If you're actually present in a hospital they can presumably take a DNA sample and keep it in a controlled environment (ie replicate the appropriate neurochemical signals). It'll cost of course.

For long-term storage of DNA information they'd need to digitise it (tricky since it keeps disintegrating inside the analyser, but not impossible) and then use a biochemical printer to duplicate it at neccesity.

Well, technically the CZ mystic adept with the Counterspelling Skill would still be able to use the 'counterspelling' aspect of the skill (because it doesn't actually depend on the Magic Rating), but not the 'dispel magic' aspect (which does need the Magic Rating).

But I thing (could be wrong, AFMB) that even just for providing spell defense a character needs access to one point of non-adept powers allocated Magic. I kind of hope it doesn't work, actually. A cyberzombie with immunity to natural weapons, Reaction of 15, a damage resistance dice pool in the forties, who's a walking background count and can provide his own spell defense...let's just say it wouldn't bode well for the PCs.

But damn it all! I want to play one of these ungodly beasts now. Of course that may be my White-Wolf background showing through a bit. Cyberzombie: The Existentialling. I remember years and years ago on Shadowland somebody was running with a troll cyberzombie as a PC. And played it beautifully. Now to try to think of a plausible way, not just to get a character turned into one of these, but to not be entirely under the thumb of a major power solely for logistical reasons. I like the idea of a mobile medical facility but...wait, [/I]Gungrave[I] much?

Sigh. Alas, some things were just never meant to be. I'll just punish players with them instead I suppose.

That would have been needed to learn Counterspelling in the first place, but I don't recall any stipulations to that effect after the Skill is already known.

I just had to post a 'LOL' for that one.

Yep. Even though Counterspelling doesn't add your Magic to the dice pool, it's still a Magic Skill that requires you to have a non-zero Magic rating. So if a Mystic Adept allocates a Power Point, their Magic Rating for the purposes of their Magic Skills is zero and they are no longer elligible to use Counterspelling - not even for Spell Defense.

Negative publicity? Once the process is perfected, they are handing out eternal life - people won't complain overly much one way or the other about where it comes from at that point. What price is worth Immortality? If you said "all of it" - you're not alone.

And then consider the first corporation that got it off the ground: Aztechnology. Imagine for the moment that you had a board member who intended to take some very powerful magical effects into a very unfavorable mana environment. How much would he pay for something that continuously scrambled that mana environment locally to be merely unpleasant for both the invaders and the natives?

And finally, recall that the Draco Foundation contracts on blood mages aren't for dead blood mages - they are for living blood mages. And the Draco Foundation was founded by... and Aztechnology had who on the board when the Cybermancy research was going forward? So given that information, what do you think that the Draco Foundation wants with a bunch of blood mages?

-Frank

Electronic storage is possible with the astral shadow stuff, or is that not needed?

Even though the rules for Augmented Healing state that you must have 'good' samples?


Tor rephrase an old question: Print Removal is the ticket for a quick trip to jail if the man ever sees/scans your hands, right?

And what about Damage Compensators and loosing conciousness?

I stand corrected.

... but boo!

Well you could argue their existence with expensive cyberzombies being a necessary step toward cheap cyberzombies.

Yes, negative publicity.

You may as well say the same thing about the shedim, petro hougans, and necromancers. They're merely trying to perfect the process of immortality for the betterment of all metahumanity. Honest. It doesn't matter that they're using vile, illegal magicks, and nevermind that that cybermancy relies on blood magic -- one of the most vile and despicable forms of magic in both the public and private opinion. None of that matters, though, because their goal is a noble one. No, for serious. Come on, you gotta believe 'em.

Nevermind that life extension and rejuvination is already possible through conventional science (and even more affordable at that).

What's that have to do with anything? There's maybe a dozen or two people on the entire planet who has an inkling about any of that, and of them only one or two (mostly Harlequinn) has shown any signs of revealing the big picture. And if they were, they would have by now.

So the blood mages creating the cyberzombies are all dead? I had no idea. As for the cyberzombie itself, that's just being pedantic. It's not something that would come up outside of a court case or the Draco Foundation going against the intent of Dunkelzahn's Will (which is exactly why he had the Draco Foundation created instead of letting it be handled by court systems).

See the second response.

hinting at something, frank?

