Astral Gyrojet: A Gyrojet round filled with FAB II. When shot at a dematerialized spirit it causes a forced astral interaction as it passes through the spirit.

Astral Shells: Shotgun shells replacing shot with the seeds of a duel natured plant (super bonus points if you find an awakened ironwood tree).

Panic Button: For those groups that need conference area's that are astrally secure but don't want to kill somebody who becomes accidentally trapped in an Astral Form, these are small boxes filled with FAB I. A trapped astral entity can reach inside of one causing the fab to flores. This either causes a door to open or signals security to send somebody up.

Astral Ink. Digital paper with a light coating of Fab on one side of the sphere (digital ink works by having one side of a pixil sphere coated white the other black and electomegnetically turning the sphere over).

Astral Paint. Uses a version of FAB mixed in with paint. This is not enough to create a barrier (and will die in a couple months) but can be used to paint a sign in the Astral (because no space should be advertising free).

Spirit pet. A Force 1 or Force 2 animal spirit bound to long term service using a "charge" (a written set of instructions describing a service in detail, covering most common situations read by the summoner to the spirit upon binding it) to serve is a pet/service animal. Most often used to police/rescue spirits or other form of handycapped service spirits (and rarely). One or two may also be serving as actual pets. There are a somewhat higher than normal instances of these spirits remaining after their term of binding is up. For a low force dog spirit sticking around as a pet/rescue animal doesn't always seem like such a bad idea.

Nope.


Also no, but points for effort.


That could actually work.


No. But you can get close with astral pigments and a printer.


Astral pigments. You do have Arsenal, right?


I like the idea, but no way to currently implement it. Use an agent and a script.

So what should happen? The only two results I can come up with are that whatever gets hit would either 1) have a forced interaction as per wards or 2) be blown back until the shot/gyrojet runs out of juice.





Yes but as soon as you find some way to obscure a pigment you can set up a computer display to show on the astral. The only thing I can think that would prevent this, is if the sphere did not block the light from the pigment.




I was thinking more along the idea of having Astral billboards in high traffic areas.




Can you expand on this a little bit. Street magic has the option to spend Karma to bind a spirit into a remote service for a year and a day. You're basically telling a spirit "go be their family pet". Of course there are all sorts of problems with this, so to keep the lawyers happy you go "go be their family pet, being a family pet is defined as (long contract with seven subparagraphs). This allows those "purchasing" the spirits service to have a better idea of what they're getting into. (Original inspiration was a security spirit that liked to manifest to get tummy rubs from workers at the facility it was guarding.

Do weapon focus tasers and spearguns still work so long as a line provides a constant connection from the projectile back to the weapon?

Only Untill your GM decides to whack you over the head with his hadcover-version of the SR4 CoreBook . .

Now that i have found a thread in which this might fit:
What would happen, if you load up darts with FAB strains and shoot them at Mages/Spirits/Magical Critters? O.o

Never explicitly defined, but most likely the dual-natured material would expire on contact with anything "solid" in either the astral or physical, though I use the term solid very loosely in this case. In any event, neither is sufficient to create an actual barrier to impede an astral form, and nothing can really force a spirit to materialize.


It's probably an area of ongoing research, but the manatech isn't there yet. One of the main points against reading in the astral is the fact that the astral is not actually viewed with any kind of physical senses - there's no sight to read astral letters, no touch to read astral braille. Any reading done in the astral is done with Assensing, and could be a bit like trying to read written words by touch. Astral pigments can be used in such a matter, but only for very short and simple signs or messages.


Not cost effective by any means.


You can long-term bind a spirit to a remote service, yes, but spirits do not go in for long contracts with seven subparagraphs. The main problem with the idea as present is that a spirit bound with Karma is on its final service - all other services owed are void - and even if you did give it a set of tasks organized as a simple script ("Maintain these wards without fail, patrol this perimeter against astral intruders, and notify the security magician on duty if the wards are violated for a year and a day."), you can't loan it out for a long-term bind, which makes any attempt to use a spirit as a pet or a work animal outside the direct purview of the magician a bit of an apprentice brooms scenario. If, for example, you tasked the spirit to be a pet, it might jump around and play with the children - but it could not be ordered to stop playing because no one has any power over it. A dog possessed by a spirit might make a wonderful seeing-eye animal, but it would not take orders from its charge or defend its master if attacked.

There are actually examples where a spirit was bound to perform a service for someone else for a period of time - see Dunkelzahn's Will for fluff examples - but in all such cases there isn't really a "script" and those spirits are all free spirits, which allows them a greater freedom of action.

*reads*
nothing concernign FAB filled injection darts used on magical being/magic users? O.o

It does sound like an interesting idea though... trying to make it work would be interesting

Actually, this could work. You'd just need two different FAB coatings (different astral signatures) on each sphere. That'd insure that even though the sphere itself doesn't block the astral sense, you'd still known which way it was oriented.

