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There’s been a lot of buzz around the role a Shaman could play, and I figure it’s fruitful enough soil to warrant a thread of its own. We’ve heard designer comments in the past about how any 2e version would be a ground-up rework, drawing more on real-world shamanism… but I’m not versed enough in that topic to speak at all on what that looks like.
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"Drawing more on real-world shamanism" is a line that feels a little iffy, because 'real-world shamanism' covers such a wide variety of practices given the way the term has been historically used. There are a lot of sources that could be drawn from here, some of which will not be compatible with each other and you still ideally want to create some separation between the inspiration and the implementation.
The main through-line that tends to exist is the notion of communing with otherworldly spirits, often involving an altered state of consciousness. What those spirits are and what kind of altered state we're talking about can vary wildly (and even those things aren't going to be universally true). This gets even more significant when you look at traditional and fictional archetypes that are similar but don't necessarily occupy the 'shaman' label.
... There's also a lot of room to mess within that design space. Enter a trance and channel the power of the spirit was the PF1 Medium (albeit with more occultic flavor), which was kind of a hybrid martial that could change roles from day to day.
On the other hand, healing, protection, and divination are common themes. A full divine caster with some divination-themed class features would also fit the brief, albeit in a totally different way.
So a lot of it comes down to which concepts do you put more emphasis on.
... Personally I kind of like the idea of emphasizing flexibility. By being able to channel specific spirits and making those choices meaningful, you can thematically explore animistic/pantheistic themes that aren't well represented in Pathfinder (while also potentially leaving room for other concepts) and explore mechanical space that doesn't quite exist in PF2 either.
A medium-esque character who can genuinely become a stand-in martial one day or a stand-in spellcaster another is super neat mechanically and conceptually and emphasizes interacting with spirits heavily.
But I also realize it's a pretty hard sell with how tightly-controlled PF2 usually is.
What I can imagine being more likely is a 2 or 3 slot divine Wis (or maybe Wis/Cha variable) caster that can channel a spirit to get a bonus to healing, or damage, or a certain subset of skills, possibly all day or when refocusing or something.
I would definitely welcome the Shaman absorbing a lot of the old Medium’s identity, not least of which because of the Mahwek-Ulfen Valenhall tradition we saw for Mediums late in 1e.
What if… you channeled different spirits via Stances? One might boost your healing, while another might give something like bonus Strike damage or a persistent damage rider on hits.
Then your subclass choice determines if you channel legendary mortal spirits (like the aforementioned Ulfen ancestors, or those within the bones kept by Kholo and Iruxi), nature spirits and elemental/primal powers, maybe something for a weirder option like fiends or aberrations? You can have your Kellid who communes with the land, your faux-Vodoun hosts to the loa, your Minkaian take on the Miko shrine-maidens… lots of room under the same umbrella.
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If I had to recreate something close to the PF1 Shaman, I'd take the Psychic class as a base, move to Primal spellcasting (a lot of Divine Spells have to do with your god so I think Primal spellcasting will be easier to use for the Shaman) and replace Unleashed Psyche by some kind of possession/trance giving you extra powers for healing/protection/debuff.
Subtypes would cover the various type of shamanism, either spirit oriented, ancestors oriented, nature oriented, etc... and giving you extra spells from the Divine spell list to cover the domains the Primal spell list doesn't cover well.
I think there's a design space for such a character and that it would be quite functional.
My 2 cents.
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I think the narrative is the most important thing to get right with the Shaman, as there is a mechanical void behind it. But I think before the class gets made, I would want to make sure that the design space I am hoping for is possible in PF2.
Namely, I want a character who generates magical power based in respect, reverence, and awareness of spiritual forces around them that are distinctly not tied to the gods and being granted power from deity worship. Right now, even Oracles and Witches feel tied mechanically and narrative to specific deities, whether the characters realize it or not, and thus their magical power feels granted and controlled by the gods or representatives of those gods, even if the character can be irreverent to the source of their powers.
