About the mitochondrial DNA, my personal ruling is no. For a couple reasons, (1)its prokaryotic not eukaryotic and I've never heard of ritual sorcery against bacteria or algae . (2)It's not unique to you, your siblings and mother should have the same mitochondrial DNA(barring mutations).

But this is just my opinon, I never even considered mitochondrial DNA in respect to ritual sorcery before now, and I doubt FASA or Fanpro did either.

On the subject of other DNA in the blood, here's a bizzare idea. What if you dosed your blood with carcerands(sp?) containing a dozen or so people's(or animal's) DNA would that affect ritual sorcery?

Pardon the highjack, Voran.

Kalibar: I guess it comes down to the question of where the code for 'magic' is in an awakened being's DNA. I have to admit I'm not familiar with cancerands, but it still sounds like a rather drastric measure for DNA masking.

I was wondering if producing 'knockout' test on awakened devil rats could isolate the 'magic' gene. Unless, the idea of genetically altering a magically active being into mundane is against the rules. I don't see why not though since a magically active human can lose mana through medical complications (I can't quote the page this contidition is on, but I know its there.)

SOTA 2063 deals a little with the genetics of magic. the sort of research you are proposing is exactly what it talks about. basically, a synopsis would be that the magic is linked to a greater pattern than just regualar genetics, and as yet they have been unable to replicate it. destroying it is easy, creating it is as yet imposible.

the book talked about astral genetics, that the DNA had additional peices on the astral plane that were nessesary o make the whole thing tick.

-Mike R.

How about a new angle: symbiotic bacteria.

Ever wonder how a bear hibernates for three months without urinating? They have identified symbiotic bacteria in bears that digest nitrogenous waste in the blood stream. Think of the implications for dialysis patients or astronauts...

Anyway, if you could engineer a bacteria with a selective incubation temperature around 20° C (room temp) it could live in the blood stream at low numbers, kept in check by the body’s immune system and natural flora. Then when blood leaves the body and drops to room temp the bacteria would overgrow the normal flora and consume/destroy DNA.

Its weird, but it is a novel approach. Any thoughts?

The bacteria sounds like it may work...If you can insure it won't develop activity at near body temperature...that would not be a good thing. The only other problem is someone infected with the bacgteria would never have DNA in any blood tests, which could cause a problem on occassion. Of course most of the ideas here have had that issue. Still its probably less a problem than a Ritual Hellblast would cause.

Maybe you could have an Antibac used for reversing the effect. In case you have to go to Tir, get genetic testing or need a cloned organ/limb.

Edit: Another problem that could arise is that you need this bacteria to exist in large quantities in the blood. If the immune system were to react to the bacteria, you'd go into septic shock pretty fast. So you either need to have them tailored to your immune system(expensive) or take some good immune suppressing drugs(general bad for your health in the long run.) Of course Shadowrun may have already dealt with this problem in some of its previous bioware...