Shattered Kingdoms

Shamans should be able to seance spirits that didn't know them in life. Spirits should be able to manifest to Shamans that they didn't know in life, except to opposite aura Shamans.

Shamans should be able to give avatars to PCs who have age died so they participate in PK, or RP events.

This should be a master level spell, require lots of energy and lag, and should make it so a seanced spirit can fight. There are plenty of 'ghost' or 'spirit' NPCs in SK which do damage and have hp. Why not reward players who make it to age death by letting them have a faint chance of participating in PK in some way? They shouldn't be as powerful as living PCs, but they should still have an affect. The Shaman should have to maintain concentration on the spell, and perhaps even be fatigued by it. Still, it should be worthwhile for any Shaman to cast this on any age-dead GM PC.

Rationale:

Age death should be rewarded. It wouldn't be OP, in fact, it would be less powerful than if the age dead character were to just GM a new character.

When I first came to SK I thought that age death was a negative. Now having seen how the turn over of players actually keeps the mud fresher than it otherwise would be, I can not help but think of it as a positive. When people die we want them to roll new and exciting characters not hang around on a ghost.

Age death is awesome and is rewarded in the fact that most people who age death everyone knows. Age death itself is not rewarded because it isnt that hard to make and then log into it a few hours a month until it dies. Also age death itself is not equal an elf is a 4 year investment, half elf 2 years, a griffon just over 1. Also consider age death for a sorceror is not anywhere near as painful as age death on a barbarian. I think if you want to promote age death ideas like the new hero code are a lot more likely to create long lived epic characters than coming back after they are dead most warrior/adventures classes delete at age tick which is a long way from age death.

As far as buffs to shamans regarding spirits. I think it would be awesome if voodoo some how used a manifest ghost to make it more fun somehow.
A few thought, a ghost gets a new ability target voodoo. If the ghost is in the same room as the target of the voodoo it acts as if the shaman has a spirit doll of them.
If a spirit of the same aura is where the shaman is the lag time of voodoo is reduced somewhat or the shaman does not lose spirit aura while stunned.

There's definitely room for expanding the gameplay options for spirits & shamans & age-death.

Possessions, "undead" ghosts, astral projection, etc. It's an interesting part of the game to explore and consider building upon.

I always was entertained by the idea that shamans could make dolls that spirits could possess to run around in.