I need a suggestion. My fire mage is summoning an ally spirit soon. I figure one form will be a traditional samuri decked out with flames, but I think a less threatening form might also be useful. Maybe some kind of animal, but I can't think of any good ideas. Any suggestions?

A pigeon...going down in flames.

Maybe a miniature pheonix -- watching it explode, self-immolate and you get left with an ugly chicken until the feathers grow in...

-Siege

Edit: Maybe one of those tiny chicken briquettes...squabs?

Well, keep in mind that the spirit does not need to have any given motif.

He could look like a samurai, or column of fire, or a multicolored bird that trails rainbow-hued flames, or an obsidian knife with silver traced Arabic incantations to Ifrits, or nearly anything else.

Sheep, cute sheep. They are the least threatening and boring animal I can think of. Hell, if the fools in LOTRs had used a sheep for the Ring bearer, they wouldn't need to fight. The Eye would be sound asleep...Baa...

A dikoted Silvergun, of course!

It's a Dikoted Slivergun.

A domestic cat composed of smoke. The eyes remain opaque, "real" cat's eyes. I had a NPC mage that specialized in fire. His ally looked like a chinese dragon with red-laquered, gold-edged scales. It had a small (about .7 meters) form, and a big one. The larger was about 3 meters and more fierce looking.

An invisible naked human. or just a human form and looks like John Doe. Give him formfitting, longcoat and some guns.

An attractive female troll with a Catholic schoolgirl's outfit and a copy of the Kama Sutra.

~J

I'm working on an ally spirit myself.

2 forms.

1. a small monkey, just like the kind I often shapechange into.
2. Me.

Why look here comes Kong with his monkey on his shoulder. Course, the Kong (me) is in fact the ally spirit and the monkey on it's shoulder is me shapechanged.

Looking forward to having another me around, specially one I have a mind link with.

Kong

Other forms (for undetected materialization, primarily):

- empty soda can, slightly damaged
- fire hydrant / lighting pole
- office plant with pot
- small tree
- generic wage-slave
- some small dual-natured animals (devil rat? ;explains magical nature of materialized form)
- normal jeans and sweatshirt form (if he ever gets free, he'll be happy about this)

for scams
- lone star officer
- few sticks of dynamite with complicated electronics on top ("Sir, this bomb may not be as easy to defuse as you think, there's some kind of spirit in it.")
- Doc Wagon team member
- dragon
- gun
- big truck (I know, the spirit is only able to do in this form what he can normally do, but any driver is sure to heed him if he stands in the middle of the intersection. Reminds me....)
- traffic lights
- camera / audio recorder

http://www.realdoll.com

My personal favorite, although I haven't had time to check out some of the new galleries. Some of the others look damn good too.

If you are going to post a link like that, please warn us. Some of us are at work

*whew*
glad i read bearclaw's post first.
i'm at work too.

I think a wristwatch/phone would work well. if the spirit needed to communicate, you'd get a call.

i'm not too sharp on the spirit rules right now, so i don't know if they can communicate telepathically.

A dikoted katana.

You can even dikote the wounds that the dikoted slivers of a dikoted ally-spirit silvergun causes.

Or you dikote the dikoted ally spirit katana/slivergun and dikote the dikoted slivers and then dikote the wounds of the opponent.

And dikote your bones!

Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote Dikote

Anyways- a dikoted claymore does (str+2) D. Yowch!

...
lets see.... fire-based beings....
1. Hot elven redhead in gender of choice (DUH! should be a alternative form no matter what!)
2. Phoenix (Classic)
3. Hellhound (once again, classic)
4. Humanoid form composed of fire (Can we say "Classic"?)
5. Think of a patch of living and thinking and moving ink, only red and hot.... (Hmm... that'd be a nice combo with the hot elven redhead!)

so there, some ideas!
now, no matter what it is, dikote the sucker! (maybe not the elven redhead...)

I generally prefer to give any ally spirit a few forms.

1) Their default "spirit form", in your case the flaming samurai.
2) An innocuous metahuman form with street cloths, usually someone you can pass off as your "companion."
3) Said companion in more formal wear, for those Johnson meets in ritzy restaraunts and times where you need to pass for a corp type.
4) An animal form, such as a dog or a raccoon, for scouting missions where a physical presence is still required.
5) Something really, really intimidating, such as the kind of thing that gives H P Lovecraft nightmares.

In your specific situation:

2 & 3 would be a human/metahuman with dusky skin and red hair, as mentioned earlier.

4 could be any kind of animal with reddish fur, or associated with fire.

5 could be a number of things. One is the appearance of a swirling, sentient fire a few feet across... just imagine this roiling mass of flame chasing you down the hall. A standard Fire Elemental form works also, and could help trick enemy mages. ("Why the hell isn't my banishing working? It must be stronger than I thought!")

Perhaps a "magma golem" form? An eight-foot-tall humanoid form made of crackling, steaming lava coming at the sec guards...

Remember, the spirit's forms are mostly for your benefit, and for fooling anyone who sees them. Trick them into thinking your spirit is a cigarette lighter, or that you can summon red dragons!

That's it! I'm starting up METS! Metahumans for the Ethical Treatment of Spirits! No more summoning spirits into unsafe locations! No using them for combat! No forcing them to inhabot something! Rights for Spirits now!

*grin*

Let my public stoning begin!

-fr

Fire and Chaos:

If you remember the GHOST RIDER comic book series from MARVEL COMICS (the Johnny Blaze/Zarathos version, that is; Blaze being the human host, and Zarathos being the demon who was grafted onto his soul by the demon lord Mephisto), Blaze rode a customized motorcycle--possibly a modified Harley-Davidson Sportster 800 or 1200. When Zarathos took over, he would create an identical motorcycle composed of mystical flame ("hellfire"), or possibly transform the existing one by mystical means.

Anyway, I haven't read ALL of my SR novels yet, but wasn't there a character in one of them whose Ally Spirit could take the form of a motorcycle, or some other vehicle?

Just a thought.

--Foreigner

Yeah, his name was Talon from The Burning Time. I don't think i'm going to go the whole ally spirit as transportation route, though as it might be unbalancing in our current game and I wouldn't want to impose that much responsibility in a newly summoned spirit. In case I change my mind though, anyone know any rules for spirits summoned in the form of vechiles?

Ohhh! Lots of fun here!

1: Ferret that goes "Poing". A lot.
2: A little girl (8?)...whose head rotates around and around and around whenever she's questioned/threatened, then lets loose a mass confusion/Agony spell.
3: Credstick - never leave home without it.
4: Baby Cthullu.
5: A pizza-delivery guy. (almost as faceless as the wage-slave option.)
6: A little unicorn that goes "Neeeth" a lot. Then "breathes fire" (Flamethrower 6)
7: A human-shaped shadow, that gradually changes into something...else. Ask it to stick by you whenever you're in a sunny place...
8: A ring. And if you put your ear to it, you hear unearthly whispering and suggestions.
9: Elemental of choice. (heh, as Kesh suggested.)
10: Oppostie gender version of you. "Hi, this is my...sister."
11: Cyberdeck. "Oh, I use an induction jack."
12: A Talking Toilet.
13: An Emu.
14: A suitably-gory and horified head on a stake, that screams whenever someone gets close. And casts a high-level powerball. Or 7.
15: Elvis. Nuf' said.


L:

"Thank you, thank you very much."

The bike is Aracos, the mage is Talon and the author is Steve Kenson. The spirit appears in Ragnarok, Crossroads and Burning Time.