so as i understand astral tracking it can be used to find anyone anywhere anytime using their astral signature, which everyone has. so how can you possibly hide from lonestar without building a house in a cave or other such expensive shananigans. i just dunno, and i would think that haveing magical assenseors on staff would probubly cost a pretty nuyen.

well for starters, you can clean up your signature. Then there's other coutnermeasures you can use, such as wards, having a safe house in areas with a back ground count, that sort of thing. Also, they can't keep looking for you all the time. THings will blow over eventually, and there will be other bigger badder crimes. Jsut make sure that YOU aren't the bigger badder crime. There's only so many Star mages to go arounnd after all.

well whats the threshold for finding an astral signature. id assume its not rediculously high.(based on threasholds for finding hidden nodes). of course im no expert and dont really deal with thease magicy thingys.

can we get a mage in here to post on this BECAUSE I AM JUST SO CONFUSED!

every time a spell is cast there's a signature left behind, like a magical fingerprint. "everyone" has an aura. Not the same thing.

Lone Star has to have seen your astral signature in order to track it.

Have you seen me? No. Good, now pick me out of the lineup.

wonder how much a role astral film would play in the Star....

i would also wonder how you would be able to use an astral aura or whatever in court as evidence, or if even the court would care about the evidence once it get to that point.

Astral tracking is not possible from a signature. It requires an astral link, such as the link between a bound foci and it's master, a spirit and it's master, or a ward and its creator.

The spirit search power cannot be done with a signature either, though it is unclear if it excludes the ability for a magician to start with as little as a photo, or if they actually have to see the target in the spell targeting LOS sense.

Signatures are left when you use a magical skill or ability, they fade after force hours. They can be recognized, so you could say that two signatures are created from the same person. That however is of dubious value since magicans can mimic eachother's signatures using metamagical techniques.

More mundanely...

Aura = Picture
Astral Signature = Fingerprint

Spirit Search Power, while powerful, still needs the mage to know the Aura or Astral Signature to have the spirit search for.

Auras can't be easily retransmitted and stored. Neither can astral signatures. The mage that has seen the astral signature, or your aura must be the person who tracks you down, or sends a spirit to search.

Does the Lone Star Mage know everyone personally by sight?

You can also look at the situation the other way. If it's sooooo easy to track down people, why hasn't Lone Star done it already? Because they don't want to? No, it's because it isn't really that easy.

Might want to check out this, too. It also concerns magicians and legal status discussions.

How responsibel is a summoner for his spirits crimes?

If they get ahold of a material sample - such as blood or hair - they have a way of tracking you with ritual magic and astral tracking. This from Street Magic:

That is what sterilization spell is for.
And bleach
and hair from a high class barbershop
and blood from various hospital and doc wagon clinics.

All kinds of ways to mess with forensics, if you are twisted and devious enough.

You are right.

*walks away smiling*
*thinking that as long as those law bozos keep thinking that, life will be much easier*

The magical value of a material link doesn't last very long, usually only a few minutes at most if the sample isn't preserved. Just because the DNA is still there doesn't mean the magic is.

Now it depends on the type of sample. A dismembered finger lasts longer than a blood stain (as it should IMO).