Create Sanctuary

A shaman who casts this spell designates an area of up to 100 square yards to become a personal sanctuary.

The spell is cast by sacrificing a small, normal animal and muttering the correct invocation. (The ceremony requires a single shamanic ritual proficiency check.) Every animal of the species sacrificed, within one mile of the caster, is then drawn to the site. They are thenceforth bound to the shaman, recognizing the shaman as their leader. Within one mile of the site, these creatures gain a higher-than normal intelligence (+1 Intelligence to their normal scores), though their natures remain unaltered (mice are timid, cats are curious, and so on). Offspring of such animals are similarly bound to the caster and endowed with these faculties.

The shaman gains the ability to communicate with the creatures, but only while within the sanctuary. He or she can understand their grunts, squeaks, etc., and they can understand his human speech.

Each of the creatures can act as a guard for the sanctuary, or a spy for the shaman (see animal spy), with certain limitations: Creatures with animal intelligence cannot convey details of a situation effectively. For example, two hundred heavily armored soldiers might be reported as “lots of people, making clanking sounds.” Further, such creatures cannot understand human conversation or recognize social interaction. Nonetheless, these animals can serve as an early warning system for the shaman.

The animals are not made suicidal or slavishly loyal by this spell, but merely see the shaman as their leader—a rank that may confer responsibilities as well as privileges: A pack of dogs, for example, might expect their pack leader to organize their hunting and the division of the kills, and might desert a leader who fails in these duties.

The spell's duration is effectively permanent, but the sanctuary is destroyed if the shaman recasts the spell in a second location. Each shaman can have only one sanctuary. The sanctuary also fades upon the caster's death, unless the shaman chooses to inhabit it as a ghost. Any strong supernatural presence might also dispel the sanctuary (such as the entrance of a powerful extraplanar being, or sprinkling the area with copious quantities of holy or unholy water).

Typical spiritualist shaman sanctuaries include sewers and cellars (where hundreds of rats may breed), graveyards (often accompanied by a pack of dogs), or ruined towers (housing bats, crows, or cats).

Casting this spell requires a successful Shamanic Ritual check, as a sacrifice is made as part of the casting (this is the material component). The sacrifice is received by the totem spirit of the animals who are to make up the sanctuary's guardians. Shamans who maltreat their animals may have to answer to the totem spirit of their kind.