Shaman

Class Traits

Shamans are inspiring and dangerous battle leaders. They command powerful spirit guides, and through them lead their allies. These nature spirits bolster their allies’ attacks and offer protection and healing when needed.

In a rite of passage or initiation, you pledged yourself to the spirits, to be their voice and hands in the world. Through ancient song and sacred ceremony, you have called a powerful spirit companion to your side. The primal spirits of nature affirm your will, guide the actions of your allies, and deal mighty attacks against your foes. You might be a venerable advisor to a tribal leader, a young traveler seeking to bring tales of a wider world back to your people, or a scholar devoted to the pursuit of nearly forgotten lore.

The spirits and voices of nature guide your every step. Their power flows through you, calling you to lead, to fight, and to triumph.

“You think the world is only what you can see? Then you are truly blind.”

You LIVE in a world that most other people can’t even perceive. To you, the realm of the primal spirits isn’t a theoretical construct or an abstract notion—it’s the world you live in, and the physical world sometimes seems like a dream. What others perceive, at best, in flashes and brief visions, you see all the time. This is your glory and perhaps, ultimately, your curse, for you are a shaman—the purest conduit between the mortal world and the spirit realm that suffuses it.

The most important spirit, of course, is your spirit companion, a constant presence and your link to the spirit world. When you call upon ancestor spirits or spirits of natural forces, your companion represents their presence in the world on your behalf. Your companion might also nudge you into adventures, point you in a certain direction, or even growl pointed advice when it thinks you need to hear wisdom.

Class Features

Shamans have the following class features.

Companion Spirit

As part of your initiation as a shaman, you acquired a spirit companion, an animal spirit that accompanies and assists you. Many shaman powers have the spirit keyword (page 220). Your spirit companion must be present when you use such a power.

You gain the call spirit companion power, which allows you to call your spirit companion to your side. In addition, choose one of the following Companion Spirit options. Your choice provides you with a Spirit Boon as well as a special attack made through your spirit companion, and your choice determines one of your at-will attack powers. Your choice also provides bonuses to certain shaman powers, as detailed in those powers.

Protector Spirit

You draw on the strength of the bear or a similar protective spirit to defend and bolster your allies.

Stalker Spirit

You call on the stealth and cunning of the panther or a similar stalking spirit to empower and position your allies.

Watcher Spirit

When you choose your Companion Spirit, you can choose Watcher Spirit instead of another option, such as the ones in Player’s Handbook 2.

World Speaker Spirit

When you choose your Companion Spirit, you can choose World Speaker Spirit instead of another option, such as the ones in Player’s Handbook 2.

Healing Spirit

You gain the healing spirit power. Through this power, you grant your allies additional resilience with a short evocation of primal power.

Speak with Spirits

You gain the speak with spirits power. You are aware of the constant presence of spirits that float at the edges of reality. You can focus your inner energy and open your mind to these spirits, letting them guide your actions or fill you with insights.

Implements

Shamans use totems carved to resemble the spirits they most commonly call upon, particularly their spirit companions. When you wield a magic totem, you can add its enhancement bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls of shaman powers and shaman paragon path powers that have the implement keyword. Without an implement, you can still use these powers.

Creating a Shaman

All shamans rely on Wisdom, and they also benefit from a high Constitution or Intelligence. You can choose any shaman powers you like for your character, though many shamans favor one of two different builds, letting their power choices be shaped by the form of their spirit companions.

This section presents two new builds, the eagle shaman and the world speaker shaman. Each build has a new Companion Spirit option associated with it, either of which you can choose when you make your shaman.

Bear Shaman

You excel at protecting your allies and preserving life. Make Wisdom your highest ability score, followed by Constitution so that you can better lend health to your allies. You’ll want a good Intelligence score to improve your AC as well. Choose powers that help guard your allies against attacks, restore hit points, or provide temporary hit points. Your secondary role is defender.

• Suggested Class Feature: Protector Spirit

• Suggested Feat: Shared Healing Spirit

• Suggested Skills: Endurance, Heal, Nature, Perception

• Suggested At-Will Powers: defending strike, protecting strike

• Suggested Encounter Power: thunder bear’s warding

• Suggested Daily Power: spirit of the healing flood

Eagle Shaman

Your spirit companion soars above you and your allies, keeping a watchful eye for hidden enemies and drawing attacks to distant foes. Your role is to guide the attacks of your allies, using your spirit companion to concentrate your allies’ ranged attacks on enemies you want to slay or lock down.

