It's questionable whether or not you regain essence while in someone else's body...

~J

The ritual used by Harlequin is not a canon ritual (spell) in Earthdawn.



I'll try to create an easily understandable guide to astral travel (for characters) in ED:


1. Projection (entering astral space with your mind, while leaving your physical body behind) is much less common in ED than it is in SR. This is because the horrors can detect anyone projecting without the use of a special talent. That talent would be restricted to high-level initiates in SR (hasn't been rediscovered yet as a metamagic ability) and only works for a few minutes. Anyone who has tried to project without it's help in ED has been known to immediately die, become irrevocably mad, horror-marked and/or more.
There also is a high-level spell to project into other people's dreams.


2. Physically entering astral space in ED is easier than projecting, you can enter astral space via spirit portals (created by spirits or 7th circle nethermancers) or as a lightbearer (harder.)


3. The elemental metaplanes may be entered by finding a gate in the astral space of our plane. These gates are often located in places where the corresponding element is strong in our plane. You directly enter the metaplane through the gate.
EDIT You will die if you do not have anything to protect you from those elements! /EDIT


4. The astral planes of the metaplaces (Sylvar, Throne etc.) may be entered by finding a gate in our physical plane. These gates can often only be opened under special circumstances / with special rituals / with spirit help. You have to enter the metaplace itself then (from it's astral space) using one of the methods under 2.


5. Totems and idols are not known in ED, so the corresponding metaplanes are not specially mentioned, but I would classify them as metaplaces you can enter via your totemic relationship.

I don't think possessing another person's body would allow you to stave off essence loss. The whole point about auras is that they are linked to your essence. Your own, personal essence. If you are in someone else's body, your aural template is so different from their physical make up that it just doesn't make sense. You can use your magical talents because you are grounded into the physical world via the possession, but I don't think that would extend to keeping you alive by effectively feeding on someone else's essence.

I can't find anything canon to support it, that just my gut and game balance talking: when your body is dead, you are on a clock, period. If you can find a way to go (gateway, totem, whatever), I'd allow metaplanar quests to do almost anything, including allowing you to contact people as the objective of the quest, or increasing the length of time you will have left once you return to normal space. If you live through the quests at whatever rating I decide as GM - because the GM decides the rating not the player unless its something fixed like karma reductions (so you can't just say 'I'm going to do a rating 1 quest for x') - then you'll get whatever you went after, short of out and out resurrection imo, anyway.

But that's about it. And I'd only allow them to do this in the first place because metaplane quests do seem to be a catch all for 'anything you want to do' magic-wise. You can learn spells, techniques, get inspiration, change your astral signature (possibly to that of someone whom you will then possess, in which case I might reconsider my earlier opinion), and a bunch of other stuff, so why not other things. i do beleive GMs are encouraged to do that somewhere, though obviously I accept its all house rules.

By canon, you have your (essence)hours and then you're dead, unless you're on the metaplanes in which case you don't lose any essence while you're there. Even if you just sit down and do nothing for hours at a time in place after place, the time the quest has taken is listed in the book, so you won't actually take any longer, even assuming you succeed by wasting time like that. So if you can't think of a reason to go, you've got hours before you die. If you can, and you go, you do the quest, then have hours before you die. There should be no way to get round it and remain a PC, imho. The only thing you can do is try to keep your body alive somehow by getting friends there quick, or take revenge/get your affairs in order. If you do get round it, I'd say you'd be so changed by the experience that its NPC time - hand over that character sheet, chummer...

Simply contacting people shouldn't be a problem; not one that requires a metaplanar quest as a solution, anyway. Check out "Manifestation", SR3 p.173.

heres avquestion could cybermancy bind your aurz to a fully cyberware or bioware body

Given the speed of astral movement, I wouldn't think it'd be too difficult or time-consuming to locate someone you can manifest to who can handle things for you in the real world. I mean, presumably you've got friends, family, acquaintances, contacts, etc., whose normal haunts you're familiar with.

Gods only know what they'd do for you, but just contacting them shouldn't be a problem.

Heh, well then you can chance it if you like. God help you if they're even on the freeway getting to those normal haunts.

An enjoyable run is when an astral "ghost" manifests in front of a team member and offers up the location of his stashed gear and money in exchange for revenge.

On that note - check out the spirit box on page 34 of Running Gear (Plastic Warriors, 2002). Very cool.

That begs the question: What is the willpower of a body with no mind?

You keep it. All active foci have their astral forms travel with your astral form. As long as the sustained spell is a mana spell, it will stay with you.