After the rest of my team have produced a wake of corpses through brute firepower, there are a lot of useful vessels for my possession mage to consider using. However, the one big issue I'm uncertain on is how to consider damage on them. Does a corpse bring in all of its previous damage in life (which in many cases will be the full damage chart) ? If that's the case, then my zombies are left with nothing but the boxes they gain from increased Body, correct?

Also, am I correct in assuming that a corpse counts as a natural object, giving it Object Resistance 1?

They would keep the highest damage:

Yes, it would be a natural object,, with an Object Resistance of 1.

As I see it, the physical/stun taken by the character only applies while the character is alive, and the rules you're quoting do seem to stipulate a living vessel, as an unliving one doesn't take wound penalties. Once a person's dead, you're dealing with an object, albeit a biological one, with an entirely new damage track (though maybe not a very impressive one, depending on the state the body's in. A corpse that died from one shot to the head is likely a sturdier vessel than one that's been riddled with ex-ex from an LMG and then beaten into jelly by a Troll sammy).

If otherwise were the case, there wouldn't be a such thing as an open-casket funeral in the world of Shadowrun, as your body would have to be fairly well destroyed for you to reach the end of your physical damage track.

Yes to the Object Resistance 1, though.

In general yes, although I might go with something like 6 - Essence if I wanted to inject a bit of realism. Higher Grades would complicate such a scheme however....

I looked at doing this a while back, and seem to recall my tripping-up point being "preparing the vessel," which took something in the scope of hours, if memory serves. This delay would prevent me from leaning in a doorway, spurring a guard, and then sending his zombie body into the next room to upset and annoy his friends.

Now, if I misread something that'd let you immediately necromancer some dead guy up off the floor, I'm all for it

I believe you can just go ahead and possess a dead body without preparing it (p. 95, SM). Preparation just makes it easier (+6 dice for the spirit's possession test). It is almost mandatory for possessing a drone for example (OR 5+) but a body is only a OR 1 so is much easier.

It's funny how it gets much easier to possess someone the instant they are dead. With the new rules in the FAQ the resulting 'merge' also has much better stats.

Manabolt the Troll and then sic a possession spirit on him.... profit.

1.) An Object takes damage as well.
2.) The rules rquire a suffiecientyl whole object, so the GM could even rules that the freshly departed don't qualify in the first place.
3.) Nothing in the text states that the damage stops being there, when the Boject transfers from the living state to the inanimate.

Personally, i would rule the damage stays, butfeel free to interpret it differently. Pick the interpretation that best fits your group.

Yes, but the point I made after my first paragraph was that the amount of damage it takes to kill a person is usually far less than the amount of damage it takes to actually, physically destroy their body. I mean, hell, theoretically, a hacker who gets brainfried by black ic is going to leave a full and complete corpse to use as a (relatively) sturdy meat puppet even though they've taken their full physical damage track plus overflow.


Yes, but in the case of a corpse, we're not talking about something that's subject to biological processes anymore, so even in the case of a hardass GM "sufficiently whole" probably allows for a bit of maiming. Personally, I'd allow it if the body could still maintain skeletal integrity and had at least one soundly attatched limb to drag itself by (although spirits know why you'd want a corps cadavre in that condition).


No, but a lot of it simply wouldn't matter anymore. A sliced-open carotid artery is a pretty big problem for the holistic integrity of a living being. A sliced-open carotid artery to a shambling meat-mound means that it's a shambling meat-mound that happens to be getting itself wet. Similarly, since the spirit is animating the limbs, muscular damage is going to be less of an impairment to mobility and general functionality than it would be for a living person.

Personally, I think the corpse would best be treated like a golem, one made out of flesh and armor rather than stone or earth, with the GM deducting an ad-hoc amount of damage depending on the condition it was in when possessed. That's my two cents, anyway.

Yeah, it seems like it would depend on the state the body was in. I don't think damage should carry over to corpse form, but the way the corpse dies should have an effect on how effective it is, a security guard that was cut in two by a Nodachi is going to be significantly less effective than a guy who got poisoned. As for OR, on a pure human body then yes, OR 1. However, most bioware is going to increase this (less natural object) and cyberware is going to cause penalties to use (if you can't move your leg that's a bit of a problem).

I'm not sure I'd even make the cyberware a problem. If it was for a part of the body that was significant to its function as a physical vessel, I'd just treat the body as a singular mass and raise its object resistance to that of the 'ware-- probably a 3 or a 4.