<<This is a workspace for me to write up a tradition of magic, that has alot of cousins, but is really all it's own. City magic, those who the elements aren't as important as the soul of a place. Also, it has been repeatedly noticed that yes, this is "street shamanism". To which I reply..."Yep.">>


City Magic/Street Shamanism
Concept: In the city, the spirits of earth, air and water give way to the spirits of parks, skyscrapers and neighborhoods. For the urban primitive, or 'street shaman', the spirit of his car, or his home, or his entire sprawl demand just as much, if not more, reverence and respect as the most ancient of trees and mountains. The urban animals teach wisdom, and the rare urban wildernesses of garden and park bring peace, but it is the great grumbling voice of the City that the urban primitive knows is Father, just as Gaea is Mother.
Combat: Guardian
Detection: Guidance
Health: Plants
Illusion: Beast
Manipulation: Man
Drain: Willpower+Charisma
Born out of a fusion of Neopagan, Wiccan, and Chaote principles, the origin of City Magic's beliefs were addressed around the turn of the century, mostly as an attempt to bridge natural animist beliefs and an urban lifestyle. Elements of animist religions such as Native shamanism, Shinto and Wuxing have strong influence in city magic, lending a totemic quality to urban animals, buildings, places, even phenomenon such as traffic, electricity or homelessness. They are known for sharing the Chaos magic tendency to invent new gods or totems on the spot, as well as a strong curiosity about other traditions, in which they are mostly known as lazy god-thieves unwilling to maintain a real tradition of their own. In city magic, one's magical power is granted mostly by the gods one brings into the city with him, or in the great spirits that rise from places of great population and history. One urban primitive might follow the many manifestations of the Goddess, and be nearly indistinguishable from a Wiccan. Another might follow Rat and Cockroach or Skor as he dumpster-dives for his next pair of second-hand disposable clothes, and a third might give prayers to Hades, Hel and the ghosts of the city's dead as he does a little civic cleanup in a graveyard. The Urban Primitives aren't above mixing and matching pantheons, or even combining entirely contradicting religions or philosophies, as befits their melting-pot homes. In general, they wish to make sure their city, like a person, is healthy and happy. They tend towards acts of charity towards the downtrodden, and public works.

Their eclectic beliefs lend to acceptance of new ideas, religions and gods, but a few general trends have emerged. Street shamans tend to acknowledge the animals of the city as totems, as well as the dead of the city as revered ghosts. The buildings and locales tend to be considered spiritually awake, if quiet. An apartment complex, well-maintained, and full of growing families is assumed to be happy, while a car ill-maintained, abused and unappreciated is thought to be in dire need of respect and care. Objects tend to take on a life of their own around urban primitives, and the way they often talk to devices around them, some mistake them for technomancers.

A street shaman's ritual space is usually his home, or, if he has no home, somewhere where the "pulse of the city" is strong. Parks, subways, government buildings, utility stations...places that influence or host many people constantly are powerful to the urban primitive. Also, ancient sites, that have played important roles in a city's history are sought. In Montgomery, Alabama, the Dexter Avenue Memorial Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, is such a site. Also, important symbols of the city's pride are magnets to street shamans...the St. Louis Arch, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, the Statue of Liberty, all draw street shamans by the dozens.

Magic for the street shaman is mostly ritual, involving appeasing and pleasing the spirits, totems and gods that rule over whatever the practitioner wishes to affect. When practicing sorcery, a street shaman will usually lean towards shamanic, Chaote or Wiccan methods, depending on where their personal style draws its symbology.

City magic is an animistic tradition, where one "awakens" the spirit of an object or creature to make requests of it. A street shaman calling up a guidance spirit might ask the spirit of a library for advice, or a public comm where he can find someone. They believe that such spirits never vanish, but merely return to slumber once their tasks are done, and that the same object has the same spirit. An urban spirit often has the power of Avatar, where it may speak through an object, such as having a face appear on a wall of a building, or have a local creature speak. This is not possession, but is often mistaken for such, as it is exceedingly common for urban primitives. Avatar is not considered a task, but a method of communication, but can be part of a task, such as distracting a guard, or carrying a command to a crowd.

