For me, it's Spirits of Man, hands down. They can sustain spells indefinitely. A second would Guidance because of their Divination and Magical Guard.

task all the way!

(aka "i am now pointing at the street sam, who formerly could at least cover weird, random skills that no one else would take because he had skillwires, and laughing maniacally" )

Guardian, because both mages and hackers need protection

Burn, baby, burn!!

Where's the Bugs and Bloods?

Similar reason to Jaid
Instant tech or physical skills

Followed closely by Guardian
instant combat skills

guardian with a possession tradition. "samurai, I don't need no stinking samurai."

Beast. I can come up with wild, vivid descriptions of all the spirit types, but for some reason I have a particular affinity with beast spirits. I have a game I'm waiting to run, based partly on the old horror film The Relic, where a Free Beast spirit goes on the rampage in a barrens tenement block. PCs vs. Intelligent Monster. Ony one side's coming out again.

Beast! Nothing quite says savagery like they do.

I voted Guardians not because I necessarily think they are the best, but because I like the flavor of their appearances.

Guidance, because sometimes you need a sounding board who won't lock you away on a 72 hour involuntary hold or act as an enabler for that burgeoning alcoholism.

Ally.

...

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what would you write in your ally's formula to cause that?

I vote Plant. Gotta love that extra spell defence.

Ahh.

*bah-dum BAH*

I would hope that I would do a better job than that if I wrote an ally formula.

I am really happy with the way this poll is working out. None of the spirits get zero votes, and neither the new spirits nor the old spirits get the tremendous lion's share of the votes. That's great.

-Frank

Fire.

I've been thinking about it and basically I don't really have a favorite. However when I really absolutely have to throw my players for a loop it's Guardian, I mean Magical Guard+ItNW and a Panther XXL (or any other weapon of your choice)...

vodka

Beast here for me. I always loved the beastial nature thing, and i have an affinty for Beast spirits after I played my Odinist shaman with a BANE to Beast spirits. (Fenris DID eat Odin, after all. ) On the other hand, I had a Wolf shaman who was completely attuned to the guys.

So yeah, Beast. Second up, Water, just because i love the element.

Fire, cause everything's got to burn. But Guidence is a close second - I love their engulf.

Task, because the teams rigger will worship me for the hourly rate of my mechanics.

Good thinking those only come up in possession traditions, else I´d replace the electronics specialist, too.

water spirits.

If you don't like the weather, change it.