Shaman

Biodata

Feature	Information
Name	Shaman (巫觋)
Alias(es)	Shamanic Priest 76
Affiliation	Shamanic Way; commonly associated with Wushen Mountain
Occupation/Role	Ritual officiant, mediator, diviner, healer, and communicator with spirits 220 225
First Appearance	Chapter 3

Background / History

Shamanism was one of humanity's earliest paths, alongside Martial Arts. Early shamans negotiated with powerful spirits to secure protection for vulnerable human tribes; they subsequently served as tribal leaders, teachers, healers, historians, diviners, and sorcerers. 220

The later separation of the Human Way and Shamanic Way reshaped the relationship between humans, spirits, and shamans. The Chong and Li clans followed the Human Emperor rather than the Shamanic Way, using their arts to sever the connection between humanity and divinity; this established separate Human Way and Shamanic Way offices. 797

Wushen Mountain is the foremost shamanic center. Its shamans maintain relationships with ghosts, earthly deities, and other spirits, while its Great Shamans can command exceptionally broad ritual and divine resources. 23 30

Lineages and Ranks

Lineage / Title	Duties and Characteristics
Zhu (祝)	Handles external affairs, travel, communication, witnessing, and the supervision of agreements. 225
Bu (卜)	Diviners who provide intelligence, strategic judgment, and divinatory guidance. 225
Zong (宗)	Oversees state-founding rites, internal affairs, practical implementation, and resource allocation. 225
Spirit Medium	Communicates with spirits, deities, ghosts, and even entities such as the Heavenly Dao. 156 182
Great Shaman	A foremost shamanic powerhouse capable of grand sacrifices, commanding human-ghosts, heavenly gods, and earthly deities. 23
Shamanic God	The title shared by shamans who reach the highest level; prior lineage distinctions no longer apply. 340
Ghost Shaman	A minor and heterodox branch focused on ghost control, soul refinement, and similar techniques. 343

Abilities & Skills

Sacrifice and Invocation

Shamans perform sacrifices, recite invocations, and use ritual postures to communicate with or influence spirits and natural forces.

• Great Shamans govern calamities, prayers, invocations, sacrifices, bows, fire, water, ghosts, and spirits. 20 23
• Sacrificial texts can be used to call upon or accuse entities, causing the target's own nature or Qi to react. 156
• Ritual dances coordinate different forms of Qi through posture and rhythm; skilled Wu Yu perform these dances with particular refinement. 472
• Large sacrifices can receive responses from worlds, gods, and Great Dao phenomena rather than merely local spirits. 581

Spirit Communication

Spirit Mediums serve as bridges between Heaven, Earth, humanity, gods, and ghosts. 811

• They can communicate with mountain spirits, earthly deities, ghosts, human-ghosts, and the Heavenly Dao. 156 182
• They may request assistance from local mountains and rivers, particularly when direct combat would be disadvantageous. 541
• Spirits ordinarily respond to properly conducted shamanic sacrifices and prayers. 131

Divination and Qi-Gazing

Shamanic divination often relies on observing the Qi emitted by people, events, and environments.

• Qi-gazing can reveal a person's actual abilities or foreshadow events such as warfare and disaster. 131
• Diviners specialize in this field, though other shamans may understand its basic principles. 131
• Shamans may use divination to identify fortune and misfortune, locate targets, or interpret omens. 23 131

Myriad Beast Technique

The Myriad Beast Technique is an exclusive Wushen Mountain art derived from agreements between Great Shamans, earthly deities, and myriad beasts. 30

• The Myriad Beast Diagram contains 14,632 techniques, each linked to a mountain-and-river earthly deity. 30
• A practitioner can receive the corresponding deity's blessing across distances of tens of millions of li. 30
• Ox-Strength Technique is a basic entry-level art that combines body strengthening, defense, and offense through invoked divine strength. 20
• Other known beast-strength variants include tiger, elephant, eagle, and serpent strength. 20

Inner World Cultivation

The Shamanic Way treats the body as a self-sufficient small world. Cultivation consists of refining and developing that internal world rather than relying primarily on external resources. 252

• High-level shamans can create tangible things from their bodies by consuming cultivation and foundation. 252
• At higher ranks, a shaman's body may merge with Heaven and Earth; physical form can be manifested or dismissed without ending self-awareness. 271
• Seventh-rank cultivation can develop Inner Gods, whose principal task is regulating the practitioner's internal world and its conditions. 300
• At the fifth rank, a shaman can manifest an entire personal world in battle. 630

Curses and Effigy Aversion

Shamans can attack indirectly through rituals, karmic links, and prepared effigies.

• Effigy Aversion uses an idol or substitute to introduce harmful or defiled Qi into an enemy's body. 629
• Curses may be conducted remotely, allowing a shaman to affect a battlefield without entering direct combat. 629
• Personal belongings, hair, blood, and other karmically linked objects can be used against a target. 740

Limitations

• Shamanic arts are broad and adaptable but generally weaker than the Martial Way in straightforward offense and defense. 369
• Rituals, sacrifices, and curses often require preparation; close-range combat can leave shamans reliant on Inner Gods or borrowed power. 415
• Shamanic methods become severely constrained in environments where spirits, ghosts, and natural entities have been purged. 797
• Individual exceptions exist, particularly Great Shamans with exceptional combat talent. 218 764

Philosophy

The Shamanic Way seeks balance among Heaven, Earth, humanity, spirits, ghosts, and all other forms of life. Shamans generally regard themselves as mediators rather than rulers. 581 940

Its ultimate ideal is to develop the human body's internal world toward the completeness of a true world while preserving the proper laws of the greater universe. 510

The path does not inherently define good or evil. It views natural phenomena as existing according to their own causes, which allows both benevolent world-nurturing shamans and cruel practitioners such as Ghost Shamans to exist within the same tradition. 343 813

This commitment to plural existence places the Shamanic Way in fundamental conflict with the Human Way's ambition to let humanity define and govern all things. 940

Forbidden and Heterodox Practices

• Ghost Shaman arts — Soul refinement, ghost manipulation, corpse snatching, and related minor techniques pursued for personal gain. 343
• Blood Sacrifice — Uses the dead, including their souls and true spirits, to empower survivors; it disrupts reincarnation and the natural cycle of life and death. 617
• Gu refinement — Some shamans turn entire worlds into Gu vessels for cultivation. 780

Trivia

• Baiyue customs frequently employ shamans as healers, using offerings, songs, dances, talismans, and rites rather than physicians. 34
• Shamans are often perceived by outsiders as eerie ritualists who dance, chant, raise Gu, summon ghosts, or cast curses. 472 581
• Despite this reputation, orthodox Spirit Mediums are formally described as the bridge connecting Heaven, Earth, humanity, gods, and ghosts. 811