...OK, in need of some quick clarification on the following that I cannot find in the FAQ (SR3):

The Corrupted (MITS): is this just for the Hermetic tradition or does it also apply to Shamanic spellcasters who do follow not Insect, Blood, or Toxic totems?

Possession by Free Spirits (MITS): The maximum time that a mage can possess a subject is their initiate grade. For a Free Spirit, is it just its Force or Force + Spirit Power?

Voodoo (MITS): is mentioned as being practiced primarily in Western Africa, Amazonia, and the CAS (New Orleans). Is there precedent for it to appear in other parts of the world like eastern Europe (such as among bands of gypsies)?

Free Spirits (MITS): Can a Loa be a free spirit?

I'm actually running a newbie game, so I haven't used MitS in a while, but here are my GM suggestions...


>The Corrupted (MITS): is this just for the Hermetic tradition or does it also apply to Shamanic spellcasters who do follow not Insect, Blood, or Toxic totems?

Yes, it can apply to any NPC spellcaster, as long as you can think of a cool background for it. If you think of a shamanic spellcaster who follows say a... Evil Propaganda totem, even though that isn't blood, insect or toxic, you can say it's corrupted. The three listed are just the three categories defined so far (and most corruptions of a shamanic totem are going to fall into toxic).


>Possession by Free Spirits (MITS): The maximum time that a mage can possess a subject is their initiate grade. For a Free Spirit, is it just its Force or Force + Spirit Power?

Critters says a spirit can inhabit a body basically until kicked out (in other words, indefinitely). If the free spirit were a PC, I'd probably put rules on it.

>Voodoo (MITS): is mentioned as being practiced primarily in Western Africa, Amazonia, and the CAS (New Orleans). Is there precedent for it to appear in other parts of the world like eastern Europe (such as among bands of gypsies)?

Unlikely, but possible. Voodoo is linked to religious beliefs, which seem unlikely to take root among the Roma, who are already very religious, and have a strongly insulated cultural background. However:
1) You're the GM, so you are by default right
2) Make your own Roma tradition which just happens to be a possession tradition with Romani names.

>Free Spirits (MITS): Can a Loa be a free spirit?

A Loa is a totem. If totems can be free spirits, so can Loa. Loa, being totems, can always interact with the world regardless. Just because Raccoon is there when you call doesn't mean Raccoon isn't also out doing stuff when you're not paying attention, after all.

(Cool avatar, BTW)

Its been a long time since I've looked at those books so just off memory I agree with your gm.

as for 3. Its all about a believable background/ story.

For instance, a young gypsy ends up nursing a voodoo shaman back to health when nearly dead. He then agrees to teach the boy. Or some such. It probably would never be a wide spread thing outside the areas where voodoo has taken hold as there's a strong stigma about the practitioners.

As for that last question, there is an option I've never seen used, in Magic in the Shadows. Avatars. Sort of like totems etc, sort of like free spirits, sort of emergent phenomena connected to a group of initiates or whatever. As long as you had a magical group with the same loa, you could have a loa linked avatar. Or, as someone already said, just declare the loa to be a powerful free spirit - or just say who knows what the thing really is, but it acts like a free spirit some of the time.