All right, this popped up in last weeks game....

My mage summons up a Force 6 spirit of man, and gives it the Innate Spell ability. Now, said spirit has got my astral signature all over it, right? And if I cast a spell, it'd have my signature on it as well.

But here's the tricky question: Whose signature is on the spell the spirit casts?

I've run through a few possibilities, and none seem satisfactory. What do you all think?

The spirits, obviously.

What you should be asking is "Does my summoned spirit have the same signature as myself?".

I can go either way, but would probably settle on 'Yes'.

I need to sleep so I don't have anything to back this up, but I look at signatures like magical DNA and spirits are like your children. They are part you and part them because of your magic that binds them to this world, so when you assense the spirit(analyze the DNA if you will) if you have the original to compare it to, you can see where the summoning/binding magic came from(chromosomes), since your kid can cast spells, he has his own signature, it just so happens that it's part you and part him so his signature would be the one who cast the spell, but you could use it to tell that it was a summoned/bound spirit, and if you have comparisons, then you could tell who summoned it. With enough assensing.

Chris

The spirit has it´s own astral signature. Otherwise it would have been mentioned under Astral Signatures in the main book. (Assensing both spirit and conjurer with 2 net hits detects the connection (Street Magic).)

Casting leaves the signature of the caster, so in this case the spirits. You´d still have to find the spirit, and from that the conjurer, to complete the magical trace.

I still like my magical DNA and think it holds up in court. God... I need sleep. I'll explain better tomorrow.

Chris

I like the 'magic DNA' thing as well, although it really isn't canon.

well to look at it canon the tradation of a free spirit is pased on from its conjurer.... so could other traits could aswell so i like the magic dna aswell

There was a thread on the forum recently about using Banishing to take the spirits of others, and how this potentially allows a conjuror to control spirit types that they wouldn't normally be allowed to summon (like a mage from an inhabitation tradition controlling a manifesting spirit, or vice versa). If you acquired someone else's spirit via banishing, would it then leave your signature, or it's original-summoner's signature?

Why not both? The older one more faded, the more recent stronger.

It would always leave it´s own signature, and have a traceable bond to the current master.

Are you saying here that the main book never omits any relevant details? If so, I disagree. From a charitable perspective, the developers had a lot of hard choices about what to fit into core rules, and they did not have bandwidth for detailed rules on this topic. Less charitable viewpoints are readily available.

I can see a spirit having a signature that's slightly different than the sig of the summoner, but they should be similar enough that if you know a mage's sig, if you then assense any spirit summoned by that caster, you can reasonably make the connection.

On a side note, I'm trying to come up with better imagery than "it looks just like the illustration in SR4 main book bestiary" when my mage summons spirits, and asking the GM for thumbnail visual descriptions when we encounter NPC spirits. Even if one botches Assensing, one might be able to make guesses just based on the appearance, eg the Beast spirit that looks like a tengu might have been summoned by a Shinto mage.

I will say that the developers did a very good job and SR4 is definitly the best so far. The "never omits any relevant details" bit... no. I shall pretend you didn´t ask.


Two hits, assensing both, lay open that there is a connection between master and spirit. The form of that connection is unstated, and there is no rules reference for both having the same signature. That said, one could introduce the DNA theory without much contradiction.


There are some suggestions for spirit appearance in Streetmagic (German pg. 95). I´ll soon be trying to do the same (I get to play, yes!), and was quite pleased to learn that druid plant spirits can look like Dryads... better than some living wood...

If it was me behind the BBS, I'd rule that the spell left the summoner's signature.

If it leaves the summoner's signature, does the spirit even have an astral signature of its own?

What about the banishing/pokemon trick? If it's the summoner's signature that's left behind, is it the original summoner's or the current controller?

I'd say the spirit has its own signature - which happens to be either identical to the summoner's signature, or very closely related.

I don't see how banishing and resummoning would change the spirit's signature, any more than, say, sending it on a remote service would change its signature. (If you wanna swap or rent spirits, negotiatiing remote service can be easier than pokemon.)

Hm. Yeah, don't have your spellcasting spirits doing tasks for people who might have them leave spellcasting signature in inappropriate places.

How closely related are the signatures? Can you recognize the summoner's signature from the leftover signature from the spirit casting?

As far as banishing goes, one of the biggest reasons you'd do a pokemon trick is to get a Possession spirit. I don't believe you can get a Possession spirit bound to you any other way.