Mentor Spirits:
Adversary, Artificer, Cat, Dark King, Dog, Fire-Bringer, Great Mother, Owl, Rat, Raven, Seductress, Spider, Trickster, Wise Warrior

New Mentor Spirits:
City Father
When civic identity takes on a uniqueness that makes one proud to call a place home, a City Father awakens. Seattle, Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, Phillidelphia, Atlanta, Paris, Rome...when the city feels like it's alive, and aware, and has a personality of it's own, the street shamans can call out to it. For those who respect the city, he will provide, guiding those who walk in His (or Her) Name to help and happiness. Those who would do reckless damage to the city and it's people find their destructive powers curbed. After all, just ask Atlanta about fires.
Advantages: +2 to Health spells, +2 to Survival checks in the city
Disadvantages: -1 to Combat spells

Sprawl
Sprawl is HUGE. Bigger than the people and corporations in it...it is the horizon that's just more buildings...when you can see the horizon for the towers. And Sprawl knows everything that happens in its vast expanse, it's eyes and ears are everywhere. Those who ask Sprawl can find most anything in its borders. However, Sprawl just cares about getting bigger, the welfare of each person on the streets pales in comparison to the sheer bulk and power Sprawl craves. If you can't cut it in the Sprawl, you deserve what you get.
Advantages: +2 to Detection spells, +2 dice for spirits of Man
Disadvantages: If a Sprawl magician weakens himself to do charity for someone else, he loses Sprawl's benefits until he proves he's still got his edge.

Toxics Street Shamans tend to turn to Pollution, Pestilent Rat or Rabid Dog. Many Toxics of these Mentors often "corrupt" Street Shamans under the guise of teaching the young Awakened about "the truth of the City". They hail from all four Agendas, Poisoner, Reaper, Havoc, and Sterilist, and like their counterparts, tend to mix and match agendas to fit the situation.

Ant, Cockroach, Silverfish and Termite are also common as mentor spirits among street shamans, and more than a few have been lost to their alien thinking, sliding into their sway as full Insect shamans. Ant and Cockroach have been especially successful at recruiting from the urban primitives.

<<I'll be adding more Mentors, as well as fleshing out the fluff. Others who know a little are welcome to help, anyone is welcome to comment. Expect this first post to mutate and multiedit.>>

Sprawl seems to be a little too overpowered for the bonuses it gives you against the disadvantage. Might I suggest +2 bonus dice to detection instead of manipulation since +2 dice to spirit of man is already filled with awesome?

Don't have the city mage use logic or intuition for their drain stat. Hermetics use logic as their drain stat. Use intuition for a city mage's drain stat. It makes some sense, and shamans also have taken charisma as their drain stat so you really only have intuition to use anyways.

I like it. I was basing Sprawl off of Mountain, as a monolithic form, but I like Detection.


Actually, I had entirely forgotten shamanism's Charisma option, which fits alot better than the others.

Really? I thought using your intuition to survive in the city and cast spells seemed like a good angle to play.

Yes, but the real roots of the religion comes from respecting the spirits all around you, much like shamanism. Hm. Maybe a choice between intuition and charisma...what were your thoughts on the spirit junctions? And big edit up.

As a city mage (personally I like the term Urban Mage better) you seem to play it out more like they are a shaman, but the thing that I find interesting is that you can create a different ideal. If they cast through charisma then they are
"shamans" and not really "city mages." In a sense city mages have had to survive on their instincts and willpower to get through many tough situations. The city is all they have known and have been able to view it as it's on amorphous entity that changes based on the ebb and flow of the population that it engulfs. City mages have become more adept at picking out the nuances of the city and also magic by becoming aware of their surroundings and the habbits of the creatures residing in it.

I see a city mage as street savy and able to augment this into the way they view and have then been able to cast magic. As the city is always subtly changing the urban mage is able to detect the subtle nuances in order for them to survive. Generally their wards will need to be put up by use of grafitti, and summoning circles will be etched out in colored chalk. Their homes are generally filled with different knick knacks found off the the street and restored, while the walls will be covered with different grafitti tags.

Hm. See, that is a fine argument towards the intuition option, so I'm going to call the two options settled. Tell me, what city are you in? I'm in Montgomery, Alabama, myself.

I don't personally buy the fluff of this tradition, but it really should be named something else because the term "City" provokes something completely different than what you described. Actually what you described sounds more like the story of a street shaman more than a genuine tradition.

