Heyas,

Question for you: Mage A casts shapeshift and turns himself into a rat. Run along little rat. Rat is standing there and he encounters mage B. Mage B is astrally perceiving. Mage B sees:

1) A rat with a spell on it.
2) A human shaped aura coming from a rat + the spell
3) Something else entirely.

I always figured it was 1. He sees a rat with a spell. Now he start ascensing things cause hey... rat with a spell on it.

He checks out the spell first and assuming he rolls well enough he can find out the class of spell and rough force so he now knows: " Hmm, rat with a transformation manipulation spell on it... " So he checks the rat itself... Hey! That rat is a mage!

Now we throw masking into the mix...

Can a mage use masking to actually take on the aura of a rat? I say no but I put it to you, the big brained masses of Dumpshock. What Masking can and cannot do seems pretty clear cut to me. The rat could make itself look like an unitiated mage or hide the fact that it was astrally perceiving but that's about it.

Waiting fer your take and comments.

Sunday

I would think that the transformation would affect both the physical and the metaphysical portions of the mage, at least for appearances sake. However I believe that the presence of a sustained spell would still be detectable. Additionally since I don't believe that the transformation affects the mind of a mage an aura read of the rat might reveal a rat with some strikingly complex thoughts and emotions going on.

3.

He sees a rat-shaped hazy physical image and a human aura and a spell.

He sees: a rat, a rat's astral form, a human mage's aura, and a sustained spell.

The rat is the physical body; unless you're blind, you see it.
The astral form is the astral counterpart to the body. It's identical to the physical body.
The aura is the complex play of emotions, thoughts, etc, it's what masking applies to. It doesn't change, other than through aura masking, and contains information on who and what you are.
The sustained spell is.. a sustained spell.

now i have to read MiTs to refresh my memory of the astral planes.