Implanted foci, Because I'd like to see how creative/sick you are... Options

[Kerenshara]

Ok, so prior to 4^th Ed, mages regularly sacrificed a point of their starting MAGic of 6 to get a little bit of 'ware (cybereyes, comlink, data jack, etc.), AND the new FAQ mentions being able to enchant implants, it strikes me as a heck of a great way to make it impossible to strip you of your most valuable/sensitive focus/fetish/talisman.

So, what piece of 'ware would you choose, and what would you enchant the thing as?

(And here's the real kicker for you... since it's INSIDE your aura, do you have to mask the thing to keep it from being visible on the Astral or is it already obscured? Or would it be more like detecting a spirit lurking inside your aura?)

[Stahlseele]

Penile Implant.
Weapon-Focus.
Sustaining Focus as Kill(your favourite enemy/shag here)
Sorry, but you asked, and you had to know what to expect ^^
It's the same like asking me about the three sea-shells.

And in 4th Ed, get an Arm with the Grapple-Gun-Hand-Addon.
Enchant it as a touch based kill or stun spell or as a weapon focus.
Congratulations, you now own killing strike and/or distance strike with a maximum distance of the Length of the cable in there.

Furthermore, Enchanting Implants has been doable for a LONG time.
There was talk about enchanting Spurs as Weapon-Focus early in 3rd Edition allready.
Else, take something that is really hard to spot/destroy and bind a healing spell on it for example.
or combined detect bullets moving into your direction and bullet shield.

[Ancient History]

Didn't we do this thread a couple three times?

[Stahlseele]

Of course we did.
But you know us, our favourites ALLWAYS come back ^^
Kinda like the discussion about Indirect Combat Spells and the Mana Combat Spells and the such ^^
*pokes AH* come on Bobby, having seen your spoorn-page, i think you can come up with some good/bad stuff too ^^

[Kerenshara]

Penile Implant.
Weapon-Focus.
Sustaining Focus as Kill(your favourite enemy/shag here)
Sorry, but you asked, and you had to know what to expect ^^
It's the same like asking me about the three sea-shells.

And in 4th Ed, get an Arm with the Grapple-Gun-Hand-Addon.
Enchant it as a touch based kill or stun spell or as a weapon focus.
Congratulations, you now own killing strike and/or distance strike with a maximum distance of the Length of the cable in there.

Furthermore, Enchanting Implants has been doable for a LONG time.
There was talk about enchanting Spurs as Weapon-Focus early in 3rd Edition allready.
Else, take something that is really hard to spot/destroy and bind a healing spell on it for example.
or combined detect bullets moving into your direction and bullet shield.

As a Weapon Focs, sure. But a Power Focus? Or a Shielding Focus? Somehow that never occured to me. Or a Sustaining Focus? And the spur is more removable w/o major surgery (at least the important part) than say, a Cyber Comlink. I would think you could substitute the Weapon Focus for the actual movable blade portion of the Retractable CyberSpur even without surgery. And the CyberSpur is a .3 ESS implant, fifty percent more than the .2 ESS Comlink or the .2 ESS Cybereyes...

[Stahlseele]

Enchant the removeable eyes with Detection spells for example.
Or LOS/LOS(A) Spell of your liking.
The implant has to be done first, then the focus is bound to it's wearer.

[Ancient History]

Oh, I do. I'm saving most of them for now, though. One favorite:

Internal Air Tank + FAB == short range magical smokescreen on demand

[Kerenshara]

Oh, I do. I'm saving most of them for now, though. One favorite:

Internal Air Tank + FAB == short range magical smokescreen on demand

OK, now THAT's just a cool idea... if limited since IIRC FAB has some seriously finicky requirements to keep up...

As to restarting a thread, you will notice that all the posts's I have started since I came back essentially directly touch on the new FAQ in some way...

[kjones]

"Hey baby, wanna go back to my place and check out my foci?"

[Kerenshara]

"Hey baby, wanna go back to my place and check out my foci?"

OK, you MADE me do this...

Anbody NOT seen Dead Gentlemen Production's The Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising?

"Hey baby, wanna help me... tune my mandolin?"

("A bard? That's a pretty big leap for you... all you've ever played is fighters."
"How different can they be?"
-Dead Silence-)

[Tanegar]

Does it cost Essence to just have something implanted under your skin?

[Stahlseele]

Oh, I do. I'm saving most of them for now, though. One favorite:

Internal Air Tank + FAB == short range magical smokescreen on demand

Wait . . FAB3 INSIDE a Magicians Body? O.o
And just to make it fit, just do the Astral Eye with a real cyber-eye.

Does it cost Essence to just have something implanted under your skin?

No, it has to be connected to your tissue somehow for it to cost essence.
If you just put it in there with no interaction, nothing happens i think.

[Ancient History]

Generally speaking, no. If the implant is not functional in some way (like, say, a cyberhorn) then treat it as cosmetic surgery.

[Kerenshara]

Does it cost Essence to just have something implanted under your skin?

That I can think of right off, I haven't seen a single item, no matter how simple, that quallified as a "add-on" that when implanted didn't have at least a .1 ESS cost to it... I'm sure somebody will pull up an example to show me wrong, but ...

[Edit: Ancient History hit "submit" before I did aparently. Wow. If that's so, AH, does it "mask" the thing's aura on the Astral to have it "inside" your aura?]