A true "City" tradition would be all about Logic. Likewise, the spirit types would be more along the lines of Earth (Asphault), Air (Smog) and so on and so forth. In fact, it would be the exact opposite of Plant and Beasts, as those are the domain of the wild, untamed world, not the one man has mastered and structured to their will. Individual mentor spirits would be as close to Beasts as you would get. There'd also be a constant danger of practioners falling to more Toxic paths due to the close relationship between the two.

Well, what I have presented is what I live. I recommend Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle, if you'd like to study the concepts it's rooted in. I would add that the street shaman from previous editions has no tradition rules of it's own in SR4. This certainly can be used for it, as it's rare that street shamans get such attention and detail anymore. In fact, I have noted up front that this certainly can be used as the Street Shaman's tradition.



The correspondences are rather simple, and I'll walk you through them. Feel free to offer counterpoints.
Combat=Guardian. This represents asking for the ability to fight from the spirits of dead soldiers, patron gods or the spirits of neighborhoods to reject troublemakers. Buildings hate it when someone comes in throwing around combat magic, and will happily whomp the destructive person if roused.
Detection=Guidance. Asking an ancestor spirit, diety or the spirit of an wise and ancient building, or the spirit of something that sees all, like electricity, can get you alot of info.
Health=Plant. From their roots in paganism, the rare places where nature peeks out are considered oases of peace and security. From the biggest rolling park, to a windowsill herb garden, to a vial of scented oils, the Old magic is in the plants, and it is there city shamans seek to cleanse and reinforce themselves.
Illusion=Beast. In the city, animals survive by stealth, scavenging and running away. Those who listen to them can learn their tricks, and find boltholes and skitter unnoticed among the shadows.
Manipulation=Man. Spirits of man can be ancestors, buildings, tools, and even echoes of old gods. They bless the spells of city shamans that reach out to touch others. One might invoke Aphrodite, the Horned God, or even Skrew, the God of Getting Laid, to bless your Orgasm spell...

There's already a tradition with Smog in it too. Toxic shamans.

From the original post:


The bold parts are only things I have a quibble with. I understand you're basing this on a real-world belief system, but...

1) I have a hard time seeing anyone in the 6th world who knows anything about magic giving each other crap because they borrow concepts from other traditions. If it works, there's no denying it because it works. Who, would care that I'm using a smudge stick and an airhorn to banish a spirit instead of a pinch of salt and a silver bell? IMO, if people are going to get on each other about how magic is practiced magic, its going to because they're either a zealot/loony or there's toxic/twisted/blood magic involved.

2) Mechanically speaking, I think you should more clearly define why some people develop different drain attributes, yet follow the same tradition (I can only think of one other tradition that does this - Wicca).

3) You say that its usually a possession tradition, which I personally agree with in this case, but don't give really any indication of who or why some people would be able to conjure materialization spirits.

4) I like the idea of finding the common threads between traditions and using them. However, I strongly dislike the idea of inventing things on the spot. Its something bugs me about Chaos Magic too.

This was the only correspondence I was scratching my head about when I read the initial write up. Personally, I was thinking Task for Manipulation and Man for Illusion (or vice versa). This works though

I think you're trying to fit too much into one tradition, but the core concepts (particularly urban animism) resonate with me.

-paws

Try not to link spirits with dead people. Guardians, task, guidance, and spirits of man are not actually the spirits of fallen people... as far as we know and what is written. Personally I think giving them all of the good spirits makes them a little broken game wise. Giving a shaman not only spirits of man, but guardian, and guidance = broken. Choose one maaaaybe two. Anything more then that is handing the mage a silver platter and telling them to go nuts.

I would say remove guardian spirits and replace them with beast for balance purposes. Also I would make guidance spirits water spirits instead. Since the Shaman you described is a fan of life an nature maybe having a water spirit would be a good thing instead of a guidance spirit.

I'm confused. What makes these spirits so much better?

Guardians get the optional power "Any combat skill." They also get Materialization which is awesome as a power. They also get F + 1 body, F + 2 agi, F + 3 reaction, F + 2 Str. They are awesome at combat and if you summon a force six guardian spirit and give them a gun they roll 14 freaking dice to shoot someone, and they get 2 IPs right off the bat. They also get counterspelling and magical guard as a power. Magical guard is awesome.

Guidance have Arcana, Counterspelling, Divination (which is totally broken,) magical guard.

Spirits of man gets the optional power - any spell that the summoner has, the skill of spellcasting, Influence, Search.

