Dealing with your astral signature, Lest a forensic mage ruin your day Options

[Kakkaraun]

Well...as we all know, magical acts leave behind your astral signature. Besides spending time and Drain on a mini-ritual to help erase it, how can you deal with your sig? Additionally, how common is it for forensic mages to discover an astral sig in your game, and what kind of nasty mojo can result from it? Is it possible to document an astral signature?

[RedmondLarry]

In our game, forensic mages don't have a way to document astral signatures. I know some others on Dumpshock do have it in their games.

In our game, I also allow spirits to work at scrubbing out a spell's astral signature. It is common for forensic mages to discover an astral signature left at the scene of a major crime if it was not wiped out.

The consequences are that a forensic mage may see your aura and have you hauled in, or make sure you aren't released if you're brought in for something minor. It can also allow Lonestar to link multiple crimes to the same person or team, and put together clues that might otherwise be meaningless.

[shadd4d]

I just usually have the forensic mage whip up some watchers and have them track the guy down. Astral evidence is still viable, spirits just have not credibility. So, have the watchers find him, and then bag yourself a mage.

A bit expensive, but it looks good on the scream sheets.

Don

[TinkerGnome]

I'd agree with shadd. If you left your signature on something that's important enough for someone to track you down, they'll summon up a fleet of watchers to find you and have you picked up if they can.

[blakkie]

But if you have masked yourself that makes recognising you by the signature found tough, right? Do Watchers even have a chance to see through masking? Do they have the effective Grade of their summoner, or are they separate entities for determining if they can see through a mask?

[Lantzer]

Masking doesn't do anything to your signature - it just makes _you_ look mundane on the astral. Big difference.

An analogy would be a guy wearing appropriate camoflage commiting a crime and leaving fingerprints and footprints behind.

[Dashifen]

I think the question was, however, referring to the fact that if you looked mundane to a watcher spirit they wouldn't pay any attention to you if they were instructed to look for an awakened metahuman with a specific signature. Therefore, masking may help you to hide from the watchers sent to find you. Kind of like burning the shoes that left the footprints and ... uhm ... cutting off your fingers?

[Austere Emancipa...]

[BitBasher]

[Lantzer]

I suppose that begs the question: does a mundane _have_ an astral signature? They exist totally in the physical plane, right? Or do they?

A living mundane...
... is brightly colored/glows on the astral.
... can feel an astral presence move through them.
... can be effected by some of a nonmaterialized spirit's powers.
... can see a manifested (but not materialized) spirit or mage.
... can alter the Astral environment via love, terror, worship, etc.
but
... can't do magic.

I suppose this is a subset of the question: How separate are the two planes? And is an astral signature an aspect of a person's magic, or of their self?

EDIT: (removed confusing statement).

[Zazen]

Just because someone is physical doesn't mean they're mundane. Certainly a mage without astral perception leaves an astral signature when be powerbolts someone into kibble, but they won't ever be astrally active.

So the watchers would check everybody.

[A Clockwork Lime]

"Astral signature" is just another term for "what you look like on the astral." Anything with an aura has an astral signature.

While masking doesn't do anything to help, you're always free to initiate and alter your astral signature in lieu of taking a metamagic tehcnique. It blows, but it's about your only alternative short of finding a hole in the ground and throwing up a mirrored masking ward around yourself for a few months until things die down.

[Lantzer]

Fair enough, Zazen. Perhaps I was lumping physical with mundane. I'm editing that post to remove the confusing entry.

I'm personally of the opinion that mundanes have a signature, because they _can_ affect the astral with strong emotions and the like. So a watcher following a signature would find a mundane or masked mage as well as an unmasked mage or a perceiving mage.

[Kakkaraun]

Uhm...well...if I cast a spell, the signature on that spell is my REAL astral signature. But if I have masking on, and am masked as, say, an Unawakened 13-year old girl with .03 essence, then no watcher could match the two sigs.

[A Clockwork Lime]

Wrong.

Masking does nothing to change what your aura looks like. You can't actually mask yourself to look like "an unawakened 13-year-old girl with .03 essence" unless you were a 13-year old girl with .03 essence to begin with. At best, you can mask the obviousness of your magical power and hide the fact that you're dual-natured. With concentration, you can even synchronize your aura for as long as you can remain concentration in doing so in order to slip past a ward. That's about the extent of the power.

At no point did you actually alter your signature. That, alone, is equivalent to a metamagic technique all its own -- hence the reason you have to choose between doing that OR choosing a technique OR shedding a geas.

[BitBasher]

That's false logic. First, the wathcher is too stupid to likely care about your essence, appearance or age. There is no reason, ever, to tell a watcher anything more than "find this signature" The search power benefits in no way whatsoever from being more specific. If ordered to find a specific astral signaturtre, then that is all it cares about. it will inspect one signature after another till it finds it or runs out of time. That's it.

[Lilt]

Yup. Although if you did cast the spells then remained masked as aforementioned unawakened 13-year-old girl then LS would be unable to track you down. That is to say: unless you have a lodge, foci, or circle that would also bear your signature.

This would also not help against the linking of crime-scenes problem.

[BitBasher]

Um, no. masking cannot change your signature. It can make you appear mundane but it does nothing to your astral signature. They could track you down quite readily. The only way to change your astral signature is during initiation in lieu of gaining a metamagical technique, and even then it's not guarenteed.

[RedmondLarry]

Lime and BitBasher are correct. Masking cannot change your signature. You can attempt to do it during initiation in lieu of gaining a metamagic technique.

[Kakkaraun]

I didn't say ANYTHING about changing your signature. You completely misunderstood me, and I have no idea how because I was very clear.

I cast a spell. The signature on the spell is my real signature. However, if I walk around looking like a mundane (and the thirteen et cetera thing was just for being weird), there's no way to track that spell directly to me.

[BitBasher]

[RedmondLarry]

I don't see anywhere in the books that a magician who successfully assenses the astral signature left behind by magical activity (SR3.172) can in any way impart an Aura to a watcher that will allow the watcher to magically find the magician who performed that activity (MitS.101).

Am I missing this? Where is this in the books?

[Kakkaraun]

Yeah. And I'm also thinking that magically active/not magically active is a major part of one's aura...

[A Clockwork Lime]

Oh good lord. :please: Have you bothered to read anything on the subject whatsoever? The very first paragraph of Masking is more than clear on what it does, and at no point whatosever does it even remotely hint that it allows you to alter your astral signature. Not even close. If that's not enough to get it into your head, try reading page 58 of Magic in the Shadows, where it goes into detail about what you do have to do to alter your signature.

In any case, OurTeam, one of the services a watcher can be commanded to do is astral tracking. The conjurer need only impart the aura it has assensed (which logically includes astral signatures the conjurer has assensed) to the watcher in order for the watcher to attempt to track it down. MitS, p. 101, "Watchers and Astral Tracking," first paragraph.

[RedmondLarry]

Lime, I'm not sure it logically includes astral signatures. Initiates can mask auras. Initiates can try to change their astral signature. But I don't think they are the same.

Your astral signature is left as a result of a magical activity you do. A forensic magician with enough successes can determine what the activity was, and will recognize it if they see that same signature again. (SR3.172). I don't think they'll recognize me, unless they see me perform magic and compare my astral signatures. I don't think my Aura has anything to do with it. Changing an astral signature involves changing the way I do magic, and the higher my initiate grade, the harder it is for me to change my ways. (MitS.58)

I presume a court order can compel me to create something with my astral signature, for legal comparison purposes, and a forensic magician could be called to the stand to say whether an astral signature is or is not the same.