[DL] A small mail on shamans and such.

[Frank Wisnes <frank.wisnes@student.uib.no>]

Howdy!




I'm new here, signed up today :)


When it comes to Deadlands on the other hand, I'm far from a freshman. I've been 
running Deadlands for little over three years now. Well.. enough with the 
introduction and over to the question at hand ;)






First a little background. I've never bothered much with indians. Sure I've used 
them as villains (or guides) every once in a while, but when it comes to social 
relations and cultures I never did much of it. I had read most of the 
sourcebooks except Ghost Dancers (never got hold of it) before I started the 
group, and thought I'd save the indians for when I ran out of ideas and it never 
happened. Then one day (a few months ago) one of my players really wanted to 
play an indian scout/pathfinder. I agreed, and said he could have a few minor 
shamanic powers knowing that the powers in the players handbook are very 
limited. Then he got hold of Ghost Dancers on PDF and said that "he just had" to 
use that book, since it was an update on the shamanic powers. I agreed, and next 
thing I know we have a powerhouse of a ghost shaman in the posse. And if that 
wasn't enough, he's careless with his powers and use them at every opportunity. 
I actually haven't had time to read the book, though he printed out the PDF for 
me to read and look at when he uses a power. I've ordered the "real" book and 
are still waiting for it, hate to read those outprinted PDFs. Anyways.. from 
what I can see the shaman is so overpower he belongs in a hackunivers. Turning 
into animals at will, creating perfect illutions that's virtually impossible to 
see through, increasing his strength to ungodly levels and so on. In addition to 
that he's posing as a mexican and thus get no ill-effects of being an indian in 
the western society. 




The thing is that I barely have time to prepear for sessions at the moment 
(exams and such), much less read a whole sourcebook just to look for a way to 
limit a single players powers. So I was wondering of anyone of you fine people 
at this mailinglist have the laydown on shamanic powers and guardian spirits.




I'm planning on giving him a hard time as soon as rangers or the agency finds 
out about him, but he's been lucky so far (and not to mention in Salt Lake 
City). And I should probably get familiar with the indian culture but I just 
cant find the time to do that now. 






I guess my question is.. what are the limits of shamanic powers?








- Frank


(Norway, Bergen btw ;)