Actually I think you summed it up better than I could have, do you work on retainer?

Well, if that logic were to be followed, one could not control drones either. Or posession-based spirits posessing the summoner.

If you pay money/karma for the use of NPCs, and have rules to support your claim to their autonomy, then by all means, let not something so simple as "I didn't think of that, you can't do it" get in the way of progress.

A couple of problems, first drones are designed to take orders and be "jumped into", it is their nature as machines. Secondly, a "pocessed Mage" doesn't get to control his character per say, he just gets to order the spirit around for as long as he has services left and the DM is perfectly within his/her rights to say "No, the Spirit does this instead." And thirdly, you aen't talking about something as simple as a pocession, you are talking about literally allowing your character's soul and mind to be eaten by an inhuman enity made up of magical engeries, and one that happens to be a NPC.

Now with that said, if the character was the spirit with the inhabation power I wouldn't really have a problem with allowing it, but I don't think inhabation is a legal power for PC Free Spirits to have.

Ravor: what the hell, why not? Maybe I'll go make my services available on Welcome to the Shadows.

Neraph: My interpretation of the rules is that the rules only ever want you to be controlling one thing at a time. If you want to control a drone and your meatbody, you options boil down to splitting your IPs between the two and taking serious penalties, or staying in your meatbody and issuing orders to the drone's pilot, or jumping into the drone and letting your Transys Steed drive your meatbody around. That is to say, it doesn't matter what you're controlling, as long as it's only one thing competently (or two things poorly).

Possession spirits are actually a serious hitch in this. RAW explicitly states that a possessed magician is in fact powerless in his own body (unless he has Channelling), but suggests the player be allowed to roleplay the possessing spirit. However, the GM would be perfectly within RAW to limit the player to issuing commands to the spirit via services. I guess at the end of the day (as is always the case at the end of days) it's about finding the interpretation that works at a given table.

EDIT REPLY: Inhabitation is a great (and IIRC, explicitly legal) power for ally spirits to have, perhaps more so than Possession. However, it works most simply when your ally inhabits something like a homunculus, or that Troll who shoved you when you were growing up. He deserves having his soul eat, really.

EDIT, READ THE DAMn THING: Ah, free spirits. Not ally spirits. Makes more sense now.

An Ally spirit is designed to take orders; it is its nature as an ally spirit. Also, it should be noted (again) that the character's soul and mind ARE NOT NECCESSARILY destroyed, and are in no way described as being "eaten."

Do you even see my reference?


That is correct.

Neraph then I suggest you reread the section about what happens when a spirit inhabits a vessal, I practically like the part where it explictly says that the vessal's "original spirit", aka soul is consumed and permentily lost with the only exception being DM Fiat. I also like the part where it explictly mentions that the Spirit gains total and complete control over the vessal. Face it, your idea simply doesn't work unless you have a lenient DM who decides to let it work via fiat.

That has actually been my arguement from the start. I see no reason a GM would not allow it, exempting the fact that the GM in question happens to be you.

1) The spirit was created by you, with the personality that you decide upon.
2) The spirit subsumes some (or all) of your memories, and has whatever skills you decide it to have (talking about the process of creation, not the process of Inhabitation).
3) Your character's soul/spirit/mind/what-have-you is not neccessarily destroyed in the process, as long as it tells a good story.

I look to tell a good story, and have fun in the process. What is your aim?

EDIT: And, by the way, that is simply one of the possbile applications of this thread. Another one is using Inhabitation spirits in items to get neat effects, such as a flaming, dual natured sword that even mundanes can use, or a staff that increases the staff's creator's ability to cast magic, as well as grants the mage some nifty abilities.

I think people would give your idea more credit if you clearly labeled it as 'needing the support of the GM' or 'requiring houserules' - however you want to formulate it. I think I speak for all of us when I say we're not against your ideas (which are truly creative), and we're definitely not trying to stop you from having fun. It's just that we're used to working strictly with RAW, and this thread is about something different.

Give us a bit more of a heads-up to get to the right mindset.

Most GMs have to worry about rules allowing too much. You don't have such a problem, which says only good things about your games.

