is this kind of thing possible

sorry for my ignorance, I know nothing about mods.

is it possible to make ring of steel create a blade spirit?

Yes, it’s easy with autoCast.

Basically, you would create a copy of Ring of Steel and in the field named “autoCast” you would type the path to the skill “Blade Spirit” and in the field named autoCastController" you would use a “cast_@enemyonattack_100%.dbr” controller.

There’s other way to do it like adding it to a skill upgrade or creating/editting a Devotion.
But I think the above is the easiest one.

To actually use this newly created skill you would need to add the skill name (path) in “_classtree_class05.dbr” and also change the corresponding “skillxx.dbr” (xx = numbers) in ‘Config’.

To do this I suggest you take a look at how to create a 7th Mastery or how to edit the existing skill.

It’s pretty simple to learn but hard to master.

much obliged
off to find a Rosetta Stone

I just modified my signature so it is more obvious where to start. There are a lot of tutorials written and any generic “here’s how you modify DBR files” tutorial would work. Skills editing is definitely its own thing, but the best way to learn is to try. (Rereading the manuals on a task you’re not stuck on isn’t very effective.)