Ok, so here's the problem:
I want my runners to be unwittingly working with a twisted adept and some blood mages, who will later turn on them (of course).
now here's my question, can you tell if someone's toxic/corrupted/etc. from assensing them? how does potency show up? or does it?
I would think you can't tell, because you can't even tell a hermetic from a shaman on the astral. but then, there is the 1M bounty on toxics and blood shamans, and how would you collect that unless they could be verified. also, if the group kills a blood shaman and wants to collect the bounty, does the astral signature stay on them after they're dead so that it can be identified as a blood mage?

I know what I would do, and I know as GM that my word is law, but I would like some other points of view because I know my players will say "but I assensed him, and you didn't tell me he was a blood mage!"

In canon I think you're right: there's no way to tell if someone is toxic or uses blood magic until they actually DO something toxic or involving blood magic. For that verification for the 1M bounty, I would say that the runners need some kind of 'other' proof that the person is toxic or bloody.

On the other hand, I would rule in my games that you can tell what kind of mage you're up against with a sufficiently high enough success on an assessment check. Course, if they're masked, it might get kind of hard

I just presumed that smart bounty hunters would collect evidence first: photographs, surveillance footage, witness testimonial, etcetra. No need for fancy-pants astral signature.

Or you could just wait 'til they start slobering all over and cutting up the local townsfolk...

You might not be able to tell exactly what they are, but you'd know they were twisted fraggers right off. If they were masking, that's different, but they'd better all be able to mask well enough to keep the players from seeing through any of them, or the whole lot of them are blown.

Personally (i.e., imho, not canon. This is how I play it, I may not be right) I see no reason why you can't tell a shaman from a mage. You might not be able to tell a mage is aligned towards a particular element (though with psychometry I dont' see why not), but you should be able to tell the more rigid mindset from the radically different mind of a shaman, assuming you had spotted they were Awakened in the first place. But if you accept this, it also becomes something a Gm can mislead with. If you don't get enough successes, the Gm could legitimately say, 'he has an ordered mind, and he's magically active. You'd guess he's a mage' when in fact he's just a follower of a particular meticulous totem type. It can then be verified with a visual check: 'no, wait, he's got bits of feather in his hair, is prancing around and his face changes shape when he's casting spells... maybe you wanna rethink that mage thing?'

If someone was proficient enough at masking, and I think they'd have to be deliberately masking rather than just passively, they might be able to disguise their emotional make up from the casual assenser instead of (or as well as) their initiate status. So they could then pretend to be nice friendly benevolent types. but again, it only takes one player to successfully penetrate the masking, and the games up. Cue horrendous magical firefight, and break out the fresh character sheets...

I suppose it would depend on the shaman and exactly how toxic he was.

For instance the toxic shaman that rules Glow City is apparently so toxic his bones can be seen glowing through his flesh. I'm guessing that's kinda hard to hide...

Bloodmagic I know very little about but by the sound of it, I declare with authority (while talking out my ass) that I would think you'd need to see a bloodmage in action to know he was one.

Someone who actually knows what bloodmagic is and how it works might want to chime in, gimme a chance to learn something.

Sunday.

4 words: Astral pollution, karma hazing.

Even if they aren't blood or toxics, they are BAD.

Blood magic is obvious in two situations:

Using the sacrifice metamagic to reduce drain and conjuring a blood spirit.

Else it resembles other magical traditions. (I think hermetic mostly, but some may be shamanic, likely of an odd idol)

i thought blood magic was just a metamagic technique, not a seperate tradition.

thanks raiko
that is absolutely perfect. can you immagine a bunch of greedy ass runners in way over their head who suddenly realize that they can make obscene money, IF they can manage to take the guys alive.
so many runners see the chance for big money, and plan their way INTO the compound without actually figuring out how the hell they're gonna get back out.

Mfb is correct. Sacrifice is metamagic. Anyone who uses it is a Blood- something, be it shaman, mage, Wujen or physad (to offset the attribute boost and maybe some other powers). In the case of the Azzies, you'd think they'd be shaman given the animal affinity of the various Guards, but I think they are more hermetic. Think of them as Priests of a cult rather than mages or shaman and you're probably closer to it. Possibly to all intents and purposes they are mages of a specific 'School' of magic that gives particular bonuses and disadvantages like an elemental mage.

My runners managed to get 5 toxic shamans virtually all at once - narcojet rounds, called shot to the neck. It was rather obvious what they were, after they summoned a great-form toxic (radiation) Salamander.

It is at least indirectly possible to identify a hermetic. You can assense to see how many spirits a mage has on call in the metaplanes. Shamans may have one spirit at a time, hermetics often have lots. If you see lots, they're hermetic.

or they invoke great forms. something every shaman should look into.