You are at your best alongside allies who are armed with bows, javelins, slings, or powerful ranged magic. Rangers, warlocks, and other classes that have features or powers that let them target the nearest enemy thrive in your company, since your spirit companion lets them consider any enemy adjacent to it their nearest enemy.

Make Wisdom your highest ability score, followed by Dexterity to enhance the effects of your Watcher Spirit powers. A high Constitution will improve your hit points and Fortitude. Choose powers you can use to heal the defenders and the melee strikers of your group, while you and other ranged attackers remain in the back ranks to concentrate fire on the foes that your spirit companion designates as optimal targets. Your secondary role is striker.

• Suggested Class Feature: Watcher Spirit*

• Suggested Feat: Invigorating Spirit*

• Suggested Skills: Heal, Insight, Nature, Perception

• Suggested At-Will Powers: claws of the eagle*, watcher’s strike

• Suggested Encounter Power: Stormhawk’s fury*

• Suggested Daily Power: Great Watcher spirit*

**New option presented in Primal Power.*

Panther Shaman

You wield the spirits’ power to see events before they unfold and to shape them as you like, guiding your allies’ actions in battle. Wisdom should be your best ability score, then Intelligence so that you can increase your allies’ tactical advantage. A high Constitution will improve your hit points and Fortitude.

Choose powers that support your allies in melee, particularly allies who seek combat advantage and who relish quick movement. Your secondary role is striker.

• Suggested Class Feature: Stalker Spirit

• Suggested Feat: Stalker Spirit Adept

• Suggested Skills: Athletics, Heal, Nature, Perception

• Suggested At-Will Powers: stalker’s strike, watcher’s strike

• Suggested Encounter Power: twin panthers

• Suggested Daily Power: wrath of the spirit world

World Speaker Shaman

You channel the living essence of the primal world and the cycles that define it, giving you command over the field of battle. Your spirit companion acts almost like a defender, preventing enemy movement around it while helping your allies move freely.

Your spirit companion is a being of stone and earth, summer and winter, wind and rain. Its appearance varies according to its nature and your desires. It might be vaguely humanoid or shaped somewhat like an animal. Most likely it changes its shape or its mix of earth, air, and water as the primal power flowing through it aligns with the cycles of the natural world.

Wisdom should be your highest ability score, followed by Constitution to improve the battlefield control you exert through your World Speaker Spirit powers. Intelligence or Dexterity should be your third-best score, to improve your AC and Reflex. Choose powers that let you reshape the terrain around you in combat and control enemy movement, as well as healing and protecting your allies. Your secondary role is controller.

• Suggested Class Feature: World Speaker Spirit*

• Suggested Feat: Strengthening Spirit*

• Suggested Skills: Arcana, Athletics, Endurance, Nature

• Suggested At-Will Powers: protecting strike, voice of battle*

• Suggested Encounter Power: bramble ally*

• Suggested Daily Power: stone root spirit*

**New option presented in Primal Power.*

Custom Spirit Companions

Whichever type of spirit companion you choose, it can have any appearance you like. If your character’s culture reveres the basilisk as the embodiment of the stalker spirit, your spirit companion might resemble a basilisk. Or you could decide that your dragonborn shaman’s protector spirit looks like a rage drake. A drow shaman’s spirit companion might look like a spider or a lizard.

Shaman Overview

Playing a Shaman

A wizened dwarf follows a shaggy bear spirit along a lonely mountain road, unsure where the spirit will lead. Moving with the grace and stealth of a panther, an elf and his spirit companion creep through the forest toward their unsuspecting prey. A human draped in leaves and furs stands with arms upraised to the stormy sky, calling on the spirits of thunder and lightning. Shamans are primal mystics, existing simultaneously in the world and in the realm of the primal spirits. Surrounded by a great cloud of ancestor and nature spirits, they bring the wisdom of the ancients to the people of the world.

Your Spirit Companion

Shamans have one feature that sets them apart from other heroes—their spirit companions. A spirit companion is a spirit that temporarily leaves the great stream of spirits flowing throughout the world to join with a shaman’s magic. It might be a guide that can show you options and paths you wouldn’t otherwise consider, a being of ancient wisdom who waits patiently for you to match it in power and experience, or a weirdly intelligent pet.

