Shamanism

Synopsis
A shaman is a person regarded as having access to, and influence in, the world of benevolent and malevolent spirits, who typically enters into a trance state during a ritual, and practices divination and healing. Shamans are said to be able to leave their body and travel astral plains

Charisma is a vital characteristic for the successful shaman. They tend to use distinctive, extravagant clothing like plumed headdresses and artifacts of power – skulls, bones, horns. They often do crazy things, marking them as extraordinary persons favored by spirits – out of the sudden biting someone’s nose off, or waving a dead opossum overhead helps to put them in the centre of attention.

Shaman’s job is to ask spirits for a favor, which may, or may not be granted. The subject in question should always be something highly uncertain to predict, so the shaman basically has an excuse in case it does not work. Another part of shaman’s duty is to explain the signs that are meant to have a supernatural meaning, the will of spirits and gods. They lead rituals, remember their meaning and execution.

Examples:
 * A shaman will not ask for rain in the middle of the season of drought. This will most surely fail and too many failures will see him as incompetent.
 * A shaman will ask spirits for help in the coming fight. This is always unpredictable. Either his people win, and praise him, or lose, or there may not be any left to come with angry shouts. In case they lose, he will tell them that their sacrifice was not enough, the enemy asked a more powerful spirit or his people displeased the spirits with something.

Variations:

 * Nordheimer do have shamans and oracles but they have more political and medical functions than religious ones. Male shamans are called Godi or Godar (Vanir or Æsir names, respectively). Female shamans are called völva. Seid is considered unmanly in Nordheimir tradition, so almost all völvas are female.
 * Bori: The practice of sorcery is considered unmanly among Borians; however, women may practise a form of shamanism similar to the Nordheimer völva. Female practitioners of seid among the Borians are called seidkona. Seidkonas wear blue cloaks and a hood of black wool trimmed with white cat fur.
 * Kushite witch-doctors, witchmen or witch-finders are particularly famed for their countermagic abilities. Their duties are to protect the tribe from rival witches, predict the future and curse tribal enemies, in approximately that order of importance.
 * Cimmerians have no priests, sorcerers, shamans or witches. Those who traffic with the power of the gods, even through prayer, are weaklings in their eyes. Yet, some wise among them are known as oracles, as befitting their superstitious nature. These oracles can read the dooms evident in a flight of birds or in the entrails of an animal.
 * Pictish shamans of the clans wield terrible magical powers and often have more influence than the clan chiefs.
 * Zembabweian diviners enter a trance and divine the future with a cast of dice. There are four dice, each of them basically a miniature tablet of wood, ivory or bone.
 * For the Hyrkanians, snakes, foxes, spiders, pheasant and porcupines are believed to be soul-travelling shamans, so they are never hunted or eaten.