned that the rains seem to match the mood of Downpour Drenches the World - when it’s agitated, winds will gust and blow every which way; when it’s angry the rains will wear away at soil more rapidly - but do not yet understand its mood during these times of heaviest rain. Those who have braved the deluge to seek it out at such times have found it standing high with both heads pointed the same direction, relaxed but focusing intently on something distant, or unseen, or all around, heedless of questions shouted up through the rain.
Amidst the boggier jungles, one might find a tree-covered hill - somewhat rocky - rising upwards from the dank and the damp. One might climb it to scout the lay of the land, or camp there for respite from the water-snakes and warm muck below.
But do not settle there, nor quarry that stone, for the hill is a Spirit, immense and incarnate. It might be a living scale of the great Serpent; or a dream given waking form; or a Spirit wrapped around a great curse, enfolding it and containing it from spilling outwards. If you bother it, fire will kindle in its eyes, and it will rise and smash its way across the landscape.
Spirit Island has innumerable hills, crags, ridges, and mountains. A fair number of them have Spirits - or more precisely, are Spirits: the natural feature and the Spirit are the same thing. And over time, some of those Spirits have grown to encompass more places than the natural feature from which they first arose, just as the Spirits you play in Spirit Island spread Presence across the land, growing greater than they began.
However, most of those innumerable hills, crags, and mountains - even the ones with Spirits - don’t get up and walk around.
Ember-Eyed Behemoth is one of the exceptions, and one to be careful of. Most of the time, it chills out in the wetlands, letting the water wash over it and nourish the plants that grow upon it. But if it’s angered, it rouses and goes on a rampage across the land, smashing anything that annoys it.
(The Dahan term translated as “Behemoth” means something like “Moving-Mountain”, though with “Mountain” specifically referring to “verdant rise supporting plant life”, not “lifeless crag of rock”. While Dahan will often use longer names for dangerous Spirits in order to be more formal and avoid antagonizing them, they don’t bother here: when it’s relaxed, it doesn’t really care if you’re formal, and when it’s rampaging, it’s not even listening to you anyway.)
Even after centuries, the Dahan find many things about Eyes Watch From the Trees somewhat enigmatic. Is it a Spirit of the trees themselves, or a Spirit which inhabits trees as its home? Is it one Spirit, or many, or a sort of collective-Spirit?
The Island has many swampy deltas along its coasts. Some are fairly navigatable, while others are mazes of murky water, tangled trees, and land that isn't nearly so solid as it appears. Fathomless Mud of the Swamp is one of these latter sorts, with a penchant for spreading - it likes getting everywhere, slowly turning solid ground into muck and mire.
Finder of Paths Unseen is well known to the Dahan: it traverses the island with ease, and most spirit-speakers have met it at least once or twice. It communicates more straightforwardly than most Spirits, layering thought-sendings over its high-pitched trills. And it - or its assistants - sometimes help soulforms of dead Dahan move swiftly on, eluding those Spirits that seek to devour them.
It is almost commonplace... but also deeply enigmatic, even to those clans who call it Pathfinder. Does it locate paths, or make them? Is the other-space it moves through a realm, or a state of being? While it is occasionally willing to answer, its thoughts do not always translate well to words.
Finder of Paths Unseen is a Spirit of ways and paths, travelers and journeys, places and boundaries. The paths they travel seem to exist in another realm that weaves through and around our world - or perhaps this is just a trick of perspective, and it’s simply our world interacted with in a different way. Regardless, Finder of Paths Unseen interacts with place and way and journey in ways even most Spirits cannot.
They have good relations with the Dahan, some of whom are close enough to them to simply call them Pathmaker, rather than their more formal title-name. (Whether they “make” or “find” paths - or “uncover”, “open”, “enable”, or “empower” them - is something nobody can quite say; all those words are in good measure correct, but none of them exactly right.) Some older spirit-speakers acting as mentors or teachers will walk its paths with their students, reaching places on the far side of the island for an afternoon’s studies or conversation rather than having to make a trip of months or longer. This isn’t done trivially: the patterns that best please Pathmaker tend to be intricate and (from a human perspective) spread out piecemeal over miles, rather than a simple sketch scribed in beach-sand or ash. But given an excuse, they’re happy to help individuals and small groups; they may be enigmatic in some ways, but their nature is clearly not merely of paths, but of those paths’ travel (or forbiddance).
The sun and moon are short-term timekeepers of Spirit Island, measuring days and months with their rise and set, wax and wane. When they meet in a solar eclipse, time collides with time, sending jagged pieces of Was, Will-Be, and Might-Have-Been tearing through the weave of seasons and years. Gleaming vision-shards of future or past events may shimmer across the sky, but often those futures or pasts do not match what others know.
Fractured Days Split the Sky exists mostly in the high reaches of the heavens, but touches the island now and then, time and possibility flowing around it like a wind-blown mantle.
Spirits do not perceive time as humans do - see the recent update about Shifting Memory of Ages for one example - but there is still a certain orderliness to it. Days follow nights follow days, seasons follow seasons, years follow years, and if some events are unmoored in exactly when they happened, it is more that the structure is looser than human minds conceive, not that it lacks structure at all.
Fractured Days Split the Sky is a hammerblow to that structure, the periodic collision of sun and moon overhead. Or it might be the edges of Time, where the usual order cracks and splinters into pieces hanging out over the void. Or perhaps it is simply the eclipse itself, which by virtue of its nature wears Time around itself like a jagged cloak - few Spirits and no humans have the discernment to distinguish between these stories, and in the nature of Spirits and stories, they may all be true and untrue at the same time.
What is certain is that on Spirit Island, when a solar eclipse darkens the sky, fragmentary visions of past and future and present may appear in the air, ghostly but clear. Frequently, the visions are not of the past or future or present that those witnessing it know.
(Fractured Days Split the Sky is not, for the most part, a spirit of visions - these sights that swirl around it carry no unusual wisdom or import, and may be irrelevant - or outright deceptive - to the past-present-future in which the observer exists. If it focuses, it can feel out which fragments of future correspond to a particular present, but the very act of doing so tends to jostle the future about and make it less certain.)
It is a celestial Spirit, somewhat remote and not especially accessible the way that, say, a river-spirit or earth-spirit can be. It's capable of piecing together a humanoid puppet-form if it wishes to communicate with the strange scurrying upright-animal-things far below, but even this form made expressly for contact with humans is difficult for spirit-speakers to interact with; it conveys jumbles of sensory impressions from moments that never actually happened, or haven’t happened yet, a little bit like a modern human might piece together a paragraph by cutting out words from newspaper articles.
There are many trickster Spirits, but this one is the most infamous due to its part in instigating the Second Great Reckoning between the Dahan and the Spirits. It wears any form it pleases - perhaps a tree, perhaps a canoe, perhaps a prominent clan-chief - but can always be distinguished by its multitude of eyes, though they may be subtle or concealed.
Despite its knack for stirring up trouble, it's neither unfriendly nor motivated by malice - it just has a driving curiosity to see what will happen when it messes around with things. Of course, this may involve putting Spirits, people, and animals alike into suddenly precarious situations, so the Dahan appreciate its shenanigans best at a healthy distance.
Trickery, misdirection, and curiosity are all common in nature, and so there are Spirits which partake of those things to a greater or lesser extent. The urge to try things for onesself and a “let’s poke the anthill and see what will happen!” attitude also exist in nature... and are particularly prevalent among humans. The being now known as Grinning Trickster Stirs Up Trouble was one of those Spirits who found the arrival of the Dahan fascinating, and over many centuries its nature has shifted somewhat in response.
It’s generally friendly, and fairly congenial - but even in the days before it became infamous, the Dahan learned that “friendly” was no guarantee that it wouldn’t, say, hide a tiger inside your house. Not out of any malice, but because it would be fun to see how the whole ridiculous (and incidentally deadly) situation would unfold.
It became infamous by touching off the Second Reckoning, the second great clash between Dahan and Spirits. It did this by telling the absolute truth in the worst manner possible, throwing the (admittedly already tense) situation straight into outright conflict. (Nobody is quite sure whether it intended such a huge blow-up; it claims not to remember.)
A spirit of natural destruction... and renewal after destruction, though those whose lands have been scoured by flame don't usually much appreciate the latter. Thrives near human habitations, glorying in their fires and sparks, but has existed on the island since long before the Dahan arrived, a child of the Volcano and the Green.
The Wildfire is a long-standing friend of the Dahan: the early slash-and-burn agriculture which turned most Spirits against them gave it the best decades it had had in centuries. It later supported the Dahan during the Second Reckoning, backing their threats of reprisal. It doesn't interact with the Dahan often these years, but spares their villages as best it can, and fights the Invaders in large part for them.
