I recently decided to do a little work on a Familiar ally spirit for my SR4 character. While following the rules in both SR4A and Street Magic, a thought occured to me. So here's the way things processed;

BookWyrm decides to summon an ally-spirit to reach another level of Initiation; opting for creating a spirit formula, he uses a moderately-sized sheet of vellum & embellishes it with arcane symbols & formulae. After this is completed, he realises he needs an accurate representation of the form the spirit will take. Contacting an old freind of his, & since BookWyrm himself has no talent for drawing, he describes to the friend what the form will look like; a house-cat of the Sphynx breed, but black in color with jade-green eyes, & a fully-functional set of bat-wings growing out of it's back.
The friend later produces the beautiful artwork & collects her fee. BookWyrm adds the image to the formulae & performs the ritual to summon the ally. Time passes, & as BookWyrm is in deep meditation, he feels something nudge his elbow. He opens his eys & looks down--looking up at him is his new Familiar. The cat's greetings enter his mind as she leaps into his lap, "You called, boss?" BookWyrm smiles & strokes the cat just behind her ears.

Now, here's my question;
Does the Familiar gain the ability to fly (or at least glide) with the wings automatically, or is it the same ability as the Pixie has (check Runner's Companion, p. 65)?

I would think that the answer is yes -- any materialization ally can be given a form that enables it to fly. But I think you have to pay 5 karma to give it the flight skill.

Meh, it can fly without the skill. How many humans have the run skill? It's just for flying GOOD, hehe.

But yeah, i agree. It should be able to fly. With an inhabitation spirit it may not be that clear, but materialization spirits can automagically fly if it's in there nature, it seems (They don't need a special power or force for it)

All materialization spirts can fly full stop by RAW some just choose to look earthbound....

Ah without wanting to start a useless discussion ONLY Fire and Air have listed flying speeds and flying is never mentioned UNTIL Runners Companion where in the "Free Spirit" seciton is FINALY is stated:

"Any materialized spirit can use its movement rate in any direction, unfettered by gravity"

So one could be curious about that.

Thanks, everyone. Especially Summerstorm, for that RC reference.

Very true but I think it applies to this thread.

There's also page 186 of SR4A:



So there's support for spirits "walking" in any direction they please but needing Flight to "run" in the air.