Metaphysically, if that is where all divine power comes from in Golarion, then I would prefer the shaman be occult and primal in nature, but I would rather it be possible that the spiritual and religious practices of many of the people of Golarion who do not turn to the gods be just as powerful and capably devine, whether that be though ancestor worship or a form of animism, and the deification of the natural world.
Mechanically, the oracle in particular gets drawn way too far back into the gods to fit any of this narrative space, as access to spells, weapons, skills, etc. of divine characters all seems to come back to the gods that are worshiped.
Maybe the class itself would be unnecessary if philosophies can be expanded more into the same mechanical space of Pantheons in granting divine domains and spells and we get a lot more of them, but I think there is room for a class that negotiates for their power on a more immediate level with the powerful spirits around them, making skill checks to get access to that power, and picking up obligations for using that power that have to be met in a relatively immediate context.
If the spirits of the river are going to help my party get across safely, they are going to give me a task I have to accomplish or they will haunt me and remain angry with me.
I think having the power tied to skill checks will also allow for some cooler powers on critically successful skill checks, creating more room for interesting abilities, since they cannot always be counted on.
"Drawing more on real-world shamanism" is a line that feels a little iffy, because 'real-world shamanism' covers such a wide variety of practices given the way the term has been historically used. There are a lot of sources that could be drawn from here, some of which will not be compatible with each other and you still ideally want to create some separation between the inspiration and the implementation.
Yeah, as someone that grew up in what would be considered one of these traditions, my initial reaction to Michael Sayre's post to that effect was "Nope, nope, nope, nope." That he also would be able to draw on personal cultural experience (albeit not the same one as me) allays that reaction somewhat, but I would strongly prefer a more literary version of shamanism like we saw in PF1. Sort of like how witches bear no resemblance to practitioners of Wicca but do dip into a million stories of witches from Babylon onwards.
I'll have to think more on how Shamans are used in fiction. Though taking up the psychedelics from the PF1 psychic seems reasonable enough as well and fits the theme.
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It's always such a tricky line to walk when looking at concepts like this. Where is it better to lean in, and when is it time to step back? Where's the line break between appropriation and representation, especially when the thing you're looking at touches an incredibly broad array of inspirations with a deep well of variations, so much so that no one person or culture's experience or traditions could ever be enough to fully encapsulate the idea? How do you handle all that while still hitting the high fantasy notes that a Pathfinder class calls for? A further twist, how do you balance all that and then still leave yourself room to be responsive during a playtest where around a thousand people will all have thoughts and opinions on what they'd like the class to do? Just tricky.
I'll say, there's some commentary here that I very much agree with, and some I empathize with deeply. I'm not a big fan of the "make it a wave caster" idea I've seen bandied about before. I don't like the inherent implications there of shamanic magic being "less than" clerical magic. And I'd like to be able to hit a broad enough swath that it can provide representation to players looking to play a character inspired by e.g. Shinto priests, Filipino Babaylan, and Tlingit ixht', while still leaving room for the player who just wants to make Asakura Yoh from Shaman King.
I remember having conversations with James Jacobs when I first started working here, and about how his philosophy with monster and character design was that we should take inspiration from the history and media around us but then make it our own, weaving it into the game world and trying to do so in a way that allows many different people and groups to see reflections of themselves in those game elements. For example, Shoanti in the setting aren't exactly First People analogues or Celtic analogues, but if you're looking for one or the other you might find the things that speak to you there.
Generally, I think that philosophy has notable merits, but also it can set you up for failure if you misjudge where the line is. I remember being perturbed by the execution of the tizheruk in PF1; this is a creature from Yupik lore that's said to live in the waters around King Island and occasionally snatch people from piers without anyone noticing. The way it was printed made it a stealthy fresh water monster, which on the surface might seem like "Okay, what's the big deal", right? For me, the "big deal" was that a mythological creature was taken, still using the name given to it by the people whose lore it is a part of, and then framed such that the one place you won't find it is in exactly the environment a Yupik or Alaskan gamer would expect to find it. Maybe not really that big a deal in the greater scheme of things, and of course you can easily reskin that, but it's the place my mind always goes to when I think about how one misstep can flip respectful representation into appropriation.
