Changing totems, Strange question Options

[Uriel@SRDenver]

Are there any rules for changing totems? A Cat Shaman on Shadowrun Denver, who's background includes events that would make her susceptible to the wiles of The Seductress was recently involved in an astral quest where she was severely tempted by, and partially fell to said wiles. As part of a character arc, her player now wishes to, at least temporarily, change totems. I'm pretty sure this is something that's never really come up before.

[Ryu]

Great roleplaying, fits the idea that mentor spirits are just a way of harnessing the power of the mind. I´d say go for it.

[Pendaric]

Interesting idea.
Goes against the intrinsic belief that your totem is an expression of innate part of your being but it can also be said that your totem is what you need in your life and your spiritual developement. I think it comes down to how you have had the totem interact with the character to date.

A shift in the character's personality or predisposition to another view point could lead to adoption of another path of magic.
This is basically what your meant to do to change your astral signature according to MitS.

If it makes for a good story, that you and your player enjoy, its worth exploring.

[BookWyrm]

I agree, very interesting.

I could see the character having a 'crisis of faith', for lack of a better term, where the two totems/mentor spirits appear before her while she's meditating/questing, argueing on who get her, 'for the time being'. Cat 'allows' The Seductress to fill in for her while she does something important that requires her attention (what, edactly, is open for interpretation), and The Seductress takes over.

Down the line, Cat returns (secretly keeping tabs on her former charge) & wants to reclaim her servant. Seductress calls for a new Astral Quest to determine who keeps the character.

[Snow_Fox]

In the rules? NO

In great Role Playing? GO FOR IT!

You're already on the right road, astral qwuest, having part of what is intrinsically 'tou' torn apart by some manipulative bitch. A soul a drift looking for a new anchor. The only thing I can say is that I didn't liek the idea of it being temporary change. This should be major and earth shaking to a person. A new totem is not going to latch opn just for a few weeks so you can abandon it to go 'home,' Think of it as D&D paladin having an alingment change

The ONLY way i can think of it is to have differnet totems approach the shaman, she can't call or choose them, but when they want to they approach her, to help her find her way. Which really sucks if you hope Wolf shows up and instead Snake arrives with suggestions.

[FlashbackJon]

Didn't the very first trilogy of novels involve Sam, a Dog Shaman, being tempted by Spider?

[sunnyside]

I want to say that there is some RAW or at least novel instances of totem switching either through insect spirits or going toxic.


Actually that could be interesting. This character isn't a seductress themselves, but someone that fell victim to it. I could see that leading to some slightly twisted relationship with Seductress. When more psychological totems/passions go toxic/mad they don't always focus on the nature angle.

[NightmareX]

I allowed a character to do this once - required a rather difficult astral quest to do it (she was abandoning her totem Cat and embracing a vaguely elemental paradigm without a totem). It worked rather nicely.

[ Spoiler ]

The Ant shaman in Queen Euphoria was formerly a Coyote shaman as well, so there is canonical precedence.

[Stahlseele]

there were rules for this, i think, in SR3 . .
something pantheist or however that was called, but i can't find it on the fly i am afraid . .

[Ryu]

there were rules for this, i think, in SR3 . .
something pantheist or however that was called, but i can't find it on the fly i am afraid . .

You are right, there are pantheist shaman in Magic in the Shadows, pg. 16. Totem modifiers depended on the lunar cycle.

[GreyBrother]

Yeah, but these guys were a "tradition" of their own, not some mechanic for changing totems. Like Ryu said, it's bound to the lunar cycle.

[Stahlseele]

Assimilate
Adapt

[Snow_Fox]

I want to say that there is some RAW or at least novel instances of totem switching either through insect spirits or going toxic.


Actually that could be interesting. This character isn't a seductress themselves, but someone that fell victim to it. I could see that leading to some slightly twisted relationship with Seductress. When more psychological totems/passions go toxic/mad they don't always focus on the nature angle.

Toxic is just a corruption of your existing totem. insects seem to be the exception to the rule, that they can lure away a shaman but then he's theirs. In the adventure Queen Euphoria there is that in the prologue. The villain of the piece is a coyote shaman who is seduced by Ant.

[sunnyside]

Toxic is just a corruption of your existing totem. insects seem to be the exception to the rule, that they can lure away a shaman but then he's theirs. In the adventure Queen Euphoria there is that in the prologue. The villain of the piece is a coyote shaman who is seduced by Ant.

OK so there is some old raw. I'm just saying that a toxic Seductress might, well, attempt to seduce the player.

[Snow_Fox]

sure but she might try to make her target turn into a toxic version of what she started as OR another seductress.

[Stahlseele]

actually, if an ant shaman gets his queen killed, he more or less loses all magic.
if he can bind a bee queen to himself, he is a shaman again, and this time around he is with the bee folk, as far as i understood that . .

[sunnyside]

Though typically going toxic means losing the player to NPC status. I think I'd favor mad as opposed to toxic. Magic has a lot of variability and fluidity.

[Snow_Fox]

actually it's more complex than that. the queen gives him access to more psirits but the totoem provides magic. he doesn't5 have to have a queen but she lets him have more followers. the queen dies and he's cut off from his flunkies and has to start over but he still have his magic. For their part the queens do not like being controlled by the shaman and will try to arrange their death.

We had one nasty run where a group of mantids were toturing their shman. they couldn't bring themselves to kill her but wanted her cowed. We burst into her 'lair' expecting a deadly battle only to find the 'bad guy' was a broekn woman in need of rescuing- serious moral problem- them big ol' mantids showed. eek