Burning, blazing, rising, consuming - Heart of the Wildfire is quite fond of humans, in a general sense: they keep hearths and use fire as a tool all the time, and those sparks give birth to so many lovely conflagrations! It is the nature of Spirits to be true to what they are, so even though Wildfire knows on some level that too much fire is bad for the land, it just doesn't think about that aspect of things very much. It is also, after all, a spirit of renewal after the blaze, so it implicitly assumes that everything will regrow eventually. (Its strong ties to A Spread of Rampant Green probably contribute to this point of view.)
Hearth-Vigil is a Spirit of neither fire nor cooking - it is a watcher and guardian, a protector who keeps vigil over common-hearths. In the dry season, it smothers rogue blazes; in the wet season, it fortifies the health of older Dahan suffering from wheezelung; in all season, it intensifies the hearth's powers of wellness and community-strength. It's friendly to speak to, though most grown Dahan don't usually distract it without cause.
Historically, its aid was first sought during the bloody conflicts of the Servant Cults, due to the threat of mass poisonings. As those agreements affected its nature, it became able to offer more than simple vigilance.
A game of Spirit Island does not open at the very instant the Invaders show up: the first tall ship landed at the island around 8 to 10 years before game start, the first colonists arrived maybe 4 to 6 years back. The opening acts of the eventual conflict are presumed to play out similarly each time, so are left invisible: the initial settlements, the Dahan reaching out to the colonizers, the Invaders failing to heed Dahan warnings about proper behavior, the first Blight, larger Spirits being caught by surprise at the speed of the Invaders… and Invader-borne diseases ripping through the interconnected Dahan population.
It is horrifying that the mortality rate among the Dahan - around 20 to 30 percent - is substantially less than what was historically suffered by many Indigenous communities in the face of such pathogenic onslaughts. Most Dahan communities benefited from close relationships with some smaller Spirits able to provide quick palliative assistance, and perhaps blunt the severity of an illness.
However, most Spirits capable of more dramatic aid were unable to react in time or to bring their full power to bear - events unfolded extremely quickly, from their perspective, and these illnesses were novel, unfamiliar.
Hearth-Vigil, however, was able to help a great deal more, being a Spirit both of vigilance and of health, already existing among the Dahan. Communities with a close relationship to Hearth-Vigil are accustomed to bringing their ill or poisoned to it for aid, and this allowed many to survive who otherwise would not have.
Spread throughout Spirit Island are pockets of deep wilderness, untouched by human hands. A few have a spirit of sanctity about them. The leaves there whisper words of forbiddance, of warnings, of wrath for those who trespass. The Dahan know how to listen, and stay well away.
A few spirit-seekers claim that these wild-spirits (powerful as they are) are merely custodians and wardens for other more powerful, spirits of ancient trees and deep roots who wake neither frequently nor easily. Nobody much cares to test the truth of the matter.
The child of a passing storm-spirit, Lightning's Swift Strike danced off the shores of the island many ages ago, and liked it enough to stay. It spends much of its time resting and quiet, waking up to dance through the sky when the winds blow strong.
It only concerns itself occasionally with the Dahan, usually appearing out of nowhere to send them off on some obscure errand. The Dahan cooperate - partly out of wary respect for Lightning's power, but as much for the sake of the Thunderspeaker - Lightning's child - who is a patron and ally of their people.
Most spirits of storm travel the sky, never touching down or staying in any one place for too long, but a few find a place they’re sufficiently drawn to to stay - often a site with high winds or violent weather. Spirits of lightning are especially prone to this, finding the earth below more interesting than their cloud-formed bretheren.
Most early Dahan settlements clustered along the coasts. From time to time, a handful of residents would get a distant look in their eyes and stride off into the heart of the island, no pleading or reason dissuading them from seeking some distant call only they could hear.
Many of these involuntary wanderers survived and settles together in time. This may have hastened the First Reckoning, as they relied much more on agriculture than did their fishing bretheren along the coast.
A few wanderers spoke of finding the Spirit which called them ever-further inward, in voices of wonder mingled with fear. But most never even saw it, only felt its distant beckoning.
Lure of the Deep Wilderness can in some ways be seen as a counterpart to Ocean's Hungry Grasp: it calls humans towards the deep centers of its power, in one case the depths of the ocean, in the other inland areas far from the shore. There the similarity ends: where Ocean's Hungry Grasp is an embodiment of the seas' hunger to consume the land and those who dwell upon it, Lure of the Deep Wilderness is an embodiment of nature's allure and danger intertwined: the desire to seek what lies further in, and the consequences of so doing. For the purposes of fighting the Invaders, most of those consequences are bad ones, but that is not an inextricable truth about it: wanderlust may lead to good things as well as bad.
A digression: Spirit Island generally presents Spirits in a way such that you see the sides of them best suited to the struggle against the Invaders. However, many Spirits have portions of their nature that aren't very relevant to the conflict, so they don't get much mechanical representation. For instance, A Spread of Rampant Green could (perhaps) cause *only* crops to grow abundantly, creating plenty of food for Invaders or Dahan. But the effect wouldn't be enough to support the Dahan the way that River Surges in Sunlight does, and wouldn't be especially useful against the Invaders, so it doesn't have any rules associated with it. If the Spirit doubled down and hyper-focused on that part of itself, it might be able to expand / empower / better control that crop growth enough to make it relevant - perhaps entice Invaders to change where they try to settle - but in the process, other portions of itself would be neglected and become weaker. Mechanically, this trade-off would most likely be captured in an Aspect for the Spirit. End of digression!
For its part, Lure of the Deep Wilderness likes humans, but not in a way that humans find especially comfortable. Arguably it prefers the acquisition more than the actual having (though it finds both satisfying), and while this tilt is probably a boon to those called away by waking dreams (if they survive, they're likely to break free at some point), it's still not something that makes the Dahan want to have it as a neighbor.
(There are, in the way of humans, exceptions: a scattering of families and people hope to be called on such a journey, seeing it as something of a rite of passage. Their neighbors are pretty skeptical, but hey, if it keeps Lure of the Deep Wilderness from snaring their relatives with a vision-call, they'll happily live with it. And sometimes, Lure of the Deep Wilderness will call an entire village during that village's moving-time; the Dahan tend to find this far less objectionable than individuals being lured away. Partly because it doesn't involve the painful bereavement of loved ones suddenly walking off into the jungle possibly never to return, and partly because villages called in this fashion tend to find excellent sites for their next settlement - often previously unknown ones.)
A Spirit of flocks, swarms, schools, and packs, where the whole moves together in concert to accomplish what the individuals in it could not do alone. Unlike Weaves a Web of Souls, its nature leans towards smaller and simpler creatures, and it regards other sorts of animals - including humans - as bizarrely alien in their individuality; while it will communicate with the Dahan, it has shown no ability (or inclination) to integrate them into itself.
While it is willing to sacrifice individuals to protect the whole, it is not a Spirit of sacrifice per se - that is a tactic it employs, not the essence of its nature.
On one level, a flock of birds is dozens or hundreds of individual beings: each has a separate body, a separate brain, lives or dies separately, makes its own choices, and may compete with the others over mates or food. On another level, a flock of birds is a single organism, twisting and turning in flight, mobbing predators and keeping watch, finding food and safety for its member birds as best it can.
Many Minds Move As One is a Spirit of these aggregate beings: flocks of birds, swarms of insects, schools of fish. In particular, it is a Spirit of *joined movement* towards a common cause - a single mind manifest in a multitude of bodies.
It is not attached to any single swarm or school, and indeed, maybe in-with-of many such groups at a time, each flock having a distinct single-mind formed from that particular union of animals. Of course, in keeping with its nature, those distinct hive-minds can then move in concert with each other as part of a still-greater aggregate: it has both multiple selves and a single self at the same time, reflecting the thing it is composed of. It has a very different mindset about minds than humans do - it can be a bit confusing to communicate with, particularly because it finds humans equally baffling in their monolithic isolation.
The hunger of the ocean runs deep and powerful, sometimes patient, sometimes tempestuous and angry. It slowly wears away at rocky shores, or devours half an island during a hurricane. It lures humans out onto the water with its sire call, then consumes ship and crew alike unless the proper offerings are made.
The ocean's voraciousness keeps the Dahan from frequent sea travel, though they still manage a trading expedition every decade or so. These trading-trips take the cooperation of several families, and always involve at least two spirit-speakers. That way, even if one perishes abroad, the expedition will still be able to get home.