Despite that, I see it as a reminder and not a stop sign. The opposite of representation isn't appropriation, it's erasure. Personally, I'm not willing to let fear of appropriation become complicity in erasure. Growing up, I didn't have a ton of Native role models on TV. Most Native men, if they got to be onscreen at all, were in sidekick or "mystical old man who helps the white protagonist on his journey" roles. The cartoon Bravestarr may have been objectively bad on multiple levels, but I still remember how excited I was watching it. Here was a Native man who wasn't the sidekick, he was the main character, and he had a badge, a badass cyborg horse sidekick, and people looked up to him and depended on him. Now, I reiterate, Bravestarr was not by any objective metric a good cartoon and it was not without its own cultural issues, but it was something when there wasn't a whole lot.
We live in a day and age where the internet has made it a lot easier for us to achieve good representation, though the nature of the thing we do makes excellent or perfect representation into guideposts that we'll still likely fall short of, at least for some portion of our audience. I still think it's better to strive for those goals and fall short than to not try at all. One thing I was kind of concerned about was that if I ever got the chance to execute my vision for a shaman class in PF2, it'd be too far from the tropes or executions people were expecting, and that that might end up meaning the class gets pushed in directions I'd rather not see it go. It was really interesting and heartening to see multiple people in this thread who have also seen some of the needs and issues I've seen and declaring them as priorities. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to take this journey together and we'll all find ourselves happy and a bit surprised with where we end up.
So... I can totally see the "Shaman should be a full caster as a matter of representation" thing. That makes a lot of sense. It means that I'll never be interested in playing the class, as I have zero desire to ever play a full caster. (Well, the psychic...? No! Stay strong!)
Anyway, I really don't want to suggest that we do anything with the Shaman that makes it seem worse/weaker/lesser than, say, the priest, to those who have reason to care... and apparently, in spite of my own feelings on the matter, there are people out there who see "being a full caster" as a good thing. Ah, well, people are weird.
At the same time... there's some really interesting potential mechanical space in the general concept that I feel like a full-caster Shaman can't really explore, just because once you put in "full caster" you just don't have all that much left in the budget. There's a lot of nifty stuff in the area of "I have ongoing relationships with a bunch of different spirits who I can command, call on favors from, propitiate, or petition for assistance" that... you could fit at least some of it into spells, but I feel like you could do more interesting things with it outside of a spell-centric framework.
So... maybe some other non-Shaman class that can explore some of this space also? Possibly make them a wave caster so that they can throw around at least a few of the spirit-centric spells that you're going to have to make for the Shaman anyway? Possibly draw the line between the character who deals with spirits in general (which full caster seems like it could cover pretty well, given the right spells) and one that puts a lot more effort into cultivating relationships with a very specific set of spirits, gaining deeper, more reliable, more personalized access to what they have to offer at the cost of losing some of the more flexible general-access stuff.
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For me, it’s not so much the representation as the fetishization. It’s…really weird to see people eager to put on my world view as a costume. The closer it hews to reality, the worse that feeling gets.
But trust me, I get what you mean regarding representation. Something I frequently reference is that I watched 3 seasons of Teen Wolf almost entirely because they put someone as dark as me on the billboard.
So I’m certainly not claiming that my reaction is the only one that should count, nor do I assume I’m speaking for anyone but myself. I do trust you to be respectful and thoughtful, but I thought I’d offer my contrarian view that I have despite believing you’d be the best person to pull this off of anyone can. And it’s possible I simply can’t be satisfied, and something that doesn’t even try to get it right will ultimately bother me less than something that does but creeps me out.
Edit: A further thought regarding representation is that even that has multiple (and mutually) conflicting camps. Compare, for instance, what Junot Diaz has to say regarding writing women characters versus Geena Davis. I don’t think either are wrong, but I know which part of that divide I come down on.
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[...]
Anyway, I really don't want to suggest that we do anything with the Shaman that makes it seem worse/weaker/lesser than, say, the priest, to those who have reason to care... and apparently, in spite of my own feelings on the matter, there are people out there who see "being a full caster" as a good thing. Ah, well, people are weird.