Keep in mind that with the Flesh Form / Good merge, the spirit ends up with all the host's memories, skills, abilities, and so forth.

You (as a person) are the sum of your experiences. A blank slate Spirit Inhabiting your body and getting such a result on the Inhabitation roll would *be* you. It's perfectly acceptable to view the action as replacing the power source of your soul. Instead of it being a Human Soul, it's a Spirit Soul. But it's still *your* soul.

Hence the part that keeps being brought up as GM fiat.

Neraph except I disagree that you are telling a good story, instead I see you dragging a good story kicking and screaming past the end credits in a thinly veiled excuse for twinkery. However if you want some actual reasons I suppose I can be bothered to type a few that comes to mind, the first being game balance, you yourself have even talked about how this would throw Free Spirits under the bus. Then there is the little fact that even IF we DM Fiat the Mage's soul surviving being consumed by the spirit somehow at best all you've managed to do is trap yourself in a body that is under complete and utter control of a spirit. Have fun using services to tell your body what to do for all enternity.

darthmord you are familiar with Insect Spirits no? Their example shows us that even a "Good Merge" is not the original person, but merely the Spirit that has access to all of the host's memories.

*EDIT*

Needless to say, I don't believe in the "blank slate" nonsense, even Ally Spirits are born with Free Will and personalities, and aren't a "blank slate"

Yes, I am quite familiar with Insect Spirits. I have been playing since SR1 first came out. I know all about the Universal Brotherhood and Bug City.

You also are missing a crucial point... Ally Spirits are as *you* the mage design them. So if you design a spirit that is a blank slate, then it's a blank slate Free Will or not. Besides, Free Will just means it can do what it wants. It speaks not at all toward the personality of said spirit.

Don't think for a moment I'm in this thread for the twinkery. I'm not. I'm here because of the 'twinkery' just may very well lead to a better story. A lot of outlandish ideas aren't so bad once tried out in gameplay.

Lastly, you are hung up on the vessel's soul being destroyed except by GM (there are no DMs in this game) Fiat. Apparently you didn't read what I previously posted. The (human) soul gets blitzed yes, but it's replaced with a spirit soul. If we are the sum of our experiences, then the spirit soul is still driven by that which is us.... our knowledge, skills, and experiences. So in effect, you swapped out one engine for another. It's still the same car body.

I follow a rule I once read from a D&D sourcebook (also found that in a WW book too). Tell a great story. If the rules get in the way of the story, change them. The story and the fun are paramount and are far more important than the rules. So I choose story over rules. If that doesn't work for you, that's fine too. Your table and my table aren't the same table.

There are more ways than just your way or the highway.

This might very well tell a good story. Please post it if you ever get around to running it!

Just one more curve-ball: Knowledge, skills and abilities are transferred, but there is more to being human. Emotions, values, habits, subconscious desires and needs do not seem to transfer (although this is arguable). I'm not sure about Inhabitation, but at least with Possession you lose the Mental Attributes of the host, and use the Spirit's. This might suggest that some things are lost when the host is consumed in the merge.

I think Neraph suggested that you can imprint the 'remaining' qualities on the Spirit when you change it through the Ally Spirit Formula. I'm not sure how fine-tuned control you have over changing the personality of the Bound Spirit, but I think you could get close enough for it to at least *appear* to be you (Am I me or am I something else? Now *that's* a story ).

-- Slightly Off-topic rambling ahead --

I remember reading an interesting sci-fi story about an abandoned alien base on the far side of the moon that was filled with traps. Humans made a clone of an adventurer and imprinted it with all of the original's memories. Then they stuck one of them into a sensory-deprivation tank. The other one went into the death-traps, and by some feat of science both of the men experienced what the (soon to be dead) adventurer experienced.

The guy on the moon died, but the guy in the tank saw the trap and now knew how to avoid it. So they repeated the process. The next guy died in a second trap. They continued the process over and over, all the while the main character was wondering if he was the guy about to die, or the guy in the tank experiencing what the other guy was doing on the moon; if he would die now, or wake up from the tank soonafter.