The seas around Spirit Island were not always so dangerous as they now are; when the Dahan's ancestors first arrived, the journey was no more (or less) perilous than any other voyage between islands. Several centuries ago, between the Second Reckoning and the rise of the Spirit-speakers, Ocean's Hungry Grasp arrived in the nearby waters. It has severely curtailed the Dahan's trade with other islands, though not extinguished it: expeditions are careful to propitiate the Ocean before setting out and upon their return. Some smaller ocean spirits still exist - some playful, some indifferent, some moody - but all are overshadowed by the hungry, waiting presence lurking deep offshore, and many have fled. Thus far, the tall-shipped Invaders have mostly escaped its attention, but that is sure to shift soon.
Relentless Gaze of the Sun is an imperious Spirit, brimming with wrathful power that scorches the land barren beneath its focused regard. For long centuries, it viewed all others as beneath it, unworthy of consideration.
Yet since being thwarted during the Years of the Relentless Sun, it wonders if its pride deceives it - perhaps it should work with some Spirits and humans, rather than indulging in indiscriminate destruction?
It is still considering this idea. Regardless, the Invaders offend it by making the land fragile, forcing it into the intolerable choice between dimming its majesty and unintentionally scorching the land.
There are many Spirits of the sun and sun's light - some are gently beautiful, some are nourishing, some are aloof and barely touch the island at all. Relentless Gaze of the Sun is none of these things: it is a blazingly imperious Spirit that blasts the land with relentless heat. The tropical sun is something to respect and even fear.
The Spirit was not always like this - long ago, something happened that swelled its pride, turning its satisfaction at shining with bright and brilliant constancy into more and more of an obsession. It came to see the wilting of the land beneath as evidence of how amazing and powerful and important it was, rather than a sign of growing excess. It required rest between these bouts of intense activity, but the number of decades - and, eventually, years - between scorching bouts grew shorter and shorter, and the duration of the scorching-times grew longer and longer.
Some seaside Dahan villages figured a way to distract it, buying respite: every year before and during the dry season, they would send well-crewed boats out with shards of obsidian or reflective shell to flash the sun's brilliance back upwards, pulling the Spirit's attention slightly offshore with the apparent signs of an upstart contender for its brilliance. This held off disaster for a couple hundred years - and even after the growing hunger of the Ocean made such trips more dangerous, several Spirits of sky and heavens managed to keep the Sun's attention elsewhere... for a time.
But when its attention did return to the island, it was full of the wrath and built-up power of centuries. So began the Years of the Relentless Sun, when the Sun shone such power down on the island that it came near to devastating immense swaths of it. Several Spirits of moon and night tried to oppose it, but withered beneath the uncompromising assault; it was not until Shadows Flicker Like Flame took an interest that the Sun was effectively checked. Both Spirits came out of that confrontation somewhat the worse for wear, and are not nearly so powerful now as they were then - though perhaps this is a blessing in disguise. If they were as great in might and scale as they used to be, they would likely not be fast and nimble enough now to fight the Invaders effectively.
While it is still destructive, Relentless Gaze of the Sun has been at least somewhat tempered, and its motivations seem to be in the midst of a change. It used to act out of a sort of impersonal contemptuous fury, scourging low all who came under its gaze as an affirmation and manifestation of its power - not in an insecure way, or out of hatred, as a human might, but simply because that was its nature: to strike down those who dared raise themselves before it. But even Spirits with the constancy of Sun or Earth can change, over time, and grappling with a Spirit as shifting and protean as Shadows Flicker Like Flame may have accelerated that process. It is still a destructive Spirit, breaking down and burning up those upon whom it focuses its gaze, but it seems to be exploring the idea that 'those outside of itself' are not some homogenous mass, and that perhaps it ought to focus its contempt and fury on those actively opposing it? It is once again willing to communicate with other Spirits, and given that it's not actually trying to rule anything or boss anyone around, most Spirits are content to shrug and speak to it respectfully (if they speak to it at all), or just work around it - it is not a Spirit of great subtlety or connivance.
Dahan herders are very familiar with Rising Heat of Stone and Sand: the signs of its presence are passed down from generation to generation, so it can be acknowledged and thanked for safe passage across its scorching domain. Even after centuries, the Spirit remains a bit unclear on why living things get so unhappy about fatal desiccation, but the Dahan make such pleasant patterns across its sands that it's happy to forbear.
On most of Spirit Island, the rivers run high during the rainy season, as one would expect. There is one exception: the lingering remains of an ancient curse keep a high ridge shrouded in ice, and when the sun beats down, it feeds a single river with abundant meltwater.
River Surges in Sunlight is a spirit of rushing water, inundation, and bounty out of season.
It gets along well with the Dahan who farm along its banks; they reap the benefit of good harvests, and tend to the health of the river in its drier times. Both gain.
River Surges in Sunlight is one of the greater river-spirits of the island, at least among those moderate enough in their locus of power to still interact readily with humans. (Joining of Three Rivers, for instance, is much larger and more powerful, but sluggish even by spirit standards, and very difficult to contact in any but a few very particular, well-worn ways.) River Surges has a well-established symbiotic relationship with the Dahan, who gain fertile ground from its controlled flooding and gifts of health from its magic; in turn, they tend to the river's needs during times of drought and darkness.
Long ago in an earlier age, there was only water where islands now lie. One day - for there were day and night by then, though humans did not yet exist - a great serpent grew tired of swimming and decided to rest. It drew the earth up around itself, and so the island was born. Other stories say different things - in particular, Volcano Looming High has its own account - but stories do not need to agree for them to be true. Regardless, many spirits can sense the immense serpent deep below. It is mostly asleep, and its influence on the land above is limited, but the Invaders' Blight already begins to sting it towards greater wakefulness.
Let's shift our sight so we see only spirits. There are throngs of them visible across the surface of the island: spirits of tree and glade, of rushing river and entangling vines, of beast and butterfly and mists floating eerily over the marshes. Turning our vision downward, we see nearly as many within the land itself: spirits of hard unyielding stone and of drifted sand dunes, of sinkhole and high peak. Vital Strength of the Earth is here. As we look deeper, fewer spirits greet our eyes - some of volcano, some of dark and ancient caves, a handful of others. But like the earth itself, most of those we see are large, powerful, and slow. Deeper and larger than all of those lies the Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island. It could be argued that it is the Island, or at least its roots. Like all spirits of such size and power, it is slow beyond human reckoning. Unlike many of them, it is also asleep.
The Dahan say, "If the long shadows of sunset stretching beside you begin to shift and flicker like tongues of hungry fire, do not run. That will only feed your fear, and whet the shadows' appetite."
This spirit invokes an instinctive fear in humans, perhaps because it doesn't think at all like humans do - it's more alien-minded than most. Until a few generations ago, the Dahan carefully propitiated it only at a distance, steering as clear as they could. But during the Years of The Relentless Sun, it shaded large swaths of the Island, averting catastrophe; since then, many Dahan have been willing to carefully - and cautiously - heed its words, feeling they have a debt they ought to try to repay.
A spirit of darkness and fire, of the alien and unnatural just out of vision around the corner. Its mindset is even more non-human than most Spirits', and it's somewhat dangerous just to be around; the only reason the Dahan have anything to do with it is out of a sense of reciprocity for a great favor it did them some generations ago. Its darkness works in ways not intuitive to humans; it may engulf a single person or an entire city, and it can act at great distance by reaching through the shadows of the Dahan. While not a spirit of fear, all of its Powers cause some amount of Fear due to their unnerving effects.
Spirits corresponding directly to natural features make instinctive sense to human minds: "the spirit of this river here", or "a spirit of stormy wind" are straightforward and easy to grasp. Some spirits are more inscrutable, such as the Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds, or harder to perceive, such as the Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island. And then there are others still whose nature simply does not mesh well with humanity's view of the universe, such as Shadows Flicker Like Flame. It is the shadow of a candleflame; a fire that withers what it touches rather than igniting it; the dark silhouette of a tree cast across the ground which, when you step on it, turns out to be a pit of ink-black otherspace. Its form is as fluid as smoke, rising up from any shadow lying on the ground. Shadows Flicker Like Flame does not seem to represent any natural phenomenon known outside of itself, but is associated with shade, transformation, shadows given life, unnatural spaces, and engulfing dark. While it is not a spirit of terror per se, it evokes a primal fear in humans, both due to its associations and the alienness of its nature. It seems to honor its bargains, but it thinks along strange lines... and when it's near, you're never entirely sure that you won't just vanish.
A predator-spirit of the jungles, a stalker and hunter of animal and human alike. Wherever it lives, savage beasts emerge to hunt, and the jungle grows dark and ominous.
