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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ astral tracking and lone star investigations

Posted by: celegar Jan 25 2007, 08:38 PM

so as i understand astral tracking it can be used to find anyone anywhere anytime using their astral signature, which everyone has. so how can you possibly hide from lonestar without building a house in a cave or other such expensive shananigans. i just dunno, and i would think that haveing magical assenseors on staff would probubly cost a pretty nuyen.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 25 2007, 08:40 PM

well for starters, you can clean up your signature. Then there's other coutnermeasures you can use, such as wards, having a safe house in areas with a back ground count, that sort of thing. Also, they can't keep looking for you all the time. THings will blow over eventually, and there will be other bigger badder crimes. Jsut make sure that YOU aren't the bigger badder crime. There's only so many Star mages to go arounnd after all.

Posted by: celegar Jan 25 2007, 08:43 PM

well whats the threshold for finding an astral signature. id assume its not rediculously high.(based on threasholds for finding hidden nodes). of course im no expert and dont really deal with thease magicy thingys.

Posted by: eidolon Jan 25 2007, 08:58 PM

QUOTE (celegar)
so as i understand astral tracking it can be used to find anyone anywhere anytime using their astral signature, which everyone has.


Wait a tic, when did "everyone" start having an astral signature?

Posted by: celegar Jan 25 2007, 09:05 PM

can we get a mage in here to post on this BECAUSE I AM JUST SO CONFUSED!

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 25 2007, 09:06 PM

every time a spell is cast there's a signature left behind, like a magical fingerprint. "everyone" has an aura. Not the same thing.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jan 25 2007, 09:08 PM

Lone Star has to have seen your astral signature in order to track it.

Have you seen me? No. Good, now pick me out of the lineup.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 25 2007, 09:10 PM

wonder how much a role astral film would play in the Star....

Posted by: celegar Jan 25 2007, 09:12 PM

i would also wonder how you would be able to use an astral aura or whatever in court as evidence, or if even the court would care about the evidence once it get to that point.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 25 2007, 09:13 PM

Astral tracking is not possible from a signature. It requires an astral link, such as the link between a bound foci and it's master, a spirit and it's master, or a ward and its creator.

The spirit search power cannot be done with a signature either, though it is unclear if it excludes the ability for a magician to start with as little as a photo, or if they actually have to see the target in the spell targeting LOS sense.

Signatures are left when you use a magical skill or ability, they fade after force hours. They can be recognized, so you could say that two signatures are created from the same person. That however is of dubious value since magicans can mimic eachother's signatures using metamagical techniques.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jan 25 2007, 09:14 PM

More mundanely...

Aura = Picture
Astral Signature = Fingerprint

Spirit Search Power, while powerful, still needs the mage to know the Aura or Astral Signature to have the spirit search for.

Auras can't be easily retransmitted and stored. Neither can astral signatures. The mage that has seen the astral signature, or your aura must be the person who tracks you down, or sends a spirit to search.

Does the Lone Star Mage know everyone personally by sight?

You can also look at the situation the other way. If it's sooooo easy to track down people, why hasn't Lone Star done it already? Because they don't want to? No, it's because it isn't really that easy.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 25 2007, 10:28 PM

Might want to check out this, too. It also concerns magicians and legal status discussions.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=16136&hl=expert%20witness&st=0

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 25 2007, 10:41 PM

If they get ahold of a material sample - such as blood or hair - they have a way of tracking you with ritual magic and astral tracking. This from Street Magic:

QUOTE
Ritual groups may also combine
material links (and sympathetic links below) with astral
spotters to astrally track a target when its location is unknown.
While the ritual team is casting a spell (using the material
link), an astral spotter may track the target’s location
per the rules on p. 185, SR4. The ritual need not be completed,
just maintained long enough to allow the tracker to
locate the target.


As CSI shows us (and everything you see on CSI is 100% real...) you will leave behind some material. Good luck

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 25 2007, 10:44 PM

That is what sterilization spell is for.
And bleach
and hair from a high class barbershop
and blood from various hospital and doc wagon clinics.

All kinds of ways to mess with forensics, if you are twisted and devious enough.

Posted by: Thane36425 Jan 25 2007, 10:50 PM

QUOTE (HappyDaze)
If they get ahold of a material sample - such as blood or hair - they have a way of tracking you with ritual magic and astral tracking. This from Street Magic:
QUOTE
Ritual groups may also combine
material links (and sympathetic links below) with astral
spotters to astrally track a target when its location is unknown.
While the ritual team is casting a spell (using the material
link), an astral spotter may track the target’s location
per the rules on p. 185, SR4. The ritual need not be completed,
just maintained long enough to allow the tracker to
locate the target.


As CSI shows us (and everything you see on CSI is 100% real...) you will leave behind some material. Good luck

If the mage has the Sympathetic Linking metamagic, then they could use things other than body parts to track someone. That could be a picture or something they used or a favored item. This isn't as good as actually having a physical link to the person in question.

As I read it, s mage could study and recognize another mage's astral signature from the residue of spells they have cast. They could recognize the same caster again from another spell imprint, but coul dnot actually track them.

A focus or still active ward could be used to track down a caster via ritual magic because both are linked to the caster.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 25 2007, 10:56 PM

QUOTE
All kinds of ways to mess with forensics, if you are twisted and devious enough.

Nothing defeats the investigative skills of the crime lab montage! Nothing!

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 25 2007, 10:58 PM

You are right.

*walks away smiling*
*thinking that as long as those law bozos keep thinking that, life will be much easier*

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 25 2007, 11:04 PM

QUOTE (Thane36425)
A focus or still active ward could be used to track down a caster via ritual magic because both are linked to the caster.

It's not ritual magic they are using to acomplish that it is just simply astral tracking.

The deal is sometimes there is a link in astral space between things. You can track this link using astral tracking. The link exists between bonded foci and their owners, wards and their creators, etc. A ritual group casting a spell at a target creats an astral link to them also, thus you can use ritual sorcery to create an astral link then have an astral form (spirit, projecting mage) track the link to where the unknown target is. That's where the ritual comes in.

Posted by: TheOOB Jan 25 2007, 11:07 PM

The magical value of a material link doesn't last very long, usually only a few minutes at most if the sample isn't preserved. Just because the DNA is still there doesn't mean the magic is.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 26 2007, 12:01 AM

QUOTE
The magical value of a material link doesn't last very long, usually only a few minutes at most if the sample isn't preserved. Just because the DNA is still there doesn't mean the magic is.

IIRC, materials usewd to last 1 hour per point of Essence (rounding up) of the donor. I'm not sure how long it lasts in SR4.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 26 2007, 12:02 AM

Now it depends on the type of sample. A dismembered finger lasts longer than a blood stain (as it should IMO).

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