Ancestors

Where people honor their dead relatives, an image of the departed persists, kept alive by the memories of the living. Ancestors appear as great throngs: the recently dead in front, the nearly forgotten as faint shapes at the back. Those remembered by name, in living memory or in folk tales, can stand out singly, looking as memory paints them, not as they were.

Only the previous generation and figures of legend can act on their own. The number of ancestors able to fight, speak or help a shaman usually equals the community's current size plus 2d20, along with any hero spirits that apply.

They fight with the traditional weapons of the people they protect.

Ancestors accept only lawful shamans, of any lawful alignment. They automatically welcome a shaman who descends from them. To win over another people's ancestors, a shaman usually must sacrifice at least 100 gp worth to them and show willingness to defend their descendants.

Memory and food are all they ask of the living. For memory they urge the people to learn their heroes' stories and recite lists of forebears' names. For food they require elaborate ritual feasts in their honor, gaining nourishment as their descendants eat. They ask no sacrifice of shamans directly, but blame them if the people forget, so shamans work hard to keep the reverence alive. They also insist the people keep their ancient customs and rites, obey traditional leaders, and respect the spirits.

Collectively they can grant any tribal shaman spell up to 6th level and any standard priest spell up to 2nd level; individually they lack the power to fuel spells. They hold sway over their descendants and over anything they once owned. They can make a descendant fertile or barren, virile or impotent, and can bless or curse warriors at will. A weapon an ancestor once owned, in a descendant's hands, can be 'guided' so that it strikes as a +1 weapon without being magical. Their influence also reaches the health and fertility of herds and flocks they once tended and of fields the community has long farmed.