Sharp Fangs doesn't bother talking to the Dahan. Sometimes it will hunt them, or run them off, but for the most part it ignores them. The Dahan's legends tell of a time when Sharp Fangs hunted them more actively, until a pair of warriors - twins, sister and brother - drove it off with traps and guile, then turned the tables and hunted it down. Since then, it has seen the Dahan as not-entirely-prey, which, for it, is something akin to respect.
Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves is a predator-spirit, half-seen stalker in the jungles, hunter of prey large and small. This most emphatically includes humans - though a pair of heroes long ago won the Dahan the status of "not entirely prey", and with it an uneasy semi-reprieve from its more active predations. Still, the Dahan know better than to stick around too long when it moves into an area to stay.
An immensely old Spirit that has ascended to great power countless times over the ages - and then destroyed that power each time, severing huge pieces of itself to become small once again. It does this in part for the thrill of learning anew, but also for the delight of perceiving the living world on the short timescales that larger Spirits grow beyond.
The Invaders' arrival has pushed it to grow much more quickly that it usually would, re-learning lessons and powers from its deep past in order to fight more effectively. After the fight is won, there will be time to forget, to diminish, and to renew itself once more.
Shifting Memory of Ages has been a Spirit of many things over the eons: they are both a Spirit of self-change and of self-memory. To understand the source of this tension within them, you must understand something of the nature of Spirits.
The larger and more powerful a Spirit is, the slower the time frame in which they act: the tiny Spirits of leaf and dewdrop are nearly impossible to communicate with, as a single day for a human is a long eternity to them. (And their knowledge of the world is extremely localized, though still intricate within its bounds.) Most Spirits the Dahan deal with regularly are a touch larger: the Spirit of a single path, of a small glade, of a riverside pool. Not all such places have/are Spirits, but neither are they are especially rare. These Spirits are still fast-minded enough that they may seem somewhat flighty or forgetful to humans, but they will respond to a call, a dance, a pattern, a song.
Spirits who perceive the world on a timescale similar to humans are a bit larger, a bit less common, stay a bit more removed from humanity on average - and the correlation continues, all the way up to Spirits so vast that they could make the Invaders vanish with a thought… but might erase the island in the process, and in any event by the time they acted, they would be far, far too late, as they measure millennia with their breath.
(The Spirits you play start the game in a sweet-spot of “small enough to act on human timescales, large enough to impact the Invasion”. The slowdown that comes with growth is not instantaneous - more like an accumulation of drag over time - so you’re able to ramp up to a combination of speed and potency that Spirits don’t normally exhibit except during the process of such a change.)
Shifting Memory of Ages is an ancient Spirit that has always loved learning, and growing, and understanding. Long eons before humans, they grew to a great ascendancy of power and knowledge. With that greatness, they stopped perceiving the world on the scale of sunrise and sunset, instead of resonating to the deeper rhythms of seasons, of years, of weather-cycles and climate and tectonics…
…and they found that they missed what they had been. Not that they desired ignorance, but they wanted to be able to bask in the slow and perfect glory of a sunset; to hear how the river sounds during different types of rainfall; to watch the antics of this animal or that growing up as an individual rather than perceiving a new generation every time they blinked. They wanted a certain experience of the world that was incompatible with what they had become.
So they changed. They carefully identified, located and protected those parts of themselves that were most core to their being, then slowly let go of everything else: ties to the land, modes of thinking and being, a billion treasured memories, and more. They made themselves small so that they might see the world with young eyes once again.
(This is not a usual thing. Spirits may become diffuse or fade or may shrink as the thing-they-are diminishes in some way, but those which grow-and-diminish cyclically generally do so on a much smaller scale.)
Shifting Memory of Ages found existence different the second time around: they retained aspects of understanding they hadn’t had during their first nascency, learned new things, and grew in different directions (despite the occasional feeling of strange familiarity and ease when they re-discovered something that resonated with their prior self). But their core aims were realized, and they rejoiced in seeing the world with fresh eyes! Since then, they have risen to ascendancy over and over, followed each time by this deliberate forgetting-of-self, a return to beginnings with a mostly - but not entirely - blank slate.
A spirit of dissolution and the cold silence of death, creeping quietly down from the hills and across the open waters. Its trail is adorned with dew-covered leaves and the bones of small animals.
Some legends say Shroud of Silent Mist came from the final breath of a Dahan spirit-speaker who spoke too freely of secrets entrusted to him, for which his soulform was afflicted with a death-bringing curse. Others claim it was born from the legends and tales rather than from any actual person, for the story of Kadura shows that human and Spirit do not so readily transform into each other.
With wetlands, mountains and high-humidity jungles during the rainy season, Spirit Island has plenty of Spirits of mist and fog. Among them are Morning-Glow, a smallish Spirit that lives near a few Dahan villages and manifests as striking patterns of light in the dawn's first rays, then sleeps for most of the day and night; Tide of the Forest's Breath, a dense fog that rolls down from certain mountain peaks; a Spirit called different names on different parts of the island that rises where the sun beats down on wet sand (often near the ocean); and Shroud of Silent Mist, the mist which silently flows in, bringing quiet and slow dissolution in its wake.
(The Spirit's name is an inexact translation; the Dahan don't generally use burial-shrouds. One word being translated refers to the mist-like clouding of the eyes with age and/or death, and another word brings in association of muffling or enfolding cloth. But attempts at literal translation such as "Attenuating Death-Cataract Enfolding-Blanket" mangle the poetry of the original, and completely miss the allusions to mists and cold, so "Shroud of Silent Mist" is, all in all, a better representation.)
Shroud of Silent Mist is one of those Spirits where knowledge of its nature helps greatly in dealing with it. It doesn't (usually) kill humans quickly at all; while there are stories of those-who-travel dying overnight in a mist-shrouded dell, the reality is that the danger it brings is on the scale of months to years: the mists seep in (perhaps just at night, at first), and everyone feels a little lethargic, a little cold, a little not-quite-there, with a slightly harder time seeing or hearing or breathing as the world turns a pale silver-white. Then the mists stay - perhaps retreating for a day or two here and there, but always returning - and everyone keeps feeling a little worse, and a little worse, and a little worse, but it gets harder and harder to muster the motivation to do anything about it.
Those that manage to leave the area of the mists recover fully, given a bit of time. This may be easier said than done: if it's just manifesting in a small hollow or river-basin, you might win free easily, but more often the fog stretches all around for a much greater distance, and it's very easy to get lost in the pall. Overall, though, the Dahan consider Shroud of Silent Mist to be a very dangerous Spirit, but not always an imminent threat, between the slow pace of its enervation and the fact that it doesn't seem to bear the Dahan any specific ill-will. It might enfold a Dahan village for a few days then depart, leaving a few dead herd animals and a scattering of smaller wildlife. (Or it might stay for months and leave only the bones of those who lived there among the trees. If it shows up and you decide to stick around, you're taking your chances.)
Every once and again, where starlight falls to ground there arises a new Spirit. Its essence is initially that of the stars and nighttime sky, but from the moment it touches the island it begins to change, adapting and reimagining itself for its new home. Only a few of the island's Spirits came to be in this fashion, but many of them have been memorable.
This one arrived after the Invaders started to spread, striking the earth where they had cleared land for farming. Fragile and new, it was saved from dissolution by Stone's Unyielding Defiance, and in gratitude fights the Invaders even as it seeks to define itself.
The natural world is not static, and neither are the Spirits. Individuals among them grow and change, both reflective-of and reflecting-into the parts of the world that they embody. Spirits can cease to exist, either slowly fading away, being severed from the vital life of nature, or through the cessation of portions of the world they cannot do without. They can transform, their nature fundamentally shifting. And new Spirits can come into being, either coalescing around the existing, or via the genesis of the new.
Usually, when Spirits arise, they embody or represent something right from the get-go. There is, however, something different and unusual about the light of stars. While there do certainly exist Spirits of the night and nighttime sky, when starlight itself falls to earth (common) and brings a Spirit (much rarer), that Spirit arises unattached to any facet of nature, other than a lingering and fading connection to the stars above. Over its first hours, months, years of its existence, it transforms, forming connections to local places and aspects of nature, becoming something altogether new.
Some things refuse to break.
Underneath the soil and sand of the island lies rock, layer upon layer built up over the ages. Some stones weather quickly once exposed to the elements, while others are sterner and harder. Stone's Unyielding Defiance is a Spirit of that stone which resists being shattered, moved, or shaped to the will of another.
It is capable of tremendous feats of resilience and obstinacy, particularly when confronted head-on in a belligerent fashion. It's not unfriendly to other Spirits or the Dahan, but it works with them on its own terms.