[Stahlseele]

Purely cosmetic implants, like skin-grafting.
Putting things under your skin to get it to show IN YOUR SKIN can be done even today.
And with Magic available, why not make it usefull? The only connection THAT needs is touchy-feely.
And it does not get any more touchy feely than implanted.

[Ancient History]

[Edit: Ancient History hit "submit" before I did aparently. Wow. If that's so, AH, does it "mask" the thing's aura on the Astral to have it "inside" your aura?]

Nope!

[Kerenshara]

Nope!

Ok, then why do I remember something about a spirit tagging along inside your aura and needing an (pretty decent) Assensing roll to pick it out? I haven't played a SUMMONER in so long, I may just be going senile on the issue.

[Ancient History]

Yeah, no idea.

Reproduced from here

The major practical downside to implanting a fetish is a) having a fetish suitable for body modification, and b) having a procedure that doesn't damage the fetish while it's being implanted. Because these are hand-made items and not factory-quality silicone or surgical steel, a certain amount of irritation in the area for a little while after implantation is normal, and depending on the material of the fetish an infection may also be likely.

Naturally, the cost for getting a fetish implanted is separate from the cost of the fetish.

Explicit Implants
Various forms of piercing, microdermal implants (an anchor beneath the skin, allowing jewelry to be attached), and transdermal implants (objects that break the skin) are pretty easy, and many cultures have histories of using such implants (not always for magical purposes, but hey...).

Traditional example:
A dwarf curandero has eight Health fetishes crafted from gems and set in his teeth, using traditional (and painful) Mayan techniques.

Postmodern example:
A human chaos mage has carefully refined a few grains of gold panned from a stream, producing tiny gold flakes that she painstakingly crafts into a version of the Yellow Sign in a moondark ritual she crafted herself. Slipping the tiny, fragile Illusion fetish into a plastic envelope, she makes a visit to a doctor training in Awakened medicine to have the fetish placed as an extraoccular implant. Out of the corner of her vision, sometimes she thinks she can see the Yellow Sign...

Subdermal Implants
Objects that are implanted entirely below the skin, making different shapes.

Traditional example:
A blind elf mystic has a Detection fetish in the form of a dozen hand-blown glass beads on a string of silk; he has these installed on his chest, forming the Braille letters that spell out "eye."

Postmodern example
A troll street sorcerer removes his broken horns and carves a pair of Combat fetishes out of coral; the coral fetishes are implanted beneath the skin of his head and the skin textured to improve the appearance of his new "horns."

[Kerenshara]

Oh, absolutely. It's just that the FAQ (and Street Magic, re: mundane telesma) indicate that enchantment has progressed to where you can enchant an active and functional (i.e. surgical steel) implant, reducing/removing that "iritation" mentioned from the passage you quote. It's just particularly dificult to do. But, say, a piece of Deltaware is already kind of a custom telesma in a way, if you want to view it that way. How much harder to enchant that item?

I was just asking about the spirit hiding inside the aura. I need to go back and research now to see if I'm really senile of if I remember something of substance. Otherwise it's going to bug the drek out of me for the rest of the day.

[Stahlseele]

Now new and improved: Enchanting complete Cyber-Limbs!
Movement for the legs gets a whole new meaning now . .

[Ancient History]

But, say, a piece of Deltaware is already kind of a custom telesma in a way, if you want to view it that way. How much harder to enchant that item?

No easier than an off-the-rack piece of cybergear, honestly (barring the inclusion of additional reagents). A custom-made piece of cyberware is still a highly-processed item to use as telesma. You could make a different argument if you were making a pegleg, hook, glass eye, or gold nose, but those prostheses have thei own drawbacks in terms of functionality.

[Kerenshara]

No easier than an off-the-rack piece of cybergear, honestly (barring the inclusion of additional reagents). A custom-made piece of cyberware is still a highly-processed item to use as telesma. You could make a different argument if you were making a pegleg, hook, glass eye, or gold nose, but those prostheses have thei own drawbacks in terms of functionality.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. with the amount of work that goes into Deltaware implants, per the older fluff since there's nothing in the current printings that I've found, basically said it was built to the individual, and that it was almost as much art as science. I was just thinking that when you've already put so much effort into the thing, it makes sense, if you're Awakened, to go the rest of the way and enchant it too. Heck, let the design of one influence the other. (Didn't mean to suggest it would change the standing Crunch Bits™.)

[Neraph]

Some of the concepts I've had have been a Power Focus hand/lower arm implant (a-la Warren from the Hellgate: London trilogy) and using the Inhabitation goodness from my signature with an implanted focus to reach all neat kinds of super-power. For example, get a R4 Weapon Focus cyber-spur on an Adept that is Inhabited by a decent force "Blood" spirit (one with the Energy Drain [Karma] ability to feed off of enemies). In no time the spur-it will be casting spells to support the adept, who, in return, feeds the spirit with the blood of their enemies.

Another idea is using a nanohive for a Sustaining Focus (Health Spells would be a good one). Or Cybereyes/ears as a Sustaining Focus for Detection spells.

[Lansdren]

One of my current possibilities with the street mage I'm playing is if he loses his hand (its come up a couple of times) the resulting cyber hand (lower arm and hand) might just have a smuggerling compartment in it for hiding a focus or two.

[Stahlseele]

That, of course, is an idea too.
bascially, you have the advantage that you can switch out the focus needed on the fly without having to be cut open again.
on the other hand, you have the disadvantage that the focus can be taken from you without cutting you open too . .
Well, okay, a synthetic hand in alpha or maybe higher and a good hidden smuggeling compartment should take care of that.