5th amendment? Wait... wha? When did citizens have rights in shadowrun? The US does not exist anymore so there is no 5th amendment, there is no constitution, or miranda rights (at least in what was formerly the US.) If they want you to cast a spell you cast a spell, in the end all they have to do is wipe your sig and deny that it ever happened. Kind of like a cop shooting someone and then later planting an unlicensed gun on them and some crack except there really is no court of law in Shadowrun and citizens don't really have the right to say that LS can't search their car. Being suspect no. 1 in Shadowrun means the law (and by law I mean privately contracted security forces) will just walk all over you.

Spirits have your aura, when they cast they also leave a signature. If you summon a spirit and attack a mage with it, when the mage assenses the spirit he will see your aura so I don't see how the mage couldn't recognize yours. It also means that when the spirit leaves a fingerprint by casting a spell since it has your aura it leaves your aura behind. Flexible signature is quite a nice spell, because when you or your spirits drop a spell it makes it harder to identify. However the important factor that some people forget to separate is that critter powers do not drop a signature. Spells do, critter powers do not.

That being said astral cameras takes a long amount of set up time before they can actually take a picture, which is to say that if someone drops a low force spell you might not have enough time to set up your shot. Overcasting, and unable to wipe sig is generally going to come back in bite you in the ass, because any mage that wants to pass by the scene of the crime will be able to now have your signature as the spell lasts for the level of force in hours (and astral speed is very very speedy.) A low force spell other mages might not have enough time to check out the spell, but a high force is nasty business.

Where did you get that?


No, a spirit's aura can't be that of the summoner, otherwise they would look just as the magician on the astral plane. Not true. Only a spell or a critter power has an aura and that only as long as it is active. Which is for most damaging spells only one complex action. After that they only leave a signature on the spell's targe(s). More over the sigature corresponds to the spirit that cast the spell or used the power, not the summoner.
Wrong again. The bbb makes no distinction between the type of magical power or skill that is used.

How helpful aura photography is for forensic investigators, is a whole different problem.

To avoid detection the best way is using mundanes ways to accomplish things when possible, avoiding situations that force to use magic (if possible), using the Flexible Signature to reduce the signature (or if the spell's force is low enough to have it have someone else signature, to be used along with ritual samples of said someone left on site), and maybe dropping a Mana Static spell to mud the astral plane (used in combination with Flexible Signature can make the assensing a realy hard prospect).

Read Theories on the nature of magic p. 167-168

"Magical skills are defined as the manipulation of mana... Conjuring manipulates mana to call forth, create, or
affect spirits." p. 168 BBB

"Anything magical in nature also casts a reflection on the astral; spells—the manipulation of mana—on the physical plane have a visible aura on the astral plane." p. 167 BBB

"Magical skills and abilities produce an astral signature on anything affected by them, which is detectable using assensing. An astral signature is the magical “fingerprint� of the Awakened creature who created it." p. 182 BBB

For emphasis. Sorry mate your wrong and I have the quotes that prove it. You use a magical skill to create a spirit. As long as that spirit is active it has your astral signature on it. It might have it's own astral sig, but they can see that the spirit also has your astral grubby fingerprints on it (which is why extended masking is nice to have.) There is a case to be made on when a spirit casts a spell if it still has your fingerprints on it, but if a mage sees a spirit it can pick up your auras fingerprints as well. Also I would look at astral tracking in the BBB (p. 184) however that is mainly for trying to track someone down by looking at the mages spirit.

I guess I was wrong about the 5th amendment thing, but hell I always thought of Shadowrun as so corrupt that most of those "rights" are pretty flimsy (I mean just because it is a right does not mean it gets broken even today.)

Cleansing is the best way to get rid of signatures. Dropping a mana static oddly enough just leaves your astral signature on the mana static. You might be able to mud other peoples signature with it, but yours would still stand out rules wise. Flexible sig works well though.

Correct

Correct, as long as they're active. Permanent spells cease to have an aura as soon as they don't have to be sustained any longer.

No dispute here.

Yup. But who leaves his spirits running around? Moreover if the spirit is still present the opposition can just follow the spirit-summoner link.

I was only talking about investigations after the perpetrators have left. There is no correlation between aura (face) and signature (fingerprint). So only if the observer of a spell being cast successfully assenses the caster and identifies the signature of the spell on its target can he later on say that the signature of a different spell corresponds to the same caster.

But erasing the signature of one spell may be quicker than erasing several others if you have not yet gotten the metamgic technique. Force 3 Mana Static gives the observers a pretty good visibility penalty, in the first hour at least, and can be erased by most magicians in under one round.

Extended task means a spirit can take a trip around the world for you. You can send a spirit out magic X 100 meters. Watcher spirits. Permanent spells still leave a fingerprint from where you first cast the spell however, even if they no longer have an aura.

The question about spirits is if your signature is tied into the spirit and a spirit casts a spell does your aura that is tied into the spirits aura and the spirit casts a spell does it leave a finger print of spirits aura with your aura that is tied into the spirit.

You manipulate mana and it creates a spirit that has your astral signature. It is a reflection of your aura. That spirit drops a spell does it leave your aura? A spirit critter power does not leave a signature, a spell does. When you manipulate mana and it is active it has your aura - conjuring manipulates mana. If you have a sustained spell it has your aura, when you use a foci it has your aura, and when you summon a spirit it has your aura. When a spirit drops a spell it leaves your signature since it basically has your aura, because it is basically active mana that has been manipulated. That is one argument on why spirits drop your astral fingerprints.

To be fair this is reading into the rules when shadowrun has spotty rules to begin with. That may or may not have been the rules intentions, and there are a lot of loopholes that can be exploited in this system. Intent of the rules and reflection of the rules could always be two different things.