Stone lies under everything. All on its own, it's not necessarily the friendliest of environments for large-scale life, but it's still part of the living earth - over time it weathers to help form soil, after all. Until then, while it may not be nourishing like a lovely regolith full of organic matter, it's supportive and durable and makes great homes for all manner of plants and animals. In some senses, Spirit Island is made out of rock. (In other senses, it's made of a giant serpent, and in others still it's made of a volcano. All these things are true, and more.)
Stone's Unyielding Defiance is a Spirit of one particular type of stone: that which won't get out of your way and you just can't budge. (This can take many physical forms; andesite and rhyolite are common ones.) The Dahan are no strangers to quarrying, nor to discussion and negotiation with local spirits over whether and how such quarrying might proceed in a way that works for all concerned, but with Stone's Unyielding Defiance they don't even try - they'll inquire once, politeness masking frustration, and head home when it refuses.
Sun-Bright Whirlwind is a Spirit of sun-warmed and gusting air. It spins leaves and dust into miniature cyclones, playfully snatches at small unsecured objects, and sometimes - when joyful, or upset, or full of the vigor of nature - howls across the island, bending trees and abrading the landscape with pebbles, twigs, shells, and the occasional bird nest.
Some Dahan take its appearance as a good sign for travel, and others have tried asking it to help bring messages to those far away - with mixed success, as it tends to lightly prank the recipients by mixing the messages' words all about.
Sun-Bright Whirlwind is all about control and thrives with utility Powers, enabling fellow Spirits to reach new heights.
Child of the Lightning, once known as Bright Thunder Roars in the days when it tore across the land as an avalanche of sound and chaos. It lost that form when the Stalker of Hidden Secrets imprisoned it in a canyon, binding it to echo perpetually back and forth until its thunder died out or the stones of the island wore away.
The Dahan freed it from that imprisonment. Weakened but grateful, Bright Thunder Roars bound itself to aid the Dahan until a generation had passed for every year of its imprisonment, and in so binding changed its nature, becoming both less and more than it had been. It often takes human form, now, and with centuries' practice wears it with ease.
Chiefs call on the Thunderspeaker only in times of great need; it has not been much seen since the destruction of the Servant Cults.
Thunderspeaker is a child of Lightning's Swift Strike, metamorphosed through a binding-oath to the Dahan that saved it from imprisonment. It wears human form, now, and is sometimes called upon by the Dahan to act as a leader against larger threats which must be confronted by many clans: partly because of the powers and knowledge it can bring to bear, and partly because following Thunderspeaker's lead helps circumvent the delicate question of who should be in charge of such a large coalition. Thunderspeaker primarily acts via the Dahan, organizing them to fight in ways they have not had to fight for many generations, but is capable of direct Power use - and must decide when choosing new Powers whether to double-down on its allegiance to the Dahan, or to complement that with more direct effects.
Thunderspeaker is a spirit of sound and of power, of words on the wind and bright bursts of destruction. It is tied strongly to the Dahan by a long-standing vow, and most often appears in human form as a result, but no one would mistake it for an ordinary person: its form crackles with energy and its voice carries a storm-born strength.
It serves the Dahan mostly in times of great need - it fought fiercely alongside them during the Second Reckoning - but has also been known to turn up from time to time offering aid unasked-for, calling messages to distant families or guarding against a hitherto-unknown threat. It has occasionally agreed to serve as a commander of sorts, when multiple Dahan clans wish to make common cause but cannot agree on which of them should lead the effort.
Thunderspeaker has not been much seen since the destruction of the Servant Cults. Some speculate that fighting against Dahan - even on behalf of other Dahan - must have taken a heavy spiritual toll, given the oath that binds it.
Towering Roots of the Jungle is a massive, sprawling tree, mighty and ancient. It predates the Dahan, but its history has entwined with theirs ever since they arrived: as part of the terms of the First Reckoning, it served as one place where Dahan might settle freely. It protected the land from any accidental damage done by the Dahan, and the Dahan from Spirits that wished them ill.
It has never before felt the need to reach out through its offshoots and descendants around the island, but the threat of the Invaders and their heedless destruction has motivated it to grow and change in this new way.
When the First Reckoning between the Dahan and the Spirits concluded, the Spirits wanted to keep track of the Dahan and what they were doing…
(…an important digression: I say “the Spirits” as if they were some sort of monolithic, united block.That’s completely untrue: they were (and are) an ecosystem, both figuratively and literally. There were plenty of disagreements among them, plenty of Spirits who took unilateral action according to their natures, plenty of other Spirits who acted to check those Spirits according to their natures, and so on. Many local Spirits never got involved in the first place, not even counting the vast numbers of Spirits who weren’t even close enough to be involved, as initial settlement by the ancestors of the Dahan was mostly confined to one part of the island. Much of this was behind the scenes and not super-evident to the humans involved, and time + the nature of stories have altered the tale enough that most such details wouldn’t have survived anyway.)
A Spirit of vengeance, anger, and retribution. In its incarnation as a Burning Plague, it slumbers in a simmering volcanic pool, awakening at unpredictable intervals.... or when roused through supplication by one wronged. Most Dahan consider this foolhardy, for it vents its wrath on entire communities, and its pestilence may spread anywhere. Clans with a close relationship to Hearth-Vigil have less to fear, but still deem it wise - and humane - not to push their luck.
It is unclear whether its recent waking is due directly to the ravaging of the Invaders or to some Spirit's pleas.
The Dahan suspect that Vengeance is a Spirit of many forms, just as vengeance itself can run hot, or cold, instinctive or premeditated. There are certainly multiple Spirits that seem to fit the bill, and certain events from past generations suggest they are at the very least related or interlinked somehow, if not actually a single Spirit with unusually disparate manifestations. Showing a prudent caution, the Dahan call these Spirits by names that would not give offense should they be single or multiple.
(The name you see on the Spirit panel is a shortened version of what the Dahan usually call it, but “Vengeance as a Burning Plague that Scours All Those Who Remain Before It” doesn’t fit in the layout. In the Dahan language, monikers given to Spirits are titles, with longer names being more formal. While this displays a certain form of respect, it is also distancing, a politeness which either acknowledges a Spirit who is powerful but has little to do with the Dahan, or implies a desire that the Spirit and Dahan keep separate both socially and physically. Shorter name-titles usually convey a different sort of respect, implying some sort of connection or closeness which merits the familiarity… though there are exceptions.)
After the diseases brought by the Invaders started to sweep through the Dahan population (5 or so years prior to the game’s start), many Dahan leapt to the thought that someone had awoken Vengeance as a Burning Plague. There was a great deal of bitterness and cursing whomever had been so foolish - painful history has led them to view the Spirit a little bit like modern civilized nations view chemical warfare: everyone leaves it alone because it’s so terrible, and unleashing it just results in more pain all around.
A spirit of great and unhurried power. The life that earth yields up to roots, the ground supporting the life that lives upon it. The patience of seasons and of stone.
It is not usually a direct benefactor of the Dahan - rather than giving blessings it prefers to work in concert with them, lending power to joint undertakings.
Currently it is trying to rouse itself to fight against the Invaders, but this swift and direct action runs somewhat counter to its nature.
Vital Strength of the Earth is a spirit of the support and sustenance that growing life gains from the ground below. It finds animals (including humans) quite interesting, but they fall outside of its bailiwick. While it is not a Spirit born of sunlight, its cycle of life is ultimately nourished by the sun, and the sun's constancy and power align well with its nature.
A spirit of fire and earth stretching upwards to the sky, casting a long and dangerous shadow across the land. The deeper Spirits of vulcanism are too powerful and slow, too removed to respond to the Invaders - but not so this one.
It doesn't dislike humans per se, but neither does it have much use for them, so the Dahan tend to keep away from it as much as possible and will not quarry stone in its shadow. Of course, larger eruptions can impact a good chunk of the island, so they sometimes end up dealing with its temper whether they want to or not.
There is more than one Volcano Spirit, and many others partake of volcanism in some manner or other, but Volcano Looming High may be the most prominent of them all: while its core essence is born from the deep fires of the earth, it exists where that molten stone reaches high into the sky, peaks looming overhead and explosions blotting out the sun. It is extremely visible, and the Dahan take care not to live too close: it’s not hostile, but nor is it a friend. Sooner or later its power will rise, the stone of the mountain will swell upwards, and an explosion - perhaps large, perhaps small - will follow.
It’s a mostly felsic volcano, so it doesn’t burble highly-liquid lava the way Hawaiian volcanoes do - its lava is thick and viscous, sometimes visually indistinguishable from stone save for a red glow visible only at night. As a result, pressure builds up in the earth over time, and the mountain grows larger as a lava dome rises upwards. This may subside naturally or be alleviated by smaller blasts of pyroclastic activity here and there, but can also culminate in an explosive collapse of the built-up lava dome, like the eruptions of the Soufriere Hills or Mt. St. Helens.