The last clone found his way through the traps and found something inside the castle. There was now two of him. The two clones met, and if I remember correctly they found out that their personalities were different. I wonder if the personalities of the clones in between were also different.

The story really made you think what is a personality, and how it is connected to memories. Writing this, I even have a faint memory of one of the clones remembering a fiery love towards a woman, meeting her and finding that he didn't feel anything. It was just an imprinted memory.
...or was that another story?

Man I wish I remembered the title of that book.

Well, even in the example of Ally Spirit, it talks about a "Jungian reflection of his idealized self." I would imagine that that ally spirit would have nearly an identical outlook and personality (albeit much more extreme) as that of the summoner.

Also, in the game I'm playing in, I just finished the ritual and completed the merge with a Force 8 Ally Spirit as a Black Mage. My character had Vendetta linked to his Enemy (Knights of Saint Sylvester), and as the ritual came to a close, the base where I was enacting the ritual came under attack. If they interrupted the ritual, my character would have auto-died (as shown in the Ally Spirit rules), however, because of the valliant efforts of the only other two people at the base (of the 5-man team), they were able to hold off the Knights until the ritual finished.

Now I get to experiment with my brand-new godling

Our game is nearing its finish, and the next campaign will actually be a group with the simple intent of destroying the Infected characters we just made.

darthmord well firstly in an universe where a person's soul, aka Essence can be measured and "eaten" by various critters I don't agree that it is merely the sum of your memories, ect that makes you who you are, if Ravor's soul gets eaten and replaced by his Ally Spirit's then the resulting character is no longer Ravor, it is the Spirit that happens to have some or all of Ravor's memories, maybe it's close enough to fool Ravor's friends and family, but it still isn't Ravor. So yes I read your post, I just rejected the premise, once the engine gets changed out it is no longer the same car because in this case the "engine" is what defines the car's base nature, and the fact that Ravor has some ability to shape and mold the resulting spirit doesn't change that.

Also if you would go back and read Neraph's original post you will note that he makes the claim that it is a "house rule" to disallow the character when in fact the reverse is true, the character is only allowable by fiat, and a DM can just as easily fiat characters with 1000 BPs or allow people to play Great Dragons.

EDIT: Post edited for me being tired and forgetting things.

Neraph, BEFORE you accuse me of lying perhaps you could be bothered to actually read YOUR OWN FRAGGING POST where you said the following:

Boldfacing added

However, just because you died from essence loss doesn't mean you're not you.

Case and point: becoming a vampire. IIRC a person who dies from essence loss via essence drain "resurrects" as an infected. Infected don't automatically have 0 essence, yet do have Magic 1 (implying at least Essence 1, if not a full 6).

There's also a weak case for becoming a cyberzombie, as I'll freely admit that a cyberzombie you isn't fully you (there's a piece of equipment that has to constantly remind you that you are you). However, it is a case where a person has 0 (or less) essence and their soul (i.e. "them") is still around. So Essence doesn't necessarily mean soul. Essence is the connectiveness between the soul and the flesh.

Hmm, vamps are an interesting point, although the person doesn't actually die when she hits ( Essence 0 ) the first time around, personally I think I'd equate them as a much more refined version of a cyberzombie, minus the cyber of course.

Still, I don't think your argument that Essence is "merely" the connection the binds your soul to your body actually makes much of a difference in my posistion given that when it hits zero the soul is no longer present, whether it moves onto the metaplanes as a spirit or is destoryed as it disolves into a cloud of free mana and is absorbed into Gia's Manasphere is a matter to debate. In the Sixth World, my money is on the second.

I don't think I'll add a whole lot to the debate, but the way I see it, it all boils down to whether the GM allows the player to keep playing the character or not. It is fairly obvious that, after the merge, the character is not quite the same. BUT... If the merged character has all the skills and memories of the previous PC and the most likeable parts of his personality, then it isn't a completely alien entity either. It all boils down to the kind of game style the group wants to have. I'm not even saying that it is allowed within RAW as a PC. I'm just saying that the procedure, by and of itself, works. Therefore, if a character is selfless enough that he doesn't mind losing himself into something bigger, it can be an interesting way of moving your agenda forward a bit...

e.g.

