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Grey's magic is shamanistic and less about shock and effect and more about details, knowledge and spiritual power over the nature of the world. To understand it, you need to know something about the way a shaman views the world. I'll try to summarise on this page how his powers work but it might end up a lot of TL;DR. So, enter at your own peril...
1. Layered worldview & Spiritual guidance
Shamans view the world in layers where the physical world is just one level of existence. A shaman is a person who is capable of travelling between these levels of existence. There's the Above with heavenly creatures, with spirits, with gods and other higher beings. This is a place of guidance and clear view, of prophecy and understanding. There's also the Under which is a place for demons, evil things, for some gods and higher beings, for challenge and depth that most would find hard to understand. A shaman is a person who would visit both of these realms for different purposes accompanied by spiritual guides that often take animal form or come in form of their ancestors. It's an important thing for a shaman to complete journeys through these levels of existence.
2. Trance & Travel
To get to these places isn't so simple as to just go. One needs to find a proper way and the method to enter those levels. Drumming, drugs, singing and dancing is part of the process. Singing and drumming especially important. Finnish shamanism has always been tied strongly to oral practice and heritage. A shaman would build their own drum as their first task on the road to becoming a shaman. Also spells are rhythmic poems that are delivered by singing.
Trance is a big part of entering the different levels of existence. Reaching that state of being is a unique process to each but often singing and drumming is involved. Travelling holds a special place in the practice of everyday shamanism. Questions about difficulties and problems are often solved by a spirit walk, a journey that one takes into themselves and the worlds layered on top of this one, finding hints and resolutions on the way. Prophetic dreams, dreamwalking, guidance through subconsciousness, etc.
3. Pagan practices
Finnish practices are unique in a way that they're very much a sample of what the people living in the cold and desolate landscape must have thought. Magic and shamans were very well appreciated, looked up to and part of everyday solutions all the way up to the modern times. Trees act a giant role in the fabric of the mythology, so do animal spirits, ancestry, practicality, and honestly shameless wit and trickery. Finnish spellcasters were revered in the mythology but they often were not exactly figures that a modern man would look up to. They were charlatans, shamelessly opportunistic and full of themselves. The biggest show of power was to best another spellcaster, to "sing them into the ground", quite literally so because spell casting happens through singing. But just as these Characters were showmen with sleeves full of tricks, they were also the leaders of their tribes, equal to the physical leaders of the tribe. They took care of the village's growth and spiritual practice, of course they were revered and seen as something a little higher than the normal folk. But there's also a practical side to all of this. Because these shamans or "knowers" (what the actual Finnish word translates to) were also the solution to a lot of everyday problems. Say you had lost something, they would find it for you. If someone had stolen something, they would make the lost items be returned. If your cow wouldn't milk, they would help.
4. The Little Folk and nature Gods
Finnish paganism leans heavily onto magical creatures and a pantheon of nature related gods that were sort of close to people instead of being some intangible creatures high in their own plain of existence. You could meet Tapio, the forest god, on your berry picking trip. You could trick the god to give you favours, just be careful not to anger him.
The same goes for the Little Folk. There's a lot of different kind of magical creatures in Finnish folklore. They roughly can be divvied up into Forest folk and Earth folk, generally forest critters are somewhat good and earth critters somewhat bad. So forest elves are nice, house elves are nice - except when you anger these critters, when they will go after your blood. Mountain trolls not so good, water spirits, not so sweet either. The trick is to know what each of them want and how they will react to certain kind of gifts and treats. Näkki will drown you if you walk into his waterfall, but he might teach you how to play the violin if you know what to do.
GREY'S POWERS
Keeping in mind all that was said before, there are some personal touches to what Grey does.
Elementalist : Water
Water is Grey's element. It helps him concentrate, he draws his power from it and what comes with the element is closest to his heart, divination and healing. This doesn't mean he is the most practised in these fields. It's just what he was meant to do, it's what comes to him the most natural when he practices magic. In practice this means that he can reach trance if he has some of his element present. He tends to spill a little bit of water on the floor and stand barefooted in the puddle, or fill a basin and dip his hands in it. Give him an ocean to stand in and he's at the centre of his power. But put him in a desert or in a ring of fire and he's a little lost magically.