[...]
I have a sneaking suspicion that we are at a point in the game's life cycle where a full caster chassis could be used in much more versatile ways than we've shown so far.
Without making any promises or proposing anything more than a mental exercise, let's explore that a little. Spell slots, for example, are resources. They're predictable and fairly standardized and the value of a given slot is pretty well known. What if, instead of thinking of those slots as spells, you thought of them as coins that certain specific types of entities traded in? If a spell is a single coin transaction that takes 2-6 seconds to complete, what kind of transactions could you have if you could spend more coins during a longer negotiation? What might an entire day's worth of coins spent during your daily prep purchase you? What if realizing that those coins are fungible meant that a full caster chassis actually had more room to experiment than a wave caster, martial + focus, or whatever chassis you might expect?
There's definitely some boundaries in there where allowing too much flexibility could cause the core chassis to become too nebulous for it to be appealing to a wide audience, or where too much flexibility in what you do could mean that you don't do anything well, but I think one of the lessons to learn from the psychic is that the CRB and APG don't even come close to digging into the true depths of what could be done with a full caster chassis.
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Or another idea I had in a similar thread: what if your signature spells could be modified daily based on spirits you encountered and brokered with? Still uses 90% of the same mechanic, but lends itself more to the fantasy of dealing with a host of individual spirits.
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(Just want to briefly say how much I appreciate the thoughtful replies from everyone ITT. Thank you so far, folks!)
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Without making any promises or proposing anything more than a mental exercise, let's explore that a little. Spell slots, for example, are resources. They're predictable and fairly standardized and the value of a given slot is pretty well known. What if, instead of thinking of those slots as spells, you thought of them as coins that certain specific types of entities traded in? If a spell is a single coin transaction that takes 2-6 seconds to complete, what kind of transactions could you have if you could spend more coins during a longer negotiation? What might an entire day's worth of coins spent during your daily prep purchase you? What if realizing that those coins are fungible meant that a full caster chassis actually had more room to experiment than a wave caster, martial + focus, or whatever chassis you might expect?
Huh. It's only the beginning of such things, rather than the end, but a series of feats that would cause you to lose spell slots in return for more persistent benefits (letting the benefit have the value of both the feat and the slots) could be pretty interesting. You might have to cash in spells known at some point too, or you'd wind up with a comparatively large library and no slots to cast it with.
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Where are the Golarion Shamans folks are most curious about? Obviously mechanical design tends to be the main driver of these discussions, but PF2 is a fair bit more married to its setting, and I’m a big lore gal.
I want Gnoll Shamans in the Mwangi and the Golden Road who make servants of the gods uncomfortable with wear they get there power from. I want goblin shamans from all over who seem able to pull divine power from sources that no one understands. I want more Iruxi cultures and civilizations explored, including some that have largely rejected the gods that never seem to include the Iruxi in their plans. I want halfling Shamans for much of the same reason, because they find divine sparks where others don't think to look. I would be ok with Humans as a whole not having a super expansive tradition of shamanism, largely because they had a dedicated god of their civilization and so humans (as a collective cultural identity and not as individuals) don't really understand shamanism.
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I would be ok with Humans as a whole not having a super expansive tradition of shamanism, largely because they had a dedicated god of their civilization and so humans (as a collective cultural identity and not as individuals) don't really understand shamanism.
I do want to push back on this. Aroden was a self-appointed god of humanity, one who post-dates their existence on Golarion significantly, and it seems like there are entire continents where he never held sway among any of the humans there.
But more than that - the fact is that every actual shamanistic practice we have in our world is the product of humans. To take spiritual belief systems actual people follow and say "nah, that seems more like a non-human thing" gets very gross, very quickly.
I would be ok with Humans as a whole not having a super expansive tradition of shamanism, largely because they had a dedicated god of their civilization and so humans (as a collective cultural identity and not as individuals) don't really understand shamanism.I do want to push back on this. Aroden was a self-appointed god of humanity, one who post-dates their existence on Golarion significantly, and it seems like there are entire continents where he never held sway among any of the humans there.