"Now daddy has created you for a very special purpose. On my own, I am not strong enough to defeat my enemies. And on your own, you aren't either. But TOGETHER, we could achieve great things for The Cause." Like... It's a suicide for a greater cause. The character is not the same he was, but there is still a character (that could be played, if allowed). And if the group is cool with the player playing that new merged entity, then I don't see why we shouldn't allow it. I think it could be a good story.

The psychology of the character would be pretty interesting, what with "daddy" having sacrificed himself to fight an enemy that might still be too powerful for the merged entity. Oh! Failure! Sweet and sour failure... I guess, for me, an exercise in power-gaming doesn't have to be a bad thing... Like... My character wants power... to do stuff... to move the universe in a direction that he finds aesthetically pleasing. And yes, he would die for it, when the time comes. His struggle for power doesn't have to be munchkinism. It all depends on whether the story it tells is good or not. If it tells a good story, then why not?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAnyways, those are my 2 .

Sure, I'm not saying that it doesn't make an awesome conclusion to a cyberpunk story where the mage has to give up his own life for a chance of his cause suceeding, but its the end of a character's story and not merely a chapter change.

What about writing the epilogue?

As an NPC sure.

I don't quite get the opposition to the idea. I mean, sure, it's a new character, in a way, yet sort of still the same too. There can be power balance issues, but that depends on the group's gaming style and other characters, no? AAAAAAAAAnyway, I guess we don't really need to reach an agreement on this unless we play together and one of us wants to do precisely that. Game on, guys!

The main reason I understand Ravor doesn't like it is twofold: 1) Inhabitation says it kills your character (ignore the fact it says it doesn't if you want to tell a good story), and 2) It's powerful, and players cannot have that.

Nice try, Neraph, now kindly back up your outragous lies with facts.


Triggerz, even if you choose to simply ignore the side of the issue on what makes you "you" then we still run afoul of the fact that if a DM allows this trick to result in a playable character we've basically discovered the "must have" method for anyone who wants to play a Free Spirit and woe to the poor suckers that actually wanted to roleplay a Spirit and used the chargen rules allowing for such charcters.

Additional Information

In Running Wild, page 174, they have added very interesting rules for calling free/wild spirits and gaining favors from them, similar to summoning and binding (in that you can cause a spirit to appear and gain a number of favors from said spirit), under the Calling and Offering section.

The following is a condensed section of pertinent rules:


Applicable Result/Guide

After completing an Occult Knowledge Test, you gain the information to Call a special type of spirit, with the powers listed above. You either craft yourself or have a contact craft for you the paraphernalia required to Call the spirit at Force 1 (two radical animal blood reagents, availability 8, 400 total) and preparing a chosen weapon as a Prepared Vessel (one radical animal blood reagent, availability 8, 200 ). After successfully Calling the spirit, you bargain with it for the express reason of Inhabiting the weapon, using its powers (or powers it will gain) to keep you alive, and you will feed it with the life energy of your enemies; ie: "I know that spirits such as yourself are obsessed with power. I have a great amount of martial prowess. In return for you using your abilities to keep me alive, I will guarantee that you will feast on the souls of my enemies, adding their power to your own."

With their 2 dicepool against your Charisma + Negotiation (+ all those extra bonuses we all know and love), you will win.

The spirit (an apparent variant of a blood spirit) at Force 1 cannot gain a True Form Inhabitation Merge, as he cannot exceed the Object Resistance of the weapon you have chosen. This will result in either a Hybrid Form Inhabitation Merge (which is most desirable), or likely a Flesh Form Inhabitation Merge, causing the weapon to become Dual-Natured (now dangerous against those pesky astral forms) and much harder (Immunity [Normal Weapons]), among other things. Please note that this must take place inside a magical lodge with a Force equal or higher than that of the spirit, in this case, 1. Also, the only forseeable problem is that of the spirit in question Critically glitching on the Inhabitation check; this can be fixed with the spirit initially having the Guard power active on itself.

I present to you: Bloodmourne.