Animal empathy, especially birds
He feels kinship to animals and they return the feeling. He's a real Snow White when you let him into a forest full of birds. They will come sit on his shoulder and chirp away at him. He also often travels with animals, in spirit. He'll have to sort of leave his body to do this but he can share the physical form with the animal while he's slipping into its skin. This means his physical body is unprotected but he is capable of looking at things from high above the ground or crawling into small spaces. He might bring back some of the animal into himself when he returns to his own body. Magic does not follow him on these trips, though.
Spirit guides: Crow, Bear, Heron, Moose
Shamans have spirit guides throughout their lives. They contract with the animal spirit to teach them something. Grey's first spirit guide was the crow who taught him magic and mysteries of the world. The second was a bear who taught him family values and healing, leadership and pride. Heron left with him to guide him when he left Finland, teaching him independence and discipline. His latest spirit guide that he doesn't exactly feel good about is the moose, trying to teach him how to be a productive member of a society again, how to connect and how to be a leader in a gentler manner, protection for others, guidance for others, power and family. He's definitely just starting to take in the lessons from this trip.
Ancestral blockage
For a shaman of his heritage the fact that he can't connect with his ancestors is a huge weakness. It doesn't mean he never will reach them but currently he still feels too guilty to even try. This means he doesn't receive any guidance from them and is kind of shooting in the dark about a lot of his heritage.
Demons & Banishing
Evil spirits, demons, things that go bump in the night. He knows more than enough about these things and he's learned how to contain them. How to banish them from this world but also how to trap them infinitely. (Or as long as they learn how to break the magical containers he has devised for them.) When he truly needs the extra power, he draws upon these captured critters that he holds in their private prisons. He knows this is twisted magic and he shouldn't do it, but he tends to think that end justifies the means, which has lead him to some rather dark paths with his magic.
WHAT CAN HE DO???
That's the question, right? It's hard to put down specifics because he doesn't exactly have a spell list. But there's a style to his magic and definitely limitations as well.
1. Style
His magic isn't grand gestures and shocking effects. If he casts a healing spell it happens with first-aid, with healing herbal tinctures and a little bit with singing magic. The effect isn't instantaneous but will speed up the healing process. If he casts a divination spell he will end up having a prophetic dream full of symbolism and hints or end up finding symbolical signs throughout the following day. Sure, he might be able to bring down a house, within a week's time by convincing underground currents to soften the earth and foundations. He might be able to spell bound a bear but the bear is still a bear and will protect its cups and not be exactly happy to wake up in the winter.
The magic that is more tangible, raw and instantaneous with visual effects is when he handles demons. This leaves a bad taste in his mouth and he does it only in real need. It's not exactly gentle towards the host either. (End justifies the means.)
2. Limitations
As mentioned above, his magic is rarely stuff that takes an instant effect. Only in special circumstances he might end up having a lot of insane power in his hands. If you stick him in a stormy ocean at a certain time of the year (around Halloween) he is brimming with power and can bring forward quite a bit of instant effects and crack the ground with magic alone. But in most circumstances his professional moral prohibits him from using that kind of power over the world.Knowledge and small things are his weapons most of the time.
However, while he might be quite subdued and humble in the real world, he isn't so when it comes to spirit walking and the other layers of the world. He tends to have quite a presence in the otherworlds, often sprouting a pair of antlers and humming with raw power. He is after all, as much as he'd like to deny it and doesn't embrace it in the ordinary world, an offspring of a long line of shamans, seated in a great wealth of inner power and magical heritage.
In Deerington...
Power warping: I figured that most of his powers don't really need touching. However, I'd love to give an additional Deerington stamp to a few of them.
Dreaming;
Dreams are a form of divination for him. I'd love to incorporate this somehow into Deerington. Maybe with uncontrollable ability to witness omens that might never make much sense to him at all, or maybe they will. Some of those omens or marks that symbolise deeper understanding might manifest on himself, being unable to control the show and tell of whatever the dream wishes to broadcast about himself, or perhaps people around him. Like for example, he might randomly sprout a head of antlers or see tar on hands of people who have done something awful. (Also, naturally requires a permission from the player of any other character affected by this power.)
Healing;
He's not exactly big on healing magic. But I'd love for him to do some actual spirit healing, which is part of his shamanistic power scheme. His job is to help people piece themselves together through symbolism and spiritual travel. And I'd like for this to take a shape of healing in the dream setting. Since the physical ailments aren't exactly physical in a dream, perhaps healing those would be be possible for him but through means that aren't exactly in line with physical healing. Like say for example healing a wound might require for him to bleed as well to symbolically to understand the nature of the wound and heal it through conversation instead. (This isn't going to be easy for him, btw.)
