Ok, MITS says that good merge flesh forms (GMFF) retain the knowledge and memories of the original host, and can use these memories to pass as the original character.

1) Would this GMFF use the mental attributes of the host or retain those of the occupying spirit? If the host had charisma 6, and the occupying spirit has charisma 1 (or vice versa), they'd have a hard time appearing the same.

2) In addition to possessing the knowledge skills, would the GMFF have the same active skills as the host? What about if the host had Conjuring? (MITS says only Bug Mothers get conjuring.)

3) What about a good merge with a paracritter? Would it then retain it's critter powers? (This could get really nasty, investing kennels full of bogies, etc, with high-force Flesh Forms as good merges.)

4) MITS says that GMFF's get Masking, and the Spirit Power Masking uses Force in place of Magic, and Spirit Energy in place of initiate grade (I think, don't have it with me right now.) But only free spirits and bug mothers have spirit energy. What would be the rules for penetrating the masking of the spirit which has an effective initiate rating of 0?

1) The GMFF has the mental attributes of the occupying spirit. For sure.
2) I believe this is GM choice. In the past I've ruled that the GMFF has the host's skills only if the host was a willing participant in the merge.
3) I believe this is GM choice. I have had bugs take over zoo animals (the Elephant-beetle made the biggest impression on the team) but never paranormal critters.
4) Standard insect spirits don't have Spirit Energy, so use the Queen or Mother's Spirit Energy for all tests, or if a Queen/Mother has not yet been summoned use the grade of the insect shaman who summoned the spirit. (MitS.132 "Aura Masking")

edit: didn't add anything to OurTeam's post, so, well, whatever. What he said.

Thanks OurTeam, Backgammon!

Next Question:
The old Threats book said something about how, post-Chicago, the bugs had started making many more Good Merges than before, but I don't think I remember the mechanic they used for it (don't have the book anymore.)

Would it be safe to say that, if the Queen wills it, she can make her investing spirit forfeit all it's successes in the opposed will test? Or would she just always plant a force 2 spirit in any host she wants to be a GMFF?

Just going by the basic rules in MITS, you'll never get a GMFF unless the host has a will at least 5, and the spirit is no higher than 2 or 3.

My guess is that the Queens made a concerted effort to find very willful people to possess, and planted low force spirits in them. I don't know of another game mechanic that would achieve what they wanted. Perhaps they found a way to select people that were willing, as I play that a willing participant always results in a good merge or a True Form, at the choice of the spirit.

/Edit: a GM could easily decide that the Queen could lower the host's TN by -2 in the merge-results test, to better produce a True Form. One of the oldest runs indicated that a Queen couldn't guarantee a True Form.

Willing Participant?

I understand that Mantids have a pretty good PR campaign going, but who would ever volunteer to get possessed by a Wasp, or even worse something like Roach?

I know of none besides Mantid that seek out willing participants. I can't imagine anyone sane that would seek to merge with Wasp or Roach.

Another question:

In MITS, they list the stats for the various bug spirits with two sets of numbers:

True Form Wasp:
...Bod.............Str.............Quick.......Int......Will.........Cha
F+1/F-1.......F+3/F+2......F+4/F+4.....F/F......F/F..........F/F

What's the significance of these? is one for Male and one for Female?

(responding to the 'willing hosts' train of thought)

Hmmm... gives me some ideas, though... the less charismatic bugs might try torture and brainwashing. If you can turn Patty Hearst into a terrorist by torturing her and locking her in a closet for a couple months (aka Stockholm syndrome), how long would it take for a high force mother with the same tactics plus the use of her compulsion power?

As far as insect spirit flesh forms go, with good merges, the rule I've so far seen is:

The good merge learns all the non-magical active skills of the host, as well as all applicable knowledge skills. Magical active skills are generally contingent on the type of magician that the character is, and the good merge, despite having all the memories of the host, does not have that host's true spirit and aura, and is not a magician. The same rules apply for a normal flesh form, i.e. the host's base physical attributes are used, plus the force of the possessing spirit. Good merges also get Aura Masking.

The rules in Threats 2, subsection Betrayal, are specifically relevent for insect spirits possessing paranormal animals. Based upon how close the spirit is to a good merge, more of the paranormal animal host's powers are retained. This is even more relevant than normal (meta)human merges, as it may require far more successes beyond simple "good merge" to actually obtain all the critter's powers, if they are great in number. Weaknesses are gained automatically, and powers that are weaknesses for insect spirits(enhanced vision for the paranimal, versus reduced vision for the flesh form) cancel one-another out to average or nonexistent.

And as a sidenote, I don't think that the existing rules for possession are adequate. I think that they should be altered so that a queen can more easily create good merges if she is of higher Force(maybe make it a unique free spirit power?). As it's written, in order to produce a good merge, the insect spirit has to be either extraordinarily weak or extraordinarily unlucky, and the host has to either be exceptionally strong or extraordinarily lucky. I don't think it should be easy to crank out a horde of good merges, but I think that a high-Force queen willing to invest an inordinate amount of her available investiture total into a single possession should be able to create true forms almost all the time.

And my opinion as far as willing participants in a hive are concerned? People who are insecure, downtrodden, emotionally or mentally manipulated, or power-hungry might crave the belonging and power associated with the hive. After all, who's to say, from an in-character perspective, that a good merge with all the host's memories is really a seperate entity? Maybe they just "belong" now. They sure are stronger, faster, tougher, and have a large family with which they share a bond that transcends any human emotional grouping. Look at what the Universal Brotherhood did. It can easily be repeated in a more secretive and local scale.

Cults run by insect shamans or good merges(see Universal Brotherhood), depraved individuals(who seek out hives with full knowledge of the ramifications of their choice), large populations of the oppressed(if the only way for your third-world people to rise up and cast down the oppressors is to accept the power and collaboration of insect hive membership, what do you really have to lose?), these are all good sources for willing participants in the insect hives. The solitary insects(like Roach) and the less... palatable hive-insects(like Fly) probably don't get nearly as many recruits in this fashion as the orderly, cooperative, and powerful ant, wasp, and termite hives. That's probably why ant, termite, wasp, and other hives are the core of the Secret Hive organization.

I think that Queens and Shamen would want to know the Increase Willpower and Decrease Willpower spells for the purpose of creating Good Merges and True Forms, respectively.

Even better would be to give them special bug spells that do those effects only for the purposes of summoning bug spirits, since using the normal Increase/Decrease Willpower spells in that manner gives bugs the flavor of OOC minmaxers. Just call it something like "Enhance merge" or something.



Also, once a player in my game got taken by bugs and the other players failed in their rescue attempt, so I had him become a host. I told him he was at the center of a summoning ritual and felt an alien magical presence forcing its way into his soul, and told him to roll Willpower. Unexpectedly (but I really should have expected it!) he used plenty of karma on the test and scored more than 4 successes.