Sin-Eaters and Spirits (not Ghosts) in God's Own Country

[baboonking]

So I just browsed through Dark Eras and got to the Sin-Eater section God's Own Country.

I think it's an interesting setting and was pleasantly surprised by it as I initially wasn't wowed by the time period or location when they first announced it. So it's all good there.

But I got curious about how big a part spirits seems to be given in the chapter. As in spirits from the Shadow, the kind that Werewolves or Thyrsus mages would normally deal with. We've got the Taniwha, Paupaiarche and Ponaturi specifically listed and statted as possible Shadow beings that one might come across. And the implication in this chapter seem to be that on New Zealand it is the Sin-Eaters' job to deal with these kinds of spirits as well as regular ghosts. Particularly since the book specifically mentions there being no Werewolves or Mages able to use Spirit Arcanum on the island.

So it seems that it is now up to Sin-Eaters to pick up the slack and deal with these ephemeral beings as well. Considering that I have lost count of the number of threads that have popped up during the years regarding people's differing opinions on Sin-Eaters dealing with Shadow Spirits, I was curious on your feelings about this? I know some people think Geist should just be about ghosts and the underworld and that Spirits from the Shadow doesn't fit their theme. Others think that a Geist's implied nature as a spirit/ghost hybrid should mean that Sin-Eaters have more influence over Shadow Spirits. Now that we have a setting that puts dealing with Shadow beings squarely within the local Sin-Eaters purview, what are your thoughts about it?

Personally, I think it works for this setting they created. The rationale seemingly being that this is a duty local Sin-Eaters are forced to take on as they're the only game in town. They might not be the best people for the job, but with no Thyrsus or Uratha around they don't really have any choice.

I'm excited to set up a game with Sin-Eaters functioning as a kind of shaman dealing with a broader category of ephemeral threats. How would you have your krewe of Sin-Eaters take on a hostile Shadow Spirit that they have no natural affinity for dealing with?

[Jacob]

Well, the fact is that "geist" pretty much means "spirit" in English. Geists (and Sin-Eaters) having broader interactions with ephemeral beings sounds like a good thing to me.

[atamajakki]

It's worth noting that geists themselves are not just ghosts, and one of the going theories is that they are a combination of a human ghost with a spirit of death.

[Satchel]

It's worth noting that geists themselves are not just ghosts, and one of the going theories is that they are a combination of a human ghost with a spirit of death.

And even discounting the literal-hybrid explanation, we've got the precedent of Avernian Gates and Dave's 2014 suggestion of how Geister work within 2e's ghost mechanics (as well as the material on the loa in Second Sight that Dataweaver's pointed out a couple of time) to suggest that beings nearer to the nature of the Underworld proper deal with conditions closer to Resonant than Anchors in general metaphysics.

[milo v3]

And even discounting the literal-hybrid explanation, we've got the precedent of Avernian Gates and Dave's 2014 suggestion of how Geister work within 2e's ghost mechanics (as well as the material on the loa in Second Sight that Dataweaver's pointed out a couple of time) to suggest that beings nearer to the nature of the Underworld proper deal with conditions closer to Resonant than Anchors in general metaphysics.

I've never heard about that Resonant over Anchors thing, outside of Avernian Gates being at locations death resonant locations, is there anything more to it than that?

[Satchel]

I've never heard about that Resonant over Anchors thing, outside of Avernian Gates being at locations death resonant locations, is there anything more to it than that?

The gist of it is that the particularities of Anchor-tagged Conditions seem difficult to apply to geister replacing most of their normal-ghost Influences with things like "Death By Fire" and the Underworld is by design set up to degrade the applicability of anchors in the absence of having a ghost be regularly dredged back up.

Combine this with ghosts being by no means the only or even most abiding denizens of the Great Below and it seems plausible for entities who've discarded some of their personhood to not use as much of the metaphysical framework that relies on an entity's former personhood, much like how changelings have their ability to navigate the Hedge influenced by their Clarity but the True Fae always know where they're going — Geister have an "in" with the substrata of the Underworld that ordinary ghosts don't, and that may or may not manifest in picking up some of the realm's pervasiveness in terms of interacting with stuff that can mess with ghosts or are otherwise entangled with the energies of the deadlands.

The stuff in the Godzone is a curiosity that's easy enough to say is a consequence of the nation's present weird supernatural climate rather than necessarily a statement of innate connection between Sin-Eaters and spirits as a whole, but death is one of those concepts that's low-key omnipresent in the mortal realm and therefore simple to incorporate into the Bound's view of Twilight.