Dead heroes and forefathers of a village or people might all become ancestral spirits.

Ancestors dwell in the spirit world, or ‘Dreamlands’. As such, they are never very far away from the villages and people of their birth. They are bound, unresistingly, to the Dreamlands by their love for the lives and relatives they left behind, and by the songs sung and praises made to them by their descendants.

As time passes, most of the ancestors are forgotten and so lose their connection to Malatra, freeing them to realms and planes unknown. Ancestors can normally only manifest themselves during special rituals and celebrations, and only in places important to the ancestor when it was alive. The manifested ancestor is bound to within the local geographical confines of the area in which it manifested. For example, a spirit that manifests within a village can not travel outside that village (unless carried within a charm or fetish).

Only spirit-talkers (Practitioners? and Shamans?) can summon and bind ancestral spirits.

Normally, an ancestral spirit will only speak with the spirit-talker of its own people. Ancestral spirits can manifest in two forms, corporeal and incorporeal (they prefer incorporeal). Corporeal manifestation is exhausting and used only in the direst situations.

Grandfather Spirits

Each people and race of Malatra have ancestor spirits that represent the very first of their race or their tribe. These unique individuals are called ‘Grandfather Spirits’ and are never encountered accidentally. They linger in the Dreamlands for as long as their people or tribe survive, though they rarely appear even to their own descendants. It is said that should one of the Grandfather Spirits be slain in the Dreamlands, their people are doomed for extinction. They have unique personalities and abilities and are as close to gods as Malatrans will ever know.

In game terms, these are the Great and Magestic Spirits of the Ancestral Traditions.

• Malatran Ancestor Traditions?

Spirits Of Malatra