Hey folks, I am working on 5th ed. Shaman that "collects" evil spirits and binds them into foci.
I know that the binding rules take hours and materials, but isn't there some way to temporarily control that spirit until I can bind it?
I'd like to be able to show up at a disturbance, encounter a nasty spirit and stick it in a jar instead of killing it.

Is that kind of thing possible?

If you use Banishing on a spirit that's not yours, once you drop its owed services to zero it will depart on its next action. If you can act again before it does, you can attempt to "summon" that spirit and get it to owe you some services. (SR5, pg 301). Those services will last until used up or until the next sunrise/sunset (whichever comes first, as per normal unbound spirit rules).

I'm not sure if you can then "trap" it into an object, though. I was just reading over the spirit rules in preparation for a game tonight and I don't recall seeing anything about trapping spirits or binding them to anything but you. Theoretically I don't see why you couldn't create a special enchanted item to do this (like a soul jar or something), with some creative applications of an Astral Barrier spell, but even that wouldn't be a permanent solution because eventually it would run out of Potency (and there's no way I can see to extend that or make it permanent).

I believe that sort of thing requires an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on your back

Is it weird that my first thought wasn't Ghostbusters, but was instead japanese Onmyoji or "exorcists"?

~Umi

First, you have to remember when you defeat a spirit via damage, it's not dead. It's connection to this plane is disrupted and it is forced back to it's own plane.

Now some spirits are big and bad enough that maybe flat out destroying that connection might not be feasible or it's got enough hooks that it wont stay away long, so containment may be a preferable option as along term option.

However, keep in mind which do YOU think will piss off the spirit more, disruption and banishment or Containment/imprisonment?

It's been done before in the fluff/novels, but the practices are fairly obscure and can not imagine they would be easy as you are sort of messing with planar forces.

This could be an interesting metamagic based on the possession traditions, though some other traditions might also look at this as containing evil forces.

On a side note...what spell is closest to Fear?
I'm looking at:
Control Actions
Control Thoughts
Influence

Ummm... Control Emotions?
If not there yet, it is sure to be when the Magic Book comes out.