Guys,

I'll be starting a new campaign for some friends soon, and one of the players have come to me with an idea. He wants to play a Dwarf who's been experimented upon by a Corp., who was looking to try and artificially induce people with a greater tolerance for cyberware. Those tests had some side effects, one of them being lethal, unless the character is subjected to regular doses of radiation (which the character on the other hand is immune to the damage from). I'm liable to clear the idea to some level, but here's the question:

If you are exposed to radiation, even if you sleep in the nude and don't expose your clothes etc. directly, would your presence be detected by a radiation scanner?

Off the top of my head I'd say yes, but I'm not 100% sure of it, and my first couple of searches on Google haven't provided en an obvious answer, and I'd rather avoid having to try and chew my way through a bunch of scientific articles or similar.

Anyone here know the answer to this question?


/Kyrel

In general no, when something is "contaminated by radiation" it is actually contaminated by particles of a radioactive substance.

Very high-energy radiation can activate stable (i.e. non-radioactive) materials, however human tissue would long have turned to charcoal at that point...I'm assuming that "immune to damage from radiation" does not include Wolverine regeneration (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Frankly, I don't see needing regular radiation treatments as being a big downside. Just live in Glow City and you'll be fine. I wouldn't award bonus karma for it, or at least not much. It's the sort of thing easily glossed over.

Unless, that is, you're planning on playing up the impact of radiation on others, in which case you're majorly screwing the player, so lots of bonus karma is in order.

Run and Gun has some rules on Radiation exposure for 5th ed starting on pg 152. According to that, a body exposed to radiation doesn't carry enough radioactivity to be an issue for detection until you reach Harsh exposure and then it only lasts for 24 hours.

Arsenal also has rules for radiation exposure for 4th ed but again, nothing about the radioactivity being detectable.

In the real world they use exposure badges to determine how much radioactivity you were exposed to in those environments. One of the basic processes to decontaminate someone is simply washing with water and soap to remove any radioactive particles. If the exposure is bad enough that you actually have radioactive material inside you then you are likely to develop cancer and die in short order. Otherwise a good shower should get the material off and hopefully the exposure wasn't bad enough to cause burns or massive cell death. Treatment usually involves trying to flush the damage cells from the body and boost the immune response. This assumes the exposure wasn't at lethal levels of course.

Thank you very much gentlemen. I considder my question answered (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

There also is the "Radiation Sponge", which I'd simply declare to be slightly paranormal and therefore not subject to physics (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

What is this, Fallout? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

WRT the bolded part, as others have said, the answer is a very firm NO. Just because something has been exposed to radioactivity does not mean it is an emitter.

However, I would say this would warp his aura something fierce. Not in a "holy shit essence loss" way, which kind of fucks over his point anyway, but in the "Awakened characters assensing your aura do a double-take and give you a funny look" way. Basically a Distinctive Style aura. Particularly zealous anti-Threat crusaders might assume he's a Nuke Shaman or something and attack on sight, but most Awakened will just give him a distinct "What the - what the fuck is with his Aura?" look.

Oh I like that ides ShadowDragon. Thank you very much for that idea *BigGrin*

Alternatively it could be based on some HMHVV research, HMHVV aggressively overwrites/purges other changes to the victim's genetic code (i.e. gene therapy), which would grant a form of immunity to cancers from radiation.

...the negative quality, "Blighted" basically includes in the description that the character may have been exposed to slightly higher levels of background radiation for a certain length of time (like having spent some time living near a hot spot in the CZ).

Not a quality to take if your character has less than a 5 Edge.