Cunning Fox

Spirit guides of cunning are often seen as the weakest of the spirit guides, but they're also the most numerous and proactive, guiding families to safe paths or leaving food and water for warriors. Cunning guides often take the form of foxes.

Spirit guides are a distinctive form of spiritual entity with a tenuous attachment to the Universe. Some legends say the first spirit guides were the perfect conceptual forms of animals, and that from them, eagles, foxes, bears, and other mortal beasts were born. Each guide displayed an interest in mortal affairs, watching over communities and imparting their gifts. Fox shared his cunning with the mortals he befriended, while Bear taught them how to survive and endure.

Over countless mortal generations, new spirit guides were born, many of them possessing traits from two or more of the original guides. In the ancient human nation of Sarkoris, the people abandoned traditional gods in favor of venerating the spirit guides who watched over them. While some in neighboring nations saw this as heresy, to the old Sarkorians, such worship felt perfectly natural. After all, the same beings who'd taught their forebears to survive and thrive still walked among them.

Every so often, a spirit guide bonds with a mortal partner. While many spirit guides permanently bond with mortals, such as the spirit guides of Sarkoris and the spiritual leaders known as god callers, some instead form temporary bonds, either to test the prospective mortal before committing or because a permanent bond is undesirable. It's not uncommon for a single spirit guide to form bonds with multiple generations of the same family or community, protecting and guiding mortals they've grown fond of or who do them a great service.