All of them can actually see on the physical plane so they don't have that crazy astral vision when manifested. There is no downside that any of them really have, and each one brings a high degree of awesome to the table. Task spirits are also pretty nuts too. One type of these spirits alone is awesome, but when you combine them all they are just waaaay too good.

*edit* also as a possession tradition you can just possess someone with oh... say a guardian spirit and watch them rock out with crazy weapon skills, or have basically another mage (spirit of man) walking around dishing out some crazy justice. *edit*

Well, I see your point that the tradition could use some power-game proofing, but as the tradition itself is a benevolent one, and the spirits fit the roles so perfectly, gonna let it stand. I point you to the Voodoo religion in Street Magic, also, as I've seen, capable of being powergamed and abused. I'd rather make this tradition fit the concept perfectly than perfectly nerf it.

There's a religious group in San Francisco which does retreats, kinda like the ones where participants go meditate in nature, but instead they go on retreat in a scruffy part of downtown, and eat lunch at a soup kitchen, and observe what they see and reflect on what it means to them. I've done that retreat; I'm not much of a "vision quest" kinda guy but I find it at least as thought-provoking and emotionally challenging as anything I could do in a desert or river rafting or whatever. See also the "Walkabout" episode of Babylon Five. There's some kinda shamanistic stuff in the Tenderloin area of SF; street art, mostly murals or painted tiles stuck onto walls, and particularly there's an alley off Ellis Street (not far from the Glide soup kitchen) with a bunch of plants and a kinda shrine with a sign saying "Tenderloin National Forest" in a parody of Park Service logo/format, and a wall graffito honoring the "Guardians" with a list of names.

I prefer the approach of "This might be exploitable, so don't powergame too much, eh?" if the player is up to that level of maturity. The GM always has control of how cooperatively spirits interpret their task instructions, and since that's not a numerical factor it's less munchkinable; the GM could say that the spirits are more helpful when the PC is selflessly helping the city as a whole, and less helpful when the PC is just trying to make himself more rich and powerful.

Determination and stubborn unwillingness to change a plan strikes me as not so much an urban theme, especially not a down-and-out urban theme. I'm thinking susceptibility to urban vices such as booze and strip clubs and so forth (now including BTLs), as with Seductress, or agoraphobia when in *real* wilderness (SF has a 1000+ acre park but it's still no preparation for prairie or open ocean or deep forest), and I can imagine difficulty when summoning while outside a city.

Mentor: Neighbour
Cities were developed as cultural and communities, for the betterment of everyone around them. Neighbour encourages people to learn about the others in their community and support them in various ways, bettering all of the area. Neighbour often appears as a kindly old man in sneakers and a zippered cardigan sweater.

Advantage: +2 dice to all Social Tests.
Disadvantage: The magician that follows Neighbour can never turn down a plea for help, or an opportunity to education children. Doing so will negate the assistance of Neighbour until the error is corrected, or the magician has performed some task the GM deems appropriate.

Toxic Mentor: Gutter
When you've gone as far down as you can go, there isn't really much use looking up. All you can do is try and make yourself feel better than other people, and that's by dragging them down further. Gutter encourages magicians to generate negative emotions in people, particularily their self-esteem. Quite a number of these magicians started out rather powerful, and burned out for various reasons, turning to this twisted path as the only way to garner even a smattering of their once great powers.

Advantage: +2 to Illusion Magic, +2 dice to summoning or binding Spirits of Man.
Disadvantage: A Gutter Spirit can never raise themselves out of the bed they made for themselves, and can never have a lifestyle above Squatter. This fact is not lost on Gutter himself, of course.

You know, seeing the great stuff so many of y'all come up with, it makes me wonder why some of the hacks in the DevGrp aren't looking for a new job while you're writing for the game. I, for one, would appreciate the living hell out of seeing your great ideas becoming RAW rather than tossing RAW so often to use your ideas instead.

Excellent job here, as always, CanRay and great ideas from Coldhand Jake as well.

I don't have a job with them, or anyone, because I can't be relied upon.

Gutter, however, pollutes the Manasphere in a way that you don't normally see. Remember that it's not cities that are the problem, it's the negative emotions that occur in large concentrations. (Ghettos, Slums, Welfare Housing, and so on).

Fear a Gutter Shaman in The Rats Nest!

New fluff and mechanics for City Father and Sprawl. Also, I love Neighborhood and Gutter.