Many spirit companions are animal spirits, minor forces of nature’s power embodied in animal form. Your spirit companion might take the form of a panther or a tiger, but its spiritual essence is the stalker, the archetypal predator of which all earthly hunters are reflections. Similarly, a watcher spirit is a spirit of nature’s watchful eye given form as an eagle or some other bird of prey, whereas a bear spirit embodies the protective instincts that sustain the natural world. A world speaker spirit might appear as an animal, but its essence is that of the living world itself, the cycles that change and move all things.

Your spirit companion might instead be an ancestor spirit from the distant past of your family or tribe. Or it could be an ancient humanoid spirit with no direct relation to you, attaching itself to you in order to share its wisdom for your benefit. Perhaps it has no living descendants and has chosen you to be its spiritual heir, or maybe its descendants have failed to honor it, and the spirit has chosen you for the job of reminding its ungrateful heirs to show proper respect for the departed.

In a few unusual cases, a spirit companion isn’t a singular spirit. Some shamans call one spirit companion at a time from a pool of spirits, each with its own name and distinguishing quirks. You could invent personalities and descriptions for a roster of spirit companion allies, then randomly determine which one is with you in any given encounter.

Other shamans attract different spirit companions as their power increases; for example, a 1st-level shaman might have a spirit companion that is a minor panther spirit, but that same shaman at 27th level might have a great elder spirit as a spirit companion.

Your spirit companion might match your personality, embodying your ideals or your aspirations. If you have a bear spirit companion, for example, it might share your steadfast, trustworthy nature—or your companion might exhibit those qualities while you aspire to them but continually fall short. Some shamans feel that their spirit companions complement their own personalities because of the differences between the two; your panther spirit companion might be as free-wheeling and independent as you are staid and reliable.

Talking with Spirits

Although shamans describe their interaction with the spirits as “talking,” this communication isn’t always verbal, and it’s rarely as fluid as a conversation with another person. The spirits speak in many ways, and even ancestor spirits that were once people often find it difficult to maintain their attention on the physical world long enough to carry on a conversation, or even to complete a sentence.

Communication with a spirit might take the form of an emotional impression, a vision, or a demonstration of the spirit’s power upon the world. This is one reason why you can use the speak with spirits power to receive a bonus to a skill check only once in every encounter. You can sometimes get a good idea of what the spirits are trying to say, especially if you’ve asked the right question, but conversation with spirits other than your spirit companion is often a matter of interpreting feelings and intentions rather than gleaning actual words and clear instructions.

How you communicate with your spirit companion is a matter for you to decide when shaping your character. Do you give it verbal commands or requests? Do you form words in your mind that the spirit companion understands and responds to? Or does it simply apprehend your will and act upon it without any conscious effort on your part?

Perhaps your spirit companion isn’t really under your control. It might act of its own free will, moving to where it believes it is most needed, perhaps even calling the spirits on your behalf without you fully understanding what it’s doing.

Acquiring a Spirit Companion

The process by which you acquired your spirit companion is virtually synonymous with the means by which you became a shaman. True, you might have gone through some formal rite of initiation or process of study under another shaman’s tutelage after your spirit companion attached itself to you. But as soon as that spirit made itself known to you—whether you accepted it or not—you were on the road to becoming a shaman.

Some shamans first encounter their spirit companions during childhood. Perhaps you heard the soft growl of an animal in your dreams, or you caught glimpses of a beast peering at you from around a corner or behind a tree. Such a spirit is sometimes known as a spirit of destiny, for it appears unbidden, choosing you for the shaman’s path rather than leaving your destiny to fate or chance.

A spirit of destiny is a guide, friend, and protector from when you take your first steps to your final day in the world. In the time between, you are marked for some destiny, though none can say whether you can live up to it. At some point in your life, you’ll face a choice, and that decision will have grave consequences.

Other shamans have terrifying first encounters with their spirit companions, a harrowing process called a battle initiation. In your youth, you might have once wandered into the wilderness, far from home and help. You might have been hunting with a group and were separated from your companions, or perhaps you were traveling an ancient, worn road that suddenly came to an end. There you were attacked by a ferocious beast—a bear or a tiger, perhaps, or maybe the boar you thought you were hunting. Its first attack injured you, but not so terribly that you could not flee.

No matter how hard you tried to escape it, the beast followed you, dogging your heels until at last you collapsed in exhaustion. As you ran, the land seemed to twist and turn around you—familiar paths didn’t lead where they should have, instead taking you farther into the wild. As you panted for breath, the beast toyed with you, circling you and taking the occasional bite or swipe.

