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> Restoring a Soul from Bug Possession, ... sort of.
HentaiZonga
post Jun 8 2008, 12:19 AM
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So, one of my characters last night attempted something awesome and terrifying: he created an Inhabitation Ally Spirit formula based on the Name of a recently deceased runner mage named Melody and Quested for that Name deep within the Metaplanes of Man.

Well, not precisely a deceased runner. In fact, this was a female Mantis spirit that had been masquerading under everyone's nose for the past 6 months by wearing a brand new Edgar (er, Melody) suit.

So, our shaman and another mage corner Melody, perform a high-powered Banishing ritual on the bug spirit, and then immediately used her now-empty body as a ritual link to begin a deep Quest into the Metaplane of Man for her original spirit, spending sufficient Karma to bring back an Ally Spirit with abilities roughly equivalent to the old Melody.

They have no idea if it worked. Actually, I have no idea if it worked. And it's kind of irrelevant whether it worked or not. They definitely did one of three things, though:

1. Summoned Melody's original soul back into her body, reconnected it slightly "weirdly", and permanently bound it to our Shaman as an Ally Spirit
2. Summoned someone else's original soul back into her body, reconnected it slightly "weirdly", and permanently bound it to our Shaman as an Ally Spirit
3. Summoned a "plain" Ally Spirit from the Metaplane of Man, using Melody's body as the Inhabitation target.

The cool and terrifying part of all this, is that there is no way to tell which of these three things happened. In all three cases, the new Melody has every single one of Melody's old memories and personality quirks, has a few new "perks" as a result of being pulled through from the Great Beyond (including Immunity to Age and Immunity to Normal Weapons), and is supernaturally loyal to our Shaman.

I just had to share.
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WeaverMount
post Jun 8 2008, 01:32 AM
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I know you are big on thinking of spirits of man as ghosts. If that works at your table have fun. If you want answers that have anything to do with cannon though option 3 is the only option.

Personally I think any thing that erodes the finality of death is a bad thing for SR and wreaks of cancer.
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CanRay
post Jun 8 2008, 01:39 AM
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Oh, something will inhabit the body... And it might be much, much worse than a simple Insect Spirit...

Horrors beyond metahuman ken lie beyond the pale, and it is not meant for souls to return to the land of the living when they have tasted their eternal reward...
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Snow_Fox
post Jun 8 2008, 01:46 AM
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Right, official stuff, mainly penned by Nigel Findley, all said when the bug moves in the human is gone beyond redemption. In his novel House of the Sun getting his sister back was the price he required for working with the bugs and they agreed but in the end, they told him it couldn't be done.

I like the idea that he, the mage, worked it out in so much detail, but the bottom line, as canray said, is you'renot sure what comes to play, even though it says it's melody. Think of it this way, you leave a 'meet me' note at the bar, but you don't know for sure who's going to see it and show up.

Once, before i was married, I was waiting at a bar for a friend when a guy came up and asked if I was "Molly"
'No'
"Would you like to be?" He was meeting a blind date and at risk of being stood up . If I'd wanted to lie I could have said 'Sure" and probably had a nice date. But i wouldn't be Molly.
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Fortune
post Jun 8 2008, 02:01 AM
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QUOTE (Snow_Fox @ Jun 8 2008, 11:46 AM) *
In his novel House of the Sun gettinghis sister back was the price he required for working with the bugs and they agreed but in the end, they told him it oculdn't be done.

Do you think it is beyond the realms of possibility that the Bugs lied?
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CanRay
post Jun 8 2008, 02:05 AM
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Certainly possible that the bugs lied. But, from the way everything else works in Shadowrun, it's probably the truth.

After all, it's often the harshest thing to give.
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Snow_Fox
post Jun 8 2008, 02:05 AM
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No, but it further supported what he wrote as narrator in Missing Blood.
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Fortune
post Jun 8 2008, 02:16 AM
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Which is still fluff (which may be true or not true, in a similar manner to all other fluff and shadowtalk in Shadowrun), and not actual hard-and-fast rules on the subject.
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CanRay
post Jun 8 2008, 02:24 AM
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Yeah, but this is Shadowrun. Dead is dead. Try to break that, and you're lucky if you only end up dealing with something similar to "Full Metal Alchimist".
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kanislatrans
post Jun 8 2008, 02:36 AM
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Why do i see a maniacal child with a scalpel?

