Optional Rule: Mundane Assensing
Gamemasters may choose to allow non-Awakened characters to spend time and Karma to develop the Assensing Skill. The character does not gain the ability to astrally perceive or project, but if they do gain access to the Astral, they can use their Assensing Skill in the same way as any Awakened character.
Jenny Greentusks, Occult Detective takes a deep breath before stepping into the astral shallow, one of the permanent remnants of Hong Kong's magical past. It's hard to tell if the physical just got dimmer, or if the Astral is just so vibrant it looks dark by comparison. Jenny steels herself and takes the medallion from the murder scene. In the astral, the focus glows. She knows what to look for...
Optional Rule: Mundane Astral Combat
Gamemasters may choose to allow non-Awakened characters to spend time and Karma to develop the Astral Combat Skill. The character does not gain the ability to astrally perceive or project, but if they do gain access to the Astral, they can use their Astral Combat Skill in the same way as any Awakened character.
Somewhere behind her, Jenny Greentusks body sits in an astral rift. Right in front of her is the fire spirit that a stupid student summoned to impress his girlfriend. Six deaths in the an apartment fire later, and here she is. One astral fist raised, Jenny gives a tusky grimace. "You can run, but you can't hide."
Optional Rule: Mundane Conjuring
Gamemasters may choose to allow non-Awakened characters to spend time and Karma to develop the Binding Skill. A mundane character with these skills can only use them to bind free spirits, following the rules provided in Street Magic.
Outside the ritual circle, Greentusks calls out a name...and something answers. She can feel its presence. The binding chant comes smoothly, a rush of syllables that shape air, shape thought, shape magic...and then Jenny knows, with certainty, that the spirit is hers. Only for three tasks, maybe, but that'll be enough.
Optional Rule: Mundane Enchanting
Gamemasters may choose to allow non-Awakened characters to spend time and Karma to develop the Enchanting Skill. A mundane character with this skill can refine raw reagents into refined reagents, and craft fetishes and ritual materials.
In her apartment, Jenny takes her knife to the polished bone she bought from the lore store, shaving off splinters one at a time, glancing from time to time at the image on the open data terminal in front of her. She needed to get the talisman right if it was going to work.
Optional Rule: Poor Man's Magician
Gamemasters may choose to allow non-Awakened characters with Magical Skills to take the following Positive and Negative Qualities that are normally restricted to Awakened characters, with the appropriate changes as noted:
Positive Qualities
- Astral Chameleon
- Mentor Spirit - Dice pool modifiers
- Spirit Pact - A mundane character cannot engage in a Drain Pact or Magic Pact.
Negative Qualities
- Astral Beacon
- Cursed - The character may only take Cursed (2) and Cursed (4), but the build point bonus is halved - 5 BP and 10 BP, respectively.
- Geas - If a mundane character breaks her geas, she cannot used any Magical Skills for the next 24 hours.
Somewhere back in the meatworld, Old Bones comes across the sedate form of an female ork, an amulet of bone laying between her breasts. A glance at the Astral shows that her spirit has gone travelling, no doubt the work of the spirit hovering over her and maintaining the astral gate. With wrinkled fingers he snaps the amulet from Jenny's neck...caught far away, Greentusks mutters a silent fuck.
Optional Rule: Smoke From Heaven
Gamemasters may choose that Deepweed forces all characters, mundane and Awakened, to astrally perceive.
Take a hit of that voodoo shit
Astral trippin' Astral trippin'
Emotion pollution from Gaea's tit
Astral trippin' Astral trippin'
--The Ballad of Jenny Greentusks