A mana static can obscure a group of spells that were laid down in the area. It takes time to make the spell permanent though. Well the awesome thing about cleansing is that it effects a specific area. When spells are flung generally the finger print is left on the target that you attacked. All it means is that if you want to clean up an area you can just clean up certain parts of it (mainly the ones where you blasted the opposition.) If the spells are not right next to each other then you can have a pretty good chance at wiping your sig while keeping theirs intact. Generally being a Shadowrunner though not leaving a trace of what you did I would say is more preferable then scouting out someone else's signature. Although that is really a black, or pink kind of call.

They only leave an signature on their targets, not a magic trail of breadcrumbs back to you.

The signature is that of the creator of the magical effect, which is the spirit. The signature of the summoner is on the spirit but the spirit's signature is on the targets of its powers.

At least some traditions would object to that. That is why the skills are called summoning (i.e. calling) and banishing (i.e. sending away) instead of creating and destroying They both do. You quoted it yourself: If a critter power isn't a magical ability I don't know what is.No. The Mage has an aura of an awakened metahuman (or critter for those with the RC) withmagic X, the spirit has the aura of the appropriate spirit type at force Y and a link to its summoner. The sustained spell has the aura of a spell of the appropriate tradition and a link to its caster.

Which time you can spend anywhere. You don't have to be on the same plane of existence to sustain it. Very practical, if you can summon spirits of man.
For the shadowrunning PCs you're right but the opposition should have to abide by the same rules. And an investigativer run might come up once in a while.

A critter power is not actually a skill. Spellcasting, Conjuring, Enchanting, Archana are magical skills create sig, a creature using a critter power is not actually using a skill it is using a power. A spirit that uses influence on something as a critter power while having no dice in spell casting does not actually use a magical skill. If you had a spirit of man cast manaball it is using it's spell casting skill. A critter power is not a skill, however the rules are up to being interpreted different ways so it is kind of moot.

I never said skill I and the bbb said ability. Engulfing someone in flames is an ability. No interpretation just RAW

Cleanising works endeed great, and you are indeed right that Mana Static leaves your signature on the spell; however if you cast a Mana Static spell while you use Flexible Signature you can raise the background (imposing a penality on the assensing test) while leaving behind a reduced signature (a tird grade initiate dropping a force five Mana Static will produce an an astral signature of a force two spell), the thaumaturgic forensic will have to suffer the background count (they can't go straight with Cleanising or they will erase much of informations).

If it mainpolates mana it leaves a signature (Arcana doesn't as it can be used by mundanes).

A 4th grade initiate is the stealth mage. Anything after that is generally boosting magic. Flexible sig, Masking, Ext masking, and Cleansing. Personally you can just forgo the flexible sig, but it is always good as a backup. Although that leads me to an interesting thread that I will post somewhere else. Needless to say after the huge side tracking business mages who don't have a job in a world like this one would be highly suspect. A mage w/o a SIN fake or no would take endless amounts of crap for it. A mage even with a SIN should be highly suspicious that they could be taken at any time especially a magic 5+ mage. If you look at magic in the same way you look at ratings a military grade mage would be worth taking and using willing, or unwilling.

Gear doesn't think, gear doesn't plot, gear doesn't complain, gear doesn't turn on you (the AI controlling it might but the gear itself not), gear doesn't have family, gear doesn't have friends.
Forcing someone to work is usualy hard unless you find a way to make him/her to want something so bad that he/she is willing to even do something he/she consider aberrant (for exemple working for you) in order to get it; this can be done creating a dipendency on something that you control (drugs? some form of simsense?) or by controlling something he/she cares for (family?), in the first case there is the risk of damaging the talent and/or making the subject psicologicaly instable (what happens if he/she goes toxic?), in the second he/she could develop a serious grudge toward you. While the corps will go far to make mages want to work for them, forcing said mages to work for them against their will is dangerous and very expensive, the only reason to do it is that the subject is a such badass in R&D or enchanting that it's worth to have a cadre of compentent (awakened) caretakers keep him/her in check 24/7.
It's not a matter of how powerfull the mage is but how much money he can produce (and how much it costs to the corp making him/her produce said money).

It's all about (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) and sense.

And mages w/o jobs should throw up huge warning bells to anyone in the system. No job = either shadowrunner, or there is something seriously wrong with this person, or crazy toxic shaman, or crazy bug shaman. Not being in the system means unstable or shady any way you try and twist it. Stuffing a mage in a box and giving them anything they want is not the worst thing in the world especially in a world that sucks if you are on the bottom. Being off the grid for anyone else does not really matter. A street sam? Who cares, might be a burnout from a security company. A down and out rigger? Shit happens. A mage with a small portable army and can probably pull out some crack shit if trained right? Yeah... even the crappy mages can have their uses. A burnout cybersam can't bind spirits or prepare vessels for spirits. A rigger can get more drones, but drones can be hacked or brought down in other various ways. A mage always has uses and their spirits can't really be hacked. Not being employed says there is something seriously wrong with you one way or the other when you are magically active.

Magic comes in many flavours, some are completely devoid of any ethical restrictions (magic is an instrument, the mage choses how to use it), for others magic comes with porpouse or even comes from it (take the voodoo, its pratictioners are handpicked by loas, magic is a gift and a duty, what the corp want is irrelevant at best); some peoples might just be honest citizens that prefere to work for the comunity, commune with spirits, mind their own buisness, whatever instead of being a wageslave.

Interesting. Cheers.

The other thing to consider is that forbidden items you cannot obtain permits for. At least not for SR4.

Another big reason for having no SIN as a mage is to intentionally fly below the radar. Even if you're not a runner, I'd doubt you'd go hungry if you had the Art (by that I mean you have more options than a mundane).

- J.