Then something remarkable happened. Somehow, you mustered the strength to stand up and confront the beast. Perhaps your hand found a weapon you thought had been lost on the ground, or you seized a tree branch and swung wildly at the beast. Instead of fighting back, though, your spirit companion revealed its true nature to you, bowing in respect and communicating your new bond.

A shaman who undergoes a battle initiation, it is said, is meant for a life of struggle, during which his or her spirit companion prepares the shaman for a great battle or a lifelong ascension toward epic power.

Shaman Eccentricities

Perhaps because of their close links to the primal spirits, some shamans are prone to eccentric behavior. They are so accustomed to interacting with the spirit world that their dealings with the mortal world suffer. It’s not uncommon for shamans to speak out loud to spirits that no one else can see or hear. Some labor under prohibitions that they believe the spirits impose on them, such as abstaining from certain foods (see “Taboos,” page 120). Others give the distinct impression that their spirit companions are the ones in control, bumbling their way through adventures while their companions act as the real leaders.

Some shamans play up their eccentricities, striving to appear harmless or perhaps taking advantage of the fact that people tend to associate strange behavior with dangerous power. Others seem oblivious to the possibility that there is anything odd about their conduct.

The shaman class fulfills the leader role in the game, but perhaps because of this tendency toward eccentricity, shamans are less likely than other leader types to actually serve in this role. Most shamans are happy to leave the job of commanding and organizing a band of adventurers to other characters in the party, while still supporting, healing, and enhancing their friends.

Shaman Lore

The Burden of Vision

None of the other primal heroes understand the spirits as well as you do. Wardens embody the protective role of the spirits, but that’s not the same as understanding them. Barbarians are generally too single-minded to grasp the implications of what the spirits are showing them while they’re raging. Druids understand the viewpoint of the animal spirits, the Primal Beast, and many others, but their perspective is limited.

It’s up to you to grapple with the full range of the spirits that surge through the primal world and their viewpoints. Sometimes your allies might think you’re absentminded, disconnected, or otherworldly. It’s true that you aren’t always fully aware of what your physical allies are talking about, but that’s because you have hundreds, maybe even thousands, of spirit allies flowing around you, and sometimes what the spirits have to tell you is more important than the paladin’s tale of her latest exploit or the rogue’s display of acrobatics.

Descendant Spirits

A few shamans seldom talk with ancestor spirits. Instead, these shamans have a relationship with spirits that are on the other end of the natural cycle. The opposite of an ancestor spirit isn’t the spirit of a stranger; it’s the spirit of a tribe member who hasn’t been born yet or, as these unorthodox shamans say, “the spirit of a future ancestor.”

If you choose to play a shaman who has this tribal or primal viewpoint, that character might be the type who enjoys making portentous and potentially prophetic remarks that no one, including the character, truly understands. Your DM might be able to use your shaman’s unique viewpoint as the source of new plot lines.

Shaman Pairs

A few tribes practice a deadly form of shamanic initiation. Instead of initiating a single shaman, two paired tribes each send a candidate through a series of difficult trials, with only one tribe member surviving to become a new shaman. The other tribe member then becomes the new shaman’s spirit companion. This practice follows the path of the elder spirits known as the Hunter Twins (page 125).

In most paired tribes, the two would-be shamans start as friends and end as allies, understanding that the tribes’ unique magic demands that one sacrifice the rest of his or her life to become a spirit companion. A few of the more warmongering or evil-aligned tribes treat the paired initiation as an outright combat challenge witnessed by both tribes, binding the loser as a spirit companion through the focused will of the entire tribe and its warlike ancestors.

Shamans and Twins

Not all ancestor spirits are spirits of adult members of a tribe. Sometimes a young shaman acquires a spirit companion that was the spirit of an ancestor who died young, so that the shaman engages with a peer. This sort of relationship is especially common in cases when one twin dies in the womb, in childbirth, or early in childhood. Shamans are always rare, but the surviving twin in such a situation is much more likely to become a shaman than any other ordinary person. The spirit of the twin might become the shaman’s spirit companion, or it might join the ranks of the many other spirits that flow around the shaman during his or her lifetime. Sometimes the dead twin’s spirit vanishes without explanation, leading the shaman into a lifelong quest to find this missing Sibling spirit.