Another possible balancing limitation/requirement for an urban mentor, could be a more active requirement to oppose toxics. If you see toxics and don't oppose them, you lose the mentor bonus.
Even when the toxic villain is allied with insect spirits, shedim, blood magic and a rogue AI; is that the Grand Slam of SR classic villains?

Garbage mentor spirit - + 2 to manipulation spells, +1 to body tests (+4 only when dealing with poisons)

-4 to all sent based perception tests, -2 to all other perception tests, is not able to chose above a street or squatter lifestyle.

Garbage mentor spirits are always shifting and moving around in a torrent of trash and waste. Generally a good spirit... if you can tolerate the stench that is. Although some urban shamans are wary of having such a mentor spirit as they think these mentor spirits have been known to whisper dark secrets in the mage's ear. The garbage mentor spirit is believed to be a mark on a mage that is starting on the path toward becoming a toxic shaman. Most of this is actually just word of mouth and has no basis on the garbage mentor spirit, but is a widely believed truth amongst those who are unfamiliar with the spirit in question.

How about this flavor wise and it makes it a little interesting for a urban shaman or mage

Junk spirit -

S- F - (1d6/2) rounded up
R - F - (1d6/2) rounded up
A - F + (1d6/2) rounded up
B - F + (1d6/2) rounded up
C - F
L - F
I - F
W - F

Initiative - Fx2

Skills - Assensing, Unarmed combat, Dodge, Perception, Astral Combat.

Powers - Astral Form, Conceal, Materialization, Sapience, Fix (see note below)

Optional powers - Fear, Confusion, Movement, Any technical skill (but only involved in making repairs)

A junk spirit is extremely good at fixing any vehicle, comlink, or weapon out of anything at hand. It is the mcGiver and gets +6 dice to whatever it is fixing. However after the spirit dissipates and/or returns to its metaplane the item that underwent repairs is returned back to its previous state of disrepair.



Work in progress will edit later.

Toxic Mentor: The Pusher

Born of the desperation of those addicted to the mindbenders and poisons that mankind has created to push into themselves, The Pusher is the personification not of the addicted, but those that prey upon them. Part trickster, manipulator, con man, and snake oil salesman, The Pusher advocates making more people addicted to various nefarious things, be it drugs, chips, or perversion.

Those who follow The Pusher often have developed mind manipulation spells and sell the useage of those as "Drugs" in their own right, selling a good quality high at no cost save Drain.

Advantage: +2 Dice to Illusion Spells, +2 Dice to Manipulation Spells.
Disadvantage: The Pusher is a greedy bugger, and, while the first taste is free, he is highly adverse to giving anything away without a price afterwards. Magicians who follow The Pusher are often addicted to the power he gives them, and he demands 150% Karma for anything to deal with increasing magic (New Spells, Initiation, Increased Skills/Magic Level, ect.).

A word here. I actually am trying to build a portfolio to write for Catalyst. I'm building a high-power One-Shot that I'm considering, if they're interested, turning it into a yearly series. Also, while I mostly play cyber characters, it's because I don't really get inspired by the choices for magicians. So, I added this to the game to get me playing Awakened again, because for me, the flavor is more alluring than the crunch.

Maybe I should write the Toaster Mentor...

I for one hope they turn you down then Jake.

I've seen little to tell me this isn't just a tradition custom made for every Twink, Munch, and Kin to salivate over.

You picked by and large the best of the spirits. Your description leaves it as pretty much anything goes, this isn't really a tradition (more a collection of related traditions all lumped together). Then just to put the cream on top, of course it's a possession tradition. You don't seem to have made much in the way of any conscious attempt to balance any of the elements.

Then even worse... you're so vague in your 'tradition' that it ends up being no tradition whatsoever. It's not like the chaos mage in street magic which could be viewed as a sub-class of the hermetic mage in the core book. And the chaos mages big thing is the whole 'grand unified school of magic' thing. The trappings aren't because they follow the traditions but because they're actively studying them and borrowing their elements. They don't borrow gods and dogma, the tradition specifically in the first paragraph looks to strip those elements out of it leaving just the magic. So to a large degree, I find your comparison quite lacking for those reasons.

I have zero issues w/ this as a home brew because it's just between you and your GM. Or between you and your players then. But, I'd definately dislike this pushed on the rest of us in any book. I also strongly disagree that magic lacks inspiration. Maybe for you, but there's a lot of people who will disagree quite strongly and don't need to have the best of everything handed to them to convince them otherwise.

Well, to be fair, a few points in my defense.

