All right, for those of you not familiar with this item, the Cursed Belt of Gender Change is a rare magic item from AD&D, which magically changes the gender of the wearer, and can't be removed except through the use of an expensive spell/ritual. Can it exist in SR4?

Uh.

A chastity belt with a rating 6+ maglock and auto-injectors filled with various hormones?

I'm considering, on my turn to GM, having the group obtain a "rare, powerful magical artifact" for research......
I figured it would be entertaining to have one of the 'runners (probably our assassin; she's the most foolhardy) put on the belt and then hook a new sub-plot with getting the damned thing off.

Have it be a quickened, anchored sustaining focus storing a shapechange spell that cannot be deactivated without The Right Words ™ or whatever, and have them having to go to the ends of the earth to get it undone.

By the rules there are several ways to deal with active sustained spells - Wards, for one, or taking a semi-ballistic flight, battling the spell in astral space, using astral bacteria on it - and even more to get physical objects off a person.

A permanent spell - like health spells - would be better IMHO, but even that will run into trouble when the victim could just have the genderchanged back through modern medicine.

When all else fails, GM fiat. "It works because I say it works."

What tells you she will want it off?

Part of me was thinking what if it isn't a physical change, but a mental change. By that, instead of it actually changing someone's gender, imagine how it would be if it had some mental agent to it, sort of like those hormone injectors, and now this character /believes/ they are the opposite gender. Could make for some interesting RP experiences.

But that can be a recipe for disaster if it comes out as "Your plan doesnt work because I say it does not work, no matter the rules!" I would caution to try to use a AD&D artifact in Shadowrun, not everyone might find it fun, and it also needs a lot of changes to the magic rules.

Easier to do some Personafix virus or implant that has the runner believe she was changed in a man, or similar trouble. More "Shadowrun" like.

If you want to use a real artifact, I'd suggest to have it take place in an place where the usual rules do not apply - lock the runners in a VR enviroment where avatars can change gender as intended by you or have them run through a metaquest.

The Enchanting system is fairly flexible; I'm surprised that more items like that aren't in the Sr world already. If you wanted to go rules-ish, I'd say have it as a belt (anchoring focus) with an anchored spell that activates via a detection spell or just when the belt is notched. Shapechange (opposite gender).

And what would keep people from simply destroying the belt physically? Or moving with a semi-ballistic flight out of the manasphere? Or pass through a strong ward?

It's very easy to get rid of sustained spells even as a mundane.

It's quick solution. You want to get fussy, it'll get expensive. Better materials for the belt, high force. A force 20 spell would retain enough potency outside the manasphere and steal the lunch money of any ward it ran into. Magic 10 mages wouldn't be that rare.

Still feels very much forced, and "I say so, shut up"-ishy to me - and I'd think long and hard about whether or not such a cheap stunt is worth the implications of such things being possible. You can do a lot more with that set up than gender change - and people will ask why no one does them so far, instead of trying to magically do what medicine can do already and far easier and cheaper, and more convenient.

That's it! Forget Horrors, forget Aztechnology, forget Deus and Winternight - THEY are going to spread this terrible virus across the Matrix!!! Everyone will be forced to change their gender! That's THE MEGA EVIL PLAN^™ of Totally-Mad-Organisation-So-Powerful-That-You-Never-Heard-About-It led by a Great Multisexual Dragon!

Oh no, I said too much...

Double post. That's because of THEM!

It's slightly more likely than someone spending dozens of karma and a small fortune to create a belt of gender changing, instead of using the money and karma to simply kidnap the victim, and surgically change them.

In short, 'no'.

In long, you have two routes to go with this. One is the incredibly convoluted, expensive, wasteful combination of magic and technology, using combined anchor spells (perhaps something to change the gender and another spell that, if the belt is opened, it explodes) to create such a goofy result. But given the cost you're putting into it, and how obvious it would look, you'd have to have an awfully good reason why someone would be blowing that many resources to play a practical joke on someone else (and the player will inevitably find a way out of it anyway).

The other route is it's an ancient, fourth age artifact. There are maybe a dozen of such items in the entire world right now. Most have no obvious purpose, the remaining are hugely powerful and mysterious, the sorts of things that make or break empires. Hypothetically, you could have an ancient, world-altering fourth-world artifact, recently found, whose sole purpose is to make your weiner fall off, but you'll look like a tool for doing it.