Spirit of an Ancient Enemy

In some extraordinary cases, a shaman might gain a spirit companion that was once an ancient enemy of the shaman’s ancestors or tribe, but which has been reformed, to a greater or lesser degree, through its death and bonding with the flowing spirits of the primal world. A shaman who has such a spirit companion is destined either for great things or a terrible death. If you want to adopt this option for your shaman and your DM agrees, It might generate a substantial share of the plot complications in the game. Ideally, your DM will repay you by pointing you toward occasional treasures and fantastic destinies—unless a savage death finds you and your spirit companion first.

Spirit of the Seasons

In the first year of your relationship with your spirit companion, you might have discovered that your companion shifts and changes with the seasons. Such a spirit companion is both an auspicious omen and a foreboding one. It foretells of a long life, but it also portends that, at some point, you shall commit to a great cause for good or evil, life or destruction. In shifting between each season, the spirit shows the turmoil that wracks your psyche.

If your spirit companion manifests in such a way, you will probably draw many powerful figures to your side over the course of your career. Some of these figures will seek to guide you to the hope of spring or the light of summer, while others will try to drag you into the dark of winter. You sit at the nexus of many great events.

Weighing the Spirits

At times, a shaman might want to understand the relationship between another shaman and that shaman’s spirit companion. Nonshamans can’t know anything more than what they see with their eyes, but a shaman observing the interaction between another shaman and that individual’s spirit companion has a chance to figure out whether the companion started as an ancestor spirit, a local animal spirit, or something stranger.

Assessing another shaman’s spirit companion requires making a Nature check as a standard action. Use the DCs for your level as given in the table on page 41 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. If the other shaman is lower level than you, it’s an easy check; if the same level as you, it’s a moderate check; If higher level than you, it’s a hard check.

Shaman Powers

Your powers evoke primal spirits that you view as partners and revered elders. Many of your powers channel primal energy through your spirit companion and have the spirit keyword (page 220), including powers that have “spirit” as part of the range. Those powers treat your spirit companion’s space as the origin square for the power, so “melee spirit 1” means you can target a creature adjacent to your spirit.

Other shaman powers call on other spirits to intervene in the course of battle on your behalf, and many of those spirits then channel their energy through your spirit companion either to benefit allies or to harm enemies.

Many of the powers in this section are tailored for the eagle shaman and the world speaker shaman. However, shamans of any build can make good use of the options presented here, expanding their versatility on and off the battlefield.

Class Features

Each shaman has the powers call spirit companion, healing spirit, and speak with spirits. Your choice of Companion Spirit determines whether you have the power spirit’s fangs or spirit’s shield. The Watcher Spirit and World Speaker Spirit options from Primal Power grant spirit’s prey and world speaker’s command instead.

Level 1 At-Will Evocations

Level 1 Encounter Evocations

Level 1 Daily Evocations

Level 2 Utility Evocations

Level 3 Encounter Evocations

Level 5 Daily Evocations

Level 6 Utility Evocations

Level 7 Encounter Evocations

Level 9 Daily Evocations

Level 10 Utility Evocations

Level 13 Encounter Evocations

Level 15 Daily Evocations

Level 16 Utility Evocations

Level 17 Encounter Evocations

Level 19 Daily Evocations

Level 22 Utility Evocations

Level 23 Encounter Evocations

Level 25 Daily Evocations

Level 27 Encounter Evocations

Level 29 Daily Evocations

Paragon Paths

At 11th level a shaman may take one of these paragon paths. Each grants path features at 11th and 16th levels plus the encounter, utility, and daily evocations shown.

Disciple of the World Serpent

“The whole world rests in the coils of the great serpent. You would be wise to learn its ways.”

The World Serpent, legend says, is among the greatest of the primal spirits that established the natural laws of the world and is one of the staunchest defenders of those laws. When a divine exarch and the servant of a primordial joined forces in an attempt to tamper with the natural order, the World Serpent simultaneously crushed the life from them both. The earth is said to rest in this mighty serpent’s coils, the motion of which shakes the ground.

As a disciple of the World Serpent, you are charged with maintaining the balance of the natural order and ensuring that creatures from beyond the mortal realm keep to their place. You wield the World Serpent’s power, using it to pierce your foes with its fangs or crush them in its coils. Your spirit companion hinders the movement of your enemies as the World Serpent’s coils echo through the space around it. The World Serpent’s venom empowers your evocations, poisoning creatures that break free of your power.

Disciple of the World Serpent Path Features

Disciple of the World Serpent Evocations

Disciple of Winds

“The wind carries with it a voice of power, but only those who listen closely can hear it.”