"Even if the right soul came back, the trauma of returning tends to fracture the personality that is dragged back. Which is why when we reincarnate the past persona is wiped clean and only trace memories are carried into the new life. The "Unbeing" that occurs at death is quite terrifying to some poor souls." - Morvain Calweather, 13th grade initiate in the Golden Dawn Tradition, at a speaking engagement at MITandT.
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KCKitsune
post Jun 8 2008, 02:41 AM
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I say allow a dead spirit to come back. It's not like D&D where it's just a simple spell and *BLAMO* the person is back from the dead. If the runners went through a whole lot of drek then they should be rewarded.
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Snow_Fox
post Jun 8 2008, 02:41 AM
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QUOTE (Fortune @ Jun 7 2008, 10:16 PM) *
Which is still fluff (which may be true or not true, in a similar manner to all other fluff and shadowtalk in Shadowrun), and not actual hard-and-fast rules on the subject.

WRONG, Missing Blood P.37 :

"If the shadowrunners wipe out the bugs and open the sacks, they will find one man and two women, one of them obviously Victoria, all in different stages of metamorphosis...She does not react to the characters and seems almost dead. There is nothing the characters can do for her. Let them try magic and what-not, making all the rolls and so on, but she is as good as dead."

This is not the shadow talk fluff. This is the module as written by Findley and approved by FASA, who held the rights then.
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hyzmarca
post Jun 8 2008, 02:54 AM
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One important question here isn't being asked. Was it possible to Journey to Life a Invae host back into existence?
If yes, then the technique is plausible, though highly unlikely due to the fact that the Grim Reaper is apparently free to do its job again. If no, then it ain't plausible at all.


The actual dispensation of Melody is a question for philosophers to answer, not a GM. It should be vague, mysterious, and questionable. Doubts should linger.
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Mercer
post Jun 8 2008, 03:01 AM
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I agree with hyz and I agree with the OP. Nobody really knows is always in canon.
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Fortune
post Jun 8 2008, 03:06 AM
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QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
is the module as written by Findley and approved by FASA, who held the rights then.

You don't need to treat me like I am stupid.

That's not really what I would call writing as a 'narrator', a word I associate more with storytelling than with technical writing (which is more appropriate for describing the rules). With your use of that word, I thought you were discussing the flavor parts of the text.

Be that as it may, the text you quoted does not make any blanket statements whatsoever about Insect Spirit victims being unrecoverable. It merely discusses the three particular victims in that specific situation. Even more, it technically only states that one of the victims is unrecoveable. It doesn't actually mention anything about the other two victims being totally beyond help.
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CanRay
post Jun 8 2008, 03:10 AM
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Well, as always, GMs discression.

For my group, the only spirit world my PCs will ever come back from involves a bottle.
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Fortune
post Jun 8 2008, 03:15 AM
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Note that at no time did I ever state that 'coming back' was in any way possible. I merely asked a question about the Bugs possibly lying, and then answered the responses. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
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Zhan Shi
post Jun 8 2008, 03:20 AM
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I don't know about hard core rules. But there was a Shadowrun novel...can't remember the title, but the main character was a former mage of Assets, Inc., who broke away from them to form his own 'runner crew in Boston. After an encounter with the spirit crime lord who lived in the sewers, Mama something-or-other, he went on an astral quest to hell to speak to an old friend/mentor. As I recall, the story implied that this was the true spirit of his friend, not just a simulacrum. I don't remember if he brought the spirit back, though.
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Zaranthan
post Jun 8 2008, 04:01 AM
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Visiting the dead is a legitimate purpose for metaplanar travel. Bringing them back with you is an entirely different can of worms.