Alternatively (and more expensively), you can follow this same preceedure to similarly "enchant" barbed arrows (or bolts). As the arrow is stuck in the enemy, the spirit within begins to deal additional "DoT" (Damamge over Time) damage to him, gaining 1 point of karma per point of physical damage dealt (as per Energy Drain [Karma]). If the enemy wants to stop this, he must remove the barbed arrow.

I present to you: the Blooddrinker Arrows (I brainstormed these with Ragewind, and he insists they should be named Souldrinker Arrows, but as I'm posting this ).

A 1-Up for Blooddrinker Arrows would be using Injection Arrows as the base arrow, and remember to include a dose of Slab. As they lie there for at least an hour due to the Slab drug, your Bolt-Buddy finishes killing them to suck the karma out of their blood.

In all cases, the Bloodmourne™ system of Dual-Natured weapons manufacturing creates an extremely flexible system of creating a smart-weapon capable of aiding its wielder immensely (and possibly similarly to using mooks for hacking), and it only gets better over time.

Neraph, just wait until said spirit decides that *YOU* are it's next meal... because its power grew more than yours.

That's simply an attempt to undermine this proceedure. Albeit an actual danger, that's what Negotiation is for, and, failing that, Mind Control (for the mages).

Not aiming to undermine you. It's a great idea IMO. I was just bringing up a major potential drawback to the idea.

Just be careful that you aren't creating your own Frankenstein monster. Oh wait, they already did that with Cybermancy.

A Force 1 spirit is disrupted as soon as it enters a Background count, isn't he? You might need to beef it up a bit.

You definately could. In fact, with the above method, you'd be able to Call as many spirits of this type as you want, for like 400 per point of Force. The thing is, a Force 1 would definately lose the opposed Negotiation Test, and he'd end up being more willing to not eat you too, as darthmord pointed out.

Also, the "eat you" part only applies with a range of Touch. The first time it deals 1 point of P damage to you, you drop it and threaten to chain it to a rock and throw it in the harbor if it does it again. That should be the end of that.

EDIT: It gains karma at the rate of 1 karma per point of Physical damage it deals to someone, with a certain Test. The answer is either capturing people on runs you do (not neccessarily the best answer) or going to Z-zones or feral cities, and optimally tieing someone down and laying the blade on them so the blade can get the most "mileage" out of your "donor." One would be interested to figure out how much damage, say, an average-statted Troll could heal each day and capturing one (or buying a full-body clone for like 25,000 ) and having a personal "Karma Battery™" for your Bloodmourne.

If' it's 1 Karma / point of damage, tie the weapon to a regenerating creature such that the weapon is damaging the creature. Creature regens and takes damage again. Very quickly, the weapon becomes more powerful than you can imagine.

How exactly are you going to be offering up the Karma of your victims? Energy Drain requires an Extended Test with an interval of 1 minute, and the enemies are going to know it's happening. Considering most fights don't last nearly that long (20 Combat Turns), and when it ends they're either dead or running away, I just don't see how you could live up to that bargain.

It's even worse if you stick with the Force 1 spirit as they won't be able to make the Extended Test (Willpower + Magic = 2 dice) without multiple glitches and repeated failures. And with the threshold being (10-Essence), you're going to have to stand around for an awful long time trying to fulfill it. Nevermind the evil connotations of offering up someone else's Karma, let alone actually doing it the only way you could (by capturing and tortuing people).

Pretty easily. Slab them, tie them up, knock them unconscious; restrain them in any way. Since they very well might be tagged and have biomonitors, hunting amongst the SINless would be a far better approach, unless you want to locate tags and destroy them before hand.

Besides, if you take a vanilla metahuman (unaugmented), it's only a Magic + Willpower [2] (10 - Essence [4], 1 Minute) Test, which can be done in (optimally) only 2 minutes - 1 if the spirit spends his one point of Edge. Granted, that only gets him the 1P damage/1 karma drain, but it's entirely feasible to do.

Grab a vanilla human, Slab him (he's down for 7 hours), restrain him, and put the blade on him, and before the Slab wears off the human is dead and the spirit is 13 karma stronger. Now he's a F2 spirit, and able to continue the process much faster, being now able to buy 1 success each test.