I know that at least to us, the best way to describe the astral perception is through sight and while that's not the only way to perceive it, I'd bet it's the closest of the 5 senses.* So "seeing" which sphere is up oriented you'd get a "two color" astral digital readout. With admittedly low contrast.

*I recall some experiment done where this guy had two (three?) chips implanted in his arm that gave a nerve (each) mild electric shocks based on the strength of nearby electromagnetic radiation (closer the source the stronger the shock). After a few weeks he could close his eyes and see people around him based on that EM signature emitted by the human body (as well as other things). While the sense wasn't sight based at all, that's the portion of the brain that handled the new information (and not even particularly detailed information at that!).

Now that is cool...

It is. I sorta "dreamed" what it would be like to take that example to the extreme. That is, implant 64 or so shock-chips into one's head (or anywhere really, the head was just a good circumference to use as well as the main sensor package of the human body) and then wire up a helmet with the actual sensors (wireless relay). 3 for this, 3 for that, 3 for something else... and train yourself to recognize the sensory input from the helmet.

Then get someone else to wear the helmet.

THAT was be awesome.

Doesn't FAB comes in three versions, one dualnatured that can act as astral barrier, one single natured that dies when an astral form passes trought its aura and dying relises a substance that glowes when exposed to UR light, and the infamous mana-eating FAB-III? That Mana Panic Button^TM is going to require mini colture of FAB, and a constant source of UV light to work (kind of expensive and with limited usefullness); if you realy want to avoid the problem use the sensor wards (forgot the name) from Street Magic and add watcher spirits, that should work better than the FAB.

I have to wonder if an animal spirit, form dog, summoned by a dog shaman and instructed to work in a manner consistent with a dog of breed appropriate to the form the spirit takes, wouldn't function as a dog if ordered to do so as part of a long term binding (including taking direction from other "pack members").

I'll take that as a "Yes" then.

There's evidence to suggest that that wouldn't work. I remember reading about an experiment where experimenters used a camera and similar electrode net (think it was 32x32) and couldn't get people to use the camera, until some guy grabbed the camera and held it up to the side of his head. We have a body position sense and it's tightly integrated into our perception, since it helps us work out relative position using an intuitive understanding of how objects move in relation to each other.

The general problem is that even if the spirit has some dog appearance or mannerisms because of the tradition or mindset of the summoner, it is not a dog, and doesn't think or act like a dog.

A fleshform good merge in a dog's body can get around most of that and can both think and act like a dog when it serves it best to do so. What? You're not playing a magician from an inhabitation tradition? Lame...

Not a experiment I've read about, and I know it wouldn't work off the bat (particularly I wouldn't add in 12 new "senses" all at once" just have the electrodes there such that the surgery only happens once, they get activated later).

In any case, I'm certain that when it got to the other person wearing the helmet (you know, wait for the training of the nerves to set in pretty strong first) that the subject with the 'trodes (i.e. me in this case) would need to maintain a level of sensory deprivation (close eyes, have sound piped in from the location of the helmet such that they had audio of the location as well, etc. etc.)

Well if a low force spirit is not going to think and act in a manner appropriate to its form, tradition and summoners Totem spirit, then how is it suppose to think and act? If my force 1 or 2 dog spirit isn't going to act like an actual or idealized dog, then how should it act? I suppose completely alien being is possible, but that doesn't quite mesh with spirits being full blown NPCs in SR4.

Good Point...

I think you're failing to grasp the basic concept here. There are rules for the behavior of spirits; even if you think spirits should work one way the rules still apply. If you order a spirit to act like a dog as a service, it will accommodate you to the best of its ability - but it's understanding and your understanding may well not match, because it is not a dog. Commands like "heel," "stay" and "attack" will be taken as orders, either to end a service or to start a new one. You can loan a spirit to someone else, and they can use its services, but when you use long-term binding with Karma to tie it to a given service the remainder of its services disappear. So assigning a spirit to act as a sheep dog to protect a flock works fine, but it isn't going to take orders from anyone - it might even attack the shepherd if it considers them a threat.

True... But would not the idealized Dog spirit be a DOG spirit? Much like the Wolf Totem is WOLF? Maybe I am just transfering from Worl of Darkness here, but it would seem to be how it would intuitively work, but you never know... I would think that commanding a dog spirit to protect the flock would make perfect sense to the Dog spirit... may use up a few commands to clarify intent, but not too many I would think...

Why we ask, I guess...

Thanks for any other clarifications you can provide for us Ancient History...

Well, it helps to remember that there is no such thing as a "dog spirit" per se in SR. There are Spirits of Beasts, yes, but unlike in the World of Darkness you're not summoning the spirit of a specific dog, or an archetypal spirit-dog, you're summoning a spirit that is generally recognized as a Beast spirit that may or may not look like a dog depending on the magician's tradition and personal outlook.

