The ancestor magic found here is extremely loosley based on real cultures. Okay, maybe that’s even pushing it too far. This is: “Oh, that’s a cool idea. And so is that one over there. They’re from different belief sets/ideoligies totally? Don’t care. I like them both.”

Ancestor magic is practiced by people who must put years into mental training and learning the lore. This is why each tribe generally only has one shaman - it’s simply too much work. To learn to speak with spirits is not that difficult, you only have to train the mind to believe what it sees so strongly that you can visualize a flame in your head and then slip through the flame until you reach a place outside of time. Only then can you communicate with the ancestors. You are not talking to spirits that are hanging around outside your door. You are talking with the spirits hanging around their deathbeds in their own time.

For the most part, the shamans are only able to request the spirits to aid them, and the spirit must agree to it. So, to get something “evil” done, you would have to find a spirit that held a similar belief system as you did and thought what you wanted to do was fine. Only the most powerful shamans are able to use their force of will to force an ancestor to do something, and when they do, they risk everything that they are to command the spirit so. The spirit could take over their body, or just slay them outright through any manner of nefarious spirit kung-fu thingys. (maybe not kung-fu, per se . . .) Because at this point you are operating outside of time, the spirits are able to affect things in the current time. Whew. Starting to hurt my head.

Shamans will often use the powers and energies of certain stones, water, etc. to help control or coerce the spirits to do their bidding.

One of the fun things we might be able to use here is the idea of the spirit living in the past. If our local pissy shaman tries to go past his abilities and bring, say, Great Father into this time to deal with the hero, could we play with the time paradox? Could the buildings of the past and the lay of the land in the past superimpose itself, or even currently replace, the surroundings of the future. Could the world be suddenly filled with people going about their business (say . . . war?) from the time Great Father was brought into being? Sure, this would be temporary, but what a great way to mess with the world and our hero. Or save our villagers, for that matter. If the world was going to crap at the time the Great Father was forced into present day, would the ground that appeared around them hold our villagers and protect them against the river of molten lava streaming into town from the erupting volcano?

Hmmmm….