But more than that - the fact is that every actual shamanistic practice we have in our world is the product of humans. To take spiritual belief systems actual people follow and say "nah, that seems more like a non-human thing" gets very gross, very quickly.
That is fair and I was totally buying into the Aroden Propaganda, because what I really meant with that comment was that I want Shamanistic traditions in the places where the gods have largely been silent, or one culture has been pushing their gods so heavily that it would be natural for other cultures to be resistant to the explanation that the "gods will provide." So I think that Shamanism should be uncommon amongst humans in the inner sea, including much of north Garund, and much of Tian Xia that was once Lung Wa, since that region seems to have been impacted by the death of Aroden, although if newer Shamanist traditions arose there, that could be interesting. It would also be less common amongst ancestries that have full pantheons, like dwarves and elves.
At the same time, if the divine power infusing shamanism was coming from people/communities/the protection of the ancestors and the world around those communities, it could be interesting for there to be Shaman who interact more with diplomacy and society rather than the Religion skill, and perhaps there could be well organized, bureaucratic Shaman as well in regions where that would make sense and not be tied to god worship like Iori, Asmodeus, Torag, and the Empyreal Lords.
Like, a shamanist tradition in Geb that looked more sacredly at ancestors than seems to be the norm in the nation, and was a bit of an underground resistance to the Urgathoan sentiment towards the dead could be really interesting.
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It’s not like there’s a shortage of human cultures that fit the Shaman mold, even in the Inner Sea. The Erutarki and Varki both have a good claim to stand-in for a number of Subarctic peoples for whom the term “shaman” most closely applies to, while the Iobarians, Shoanti, and Kellids (I’d love some non-Summoner god-callers!) all feel like plausible fits.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Garundi peoples didn’t have similar beliefs of their own, but I feel less confident in drawing those parallels.
You do want to be careful though to not lump in groups who do have lesser known gods that are worshiped more theistically, just because the practices of their faith resemble non-deistic religious practices.
This is why I like setting a mechanical ground work that is different from clerics and champions but even divine witches and Oracles. There power really should not be coming from the gods.
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You do want to be careful though to not lump in groups who do have lesser known gods that are worshiped more theistically, just because the practices of their faith resemble non-deistic religious practices.
This is why I like setting a mechanical ground work that is different from clerics and champions but even divine witches and Oracles. There power really should not be coming from the gods.
Oracles don’t have to get their power from gods:
Your conduit to divine power eschews the traditional channels of prayer and servitude—you instead glean divine truths that extend beyond any single deity. You understand the great mysteries of the universe embodied in overarching concepts that transcend good and evil or chaos and law, whether because you perceive the common ground across multiple deities or circumvent their power entirely.
Your mystery might represent a pantheistic devotion to all the deities with power over the subject of your mystery, veneration of a particular ideal, or a conduit to raw divine energy.
Perhaps you hail from a culture with strong ancestral traditions, such as the Shoanti Skoan-Quah (Skull Clan), a traditional dwarven community that worships Torag's family pantheon, or a group that reveres Erastil or Pharasma. You might commune with powerful psychopomps who shepherd souls to the afterlife, with the River of Souls itself, or with those spirits who have become trapped outside of the great cycle of spiritual rebirth.
[…]you might find power in the unending conflict between the armies of Heaven and Hell, the Elemental Planes, the Outer Gods, or even the collective spirits of those who fought in wars over the ages.
Every Mystery does a good job of showing non-deific sources of divine power. There’s no reason to believe a divine Witch or a new class (like a Shaman) couldn’t use the same.
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The problem with the Oracle is that it says that, but if you are not actually empowered by a god, you actually lose out on a lot of the class's flexibility and power. There are no special feats not for worshiping a god, but there are if you do. Add to that the complication that the divine spells mostly take deity worship as a default assumption and it pushes you pretty hard into deity worship.
There are no special feats not for worshiping a god, but there are if you do.