Ages ago, Calls All Living Things to Die was a great and respected Spirit, until it decided to test the limits of its power - accounts disagree as to why - and devastated a portion of the island with a vast swath of death. Matters would have gone even worse but for three Spirits who cleverly sundered the great Spirit's voice and bound it to wander, never returning to its owner.
Wandering Voice Keens Delirium only occasionally brings death with its song, now, more usually causing derangement, obsession and folly in those it touches. The Dahan have learned a variety of tricks to avoid the worst of its influence, but are occasionally affected nonetheless.
Many Spirits break bodies. This one breaks minds.
Whether it really intends harm to humans is a hard question to answer, as it itself is also somewhat broken: it is a great Spirit’s voice, torn away but not destroyed, erratically roaming the island. It can be heard from a far distance, and its sound is many things: sometimes an eerie keening, sometimes a direly fascinating song, sometimes a brain-numbing resonance more felt than heard - most often all of these at once, forming strange and perilous harmonies.
(It may be argued that its song is entirely in the minds of those who hear it, for it does not ripple water nor shake trees. But this is hard to prove; it may simply be that Spirits of water and plant have learned not to heed it.)
Over its long existence, Wandering Voice Keens Delirium has gathered up moonlight and sunlight, twining them together with strands of breath and mind to create a sometimes-visible form for its voice: its Incarna - while it leaves faint echoes of itself hither and yon across the island, that voice is always the primary locus of its existence, its primary tangle of power and reality.
Fortunately for the Dahan, that voice is much less deadly than it was before it was separated from its owner. They have figured out a number of ways to avoid the worst of its effects; while individuals may sometimes be caught unawares, it is quite rare for communities to be. Stopping one’s ears helps a bit, as do certain line-patterns, but neither is generally sufficient on its own. Small Spirits with affinity for air, sounds, thought, or journeys can assist a fair bit, however; there are stories of long-ago days when someone might sacrifice themself to try and attract the attention of Finder of Paths Unseen or its assistants in hopes they might help, though thankfully such drastic measures are no longer needed. Also more reliable is singing certain types of songs together while working on cord-making, hair-braiding, sewing, and weaving; retreating to a fastness covered with vines or living earth; or both together.
In years past, Peace-Waters was a woodland pond, fed by a small river: a Spirit of contended coexistence and the gift of water. Humans and animals would drink in peace, then move on.
The Invaders, too, found Peace-Waters, drank, and moved on. Upriver, they built slaughterhouses and tanneries, pouring charnel-blood through the pool day after day, year after year.
The Spirit which used to be Peace-Waters has barely survived. It is no longer a Spirit of peace - but it has not yet found coherence in a new nature, and until it does, it is at risk of unraveling altogether.
In years and generations past, there was a small lake (or a large pond, depending on how you looked at it) nestled into a wooded area. It was fed by a large brook (or a small river) that ran its way down a rocky slope, producing a bit of spray and a pleasing burbling noise.
You might expect that animals would come to the lake to drink, and you would be more right than you knew - for the pool was (or was the home of, again depending on how you looked at it) Peace-Waters, a Spirit of contented co-existence and the gift of water. On its banks, predators did not hunt prey, and a curious feeling of peace spread through all who approached.
(Do you wonder to yourself how the ecosystem survived such a thing? The protections of Peace-Waters only applied to guests, to animals visiting for water, not to those which lived within the waters itself. Any animal or human which came to drink would, after finding enough inner peace to lose track of time's passage, feel an urge to move onwards - prey animals could drink without fear, but predators could do quite well for themselves on the game-paths leading to and from Peace-Waters, so long as they were far enough away.)
Then the Invaders came. Some of their explorers found Peace-Waters' lake, and in keeping with the nature of the place, decided it didn't feel quite right to site a mill there. But upstream... upstream of Peace-Waters, they settled, and built slaughterhouses and tanneries. With death’s blood and worse pouring into the pool day after day, Peace-Waters started to change.
Upon death, wood and flesh alike decay and return to the land, leading to further life and part of the natural cycle of renewal and fertility. The remains of a single tree will feed a myriad of mosses, molds, and fungi; the body of one large animal makes a banquet for insects and - indirectly - the soil.
The world of Spirit Island is roughly similar to our own world's past. Details differ, but the overall trends of society and technology across the globe are broadly the same.
Europe is no exception; its politics have taken a different turn, but the customs and attitudes of its people are similar to our own history. There is some belief in the supernatural - religion speaks of good and evil powers, there are folk customs and superstitions - but nowhere in Europe or other large empires of humanity is there a place where the stones will speak to you or trees draw up their roots and rove across the land.
It is no wonder the Invaders fail to understand Spirit Island when they arrive.
The Island has existed far longer than humans have lived there. But despite the continued existence of first-hand witnesses, assembling a coherent history is virtually impossible. Even among the most trustworthy Spirits, tales of the past are rife with contradictions, all maintained to be true. Did Voice of the Deepest Gorge sacrifice itself, or descend to some greater destiny, or remain unchanged as an oracle of sorts? All three, apparently. Estimations of time and ordering are similarly hazy.
The Spirits of the Island are many and diverse: thronging wisps of breeze, strange half-seen shadows across still water, the sunbeam which forms perfect patterns even through tangled deadwood. Most do not fight the Invaders: the smaller Spirits are too weak; the greatest ones too slow or so strong they'd destroy the Island. Some, like Watcher Acts Not, are restrained by their own nature; and others can't be bothered. Not every grove or gully has a Spirit - but there are certainly more Spirits than Dahan.
The Dahan were the first humans on Spirit Island. They immigrated centuries ago, in a time when Ocean's Hungry Grasp prowled nearby waters less frequently. Their lore spoke of Spirits, and they expected their new home would have some, but were greatly surprised by the Spirits' numbers, vitality, and intensity of manifestation. Some mistook the greater Spirits for gods.
The Dahan's agriculture and animals brought Blight to the land and conflict with the Spirits, triggering the First Reckoning. The Dahan capitulated quickly, and an accord was reached: the Spirits would transform crops and animals to be more compatible with the ecosystem. The Dahan would change their methods of farming and seek counsel from friendlier Spirits. The two became neighbors, though unequal: the Dahan were reliant on and obligated to the Spirits.
Many generations later came the Second Reckoning, when the Dahan discovered their advisors and protectors had not been entirely candid with them, and the power balance between the Dahan and Spirits evened out - but that is another story. Suffice it to say that the Dahan no longer view the Spirits as gods.
The Invaders found Spirit Island a decade ago. Early coastal contact with the Dahan was fairly peaceful. The Dahan saw these new seafarers as analogues of their those-who travel, and offered them appropriate hospitality. The Invaders saw a fertile, sparsely-populated island, and brought word home of a land ripe for the taking.
The first colony ships arrived five years later, bringing both settlers and an onslaught of foreign diseases which tore through the Dahan. Spirit assistance helped many Dahan survive - but even so, as the game opens, they are just regaining their footing, mourning their dead, and discovering that these scourges were not the act of angry Spirits. They are divided on what to do: some see the Invaders as a menace to drive away, while others still think of them as "our new neighbors", or are fascinated with their lifestyle, tools, and beliefs.
The larger Spirits of the Island live and act on much longer timescales than humans. The most common reaction to the Invaders' arrival was "oh great, more humans - here we go again", tempered with some optimism that Spirit-speakers of the Dahan could act as intermediaries to avoid another confrontation.
But the Invaders refused to listen, and spread impossibly quickly, with more and more colony ships arriving each year. In the blink of an eye there were nearly as many Invaders as Dahan, methodically reshaping the land, destroying Spirit and Dahan alike in their heedless, swarming expansion...
The Invaders keep pushing forward. Individually, they are fragile and easily terrified. As a whole, they are relentless, implacable, and increasingly unpredictable.
How many ways can we resist them? All of our power thus far as failed to turn them back. We must grow, change, choose new paths - embrace the metamorphosis of life, because if we stay as we are, we will die, and the Island with us.
So let us scream disease into the wind and blossom razors across the Invaders' path. Let us call forth the predators of the Island, who have every bit as much to lose as we do. Let us turn the Invaders against each other, and buy enough time for the Dahan to rally and strike; already they begin to organize.
Let us desperately hope that not too many Dahan take the Invaders' side. We would not survive a Third Reckoning.
Our dreams promise that victory is attainable, if we can find a clear path through this tangled jungle of possibilities. We will trust they do not lie, and fight on.
