Questionable Questing

Let us call the setting I talked about last night the Cultic setting. As cults and their internal rot is the main danger. Summoning from High or Low is the foundation of the settings soul metaphysics.

Externally means contracting and setting up the ability to project a spirit of High or Low as a advisor. Through this one may learn signs of power to be drawn, speak words of incantation. Bargain for gifts of knowledge and mystic artifice. Very much the mage track. The spirit bound to the soul as both a supernatural force and reflection of a person's inner will or ideals is able to be petioned for gifts.

High being higher emotions like honor, Justice, kindness, etcetera? While low is lust, wrath, hunger and other more survival orientated emotions?

Be it through deals, vows, spirit journeys or other ways.

Internally means Invoking a demonic or holy spirit into the blood and flesh. It is transformation into a avatar of the spirit when called on. Compared to External Summoming, the relationship is that of a inner power vs a source of occult wisdom.

High spirits are tied to grand moral order. Laws, virtues, systems of authority and right. Low spirits are of ego, passion, want, and personal fulfillment. High breaks itself to repair other things. Low breaks the world to strengthen itself
Bingo.

External High Spirits offer wisdom and must be slowly learned from. Tests abound, challenging the Summoner to ferret out the lore and its power. Low Spirits are gift-givers. They freely bargain and sell spells and ways kf making amulets and secret knowledge. They also whisper terrible self destructive advice and plot without regard to consequence.

So low spirits are the easy way to power, but offer just as many traps and downfalls as they do power? While the high spirits are slower and take going on quests or challenges, but their upfront in how and what they want?

High Spirits are better for overall liability. Low will make you disliked if you keep screwing everyone over for reckless blood sacrifice or ritual humiliation and descreation.

These spirits, how do you find them? Are they bound to certain items or places that you can visit and pray to? Is there some kind of ritual or inner meditation you have to master before you can communicate with them? Are they even real beings with emotions or goals, or are they constantly changing depending on who they make a deal with and what that practitioner wants?

There are types as the raw substance of these spirits is their own. No one has a unique demon or angel in class. However to animate them? They need reflection. Someone has to pour themselves into them. And mix of places strong in High or Low for practiced mediation and dramatic awakening sometime if lucky

Internal Summoning is tricky. For a demon it means manifesting the Shadow of the Self. Regressed urges, denied will. What is constrained by reason and morals. For a Angel it's the opposite. It is incarnating dreams of what should be. Instesd of neing based on strength of selfish want, its what does that person wish they could do for something more

A low level Demon is easy to control and makes transformation easy. Some eccentric behaviors and enhanced emotion. A stronger demon means more powerful will, greater wants. Makes it harder to control what happens when possessed.

For a high spirit is a different problem. The greater the strength, the more demanding the standard. It is not enough to win or save 1 person. It has to be a flawless victory and many lives saved. Failure to meet the standard can be crippling physically and mentally

There's a trap for both. The more control put into fighting a inner Demon, the more beaten and scarred it is, the stronger it is. The strife of struggling against a dark desire feeds it.

The greater the power sought to perform a miracle of High nature, the more torturous the weight of reaching that far. The harder to use.

In both cases, accepting more of themselves is the answer

Sorry it took a little while to respond, am on puppy duty right now since he's being a little hyper.

New puppy?

But I really like that take on a paladin basically with the Higher Spirits. They have to follow these tenants and be the big bad hero, but paradoxically the more people follow them and the more respected and perfect they are seen by others, the more hyper insecure and lonely they feel as they have to live up to higher and higher standards and risk losing more and more if they fail.

I'm pretty sure I told you about the new puppy Brinkley. He's no longer six weeks old, he's ten or twelve at this point I think. But still firmly a puppy and very, very energetic.

Running around crazy and chewing shoes?
And thank you. It's why people stick to lesser Spirits or mid. Less consequences for failure. Ironic as failure is integral to High Spirits because absolute good is impossible

Low Spirits on the other hand is a question of how much of a maniac your willing to risk being. Super Sayian transformation of extremely altered self is the vibe at the higher end. In both case, Low or High, Internal Summoning is setting off a living bomb