A) There is a far cry between a magical tradition practiced, and a magical description balanced for a game. Your arguments about chaos magic take into account the word for word of the description in the book, and ignore the reality of a tradition that has literally used the Ninja Turtles in place of the Watchtowers in invocations. Of course, I'm referring to Discordians here, but the argument is simply there. Chaos magic isn't just a subset of hermeticism in real life, it's about shedding the attachment to defunct rituals, and rebuilding them for yourself. Be that through simple willwork, or invoking your own choice of god-concepts, or making your own new rituals, breaking the old "rules". It's a beautiful thing, far beyond the rubber stamp that it's given as in the Street Magic book. I recommend doing a little research and learning about it.

B) As I said, I'm not really writing this to balance, or to the concern of powergamers or those who cry about them. I've posted this as a workspace to fine-tune an idea for playing an Awakened based on what I live. This isn't about whipping up incredible spirits to do massive things...this is for the people who play street shamans who talk to cars and buildings and rats and cockroaches. It's a possession tradition because it makes more sense to me for the spirit of the city library to possess the building or something inside it, rather than manifest as a pile of books or a librarian. But, it works either way.

C) Frankly, and this may surprise you, or not, but I didn't even bother -reading- the modified Force Attributes for these spirits. I read their powers, and their descriptions, and their sample manifestations, and the religions that have them...and picked them because they made sense. I could care less if the Guardian spirit has massive damage potential. I care that it's a fine representative of a spirit representing a police station, a military base or gang territory. More so than a fire spirit. For all I care, the stat block for Spirit of Earth works just as well for mechanics, and could be transplanted if a GM has trouble with the powergaming aspects of players missing the point of picking a magical tradition because it's flavor makes it interesting. So, the "best of everything" argument would certainly fall on more attentive ears if I wasn't the type to either ignore or cripple disruptive powergamers. Take the same approach to this as you would to the 43rd Voudoun practitioner (and I saw ALOT of these at Dragon*Con) who wouldn't know Legba from a leg of fried chicken.

D)I don't write to power. Period. I have many counterparts who would happily crank out giant gun, after missile launcher, after mech. I write to add something I love to the game. My religion, as I practice it. I live this. My truck, Nightmare, named for it being a firebreathing asshole that's white on the outside, and black on the inside, where I sleep, on a twin-sized mattress, crammed in between my computer and my books, and my leftover sodas, and my pet rat. I have walked the streets of my city at night and know their attitudes, I have sat and talked with graveyards and public parks. I call Thoth, Rat, Cockroach, Jesus and Hades all when I pray, as well as the quiet rumble of Montgomery and Birmingham.

E) "You don't seem to have made much in the way of any conscious attempt to balance any of the elements." No, I haven't. Because, this was written for a chance to play my faith, without shoehorning it into Chaos Magic, or Shamanism, or Wicca, or various pantheons. Once I have finished the flavor, getting it just right, I will make an attempt to balance it. I took what made -sense-, and used it.

Now, if you have a further point, I'll be glad to listen. Especially if you practice as a chaote, Discordian, eclectic pagan, or urban primitive, I'll happily take your advice for making this more attentive to the ways of other urban primitives and street shamans.

My problem with it is that you're not really describing a magic tradition -- you're describing a specific religion/character view/background story. There's a huge difference between the two. And, as others have said, you've basically just crammed everything together and using said religion/view to justify doing so. Even similar traditions that borrow trappings from other religions and beliefs, including Chaos Magic and Black Magic, are significantly more focused and specific than what you've presented.

In other words, I strongly believe that you're confusing a religion with a magical tradition. They're not one in the same. And if you're going to say things like "I actually am trying to build a portfolio to write for Catalyst," well... you shouldn't be surprised when it evokes responses like Falconer's or my own. Even if not your intent the final product is basically what Falconer said: It's just a Munchkin Tradition.

I don't know, the Munchkiny bits make it perfect for a Toxic.

Maybe I should write more for them... Gutter, The Pusher, who else?

Ganger? Whitey? Slacker? Welfare?

Here's my question. Is the problem inherently in the tradition, or in the overpowered stats official canon writers applied to the spirits that hold to these concepts? I should think that were the spirits better balanced with the others, we wouldn't be having an argument on the balance of the tradition.

I just got into the Urban Fey series at www.urbanfey.net. Gave me more than a few ideas...