The Invaders strip the land bare, voraciously consuming all they find in service of their cities, their herds, their distant empire. As life's wb is torn asunder, even the more destructive among us must succumb. But three things may yet allow us to survive.
The first is our will: our resolution, our defiance, our unyielding intent. We have the weight of ages behind us, and each others' voices to give us hope and inspiration. What we dream firmly enough may become real.
The second is the land: we make it deadly, transform it to an unlivable misery. We cloak it with fear, hide it from mortal eyes, entrap it in time like a bug in amber. We call forth its beasts and swarms, its poisons and perils.
The third is the Dahan: even now, they fight a thousand small struggles against the Invaders. They speak of our anger, rally to the defense of their kin, and hold out in ways we can barely perceive. Some may still trade with the Invaders, but we no longer fear a Third Reckoning; the Spirit-speakers assure us of that, at least, and in return we will aid and protect the Dahan as we can.
Let us not falter.
The Dahan are the first human inhabitants of Spirit Island, who have resided there long enough to develop their own language and culture. They immigrated many centuries ago, in a time when Ocean's Hungry Grasp prowled nearby waters less frequently, and travel between islands was easier. Their lore spoke of Spirits, and they expected their new home would have some, but were greatly surprised by the Spirits' numbers, vitality, and intensity of manifestation. Some mistook the greater Spirits for gods.
Many generations later came the Second Reckoning, when the Dahan discovered their advisors and protectors had not been entirely candid with them, and the power balance between Dahan and Spirits evened out - but that is another story. Suffice it to say that the Dahan no longer view the Spirits as gods.
At the game’s start, the Dahan are just recovering from the foreign diseases which swept across the Island in the wake of the first major Invader settlements. They will work with the Spirits if requested, and fight back against the Invaders if attacked, but otherwise tend to their own affairs.
There is a decent amount of contact (including intermarriage) between local Dahan communities, and communities may split/merge if they grow large/small enough. This means there's ready opportunity for cultural variation to spread and be regional rather than staying in a single community, though of course details in any given case will will depend on circumstance. The one major case which would tend strongly towards being confined to one community would be when something is the result of a particular person - e.g., a farmer or artisan or leader who does something in a way that's distinctive to them. That would usually be confined to their own village, unless it sparked local imitators/a trend.
Also affecting cultural spread is the fact that most inland and some coastal Dahan settlements are semi-migratory, picking up and moving to new lands about every 8-15 years. (And there's a minority of communities that are strongly herding-based which are even more migratory than that.) This acts as sort of a gentle... stirring?... over the whole of the island, which nudges the the broader strokes of culture and language to stay similar.
Finally, some terrible events from semi-recent history (within the last couple centuries) have given the Dahan a lingering mistrust of changes to their core culture of leadership / structure of social organization. Whereas a village experimenting with (eg) new ways of fishing or new types of storytelling isn't going to alarm anyone, a village that drifts into new ways of government / social organization is going to find itself under heavy scrutiny and possibly ostracism.[2]
The Dahan have a strong oral tradition, as tends to be true (AFAIK) of cultures without written records. Despite the Dahan not having a writing system per se (historically, those haven't arisen much in circumstances like the Dahan's, and there is not much reason to believe the Dahan to be unusual in this regard), they do have a fairly rich use of crafted symbols. Some of these are / derive from literal-representation pictograms, others are / derive from more abstract patterns made for Spirits. (Many Spirits find particular patterns pleasing / energizing.) The latter are not confined to Spirit-centric activities - e.g., if a group of Dahan found a trail-marking for "dangerous animals" alongside a pattern often used with a river-spirit when asking for protection, that'd be an obvious cue that the dangerous animal was in/around a nearby river. And then there's crafting and art - patterns pleasing to particular Spirits might be used functionally (eg, woven into something where it might be useful), but also might be used decoratively. And maybe some villages might use them in other ways due to local artisans/customs - eg, one place might accompany stories with sand-made drawings / patterns as the story is told, a sort of blending of visual art-and-movement performance with the aural story.
By the time the game begins, some Dahan have learned about writing via contact with the Invaders. The idea of being able to "leave a message" for someone to come upon later is one they're familiar with, and in that regard the utility of writing is obvious, though the medium the Invaders use seems dreadfully transient. Some Dahan probably found it intriguing enough to experiment with, while others probably saw the benefits sufficiently marginal to not bother, particularly given its poor aesthetics (from their POV). But then the Invaders' diseases ripped through the Dahan communities, and the innovations / interesting differences of the Invaders took a distant back seat to survival.[3]
The Dahan don't have graveyards. Rather, they set up a spiral-carved post of wood as a mourning-place, far away from where anyone - most especially the deceased - has recently died or been buried. This distance is to help protect the essence / soul of the dead, by drawing away the attention of any malefic Spirits that would destroy or consume them before they depart.
The Spirits are pretty clear about what usually happens to humans directly after death - a non-physical portion of them lingers, for a varying amount of time - but vague about what follows afterwards, expressing variations on "they become absent". Most Dahan interpret this as "leaving for somewhere else". Stories speak of heroes seeking to discover whether the souls of the dead travel Pathmaker's ways. None of them got a straight answer - or at least, none of those who returned.[4]
"Somewhat matriarchal" is a pretty good descriptor for the Dahan. Their families / households are formed around (and headed by) women. Formal clan/village leadership is not gender-associated, though the chief is a semi-proxy for their family, so it's a little muddy there. War-leader(*) is also not gender-associated, but is often drawn from those-who-travel, who statistically lean slightly male due to some women not wanting to take on far-ranging roles during late pregnancy / early motherhood and heads-of-household (who are always women) nearly always being among those-who-stay. Other clearly defined roles of leadership and/or prestige aren't gender-associated and don't skew either direction across the Dahan as a whole. Gender among the Dahan is mostly relevant in matters of family - marriage, households, having kids, kin relations, family status, etc.[5]
(*) = The normal Dahan version of "war" is a far cry from the modern usage, and what Thunderspeaker leads the Dahan in is not considered "war"; "raiding" would likely be the closest translation. This is why "Call to Bloodshed" isn't named "Call to War"... and "The Trees and Stones Speak of War" is the Spirits/land advising the Dahan not just on tactically useful information, but on the different way in which the Invaders are approaching this conflict.
How the Dahan interact with sacred sites depends very much on the Spirit and on the Dahan who come across it. Here are some examples, if a small traveling group of Dahan were to happen upon a previously-unknown but obvious sacred site (with clear indication of what Spirit it was):
[*] = It's both of these things, similar to, eg, housewarming gifts. "Offering" does not mean "a gift to a worshiped being", but something more like "something freely given that might not be accepted, and is outside of gift convention". (Gifts between Dahan usually have social implications - the giver's family gains status - that offerings to Spirits do not, at least not in the same way.)
In the alternate history of Spirit Island, Brandenburg-Prussia became a much more significant power than it was in our own world, maintaining some crucial alliances which greatly increased its size, population, and (significantly) port access.
Fredric William inherited the Duchy of Prussia and Electorate of Brandenburg upon the death of his father George William in December 1640. Eschewing the ineffective and vacillatory foreign policy of his father, Fredrick William abandoned the Polish Vasa dynasty and allied with King Gustavus Adophus of Sweden against Catholic Poland. The triple alliance of Sweden, Russia, and Brandenburg-Prussia resulted in the resounding defeat of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1644, and its subsequent partition more than doubled the size of Prussian lands.
As a result of this victory Fredrick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg, declared himself Frederick I, King in Prussia, and set about the process of building infrastructure and extending Prussian control throughout his newly acquired territory. Upon his death in 1701, his sun Frederick II inherited a thoroughly Prussian kingdom and one of the premier European armies.
Frederick II sought to further expand Prussian territory without upsetting the continental balance of power between Sweden, Russia, France and the Habsburgs. Building up the Prussian navy, the new king strove to catch up to other European colonial powers and quickly integrate new colonies into the Prussian economy.
The alternate-history of the British Isles has taken a different course from our own: Scotland remains independent, for one thing, and while England is certainly powerful, neither it nor the other Great Powers of our own history are quite so dominant in this one.
Queen Elizabeth I of England married Robert Dudley, son of the Duke of Northerumberland, in 1562. The marriage was initially a scandal due to the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Dudley's first wife, and inspired a revolt in several noble houses. However, the co-monarchs Robert I and Elizabeth I grew in popularity after the suppression of the revolt in 1564 and the birth of their son Edward in 1566. With the defeat of an attempted invasion from Spain and Scotland in 1587, the Kingdom of England became one of the premier naval powers in the North Atlantic. After the death of Robert in 1588, and Elizabeth in 1603, their son Edward VII became King of England
England was only briefly involved in the religious wars on the continent in the 17th centurly. Following a disastrous invasion attempt in France in 1633, and a clash with Scotland in 1651, the Kingdom of England focused on fortifying the Scottish frontier and building up its naval power.
