This idea came from a campaign that I'm still in when my combat medic made this somewhat disquieting comment while making their way through an abandoned mall full of mannequins."Bunch of plastics everywhere I look, anyone else smell an ambush." This made me think of a mage who used complex puppets along with spells mainly for the lawl factor when that doll next to you in the toy store lunges at you with a knife extending from its arm. This would probably make him the magic equivalent of a drone rigger with a few differences like being able to use the construct as a channel for spells and maybe even using them in the place of watcher spirits under certain circumstances. I'm already thinking of new ways to separate him from a normal rigger but this is mainly meant as more of a fluff idea then anything else. So anyone here of something similar and if not would you mind helping me work on it?

There is a spell called "animate" in street magic.

Ya I looked at animate already and that only answers have the problem. Those are just plain objects that you make move around a bit. I'm looking for actual constructs here, like the equivalent of magical drones with less tech involved since we have rules that say magic can short out technology in high enough doses and with certain gear vice versa. I'm looking for things that a mage would have a link that could be turned on and off, he could look through their eyes, use them as channels for spells, speak through them, infuse them with special powers and so on. They could have normal drone puppets but also make a sort of puppet familiar that was semi sentient and would no longer need a connection to the mage to work. He could even use karma to buy the sentient puppet powers kind of like an Adept just a lot more limited on the powers list and a few only a puppet could do.

LostProxy, check out the Homunculus, Street Magic p. 87. Not quite what you describe, but well on the way.

Peter

Possession spirits and an Ally Spirit with some kind of doll-like form. You can give your Ally Spirit Possession if you want. Ally Spirit hits the "special familiar" aspects you desire, and the possession spirits can animate dolls with a basic set of powers. If you really want, you can Long-term bind spirits using karma to take them off your active service roster and tie them to a particular function.

/agree

A non-Possession Tradition magician cannot give their Ally Spirit the Possession Power.

Don't forget that when you're a Possession Mage, even your watcher spirits will possess and animate vessels (Street Magic, pg. 95; "Corpse Cadavers and Living Dolls")

Good for those creepy little dolls and strawmen.

Thanks for the help and it seems that it covers most of what I want but would these things be useful in combat because that's mainly what I want them for.

Watchers, if you are allowed to summon them with Possession, get 1s in every stat, and normal spirits possessing inanimate objects will simply get their stats in the physical world with a barrier rating enhanced by the Force of the spirit, making them quite decent for combat. Get Guardian spirits past Force 3 and you can give them the Automatics skill instead of a power and hand them an AK.


Optional rule, and since Watchers do not normally possess Materialisation they do not get Possession if you summon them using a Possession tradition. See page 34 for Possession tradition rules and note that they replace any Materialisation power with Possession. You cannot do so if they do not possess the power in the first place.

Yes - it's listed as an optional rule on the page reference that I gave.

It's faster to point it out in a response for the benefit of the thread starter. That way he doesn't mistakenly assume it's RAW because it was mentioned in a response on a forum.

If the GM doesnt want to use the Optional Rule (which is optional but not a house rule) maybe one could make a custom rule for the particular tradition that its watchers can use possession but cannot do anything else than possessing a vessel until finished with that. So one would have to summon them right into the vessel or else they wont be able to move.

just a side-question:
wasn't there some little tidbit saying that possession type mages don't get the inhabiting power for their spirits but possession?
can a spirit possess something it should usually inhabit? like something that did not live to begin with?
i have the nagging feeling i am missing something with this train of thought . .

Stahlseele,
Inhabitation is the power that Insect spirits use to merge with people. The Possession power allows you to possess people and objects, both prepared and unprepared.

oh, okay, thanks for clearing that one up for me ^^

Fair enough.



I'll expand on what Heath Robinson has said. What you are missing is a couple of things. Firstly, Possession mages substitute the Possession power for Materialisation in their spirits. That means that if they can summon a spirit with the inhabitation power, which they can when it's an Ally Spirit, then it retains the Inhabitation power. So a normal magician can create an Ally Spirit with either Materialisation or Inhabitation. Thus with a possession magician, that becomes either Possession or Inhabitation. The second thing you are missing is that the Possession power allows a spirit to possess not only living and once-living things, but also never-living things such as cars, drones and large ceramic urns. A possession mage might prefer Inhabitation to Possession for their Ally Spirit, however. You can, for example, irrevocably turn a living creature (e.g. chromed-up Troll) into your ally spirit. A possession spirit can only try to possess that same troll for a time. Generally, if you want your spirit to be unshakable, Inhabitation is the way to go. The tradeoff is flexibility.

Interestingly, Inhabitation provides a means for both Materialisation and Possession mages to get around their limitations - a bit. The materialisation mage one is obvious - Inhabitation lets him pull off a possession-like effect. But the Possession mage can also achieve enough successes with an Inhabiting spirit (sometimes) to get a True Form, which has the power of Materialisation. It's a great deal of work for both types of mages to go to in order to get past their limitations, but it can be done (partially in the case of the Materialisation mage).

Hope that helps,

K.

there we have it.
that's the part i confused this with

Free Spirits and Wild Spirits might also have Inhabitation. It's not just Insect Spirits is probably what I should have said. Although I'm fairly sure Insect Spirits are the only tradition that has it on their default spirits.

Incidentally, had a possessed drone in my game. Was very creepy.

how so?
did the drone say jooiin uuss! in a creepy voice?

It was in a burnt out corp facility, lots of fire damage and wrecked equipment. A dead steel lynx began moving even though the PCs could clearly see its fuel cells were cracked and evaporated, picking its way through the rubble looking for them, slowly, like an animal. The screech of the rusted turret as it turned for the first time in ten years was like the cry of a tortured child and the shadows seemed, no the shadows did gather round it, in defiance of all normal laws of lighting and angles, meaning it was always half-cloaked in darkness, visible mainly by the lambent yellow light of its three eyelike sensors.

that's not the possessed drone being creepy, that's the GM being creepy!
i am jealous ._.

Thanks for the help and as for those last few posts bout the possesed lynx. Thats actually what I'm going for, un hackable drones. Mainly because no ones a rigger and the only person who could become one is our technomancer who is better suited as a combat driver. Now all I need to do is crunch the numbers and see what I need to make this work.