1. Layered worldview & Spiritual guidance
Shamans view the world in layers where the physical world is just one level of existence. A shaman is a person who is capable of travelling between these levels of existence. There's the Above with heavenly creatures, with spirits, with gods and other higher beings. This is a place of guidance and clear view, of prophecy and understanding. There's also the Under which is a place for demons, evil things, for some gods and higher beings, for challenge and depth that most would find hard to understand. A shaman is a person who would visit both of these realms for different purposes accompanied by spiritual guides that often take animal form or come in form of their ancestors. It's an important thing for a shaman to complete journeys through these levels of existence.
2. Trance & Travel
To get to these places isn't so simple as to just go. One needs to find a proper way and the method to enter those levels. Drumming, drugs, singing and dancing is part of the process. Singing and drumming especially important. Finnish shamanism has always been tied strongly to oral practice and heritage. A shaman would build their own drum as their first task on the road to becoming a shaman. Also spells are rhythmic poems that are delivered by singing.
Trance is a big part of entering the different levels of existence. Reaching that state of being is a unique process to each but often singing and drumming is involved. Travelling holds a special place in the practice of everyday shamanism. Questions about difficulties and problems are often solved by a spirit walk, a journey that one takes into themselves and the worlds layered on top of this one, finding hints and resolutions on the way. Prophetic dreams, dreamwalking, guidance through subconsciousness, etc.
3. Pagan practices
Finnish practices are unique in a way that they're very much a sample of what the people living in the cold and desolate landscape must have thought. Magic and shamans were very well appreciated, looked up to and part of everyday solutions all the way up to the modern times. Trees act a giant role in the fabric of the mythology, so do animal spirits, ancestry, practicality, and honestly shameless wit and trickery. Finnish spellcasters were revered in the mythology but they often were not exactly figures that a modern man would look up to. They were charlatans, shamelessly opportunistic and full of themselves. The biggest show of power was to best another spellcaster, to "sing them into the ground", quite literally so because spell casting happens through singing. But just as these Characters were showmen with sleeves full of tricks, they were also the leaders of their tribes, equal to the physical leaders of the tribe. They took care of the village's growth and spiritual practice, of course they were revered and seen as something a little higher than the normal folk. But there's also a practical side to all of this. Because these shamans or "knowers" (what the actual Finnish word translates to) were also the solution to a lot of everyday problems. Say you had lost something, they would find it for you. If someone had stolen something, they would make the lost items be returned. If your cow wouldn't milk, they would help.
4. The Little Folk and nature Gods
Finnish paganism leans heavily onto magical creatures and a pantheon of nature related gods that were sort of close to people instead of being some intangible creatures high in their own plain of existence. You could meet Tapio, the forest god, on your berry picking trip. You could trick the god to give you favours, just be careful not to anger him.
The same goes for the Little Folk. There's a lot of different kind of magical creatures in Finnish folklore. They roughly can be divvied up into Forest folk and Earth folk, generally forest critters are somewhat good and earth critters somewhat bad. So forest elves are nice, house elves are nice - except when you anger these critters, when they will go after your blood. Mountain trolls not so good, water spirits, not so sweet either. The trick is to know what each of them want and how they will react to certain kind of gifts and treats. Näkki will drown you if you walk into his waterfall, but he might teach you how to play the violin if you know what to do.
GREY'S POWERS
Keeping in mind all that was said before, there are some personal touches to what Grey does.
Elementalist : Water
Water is Grey's element. It helps him concentrate, he draws his power from it and what comes with the element is closest to his heart, divination and healing. This doesn't mean he is the most practised in these fields. It's just what he was meant to do, it's what comes to him the most natural when he practices magic. In practice this means that he can reach trance if he has some of his element present. He tends to spill a little bit of water on the floor and stand barefooted in the puddle, or fill a basin and dip his hands in it. Give him an ocean to stand in and he's at the centre of his power. But put him in a desert or in a ring of fire and he's a little lost magically.
Animal empathy, especially birds
He feels kinship to animals and they return the feeling. He's a real Snow White when you let him into a forest full of birds. They will come sit on his shoulder and chirp away at him. He also often travels with animals, in spirit. He'll have to sort of leave his body to do this but he can share the physical form with the animal while he's slipping into its skin. This means his physical body is unprotected but he is capable of looking at things from high above the ground or crawling into small spaces. He might bring back some of the animal into himself when he returns to his own body. Magic does not follow him on these trips, though.