Just as the gentlest wind stirs grains of sand when it travels, so too do disciples of the winds take an active role in the events and lives they come into contact with during their wanderings. As a disciple of the winds, you are a shaman of wind spirits, from the gentle breeze that brings summer’s warmth to the ferocious storm that scours the land, ripping trees from the earth. You particularly honor Storm hawk, and that spirit’s range of emotions and thirst for vengeance are the standard by which you measure your own actions.

Although you sometimes choose to commune with the spirits of the wind among the aeries of great mountains, you seek adventure wherever the winds carry you, embracing happenstance and luck as omens of the wind spirits. If you arrive at a castle besieged by giants, you gladly join the fight against the invaders, because the winds led you there to take part in events. Where the winds travel, you follow, and you are no mere observer.

Disciple of Winds Path Features

Disciple of Winds Evocations

Everflame Guardian

“The first fire burned the hottest.”

When Everflame first sparked upon the world, it left behind fires that burned without fuel, stoked only by Everflame’s essence. Guided by the spirits, shamans gathered these embers and tended to them. Even though Everflame originated outside the world, with time and careful tending by these Everflame guardians, its fires became part of the natural order.

As an Everflame guardian, you embrace two equal tasks. On one hand, you search for demons, devils, primordials, and other creatures that have intruded into the world, scouring them with the fiery might of Everflame. On the other hand, you seek to ensure that new life rises in the aftermath of great calamity. Whether a volcanic eruption destroys a region, a great fire burns a forest, or a legion of monsters disrupts the natural order, you seek to nurture the world back to health, believing that no force, not even Everflame itself, can extinguish hope or life.

Everflame Guardian Path Features

Everflame Guardian Evocations

Ghost Panther

“Do not trouble us again, or you will feed the panther spirits that stalk between the worlds.”

The mystery of the primal stalker is that death is a constant presence in the midst of life; the death of the prey brings life to the predator. And when death comes to the predator, it brings life to scavengers and carrion feeders. Death is part of the great wheel of mortal existence, and an important part of the shaman’s communion with the spirit world.

As a shaman, you have always walked close to death. Now you have set out on the path of the ghost panther, where life and death twine together still closer. You stalk the wild, hiding from your prey, leaping and climbing like the most agile of cats. You call on panther spirits to attack your foes, weaken your prey, help you leap away from enemy attacks, and lead you through the spirit world to teleport adjacent to your foes.

Ghost Panther Path Features

Ghost Panther Evocations

Great Bear Shaman

“Foulspawn cannot match the ancient powers of our land.”

Many shaman traditions revere the Great Bear as the perfect example of the protector spirit. As a mother bear furiously guards her cubs against danger, so the Great Bear stands guard over the world, protecting it from those who would destroy or corrupt it, and so too do you, as a Great Bear shaman, protect your adventuring companions. Your spirit companion is your link to the Great Bear, channeling its strength and endurance to you through your evocations.

Your main purpose is to stand alongside other warriors and make them stronger. When you can, protect the weak. When you cannot, strengthen the strong to make them better protectors. As you pursue the path of the Great Bear shaman, your spirit companion channels the power of the Great Bear to harry your enemies, punishing them when they attack your friends. Your companion roars with the ferocious strength of the Great Bear, galvanizing your allies into action. You give your allies additional attacks whenever you spur yourself to greater action, and you empower the attacks they make when enemies drop their guard.

You are the world’s protector, and the Great Bear’s roar echoes in every word you speak.

Great Bear Shaman Path Features

Great Bear Shaman Evocations

Great Elder

“We never see the whole of the world, never understand it completely. But a spirit from the dawn times walks beside me, and our power does not require perfect understanding.”

Shamans know that the spirits are not truly the size of a human, an elf, or a panther. The spirits are vast, small, or whatever they are called on to be by the world’s needs. Shamans know this to be true, but not all shamans can master their unconscious expectations of the spirits. Each spirit companion appears as a creature of the shaman’s size because of its link to the shaman, and as allies and friends, both share an image, a reflection, within the world of spirits.

You have seen partway through this veil. As a follower of the world speaker tradition, you know that your spirit companion is vast. By seeing part of this truth, you know that your spirit companion’s size approaches that of an elder spirit, having a touch of the scope and power you will acquire if you live to fulfill an epic destiny.