Which is a long way to say that there is a divorce between the magician's personal magical philosophy and the actual rules. Your dog shaman can indeed call up what they believe is the spirit of their own dear departed canine, or an avatar of the dog-totem, or one of the hounds of Thor, what have you - and those spirits will appear and act generally in accordance with the beliefs of the magician but (and here is the heavy caveat) they are still bound by the hard-and-fast rules for spirits. The problem with assigning a spirit to long-term service to another is the potential for abuse - if you can assign a spirit as a guard dog in the terms you describe, then the spirit is performing actions it would normally require multiple services to accomplish, rather than having a single service extended out for a year-and-a-day period. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's no such thing as free services.

Hey, that makes sense... Thanks for the assistance...

Well, he IS Ancient History . .

Too True

This is why I like AH. He makes the rules-lawyer side of my brain go "Squee" while providing enough fluff to completely conceal that fact.

*shrugs*
Chances are good, he was one of, if not THE first who thought up a way to do most of these things in the first way . . or, at least, has been there when it happened ^^

Definitely been around a while...

Well according to the rules as written, "incidentals" don't count towards a spirits total services. Why shouldn't what the spirit defines as an incidental service be based on type, tradition and totem? I'm sure there are limits. A dog spirit acting like a service animal won't follow an order to attack (not part of the service animal package) but would like follow stay and heel. On the other hand a dog spirit bound to secure a building would, stay, heel and attack as directed by security, those are part of its package, it would however not go down to the frig and get one of the security detail a coke (at least without a bribe to "break character"). Neither is to likely to start up a conversation. On the other hand a spirit of man could be quite chatty (incidental to any other service) and a task spirit may decide to go "fix" the nearest [skill appropriate] item if it gets bored.

If it can be qualified as something that requires the expenditure of a service, it is not incidental.

Which depending on the mood of the spirit could mean using is sapience power to answer a question a simple question of "What are you thinking about", or "are you able too..."

Not sure that really is a helpful definition. For example:

Defend this building from intruders, can include the subset
Kill the first hostile mage to walk through the front door, which could also be a stand alone service.

How does the spirit know what constitutes an "intruder"? This would require some interaction with the inhabitants of the building. What constitutes defend, kill, incapacitate, hit a panic button and call the star?

Cannon seems to suggest that an extended service can have several parts for example:
If it's after hours, and you see somebody that doesn't belong or you see somebody that doesn't belong on the astral at any time go alert security then try to detain them, go lethal if they start shooting at you. On the other hand having to in effect "program" a spirits services seems a bit at odds with the spirit having the sapience power (though might be in line with how a hermetic views a spirit).

I think what I'm suggesting here is that a long term service imposes a role into a spirit and that what the spirit will consider to be incidental powers will depend on that role. Guard dog doesn't need more services to work with security in the proper manner, seeing eye dog doesn't need any more services to act properly, ect.

Spirit services are, by their nature, not specifically detailed in most cases. There's plenty of examples of real-life magical traditions (and fables) that make a point of how a poorly-worded order or wish ends up biting someone in the ass. Let's take your order as an example:


If you gave this order to the spirit, how would it be interpreted? The spirit could attempt to protect the actual physical building from any direct harm (if so, it's on remote service and its other services may be lost), or seek to prevent entry to the building, either by using its powers (burn a service for continuous use of a power) or attacking anyone that attempts to enter (remote service), or the spirit could simply ward the building (burn a service), or the spirit could go on astral patrol, reporting any invaders, and wait for an order to engage (burn a service per engagement). Any of these are reasonable from the perspective of a spirit.


Particularly if the spirit decides the inhabitants of the building are intruders. Here, if your GM is kind, a Logic test might prevail - but really, you should be more specific with your orders, including "Don't hurt anybody wearing one of these tags unless they attack you."


Again, specify! The is what leads to apprentice brooms scenarios.


This is why I suggest an agent with a script above. A spirit should not have to go through a list of if/then/else clauses (and neither should the gamemaster).

An incidental (doesn't cost a service) is something like: asking a spirit to repeat back the order you just gave them to make sure they understand it, a bound spirit nudging its master awake when knocked unconscious (nice GM fiat trick, that), a plant spirit idly plucking a weed while on patrol, etc. Minor modifications to a spirit's remote or long-term service might also count as incidental and not cost a service ("Don't overwater Mr. Mearls prize begonia patch while watering the fields.")


A long term service is, by definition, a single service stretched out over a longer period. Any assumptions of a role are entirely in your head.

AH seems to forget that many spirts are just as smart - and some are far smarter in both Intuition and Logic - than metahumans. They can reason and problem solve just as well or better than metahumanity and there is nothing that says they try to screw the magician, so if an order is vague, why wouldn't the spirit ask for a clarification? AH's method screams dickery to me, but he's the archetypical AH, so I should just expect it.

Depends on how well you treat the spirit. If they have no reason to be inclined to be helpful, then the GM is free to interpret your orders however they want.

As an aside, there's more to intelligence than the Logic and Intuition attributes - but I think we had this argument about sasquatch. A nice GM might be inclined to roll Logic or Intuition to interpret a very vague order.

I would say that it often comes down to intent...

My two cents