Spirit guides: Crow, Bear, Heron, Moose
Shamans have spirit guides throughout their lives. They contract with the animal spirit to teach them something. Grey's first spirit guide was the crow who taught him magic and mysteries of the world. The second was a bear who taught him family values and healing, leadership and pride. Heron left with him to guide him when he left Finland, teaching him independence and discipline. His latest spirit guide that he doesn't exactly feel good about is the moose, trying to teach him how to be a productive member of a society again, how to connect and how to be a leader in a gentler manner, protection for others, guidance for others, power and family. He's definitely just starting to take in the lessons from this trip.
Ancestral blockage
For a shaman of his heritage the fact that he can't connect with his ancestors is a huge weakness. It doesn't mean he never will reach them but currently he still feels too guilty to even try. This means he doesn't receive any guidance from them and is kind of shooting in the dark about a lot of his heritage.
Demons & Banishing
Evil spirits, demons, things that go bump in the night. He knows more than enough about these things and he's learned how to contain them. How to banish them from this world but also how to trap them infinitely. (Or as long as they learn how to break the magical containers he has devised for them.) When he truly needs the extra power, he draws upon these captured critters that he holds in their private prisons. He knows this is twisted magic and he shouldn't do it, but he tends to think that end justifies the means, which has lead him to some rather dark paths with his magic.
WHAT CAN HE DO???
That's the question, right? It's hard to put down specifics because he doesn't exactly have a spell list. But there's a style to his magic and definitely limitations as well.
1. Style
His magic isn't grand gestures and shocking effects. If he casts a healing spell it happens with first-aid, with healing herbal tinctures and a little bit with singing magic. The effect isn't instantaneous but will speed up the healing process. If he casts a divination spell he will end up having a prophetic dream full of symbolism and hints or end up finding symbolical signs throughout the following day. Sure, he might be able to bring down a house, within a week's time by convincing underground currents to soften the earth and foundations. He might be able to spell bound a bear but the bear is still a bear and will protect its cups and not be exactly happy to wake up in the winter.
The magic that is more tangible, raw and instantaneous with visual effects is when he handles demons. This leaves a bad taste in his mouth and he does it only in real need. It's not exactly gentle towards the host either. (End justifies the means.)
2. Limitations
As mentioned above, his magic is rarely stuff that takes an instant effect. Only in special circumstances he might end up having a lot of insane power in his hands. If you stick him in a stormy ocean at a certain time of the year (around Halloween) he is brimming with power and can bring forward quite a bit of instant effects and crack the ground with magic alone. But in most circumstances his professional moral prohibits him from using that kind of power over the world.Knowledge and small things are his weapons most of the time.
However, while he might be quite subdued and humble in the real world, he isn't so when it comes to spirit walking and the other layers of the world. He tends to have quite a presence in the otherworlds, often sprouting a pair of antlers and humming with raw power. He is after all, as much as he'd like to deny it and doesn't embrace it in the ordinary world, an offspring of a long line of shamans, seated in a great wealth of inner power and magical heritage.
In Deerington...
Power warping: I figured that most of his powers don't really need touching. However, I'd love to give an additional Deerington stamp to a few of them.
Dreaming;
Dreams are a form of divination for him. I'd love to incorporate this somehow into Deerington. Maybe with uncontrollable ability to witness omens that might never make much sense to him at all, or maybe they will. Some of those omens or marks that symbolise deeper understanding might manifest on himself, being unable to control the show and tell of whatever the dream wishes to broadcast about himself, or perhaps people around him. Like for example, he might randomly sprout a head of antlers or see tar on hands of people who have done something awful. (Also, naturally requires a permission from the player of any other character affected by this power.)
Healing;
He's not exactly big on healing magic. But I'd love for him to do some actual spirit healing, which is part of his shamanistic power scheme. His job is to help people piece themselves together through symbolism and spiritual travel. And I'd like for this to take a shape of healing in the dream setting. Since the physical ailments aren't exactly physical in a dream, perhaps healing those would be be possible for him but through means that aren't exactly in line with physical healing. Like say for example healing a wound might require for him to bleed as well to symbolically to understand the nature of the wound and heal it through conversation instead. (This isn't going to be easy for him, btw.)