So you need to play a serial killer to do it. Less "enemies" and more "innocent victims." Okay, I was just checking to make sure I wasn't missing something.

Oh no, you could totally do it using your enemies - it would just require you to thoroughly clean your enemies before feeding them to your Bloodmourne.

Allthough it is faster and easier with bums on the street...

I personally have no qualms with a character playing the part of a serial killer.

Every action has a consequence; for good or for ill, there is always a consequence.

Though I might have to take this idea and run with it in a SR4 game I'm running.

NOTE: The blade can also betray it's master. This would be an interesting turn of events where the blade (really it can be any weapon, but I always envision a sword) starts using its powers against its maker (an NPC) to try and fall into the hands (no pun intended) of the PCs.

I think I'd go with an ice pick. Nicely anachronistic in 2070 but less ritualized than an actual sword.

I've been starting to favor the idea of a Cyberspur. Especially for the non-Awakened.

EDIT: Although the feeding thing would become problematic, so maybe simply forearm snap-blades.

If you could point out the alignment system in this game for me, as I suspect I missed it.

Non sequitur much Mordivan? Since when does a games system have to have an alignment system for the word evil to mean anything?

To imply that "evil" is in and of it self going to generate some kind of consequence.....

Sorry, but things only have consequences if you get caught.

From a game standpoint, I'd have to agree with Mordinvan. In many systems, there is an inherent alignment system that encourages a type of playstyle, and suggests consequences if such is not followed. This just isn't the case in ShadowRun. Yes, if you start abducting people, and sucking the life from them.....and get caught at it, there will be consequences. But if you're smart about it, and don't get caught, there's really no basis for it, unless your GM just wants to Zod you.

And, if using the above methods, even if you get caught the opposition may not be able to do very much to you anyways.

So... I have a Free Spirit PC in play in my home game. Force 6, Edge 7, 3s and a 4 for Stats, Magic and Essence 6. 7 points of spirit powers (Aura Masking, Realistic Form, Mutable Form, Concealment, Guard, Accident) plus the freebies. The campaign involves the three PCs being closely associated with a gang in L.A. (membership in the 20s), not magical except for a few of the associates to the gang. The gang is a Group Contact for my FSPC at 5/5. We just started up, and four of the 6 Friends are gang members, one a street shaman who is sort of mother-protector to the neighbourhood, and one of the other two PCs. This last Friendship was just enacted, and I have to wait for the Karma to be able to progress and get the other PC as a Friend.

It is clear that my FSPC will have to start making Friends in a more rational way, as ork street gangers are not likely to live very long. Each death of a Friend will reduce her Force by 1. That's alright, I saw this going into the campaign.

While Nerpah's ideas regarding groups are interesting, they mostly involve a magical group. I see potential in some of the Spirit Pacts for a non-magical group. Power Pact would be certainly interesting to any group member, but would not likely give access to many spells for her to use (and therefore learn). If Karma is part of the exchange, then there is fertile ground here for her to progress quickly. If the GM allows it, of course. Similarly, the Drain pact with the one or two associated mages might be doable.

I invite suggestions as to how this FSPC might profit from pacts with a mostly non-magical gang.

Either which way the wind blows with Friendship Pacts, I highly suggest trying to get ahold of Hidden Life. The reason I chose a magical group is that you're also in a good spot to try entering into Power Pacts and getting some spells on the cheap.

I don't think I mentioned it here but you can also do a Dream Pact and put the guy in a permanent coma.

Heh, well, I'm looking at things she can do with people who are friends, if not Friends.

Oh, and it makes joining a Magical Group for Initiating that much easier.

To that "Bloodmourne" arrow...
Great idea! I really didn't think of that!

Still, the idea of having a spirit suck the very life out of opponents always reminds me of having the same spirit transfer his "Energy Drain (Karma)" power via "Endowment" to the mage. Both ways seem to me to resemble a toxic mage's path... That's not quite impossible in the game, but beware of anyone finding out.

Anyway, awesome idea!