Specifically, there's one feat, a copy of a cleric feat from the Lastwall book. It's an uncommon option anyways.
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The problem with the Oracle is that it says that, but if you are not actually empowered by a god, you actually lose out on a lot of the class's flexibility and power. There are no special feats not for worshiping a god, but there are if you do. Add to that the complication that the divine spells mostly take deity worship as a default assumption and it pushes you pretty hard into deity worship.Divine access doesn't actually require you to worship the chosen deity. Only as long as that deity has one of your 2 domains. You take some of their power and/or teachings but it can be totally pragmatic if you want it to be.
Yeah, the lack of a "follow this god" prerequisite feels like you're stealing the spells, if any flavor is to be read into it at all.
I'm wondering... would Rahadoum have a fair number of shaman, or almost none? They've rejected the idea of divine dominion, but....
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I'm wondering... would Rahadoum have a fair number of shaman, or almost none? They've rejected the idea of divine dominion, but....
The Travel Guide says that all Divine casters are given the boot, including Witches, Oracles, and Summoners, so the answer depends on a Shaman's spell list. It also makes note of a group of Druids explicitly sworn to both the Laws of Mortality and to nature, so it seems like toeing the party line philosophically helps you a lot - and as the text notes, combating Rahadoum's encroaching desertification earns you a lot of goodwill.
I imagine the final bit of that is really what matters. If you hop off a boat in Azir and immediately start raving about how mortals should serve the spirits, the Pure Legion is probably going to rough you up... but if you're smart about what you say and provide a tangible benefit to the state, it's likely to go over much better.
Where things get messy is with ancestor spirits. I can see the Rahadoumi turning their nose up at it on principle, but it's significantly harder to argue their usual points against what is literally your own mortal kin. This could be fruitful territory for drama with any Garundi folk in the region who, like the nearby Yerbira, keep to their older traditions. Does the Pure Legion really care to tell these people not to take orders from dearly departed grandma?
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From 1e Advanced Class Guide and Origins, we know the following places/people are noted for their shamans:
Additionally, by perusing the archetypes for shaman, we see that the following have noteworthy types of shaman:
I think that gives a pretty diverse place to start from.
snip
We’ve had a few sources gesture at Amurrun beliefs surrounding vague “spirits,” and I’d love a fuller look at what exactly that means and looks like to them. I was bummed the Mwangi book didn’t say more on them.
What’s up with the Nidalese, Orvian, Palatine, and Mana Waste Shamans? Those are unexpected pulls.
Thanks for compiling this list!
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snipWe’ve had a few sources gesture at Amurrun beliefs surrounding vague “spirits,” and I’d love a fuller look at what exactly that means and looks like to them. I was bummed the Mwangi book didn’t say more on them.
What’s up with the Nidalese, Orvian, Palatine, and Mana Waste Shamans? Those are unexpected pulls.
Thanks for compiling this list!
Nidalese shamans have very little info “Shamans in the shadowy kingdom of Nidal learn to speak with the spirits that live in shadow.”
The Orvian shamans are called crystal tenders. “The crystal tenders of Orv meditate within the Crystal Womb, often near the churning vortex that makes up the heart of the Vault. They learn to focus the cavern’s energies through ley lines in the stone, and they study the birth of crystals within the Womb in order to mimic the process.”
The Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye shamans are called True Silvered Thrones. “ Members in good standing who have risen to a prestigious rank within the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, true silvered thrones have managed to discover rituals and occult secrets within the lore of their order. They are scholars of ancient mysteries and keepers of forbidden secrets who go beyond simply learning eldritch traditions to make the occult a part of their very souls.”
Notable for being heavily occult leaning and having a grimoire instead of a spirit animal.
Mana Waste shamans are called Primal Wardens. “The influence of primal magic extends beyond what is visible and material. Spirits that linger in areas where primal magic reigns can become warped, losing touch with their former selves and experiencing random surges of power. A shaman who communes with such spirits learns to stabilize these erratic energies and draw upon them to her benefit. Such shamans gradually learn to guide their spirits toward coherence and lucidity, and in the process learn to bend chance and fortune in their favor.”