Honestly, given that SR is supposed to be gritty, resurrection should be a truly epic adventure, on the level with toppling a dragon or a member of the Corporate Court. It's never happened in recorded history. If it was just a trip to the plane of death, somebody would've pulled it off by now.
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hyzmarca
post Jun 8 2008, 04:04 AM
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There is a particularly relevant episode of GITS:SAC in which an obsessed ex-lover copies a government agent's body, personality, and memories and fights him to the death. No one knows if the original won or if the impostor won (except audience members who paid attention to wound locations and angles) and none of his co-workers particularly cared. Metaphysics aside, she's be close enough for government work.
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HentaiZonga
post Jun 8 2008, 04:16 AM
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Well, as I said, I'm not ruling one way or another what "officially" happened. He's got a new Force 6 Ally Spirit bound to him, which happens to have all the old memories, Attributes and Skills of an old runner. He paid the Karma for the Ally Spirit, I'm using all the official Inhabitation rules, and I'm not stating one way or another whether it's the old person back or not. Either way, it's someone with Immunity to Normal Weapons and Immunity to Age, and it's someone with six months' worth of memories of being a bug spirit, so it's not like they're the same person they were to begin with in any case.
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kanislatrans
post Jun 8 2008, 04:34 AM
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QUOTE (HentaiZonga @ Jun 8 2008, 12:16 AM) *
Well, as I said, I'm not ruling one way or another what "officially" happened. He's got a new Force 6 Ally Spirit bound to him, which happens to have all the old memories, Attributes and Skills of an old runner. He paid the Karma for the Ally Spirit, I'm using all the official Inhabitation rules, and I'm not stating one way or another whether it's the old person back or not. Either way, it's someone with Immunity to Normal Weapons and Immunity to Age, and it's someone with six months' worth of memories of being a bug spirit, so it's not like they're the same person they were to begin with in any case.


It sounds cool. If you were truly evil you could just every so often have the spirit do something just a little "out of character". Something to keep the character thinking" Thats strange, Ive never known Melody to act that way"

paranoia can be a good thing! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)
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FrankTrollman
post Jun 8 2008, 06:36 AM
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I think it important to note that just because something was not possible using magic in 2050, does not mean that it is not possible in 2070. Magic has advanced a lot in that time period, especially as relates to Insect spirits. Remember that their magic has been advancing as well. In 2050 they produced a good merge only rarely, and even then only by mistake. In 2072 many insect groups can make flesh forms on demand.

That being said, from a metaphysical standpoint any time you create a new pattern it's a new person. Anyone who dies, even someone who "dies" and is thence brought into a new semblance of life with conjuring is going to have been at the very least repatterned. In such an instance, one can expect to find that the universe doesn't really want to acknowledge you. Crack open Augmentation for some ideas on how to screw with people along those lines (p. 157 and p. 147).

From an interpersonal standpoint though: does it really matter? If the "new" creature looks like their friend, and talks like their friend, and remembers the things that their friend would have remembered, what difference does it make? If she passes the Turing Test for being herself, why would you care about the fact that she has a completely different spiritual essence?

-Frank
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HentaiZonga
post Jun 8 2008, 06:38 AM
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QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Jun 7 2008, 11:36 PM) *
I think it important to note that just because something was not possible using magic in 2050, does not mean that it is not possible in 2070. Magic has advanced a lot in that time period, especially as relates to Insect spirits. Remember that their magic has been advancing as well. In 2050 they produced a good merge only rarely, and even then only by mistake. In 2072 many insect groups can make flesh forms on demand.

That being said, from a metaphysical standpoint any time you create a new pattern it's a new person. Anyone who dies, even someone who "dies" and is thence brought into a new semblance of life with conjuring is going to have been at the very least repatterned. In such an instance, one can expect to find that the universe doesn't really want to acknowledge you. Crack open Augmentation for some ideas on how to screw with people along those lines (p. 157 and p. 147).

From an interpersonal standpoint though: does it really matter? If the "new" creature looks like their friend, and talks like their friend, and remembers the things that their friend would have remembered, what difference does it make? If she passes the Turing Test for being herself, why would you care about the fact that she has a completely different spiritual essence?

-Frank


Hrm. I've thought a lot along these lines myself, but here's one possible [metaphorical] counter:

Would you feel the same handing your characters off to be played by someone else as you would playing them yourself? If so, why bother playing at all? Why not create characters and then hand them to other people, and not bother with the 3-4+ hours a week spent actually RPing?

Sure, it's the same stats, the same skills, the same memories and experiences - but is it the same 'I' experiencing them?
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AngelisStorm
post Jun 8 2008, 07:42 AM
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If the robot responds exactly like your friend, sounds like your friend, and is programmed to give all the same/right answers, same as your friend, then why does it matter that it's simply a really good AI, and not really your friend at all?

It doesn't matter. Unless the principle of the matter, matters to you.

I think this thread is super cool, btw. While I don't play all or even most spirits of man as ghosts, I do often go that direction. Whether they really are the person or not, I never let on. (Faith.)

I just think it's a cool idea. Are you letting the player of the deceased Shadowrunner play the newly revived character? (Plus added loyalty motivation.)
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