Unable to project power on the continent and constrained to southern Britain, the Kingdom of England was one of the first to seek colonies in the New World, using its oversas possessioins to provide citizens with opportunities that were increasingly hard to come by at home.
The French Plantation Colony is really a twofold Adversary: some of its effects are derived from historical France, while others are based off of the Caribbean plantation colonies founded by multiple European powers. Note that this is 1700s France - the policies and practices of later French colonization (such as homeland representation and strong public-health/infrastructure investment) are absent.
King Louis XIV, the longest ruling monarch in Europe, rules France with an iron fist but requires a constant stream of revenue to finance his wars on the continent. Recently involved in a war against Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire to place his grandson Philip on the Spanish throne, Louis relies on the strength of the French Army to hold together a tenuous alliance with Spain and Scotland against the Swedish, Habsburg, and Prussian Kingdoms.
Prevented from raising money from the aristocracy, and with a peasant population already suffering under some of the highest tax rates in Europe, he has begun setting up plantation colonies and extracting the resources of distant lands for the benefit of the Kingdom of France.
Ruler: King Erik XV
Following his triumph at the Battle of Lützen in 1632, King Gustavus Adolphus led the Kingdom of Sweden to further victories over Catholic armies, defeating and partitioning the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with Brandenburg and Russia in 1644. Following his death in 1651, Gustavus Adolphus was succeeded by his son, King Gustav III, who went on to defeat Kingdom of Denmark in a series of campaigns between 1657 and 1668 and secure total Swedish dominion over the Baltic Sea.
Gustav III was succeeded by his son Erik in 1683, who became the eight Vasa ruler of Sweden. Under his rule, constrained from further growth on the continent by Russia to their East and the Holy Roman Empire and Prussia to their south, Sweden begun leveraging their powerful navy to set up colonies throughout the world.
The absorption of former Polish lands in the eastern Baltic has given Sweden a significant influx of Slavs and other non-Scandanavian people. While a tremendous boon to their economic and military power, this demographic shift has also been a source of internal turmoil as the Kingdom of Sweden attempts the historically difficult task of integrating a multi-ethnic society. Along with a desire for more natural resources, Sweden's desire for a "safety valve" outlet for discontents and political agitators has driven their desire to establish themselves as a colonial power.
Ruler: Emperor Joseph I (Habsburg Monarchy)
Emperor Joseph I inherited The Habsburg Monarchy upon the death of his father, Leopold I, shortly after the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession, a short-lived attempt by Emperor Leopold to put Joseph’s younger brother Charles on the Spanish throne. Secure in his alliance with Sweden and Prussia, Emperor Joseph stepped back from territorial conflicts in western Europe and focused on growing the wealth of the empire for his son and heir Leopold Joseph.
Joseph I chartered the Ostend Company in 1697 to bring trade from the East and West Indies through his Belgian provinces, setting up overseas colonies and beginning a program of resettlement of Hungarian peasantry.
Habsburg colonies are newer than those of any European power save Russia but have grown quickly due to their focus on nomadic herding rather than farming and infrastructure. Habsburg control of Belgium allows easy access to Atlantic trading routes but puts the Habsburg fleets in direct competition with those of England, Scotland, and France.
Ruler: Peter I Romanov
The Tsardom of Russia has long been an agricultural and technologically backward state, but all that has begun to change with the rule of Peter I. Desperate for an ice-free port in the north to supplement the frequently frozen harbor of Arkhangelsk and hemmed in to the west by the powerful Kingdoms of Sweden and Prussia, Peter I committed aggressively to the northern alliance begun by his grandfather Michael I, sending poorly trained but massive armies to assist in the continental wars against France and Spain. In exchange, Sweden ceded Russia a portion of the Murman Coast, and Peter built a new northern capital and seaport at St. Petersburg at the ice-free Kola Bay on the Arctic ocean. This gave Russia free access to the North Sea throughout the year, and lead to a substantial increase in Russian shipping and shipbuilding.
At the same time, Peter expanded Russia eastward. Cossack explorers had already reached the Pacific coast by year of Peter’s birth in 1672, and Peter sent new, larger waves of settlers along the arctic coast to swell the populations of these eastern lands.
The Tsardom of Russia is the newest colonial power in Europe, having recently emerged as a fledgling naval power. Given their control of a massive population as well as the vast lands of Siberia, Russia has no need for additional population or land. Instead, the early Russian colonies have focused on the rapid exploitation of natural resources that require minimal infrastructure to extract, notably furs and ivory.
Ruler: King James VII, son of King Charles II (House of Stewart)
Scotland’s position in northern Britain has always been a balancing act. King James VII plays this role well, playing the larger and more populous Kingdom of England to the south against the Kingdom of Sweden across the North Sea and the powerful Kingdom of France on the European mainland. His efforts are aided by the recent success of the Darien colony on the Isthmus of Panama. Thanks to distrust and rivalry among the major naval powers of England, Sweden, Spain, and France, Scotland has emerged as the primary broker of international trade.
The Kingdom of Scotland is currently in a tenuous alliance with Spain, France, and England against the northern European alliance of the Sweden, Habsburg, and Prussian Kingdoms. However, Scottish merchants frequently carry Swedish goods on the side, rendering any attempt to blockade the North Atlantic largely moot.
Scotland controls the key colony of Darien, allowing Scottish merchants to transfer goods from the Atlantic to the Pacific without traveling thousands of miles out of their way around South America. With the unique ability to rapidly ship goods to the Pacific, Scotland has begun to quickly settle the Pacific Rim, establishing colonies in other key trading locations throughout the region.
Sun: Day, light, heat, cominance, command, constancy
Moon: Night, cycles, darkness, dreams, transformation
Fire: Heat, anger, destruction, desire, violent change
Air: Wind, sky, sound, distance, speed, trickery, thought
Water: River, fluidity, fertility, empathy, healing, disease
Earth: The land, strength, constancy, stasis, resilience
Plant: Verdancy, growth, entwining, regeneration
Animal: Beasts, humans, blood, the body, life, death
These have been mentioned in passing (eg, in the Rulebook) and have very little lore attached to their names.
Next some events, named or not
Other Names of Potential Interest
Credit to Chaosmancer, from >G and BGG Names notes
Beginnings
Powers
Adversaries
Questions of Setting
Island boards
Presence and Sacred Sites
Fear and Victory
The Dahan
Events
>G Forum from 2015 with (some) compiled art and artist info
Question: Canonically, could Wildfire cause a Tsunami?
Designer Answer: As the Spirit is portrayed on the Spirit Mat? No, because start-of-game Wildfire doesn't have that Power. But if they take that Power during a game? Then yes, they could, because they've changed - the word "Growth" can be parsed multiple ways; in the context of Spirit Island it doesn't just mean "getting bigger", it also means "changing, becoming", as in "growing up" or "personal growth". Thematically, this is why you have to Forget a Power Card in order to keep a Major Power: you have to give up something of what you were in order to incorporate such a large new influence into your being. The Spirits fighting the Invaders are making a conscious choice to reach for becoming other than they are - to change and adapt in order to survive.
(If you like, at the end of a game, you can lay out your Power Cards and consider the events of the game, and think on whether your Spirit might have acquired a different name. I played one game with Shadows where I kept doing things around the Sharp Fangs player - taking Beast-centric Powers, using Entwined Power for targeting, other stuff I can't even remember now - and also Forgot several of starting power cards. By the end of it the Dahan were probably calling me Second Hunter Brings Darkness or the like.)
So Wildfire could absolutely change and cause a Tsunami. It probably wouldn't make as big a Tsunami as River or Ocean would, though - that would take a much bigger change to its nature (in game terms: acquiring the necessary Powers to hit Tsunami's threshold).
Response:It never quite made sense to me that the spirits gain elements by using powers. But now I'm starting to see how much the spirits are defined by the powers they are using. The powers don't represent the spirits doing specific things, they represent the spirits becoming those things, at least partially.
Designer Reply:Yes, exactly! And to cause a Tsunami, Wildfire must evoke/concentrate on that part of its nature which is now water-aligned. One could perhaps express it as "choosing Power Cards to play is the Spirit choosing to focus on that part of itself during those years". The tempo cost of Reclaiming corresponds to it being more natural ("easier" along some axis?) for Spirits to express their entire nature rather than just a portion of it over and over... except for Spirits with strong constancy (eg, Earth) or fluidity/flexibility (eg, River).[7]