My first instinct is a 3 slot caster that's either primal for communing with animistic spirits or divine for communing with ancestors. The core mechanic would be .....something, idk
Appreciate the reply!
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Do we have a firm definition of what counts as a Spirit in 2e? AoN's definition of the Spirit Trait only really says it means they usually lack a physical form, and most creatures with it are incorporeal undead.
Notable exceptions are the Spirit Guides (chimeric animal spirits of the Material Plane, notably revered by the Sarkorians), Kami (nature spirits who bond with objects, plants, and locations they protect), Phantoms (non-undead souls of the departed, somehow adrift), and Hantu (very similar to kami, but sometimes bonding to animals instead, and less devoted to their wards). One could imagine a Shaman dealing with all of these, but it does feel like specializing in one is ripe fodder for subclass material - a Kellid Shaman in communion with a horned eagle spirit of endurance will feel different from a Gnoll Shaman who hosts their people's dead.
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Man I really like that idea of being able to cash in spell slots for other benefits. Mechanically it would give the player a lot of customization in terms of defining what their character looks like. I love that.
Thematically, I like the idea of a character whose interactions with the divine (or otherwise otherwordly beings) has a conversational or almost transactional element to it. It's very cool and something that is not well explored within the current spiritual paradigms in Pathfinder. Just from a perspective of mechanics and flavor I love this a lot.
In terms of where shamanism should be represented within the setting, I think everywhere. The bigger the tent Paizo might make with the class, the more flexibility gets handed to players and the diminishes the risk that the class feels like it's taking from a specific real-world culture.
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Do we have a firm definition of what counts as a Spirit in 2e? AoN's definition of the Spirit Trait only really says it means they usually lack a physical form, and most creatures with it are incorporeal undead.
It’s much firmer than it was in 1e, now that they’ve introduced the 4 essences. Spirits are entities that are entirely (or at least predominantly) made up of spirit essence (as opposed to being a more balanced combo of spirit and matter essence).
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Negotiating with spirits for power is a very cool design space and it would be awesome for spell slots to fill the currency of that transaction.
Different spirits could require different skill checks and the DCs could be hard if failure only meant paying more spell slots to make it work.
You could really have a field day with letting characters decide to focus on Nature, or diplomacy or society, or religion, or occultism, or even possibly arcana.
It could be a caster who negotiated for spells even and isn’t defined by a single tradition.
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I'm fond of the transactional idea as well. I don't like playing full casters outright (part of the reason the Magus and Psychic landed so well for me), so having something else to do with my slots sounds really, really exciting.
There's a character in the very fun DIE comics by Kieron Gillen who is a "Godbinder," in communion with twelve incredibly powerful divinities she can trade favors with for power. There's a degree of mutual respect, but neither side "serves" the other, and you get some interesting friction there.
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I would definitely love to see the Rivethun get some more exploration. We know that they're essentially a dwarven third-gender, who seemingly occupy a liminal space between the spirits and other dwarves because of that identity, and they draw power from "the disunion of body and soul" - not my preferred framing of being trans, but easy enough to tailor to table taste.
Avistan's dwarves need a lot of help to feel anywhere near as cool all the unique cultures their Garundi cousins enjoy, and queer Shamans go a long way towards remedying that. I wonder... do spirit-based practices play nice with worshiping Torag and his pantheon, or is that a cultural divide?
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Advanced Class Origins does make a fleeting mention of Varki Shamans after all, not just the Erutaki! I'm glad; the Varki are a big part of me liking the Linnorm Kings at all.
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Oh, one thing I've love to see touched on, if carefully: entheogens! Spiritual psychedelics get a bad rap and are too often a punchline, but they have a real place across tons of cultures.
1e had kind of an underbaked "Sorcerer of Sleep" archetype and the linked Sahir-Afiyun feat, gesturing at wider uses for pesh than simply as a recreational narcotic. I feel like I read a mention somewhere that pesh was used by the region's natives, well before becoming an export drug, and so trying to rehabilitate that some would be really welcome.