The ideas you got here, about messing with the person's head, by drugs or BTLs, are really very elegant, and probably your best answer (imagine if you found out you're really a woman, you were a woman your whole life, and the only reason you know you're a man now is because of a chip in your head. If you take out the chip, you'll return to life being wrong. Excellent RPing potential, but it depends on the player actually role-playing.) Alternatively, a surprise surgery installing a midnight lady could meet your requirements. The downside being, it's just a surgery.

Remember, this isn't D&D. If you want a Flintstones-esque reduction of powerful, life-altering forces (in this case, magic) to dishwashers and practical jokes, you're playing the wrong system.

street magic, page 87, unique enchantments.

have fun

NERPS!

Isn't it in shadowrun that as soon as the physical component gets damaged/destroyed, so does the spell/enchantment?
No matter what you do, a Troll with a Bolt-Cutter can and will probably be able to take care of that Problem.

The answer is to clearly make it a Permanent spell.

You have an Anchor trigger to cast the custom spell, and you're golden.

~J

But then it's not linked to the belt. The belt is just a carrier. Granted, reversing it is as difficult as designing the spell yourself or bribing the designer, so it's safe from wards et al.

(Is there a reason why there isn't a permanent shapechange spell, for instance?)

The belt has clearly changed, as back in my day the belt could be removed normally but became non-magical after taking effect.

(AD&D Second Edition, here)

~J

I hate those @#&$ #&*^$ @&*@ *@#^ #*&% &%*# things. My first gaming experiences were with my Dad as DM in AD&D 2E. Those damn thing would show up from time to time. You could take it off just fine but you stayed gender swapped. And of course any one belt would only work once per person. So you would have to find another %&$*-ing one to change back. I personally think all of them should be cast into the deepest firepits of Baator. Just my 0.02 .

The belt was gone by third edidtion

I was always a fan of the Decks of Many Things. Another game-altering artifact, but if re-worked to SR, it could be a good time.

And no, there's no good reason for having uber-powerful gag items. It's called Mad Science for a reason. Enjoy it.

This was one of the "what the hell?" Gygaxian items - no one who didn't plan to immediatly use this would make one but since based on the magic item creation rules in 2nd nearly 50% of all created gear was cursed to some degree. Athough I make a point of strewing cursed gear about back in the day like candy I never once placed one of these... they are dumb and tend to just anger people. The "uber cursed version" that just rendered you genderless though looked like it might get some milage, never used it either tho.

Regardless! "permanent" spells in shadowrun tend to leave the subject in a new "natural" state - Heal, heals them and now they are better, Ignite lights them on fire, and now they are on fire, etc. Shapechange (turn to goo, petrify)isn't "permanent" because you being transformed into an animal (rock, whatever) and this unnatural state is being sustained by mana. I'm sure there is something to this effect in limits on Sorcery (or maybe I'm just recalling Ars Magica too much).

Anchoring a spell to the belt that triggers and is quicked when triggered at force (the drain from dispelling will kill you, say. force 30 on a F/2+3 spell) with (some dragon or IE cast the spell, lets say 15) successes will basically force you to find the GM approved meathod of dealing with it.

On the bright side the group just got a shiny new Anchoring Focus...

No it wasn't. Or, at least, if it was, it was put back in 3.5.

If you REALLY want to do this than I'd suggest having the belt simply being a red herring, what actually happened is that the character managed to run afoul of someone with the capabilty of altering "True Names", so either a Fourth Age Immortal playing a cruel prank or a cutting edge SOTA Magical Researcher simply fragged up.


For a bit of irony perhaps the character consented to the treatment in order to cure some nasty effect that couldn't be otherwise cured and the Naming Ritual wasn't perfect, sadly the Sage isn't even sure what went wrong so the character can either get surgery to change back (Costing some Essence.) or live her new life as a woman.

Actually it would be great for hereditary dynasties to either make individuals eligible or ineligible to inherit a title. It could also help characters like assassins or fleeing criminals disguise themselves. Helps pimps create a higher supply of more desirable goods. Allows for 'just' punishments (i.e. - rape the rapist sort of thing) and just kinky, dirty stuff.

I did use one of these for one of my campaigns and it was received very well. Really depends on your players, though.