Everything

Speaker-for-the-Ancients, Children of Gaia Theurge of the Hays Woods Sept, answers this one for what feels like the hundredth time:

Nobody knows for sure if spirits look the way they do because of human myth and imagery or the other way around. You get spirits of peace that look like doves and lust Banes that look like succubi. Now, sometimes we get clear evidence of a spirit form appearing after humans produce the association. City Fathers and Mothers in particular imprint on the people of the city. You get war-spirits dressed in uniform and we’re pretty sure the Army ain’t looking into the Umbra for designs.

I hope not, anyhow. That’s more than I want to wrap my head around.

But look, I’ve been researching and studying spirits and spirit history and stuff like that since before my First Change. My pack specializes in the weirder spirit stuff. And even then, even though we can be sure that most spirits are shaped at least a little bit by human belief, we’ve got no way of declaring as an absolute fact that ‘Zeus’ or ‘Poseidon’ and such aren’t based on some enlightened oracle getting a look at a storm or ocean spirit in a humanoid form.

As tangible things and creatures shape essence into spiritual form, powerful concepts also imprint upon reality and form spirits. The emotions, will, and belief of living things forge personifications of abstract concepts like war or greed. While most common in the Astral Umbra, these concepts and emotions are also the source of many Epiphlings. Other conceptual spirits come into being in the depths of the Umbra and travel to places where they can feed and grow stronger.

The bond between a spirit and the thing it represents often works both ways. A healthy forest has a powerful Jaggling that can grow over time as the forest thrives. If the spirit is somehow directly tainted, however, the forest sickens. Not only does disease ravage the trees but the animals grow weak and corruption and weakness overtake any spirits serving under the forest spirit. The forest slowly dies as the corruption twists the spirit.

A spirit of anger feeds on the agitation and rage of nearby beings depending on circumstances. Conflict and pointless frustration attract and fuel it. If it doesn’t grow strong enough to influence things, a peaceful resolution could starve it.

Spirits typically manifest as idealized and often exaggerated versions of their anchors. If the anchor is a specific tree or rock, they resemble it. If the anchor is something broader, like a collection of creatures, the spirit takes on some archetypal representative form. They also behave in a manner consistent with the concept they represent. A lion-spirit, left to its own devices, hunts and chases gazelle-spirits. The gazelle-spirit, left to its own devices, is most comfortable being hunted and chased.

Spirits of ephemeral concepts, riddles, and abstractions take on a broad variety of forms. Epiphlings in particular manifest in a variety of ways but each distinctly represents the concept they embody. Different spirits of dread or fear appear in an array of nightmarish archetypes even if they’re very much the same beneath the surface. One spirit of desire takes the shape of a classical representation of Aphrodite and another looks like a film noir femme fatale. Attentive Garou should easily identify an Epiphling’s nature based on their appearance.

Sometimes a spirit is defined by function and purpose as well as its nature. A spirit embodies a core concept but its superiors give it particularly suitable tasks that fall under its purview in some way. Such tasks give it the opportunity to develop itself and grow in strength as it serves the Incarna above it. A water elemental living in a river receives instructions to carry objects over the edge of a waterfall. The spirit’s successes empower it and make the rapids that much deadlier until the rapids-Gaffling becomes a waterfall-Jaggling. It guards ever-expanding stretches of river, drowning and smashing the river’s enemies. Becoming the patron of the entire river seems only natural when the time comes.

Elsewhere, a spirit of organization resembling an ephemeral filing clerk coordinates the Weaver’s servants in an office building. Proper service leads to promotions and responsibilities encompassing more of the city. Over time it expands its repertoire of abilities as it progresses from Gaffling to Jaggling. Its appearance develops arachnid cues that become more prominent as its masters reconfigure it for new duties. It eventually crouches on the office building roof like a spider constructed of radio antennae, broadcasting orders to the entire district.

This is not simply how the spirit appears, but how it is. Regardless of what they represent, anything that defines their shape or behavior or appearance also defines their very nature and vice-versa. When an entity’s existence revolves around representing a Platonic ideal, its appearance and reality are one. An entity such as the spirit’s Jaggling or Incarna master can reshape its form and nature. A Theurge with the Malleable Spirit Gift (W20, p. 166) or perhaps a powerful mage can do the same.

Awakening

The Umbra would be a very busy place if every object showed itself through the Gauntlet, but even those that don’t still contain a dormant spiritual reflection. Simply putting time and energy and care into something can stir its spirit and over time awaken and strengthen its spiritual partner. All manner of human rituals, whether deliberate cultural occultism or mundane actions easily mistaken for worship, can bring a spirit out of its dormant state bit by bit.

Garou have more consistent ways of awakening spirits with methods like the Rite of Spirit Awakening (W20, p. 212) or other rituals designed to appeal to specific entities. Garou and Fera rites make spirits coherent enough for proper interaction, due to untold ages of experimentation and the presence of ancient spirit pacts. A Theurge can perform the Rite of Spirit Awakening on a circuit breaker and ask the electricity elemental within to interfere on her pack’s behalf. Another awakens a poisoned lake to make it easier to access and cleanse the toxic waste’s spiritual payload.

Awakening a spirit requires more than just thinking about it very hard, doing some chanting, and pumping energy into the ether. The mystic uses a ritual of some sort to align herself with the spirits and communicate with them on her own level. The ability to communicate with spirits has never been common among humanity but just enough humans have gotten it right to lay down a lot of groundwork on understanding the animistic universe in which they live. Every culture produces enough enlightened people to see past the mundane shell of the world and witness the forces working within everyday things.

A very rare few have even found ways to access the Umbra and petition spirits directly. These mystics, be they priests or shamans or oracles, have brought enough of the true nature of reality back to their peoples to give humanity glimpses of the world that werewolves fight to protect. Just as many have gotten it just wrong enough to make things worse for the Garou, though.

People who misinterpret spirits as manifestation of biblical angels or forge Faustian deals with dangerous entities cause as much grief to their fellow man as they do the Garou. A consistent ritual passed down by spirit-aware humans is likely to fall into the hands of someone willing to exploit it for personal gain. Cults form around those who can actually call up spiritual manifestations. Gaia’s people are wary of such cults, as even a well-meaning spirit can be changed for the worse by the beliefs of the group feeding it.

Most of the time when humans awaken a spirit it happens through personal ritual and effort misinterpreted as prayer or worship. Even an oblivious human can address the spirit within a musical instrument in its own metaphorical language by painstakingly caring for and tuning it. If the instrument sounds better when it’s been cleaned and worn parts replaced, he might never know that he’s experiencing a blessing from the air elemental that calls it home.