Like i mentioned in another thread, i am about to play a musician-adept. Initially i liked the idea of the "day-job" and the "fame"-qualities, to get a lot of money and fun at parties. But why should somebody that is famous and earns a lot of money, go on runs and risk his life? Then the idea of the bard came in. I want him to be an artist, that draws his inspiration from the hard and tough life on the streets. So he joins runs to get informations about hard-working people, the mendacity of the mega-corps and problems in other countries. Fist i wanted to create a basic combat-adept but then i switched to possession-based traditions and a mystic adept. The path-magic has one branch that is for bards, but for fighting purposes, the ghosts a voodoo-shaman can summon would fit the concept better. So i am uncertain which mentor and which tradition i will use.

Here the build:

Metatype: Elf

Body: 2
Strenght: 2
Agility: 5
Reaction: 5
Intuition: 5
Charisma: 5
Logic: 3
Willpower: 3
Magic: 5 (1 for adept-powers / 4 on magic)

Summoning (fire-spirits): 5 (+2)
Binding: 4
Spellcasting (health-spells): 4 (+2)
Counterspelling (combat): 1 (+2)

Perception: 3
Artisan: 5
Athletics skill group: 1
- gymnastics (floor exercises): 3 (+2)
Influence skill-group: 1

Spells:
- Increased reflexes

Gear: not buyed jet, but defintely a stratocaster, commlink, clothes, little weaponry (sword, automag etc.)

Qualities:
- Mystic Adept :10
- Aptitute (artisan): 10
- Surge Level 3: 15 (not broke out jet, have to discuss the pros. and cons. with the GM, but should include "Glamour" or "Arcane Arrester".
- First Impression: 5
- Inspired: 5

Flaws:
- day job ??? (maybe a record-deal or some gigs in seattle?)
- Sensitive system (15)
- SINer (5)
- Allergy (medium) on mycoprotein (15)

Knowledge skills:
- don´t know exactly, definitely something with musik and knowledge skills of his favourite bands)

Adept-powers:
- Commanding voice
- Combat sense 2 (with geas)

I know that i am app. 10 points over the top with edges and flaws, but i think i can clarify this with the GM.

Ok boys and girls, i hope you have some help for me. Is this playable, assuming that you always summon a ghost to possess you? Guarding spirit with add. power (skill-automatics) and then he grabs the MP i carry along etc.?

AND i would need the mentioned help, finding a proper tradition and mentor spirit. My first choice was a path-mage with sun as mentor (i want him to be like hole in the astral, that sucks mana out of it, shining it to the real world) but they lack the correct ghosts as well as possession. At the moment think of a franco-american that comes from new orleans and learned the magic from the black voodoo-mambos down there. They have all i need, but it doesn´t fit so good to my bard-background and sun is not available as totem. Should i create my own tradition and totem?

There's always the Rastafarian Tradition from Digital Grimoire if you want to go that way...

Seems to be nearly the same than voodoonism, and i am not in christan believes in any way. Even voodoo is too christian for me.

Try the Egyptian Tradition for Sun and Possession. Don't even worry about ethnic or religious ties with this one - Neo-Kemitism/Kemeticism could be as popular in Los Angeles or Seatte of the 2070s as Kaballah is among celebrities today.

Yeah, i will have a look at this.^^ Thanks

Hmm... what you need are physical sonic-based spells and the centering metamagic using an electric guitar. Then you can buy a milspec armor, add some speakers and rock out. If your spells do not kill, your beeing too awesome will.

Hell, you could base your tradition on old video games. (I think in one Gungrave , there was a character fighting with a guitar and shockwaves). You get overtaken by the rock gods *g*. So it is a mix of metal, north mythology and awesome.

What i am trying to say is: Holy crap... i think i have another character to play *g*.

I always thought bards are lame, but playing a fighting-musicians seemed to be fun...AND rockstars are cool.^^ Your are welcome to join, let me know what your other players think of it.^^

Warrior-poets are decidedly not lame. There's a long tradition of badass artists - the mythical celtic Fianna are a prime example, but the actual Samurai were usually fairly skilled as well.

In the case of the former, poetry was considered an important element of magic - just food for thought.

hi hi

For a bard, I might consider getting the Linguistics, Enthralling Performance and Cool Resolve adept powers as well.

hell, sr1/2 had a rocker archtype (and a synthlink). Rock on

hi hi

As a master of sound, you could always do fun things with scattered or pre-placed speakers. Remember, half of stealth is deception/misdirection. A fly spy with a loud speaker could emulate the sound of a large attack helicopter, a group of guards might be distracted by what sounds like their boss yelling for help in another room, a series of flashes and the sounds of full auto gunfire could divert attention away from your current position.

don't forget improved ability music. The wheel path bards were AWESOME they had compulsion as a power.

As to your reason to run. things to write songs about, problems of the people, life on the edge, and general escapism.

Is in planning, but at the beginning i needed the BP (meaning: the magic points) for the magical abilities. Keeping him alive via possession is more important that better singing.