How about Traffic? Trash?

Both, really. I personally don't have a problem with any of the individual spirits and, when creating my own traditions, I tend to use some of them over the silly elemental ones (I really hate how this weird elemental magic has creeped into almost every RPG out there) more often than not. My main problem is with the tradition itself. You just need to narrow it's scope and focus it. Take a look at some of the related traditions I mentioned like Black Magic, Chaos Magic, Hedge Witchcraft. They all borrow heavily from other traditions and faiths, yet they're not as all-encompassing as what you wrote in your original post. That should be general target in my opinion.

I just made the trash mentor spirit! Didn't anyone see it? The fact is if you are trying a portfolio then you must respect game balance as well. If you want to make something you have to not only write it up as interesting, but you have to take into account the rule. Always look at the rules. Always.

I then also see that this tradition again as not a shaman tradition, but as an intuition based tradition. You walk the streets, you know the streets, you are the streets. You pray to whatever you feel will help you at the moment, and you have no real true order or one true path. You don't razzle dazzle spirits, and you don't use your massive brain. You use what you feel is best at the moment. Intuition.

Practicing Chaote here, done time in the eclectic pagan camp (as well as others) too. That said, I'm also approaching this from the perspective that street shamanism isn't all that different from core shamanism in SR. Just to let you know where I'm coming from.

First of all, I would have went with a manifesting tradition instead of a possession trad, based largely on SR canon, but also based on the idea of awakening an item/place's spirit (as a spirit of place it's only logical that said entity could act without being constrained by a particular physical vessel). Plus, most Neo-pagan, Wiccan, Chaote, and shamanic types IRL seem to favor evoking spirits over outright possession (this could be the limits of personal experience and bias talking however YMMV).

Secondly, in terms of Drain stat I'd stick to just one unless there's a very very good reason for the split (ala what they did with Wicca in SR). I would recommend Charisma, both due to canon and the fact that as a type of shamanic endeavor (at heart) a member of this trad is mainly schmoozing spirits to get magic done rather than actually doing magic himself.

Spirit wise, I'd replace Guardian with Earth and Plant with Water, for reasons others have already stated mainly.

As a side note, I agree with Dr Funkenstein - you are confusing religion and magical trad to some extent, but that's somewhat understandable.

Road Rage would be a good Toxic Mentor.

Wheelman would make a good Adept Mentor...

Alright, going to start driving some nails into the flapping ends of this. Possession is out. Based as this is, in the Sixth World, I'd say the possession elements have become somewhat redundant in a world where you can make an elemental flip a car. That being considered, I don't think the average urban primitive will have trouble with the concept of a manifested spirit anymore...so I added in a new simple power to give what I wanted out of Possession anyway. Avatar. This way, the imagery of talking to a car or building's spirit audibly and "face to face" still works.

Furthermore, from it's shamanic echoes, it's Charisma only. Intuition is a great stat to have...but it's not a drain stat option.

It's really hard for me to swap out the spirit choices, as they make so much -sense-...but if you need to balance it, without changing and balancing the spirits, I'd say the changes NightmareX suggests would do it without wrecking the correspondences too much. I'd personally swap out the stat lines and keep moving, but that's alot of work to overcome with certain groups or GMs.

The spirits are fine in and of themselves. I question Plants but only because I still see it as being antithesis to an urban-based religion. Plants are more primal and the domain of the wild, whereas a city is the taming of said domain. But that's just a personal bias.

Summon a Plant Spirit at a Grow-Ops!

"That was the second-most nasty batch of Marijuana we've had to try and destroy!" "Second?" "Trust me, Son, you see everything in this job."

That's a nice touch Kudos.

Coming back to work on this again after a long hiatus...

I have to say I really like the Avatar power. It's clever, flavorful, and evokes a common myth-concept. I took a stab at an "urban shaman" concept myself once; what do you think of associating Manipulation magic with Fire spirits? I recall reading somewhere (can't find the reference just now) that Fire spirits can take an electrical form, and electricity is the "animating force" of any city.

Huh. This is interesting stuff.

I have to say though, it doesn't really strike me as so very much different from shamanism, but the difference is that "ordinary" shamanism focuses on spirits of the natural world, instead of the spirits of metahuman society.

It's also an interesting point: maybe if the new spirits were brought down in power a little, you could have a non-elemental set of spirits without going all overpowered like. Because for some magical styles, having very human-like spirits would feel better.