Hey Folks,

I was hoping I could get some help with a ruling.

Magic In The Shadows p.116 states that:

"A character who knows a spirit's true name may use Enchanting to create a focus effective against that spirit. Standard spirit foci are not effective against free spirits."

Fair enough! My question however is whether or not a spirit foci created to be effective against a particular free spirit are effective against ordinary sprirts of the same type? That's a pretty big investment for a foci that's only of use in one particular situation! My tendency is to allow the foci to be effective against ordinary spirits of the same type, in addition to the specific free spirit it was created to affect (but not against any other free spirit, obviously).

The story is that, the runner has, using the true name which he obtained though an astral quest to the metaplane of Fire, created a spirit focus to aid him in banishing a free toxic fire elemental. I'm leaning towards allowing the focus to be effective against regular fire elementals too mainly because the character invested alot of time and nuyen into acquiring the true name and then further nuyen into creating the spirit foci, so I feel having a useful tool would be a fairer payoff.

Help in interpreting the extent of this foci's usefulness would be appreciated!

Cheers!

I see the formula built into the focus as being absolutely crucial for its function. If a true name is part of that formula, then the target spirit should have that name. So, yes, Enchanting a focus for a free spirit makes an item usable only for that spirit. You could see this as a waste of time and money, but on the other hand, you could see it as up-front preparation to deal with something so nasty you can't handle it otherwise. If the spirit isn't that bad, don't bother with the focus.

This fits really well into the archetypical quest motif. You have to endure great trials, time and effort to acquire the magic weapon/knowledge that will kill the monster. Hopefully, your PC will be recompensed somehow for the karma spent to make and bond with the focus. I don't know... money, contacts, a whack of karma rewards, a good feeling in his heart that the world is a safer place...

I'd have it only work against the specified spirit and once it's been taken care of such that it cannot be a threat anymore, I'd have the focus burn out / destroy itself and at the same time, refund the karma to the owner with a little extra as a reward.

Spin it as the focus' power unravels as it destroys/deals with the spirit and it also channels a small portion of the spirit's power (as karma) to the owner of the focus.

That way, the owner isn't out so much and is willing to do such things in the future.

That's a cool idea.

It could be that, say, it was a game mechanic to prevent your typical "mad with power" gamer from tossing together their Force 12 "aspected to named free spirit" foci and then binding them with it.

Although you could houserule that the karma/power isn't refunded then, but I bet a toxic with enough native cunning would be amendable to try and exist by promising the runner the world while plotting like a mofo behind their back.

I mean, what's another enemy versus a steady income (Power: wealth)?

Ohhh, right, toxic....

"Yeah, well, hope you enjoyed that irradiated gold...Muhahahahahahahaha...wait, you gave it to a hospital as a fundraiser, and to earn good karma? Rethinking the "kill the meatbags now plot", these guys are too dumb to kill, let them deal with the fallout, Bwhahahahahahahaaaaaaaa...."<gasp, wheeze>



-Tir.

PS: It'd also be amusing that the spirit they the player was chasing was the not-so-toxic little brother of the one he thinks he's going to whack.
"Yep, you've got some karma back, how long did it take you to build that thing? Really, that long? Well, I hope you've gotten better with your technique, as there's something you found out while disassociating that spirit...."

Giving bonus Karma with the destruction of the focus sound like a good idea IF and only IF the player dont know he will be rewarded with getting his karma back. Better to reward true sacrifice than mathematical calculation.

I second that, IKerensky.

My reading is that it's intended to be specific; consider that what you can do with a Spirit Focus is Summoning (not applicable), Controlling (powerful), and Banishing, which is the tricky one, since you use it once and are then out the karma. I think the lesson here is really that making a Focus to Banish a Free Spirit is an expensive endeavor that had best be worth the cost (or, more likely, isn't worthwhile—at least not unless someone's paying for the Banishing?).

~J