[X] My Assistant

[Nyost Akasuke]

A quick few questions here. I'm making a ''prime-runners-turned-final-boss'' team of characters, and one is a Cyberzombie. This is just for the hell of it, and maybe as part of an adventure if I ever GM. One of the Prime Runners opts to get some Cybermancy work done on him.

Augmentation says that if the test for an awakening cyberzombie is failed, then the subject dies after the procedure. If a critical glitch occurs, then ''something was brought back from the depths of the metaplanes, and has tainted the character''.

So I had the idea of a failed/glitched cybermancy ritual, which results in a body for Shedim/Master Shedim to utilize.

Would this work? I looked through Street Magic and Augmentation for any reason a Shedim couldn't do this, and didn't seem to find one. Also I was wondering how the background count of the cyberzombie would affect a Shedim possessing it (if it could), and whether that fact alone could make it a sort of ''unusable'' or impractical opposition. Also looking for ideas that would make this concept (if workable) into something that has the feel akin to a ''final boss''

I don't quite fully understand possession, so I'm also unaware of the benefits/disadvantages gained by the Shedim and/or the body through Possession.

[Stahlseele]

if it critically glitches, the cybermancy does not take hold.
you now have a very expensive decaying dead body at hand.

[Nyost Akasuke]

if it critically glitches, the cybermancy does not take hold.
you now have a very expensive decaying dead body at hand.

I didn't see anything like that o.O

If the test fails, the procedure
fails, and the character dies. On a glitch, something subtle
and horrible has gone wrong with the procedure—something was
brought back from the depths of the metaplanes, and has tainted
the character.

[Crazy Ivan]

on a regular glitch, it still succeeds, with our friends intent of bringing something horrifying back from the metaplanes.

On a critical glitch, in which there are no successes, then yes, we have an expensive corpse on our hands.

As far as it being a Shedim, it's plausible. Depending on the level of the campaign and the party, you may want to have the zombies background count/Astral Hazing affect the Shedims/Possessing spirits powers, just to balance things out. I don't know about you, I really do think of a cyberzombie as a one man WMD, and off the one i built that is (I think) amazing as an example, he is around 1500 BP worth of destruction.

But is possible. Just think about the nature of the campaign and how strong you want them to be.

[Crazy Ivan]

Also, I would suggest a Shadow spirit, as I would think they would make a little more sense as far as working with a group continually as opposed to a shedim (but that's just my two cents, I'm not wholly familiar with Shedim)

[Nyost Akasuke]

Yeah, I was just considering at what level force a Shedim possessing a Cyberzombie would have to be for it to grant any reasonable bonuses to the Cyberzombie's potentially already set of ridiculousness, and I'm guessing it would have to be pretty high.

Does the Cyberzombie's negative essence have any impact on the essence of the Shedim (Or any possessor for that matter)?

[Crazy Ivan]

No, it shouldn't have an effect on the Essence of the possessing spirit.

But at least a Force 6 spirit (regardless of type) would be needed to actually do anything (so not too insane). The Hazing aura drops his effective force to 2, which while isn't anything special, look at the body it inhabits. Since the bane of Cyberzombies are long range attacks on the astral, I would say a Force 10 spirit (I don't know if Shadow or shedim have any equivalent to Stunbolt/Manabolt) to make a effective magical weapon.

Edit- In quick retrospect, I don't think you really need a lot to make a cyberzombie scary. I built a minimally efficient one for an early campaign and he STILL scared the hell out of the experienced and veteran players.

[Nyost Akasuke]

That's true.

Most of this ''Prime Runner'' team I'm creating end up being a much scarier version of something that's already pretty dang scary. Not intended to be four of these crazy guys all at once, certain events and choices lead up to which one ends up becoming ludicrously powered.

IIRC, Shedim have the Magician quality but can't summon/bind/otherwise conjure spirits. It might just be Master Shedim with that quality though.

[Seerow]

No, it shouldn't have an effect on the Essence of the possessing spirit.

But at least a Force 6 spirit (regardless of type) would be needed to actually do anything (so not too insane). The Hazing aura drops his effective force to 2, which while isn't anything special, look at the body it inhabits. Since the bane of Cyberzombies are long range attacks on the astral, I would say a Force 10 spirit (I don't know if Shadow or shedim have any equivalent to Stunbolt/Manabolt) to make a effective magical weapon.

Edit- In quick retrospect, I don't think you really need a lot to make a cyberzombie scary. I built a minimally efficient one for an early campaign and he STILL scared the hell out of the experienced and veteran players.

I would actually argue that the hazing aura doesn't take effect in the scenario the OP described (a glitch happens when making a cyberzombie and you end up with the spirit inhabiting it instead of the person). If you read the text on why Cyberzombie's have that aura, it's because the person's spirit is being forcibly bound into the body against its will. It's that very act that is causing the aura. If the cybermancy fails at the binding, and instead ends up with a rogue spirit taking over instead, that trauma of having a living human spirit bound wouldn't apply, so the spirit's full force should apply.


Basically, you'd have less a cyberzombie that is possessed and more a crazy expensive spirit controlled cyborg.

[Zoot]

Shedim could inhabit any corpse you want however, spirits in general don't understand technology and cannot use active cyberware, passive stuff like muscle augmentation, dermal plating etc would work OK. But all the active stuff would be wasted on a Shedim.

Also, without a living nervous system, I don't think active cyber would work at all.

And the negative essence is an interesting question. When does a corpse stop being a corpse? On the other hand, only creatures have essence, once it stops being a creature, it no longer has an essence score at all, it is just an object albeit one with a specific orgin/description.

How about an astral great dragon (I am thinking back to the emergence of GhostWalker here). Perhaps its own body is inaccessible for some reason and it needs a temp until it can retreive its body. Perhaps it needs flunkies to help it retreive its snoozing corpus...

Or a queen insect spirit...

[Seriously Mike]

Shoving a nasty spirit (Shedim, shadow spirit or whatever decides to crawl out of the astral plane) into a stiff by critching on a Cybermancy test is a pretty cool, if 3-ft-tall-pink-mohawk, idea. However, I pity the fools working on the stiff at the time. He's going to tear them apart and then walk out to cause some more havoc. Ordinary glitch would just delay it, making the reanimated stiff a big astral neon arrow saying "CAB VACANT". When the time comes, the shedim is going to drop by, and hell's gonna break loose.

[PeteThe1]

Thing is, if the cybermantic mages had just finished trying their ritual, won't the zombie body be in the middle of a high-level hermetic circle, and thus heavily protected on the astral?

[Zoot]

Another option.

That body probably has skillwires, enhanced reflexes, software and hardware to control the personality - literally more machine than man. And during the process it was probably hooked up to all sorts of diagnostic machines. What if it was taken over by an AI...

[Manunancy]

Considering the level of magical skill involved in cybermancy, it's very probable the practitioner wuld notice if something has blatant as a shedim taking residence happened. The 'taint ' mentionned isn't in that league, it's some discrete link that's going to have nasty efects in hte long run rather than a 'run away from the operating table' scenario.

Note that the rituals used to bind the cyberzombie's lifeforce/soul/whatever to his body will also trap any astral passerby, preventing them fro mvacatign the host if things are going south. Not exactly a good thing from a shedim's point of view.