As an elder spirit, your spirit companion protects your allies as it has always protected the people of the world. Its knowledge, allied with your understanding of nature, is sometimes the only shield your allies require.

Great Elder Path Features

Great Elder Evocations

Keen Eagle

“A moment. Follow her flight. Now!”

You are part of the watcher spirit tradition. Though you hesitate to speak ill of it, you have the sense that its founding members might have focused too much on watching the world and not enough on listening to the spirits. Your eagle spirit companion has always talked with you, telling you secrets not spoken of by your watcher spirit mentors.

Other shamans’ spirit companions have their own advantages, such as a knack for healing or a strong sense of nature. As a keen eagle shaman, you have a bloodthirsty spirit for a companion, and each new power you learn together has a primary purpose: wounding your foes. Your spirit companion guides the attacks of you and your allies, even at great distances, and uses a subtle turn of a wing or a slashing talon to put a foe in its most vulnerable position.

Keen Eagle Path Features

Keen Eagle Evocations

Scarred Healer

“Scars carry two lessons. The first is that victory often has a price. The second is that no defeat is final.”

The powerful magic you and your allies have mastered during your adventures can cure most nonfatal wounds, and even fatal wounds might be only temporary setbacks. Death is a solvable problem, and you are one of the most powerful healers that most people will encounter. Why, then, do you bear such terrible scars, as if you were a warrior who had suffered a terrible defeat?

In the history of your people, victories and defeats have always gone hand in hand. Your scars are marks of your status as one of the heroes who ensures that no defeat be total. By accepting the painful lessons of the past and bearing their marks on your flesh, you access healing magic that other shamans can’t or aren’t willing to use.

The most powerful healing spirits of the world recognize your unique pattern of scars. When the world hangs in the balance, the power of these spirits is on your side.

Scarred Healer Path Features

Scarred Healer Evocations

Seasons’ Herald

“The armies of the mortal world march and conquer, but in time, each falls. The seasons march forever.”

Night follows day, winter follows summer, and death follows life. These are the basic truths of the primal world. For those who understand this fact and watch closely, Great Watcher provides inspiration and guidance, revealing omens of what is to come. Shamans who have the gifts of insight and prophecy often become great political or military leaders by using these talents wisely.

As a seasons’ herald, you embrace the future, whether it’s promising or dreadful. You don’t shy away from ill omens. Accepting what lies ahead and having the determination to prepare for it form the bedrock of your beliefs.

You follow the path of adventure out of a sense of duty to your people and to the natural world. Looking into the future to prepare for the present, you seek out evil before it develops into a larger threat. As a wandering prophet or a simple helper, you travel to those places where you are most needed to maintain the natural order, whether doing so requires stopping war, ending a drought, or preventing unnatural creatures from entering the world through a planar breach.

Seasons’ Herald Path Features

Seasons’ Herald Evocations

Spirit Tempest

“The spirit wind is always blowing through the world. You need but feel it to draw on its power.”

What is a spirit but an exhalation of the world, a distillation of life lived in the drawing and releasing of breath? The spirits of the world are alive, and that means they are in motion. They are a wind that blows through the world, even in the solid rock of the earth’s deepest reaches.

As a spirit tempest, you tap into the movement of the spirit world, the wind that blows through all things. You draw on that movement to bring motion to the field of battle: You call spirit winds to transport yourself and your allies in the blink of an eye, to carry your healing power and the power of your attacks into larger areas, and to empower the attacks of your allies. The spirits are the breath of the world. Breathe deeply, and let them move and guide you.

Spirit Tempest Path Features

Spirit Tempest Evocations

Warrior of Spring

“With spring, there is always hope.”

The power of spring is in its ability to bring rebirth and hope. A warrior of spring wields this power to great effect, whether as a healer or a guardian of the primal world. As a shaman who follows this path, you are gifted with powers of primal healing beyond those of most other shamans. Your presence can allow allies to recover from the most grievous injury, or even from death itself.

Although you pride yourself in watching over your community, when adventure or the duty of a great cause calls, you are ready to act. You can heal your allies or instill hope in them, and the spirits you call on can help you defeat the greatest of threats.

As you go on adventures, your duty as a warrior of spring is clear. You carry a bundle of seeds gathered from across the lands. No matter what desolate realm you find yourself in, you’re ready to scatter those seeds through it so that their verdant bounty can continue the cycle of spring.

Warrior of Spring Path Features

Warrior of Spring Evocations

Shaman (PHB2 + Primal Power) —