Oh good. See, for a moment I was concerned that perhaps Mountainshadow had been confirmed to be the most powerful blood mage in the 4th world, that Aztechnology funding for the Blood Mage Gestalt had dried up shortly after Dunkelzahn died, and that the Draco Foundation was paying freelance shadowrunners to help them assemble the largest army of blood mages the world has ever seen. But if that's just a legal necessity I guess everything's fine. What a relief!

Life extension yes. But hong long will it be in the eyes of the stars until that life extension is insufficient?

He who dies with the most toys still dies. Even if immortality turns out to have a huge cost in human life, corporate market share, and raw , are you seriously going to tell me that a board member would vote against the research?

No matter how high the costs, someone is going to do it if it looks like they might be able to live forever after 30 or 40 years of investment. Even if it might work, people are still going to sign up. Death is a powerful motivator. The most powerful motivator.

-Frank

..you mean like in a world were Blood Magic was something nearly anyone used?
And dragons used it less than everyone else?

..which included a certain Drake and Cyberzombie stomping the whole thing.

It's exactly the same for toxic shamans.

Partially. It's hard to research them if they are dead, and even harder to prove what they were.

And more importantly Bloodmagic in Earthdawn was basically physical drain, what Sr calls blood magic ED calls Death magic.

Yes. And Mountainshadow was also the most powerful "death magic" user of the 4th world, and has in fact used the largest death magic effect in Shadowrun history.

Heh. That would be Peter Taylor and myself.

Peter Taylor likes a scotch that can legally order its own scotch.
I like my whisky like I like my women - 12 years old and mixed up with coke.


-Frank

P.S.: Was that too awful?

Reference?

Some slight corrections here:

Mountainshadow was acknowledged as perhaps the greatest living magician among the great dragons of Barsaive, but blood magic (and by extension, death magic) was not a particularly noted specialty of his. He could and no doubt did use it, but to what extant is unclear.

As for the largest death magic effect in Shadowrun history...eh. If the specific event you're referring to is empowering the Dragonheart, then you are slightly mistaken: that is sacrifice magic. You could make a particularly strong argument that the Great Ghost Dance was the largest death magic effect in Shadowrun history.

Sure, why not? Now if the hole were your only worry after being shot, you'd be all set.

I think a believable house rule would be that the body of the cyberzombie is essentially already inhabited by the soul of the semi-deceased. Therefore: two's company, three's a munchkin.

Yes. You can chose which are supported when they are initially installed.

We actually had something like that in an earlier draft and dropped it. We tried to avoid overly redundant systems when possible (even though they make sense) simply because we had limited space (and in this particular case we already had nanosymbiotes and TCS).

For instance: we also had a "lymphatic system boost" at one point which that was essentially a bioware equivalent of O-Cells.

I'd let individual GMs rule on that but my advice is yes and no respectively.

To oversimplify Masque is the genetic equivalent of removing your fingerprints. Reprint is the genetic equivalent of getting an entirely new fingerprint (or at least something that reads as new). There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

And yes, either cancels the other.

In general, the astral shadow aspect of genetics is poorly understood and theoretical. In the case of the limited number of metagenes where the association is understood, then, yes, electronic storage would be adequate.

I'd qualify an electronic sample as a "good" sample. Depending upon your GM's level of knowledge regarding genetics and in silico analysis and optimism for their future, he or she might not agree. (I'd assume that, in the vast majority of cases, the sample that's preserved for later use in Leonization is entirely electronic.)

Unless you've got one hell of an etiquette skill or one hell of a bribe.

Evil. Getting Smart Demolishers/Corrosives injected that activate once they leave your body makes you bleed like an Alien.

Incidentially, that would solve my 'implanted Medkit' question, as simply injecting the Nanites of a Savoir medkit would keep them in your system, activated and directed by the Nano-Biomonitor, using the rules for the Savoir. Which of course means that while it works as a rating 6 Medkit, the Nanite Rating is just 2, degrading every use... so it won't last that long.

Thanks. Just looking for ideas how to rule Universal Sealant (surgical variant) when it comes up.

Ah, thanks. The disadvantage with Masque as I see it is that a full sequencing might still identify you.

So due to Essence hole rules, once you get one of those treatmeants, you are free to go back and forth without worries... cool.

Since starting characters are limited to 35 points of Positive Qualities, then you technically can't buy both at chargen.

Please ignore that limit. Since I do use 500+ cp for characters, I do ignore the 35-pts limit for Qualities as well. My fault. In re-posting the question, I forgot to state that assumption.

Here, I've edited the question to state the 35-pts limit is ignored.