I have the following powers in the pipeline:

Increased skill (artisan)
Enthralling performance
Voice control
Increased Senses (low- and high-frequency, hearing amplification, select-sound filter, damper, spatial recognizer etc.)

plus some random powers for fighting.

But here comes another question:

- the artisan skill covers virtually everything that has just in close contact with it. Singing, dancing, instuments, even carpentry. Thats quite a good skill if you think that you are capable of all this skills just with one base-skill. shouldn´t you have to purchase this skill at least for some different means? Otherwise everybody which has this skill would be a jack-of-all-trades.

- Something like the radar vision would be cool, but i don´t think that acc. to RAW it would be possible (technical effect). Or does anybody of you know an animal that naturally produces radar-waves?^^

Take a look into the technocritters section of Running Wild

Haven´t got a copy jet. *sniff*

Got a better idea. Just implant a radar scanner into the animal. Viola.

No, i am not going to make him an animal trainier.^^ The adept powers just say, that you can simulate "natural"-senses. So as log as there is no animal that send and receive microwave radar, i would have to get ot via glasses/goggels etc.

Think Jack Black in the game Brutal Legend. His axe is a Stratocaster, used to cast all his spells. Just in case this is not enough, he keeps a big honking axe around for backup to his other axe.

Basicly writeup your own tradition. Base it off of one of the possession ones, just make your own flavor text. The Gawdz of Rock will possess you and let you smite down your foes while letting loose the most awesome rifts on your stratocaster that the women will all rip off their shirts and... *cough* ok then.

Oh, and you need a bad ass car to go with your image. I'ma say build a hotrod. Pimped 2. Skulls and flames all over a gloss black paintjob, so much chrome that there is chrome on the chrome, straight pipes shooting flames, etc.

Yeah, already working on it. But i still don´t get used to the water-elemental. How can i put that in shape?

Here is the punk tradition from my punk campaign:

For many Awakened, the Punk tradition is a joke. For them, Punk mages are just shamans who see their totem through their own culture. But for other Awakened, the Punk tradition does exist: the mystic trips of punk legends may not have been all because of drugs. And after all, why shouldn't a cultural movement, nearly a century old, with a huge impact on the collective mind and its own vision of the world, couldn't have what it takes to form a magic tradition? Finally, as other Awakened put it: 'If rastas have their own tradition, why can't we have ours?'

Anway, the fact is that there are mages out there who are said to belong to the punk tradition (most of them won't acknowledge it, they don't fit in any of your fucking categories!) and they can use magic just like any other Awakened.

It's hard to tell what the core beliefs and philosophy of punk magic is. Each Punk mage has his own, and you can't get two of them to agree on what it is. Most of the time, they'll end up fighting each other or/and drinking beer and taking drugs while talking about something completely different. There are still some things that are common between a lot of Punk mages: their rituals involve drinking beer, taking drug, listening to/playing punk music and insulting people and the Society. When summoning spirits, they don't really negotiate for a number of services: they ask something, a spirit answers their summoning (if the mage is powerful enough) and then it might do what the mage ask or might do something completely different. Another difference is the force of their spells and spirits: most punk mages don't want to restrict magic and will cast their spell and summon their spirit at the force 'the magic wants'. (In game, they roll the force: if the mage has rating 3 magic, he rolls 1d6, if he has rating 4 he rolls 1d8 and so on).

Drain: Willpower+Charisma
Type: Materialization ("I'm the master of my own body, I'm not letting anyone possess me!")
Domains:
Combat: Riot Spirit (Fire)
Detection: Punk-legend Spirit (Guide)
Health: Beer Spirit (Water)
Illusion: Drug Spirit (Plant)
Manipulation: Musician Spirit (Artisan)

(And don't forget to have your totem send a weird naked indian to take you to a metaplan to meet Jim Morisson...)

We are talking about punks, aren´t we? Since when are punks master of anything and ESPECIALLY their bodies?

Punk is only a version of rock, so i would keep it basic as "musik/artist-magic" and everybody has his own personal point of view. (heavy/punk/RnR/etc.) I like the concept of possession more, because most artists use drugs and are no "remote" during this time. I would say this fits like an ass fits an bucket.^^

But i like the idea of the beer and drug spirit^^ Especially the plant spirit could have his own version of the "wealth"-power....i think you know what i want him to produce.^^ This can be proceeded to the beer-ghost as well.^^

BIG EDIT: I think i have a plan now. I really like how you split-up your ghosts to the spell-categories. But i would prefer a guardian spirit over the fire spirit, because elements or nature, are not so fitting for music than human-characteristics. I would keep the rest, but would make the health-category "random". Bards tend to have a friedly and charismatic character, so i would grant them, that the "random" spirit is chosen by the GM every time the mage is in need of something else thant the 4 spirit kinds (task/guidance/man/guardian)...what comes out in the end (which means, which spirit is around and willing to help) is at the GM-discretion and can turn out funny.^^