So I've got this idea of made a dose of nanites out of Orichalcum, particularly worked to be a sustaining focus. The nanites would do nothing more than get this into the body, and thus be harding to remove, and maybe given the spread through said system, make it harder to break the spell. My question is basically does this work? Would it work? Would you lety it fly? Limitations? Cost (in nuyen) for everything?

Of course this could have great uses for runners, but I'm thinking from an antagonistic point of view, too. For example, shoot a runner with a dose of nanites sustaining levitate, for example. It's not their spell, so they would baiscally just float there (allowing for enough hits to lift them, of course). Takes them out of the fight. Or try darkness. Visual penalties follwoing them, everywhere. Or things like Mana Bind/Net, and so on.

I should probably actually re-read up on all stuff involved, but I'm away from the books at the moment. Thanks in advance!

would this not be.. disturbingly cost ineffective?

Eyah, you're spending tens of thousands of nuyen on something where a $2 box of bullets is going to do the job.

It might make for an interesting plot-hook, i.e. some bad magical thing dumped into the runners, but it's rather wacky as a regular weapon. That assumes that it would even work, nanite sustaining focus isn't exactly supported by the rules. Whatever works for your campaign though.

"I find your lack of frugality... disturbing."

I wouldn't allow it.

1. Nanites are made of semi-conductors like Silicon, Carbon, Selenium-Germanium. There is no proof that orichalium is a semi-conductor.

2. If it is a semi-conductor, then you need to introduce impurities to get it to behave as a p+ and p- semi-conducting material. If it's impure, then you likely won't be able to use it for enchanting.


Best option is to have particles of orichalium as a payload in thousands of nanites. It won't possibly work any other way.

Why use orichalcum at all? Foci needn't be made from it. You can enchant any material. Some are just easier than others. Just enchant regular nanites.

If they aren't supposed to do anything anyways just use tatooing ink, and "paint" the focus on you.

For the negative spells there are several problems:

• You can only cast levitate at a single target. So one Nanite
• Nanites probably are to small to be seen.
• Even if the above were no problems, you would only levitate the nanites, not the person in whose body they are.
• Shadow is an Environmental Manipulation spell. The nanites wouldn't be a valid target. All you could do was darken the area here the nanites are at the time of casting. The spell will not move with them.
• Mana Bind would only affect one nanite. So it is useless.
• Most of all, Sustaining Foci only work after the spell is cast and have to remain in contact with the caster to function.

There's also the fact that as soon as a focus is no longer in contact with its owner, it switches off. You couldn't shoot somebody with a sustaining nanofocus and have it levitate them any more than you could hang a regular sustaining focus on them and have it levitate them. Nanofoci inside the owner's body is a bit murkier. I would allow it, so long as the player is aware of the following caveats: unless you get a nanohive (and accept the Essence loss therefrom), the nanofocus will degrade just like any other nanoware at the rate of one point of Force per week. Basically, if you want a Force 4 sustaining nanofocus, you either have to buy it over and over again every month, or you have to suck it up and take the nanohive. The hive, of course, must be fed with orichalcum, or the focus degrades anyway.

IMO, it's a huge PITA for not much benefit. If a player laughs at the opposition often enough, saying, "Ha ha! My foci are nanoware suspended in my blood," the opposition is likely to start saying, "Ha ha! We'll just shoot you full of holes and let your blood run out and/or shoot you full of FAB III!" If somebody really wants to screw you, they're gonna screw you, and the more creative you make them get, the worse it will be in the end.

It bears mentioning that nanites are only useful because they are so much more than a mere delivery system. Combined with a nanohive they're literally wee self-replicating engineers that tinker with and maintain biological systems. If you just want to inject something you should get a syringe and save yourself a few grand. Better yet, get a skin pocket to fill in some of that useless essence fraction left by your cybereyes and try not to get caught in the first place.

A focus is one unit, not a disparate cloud. Also, nanites are constantly destroyed and replaced.

That's some blingin' blood donations.

Oricalchum is an impossible material - it shouldn't exist according to physics, and can only be made by alchemy. I don't you you can make nanotech from it.

I also kinda have to wonder how you would go about activating or binding a focus that's in your bloodstream. By the RAW I suppose the focus couldn't be any more in contact with you, but I personally sorta like the idea that a focus should be something tangible that you well, focus on, if only even for a moment. I don't expect my players to do anything so elaborate as a centering ritual or anything, but I do think it'd be sort of nice if they knew what it looked or felt like. The fact that you need an object at all hits me as something of significance, after all.

I guess it would be a good way to pad your facility's R&D budgetary requirements, if nothing else.

That's not the problem.. I could get behind a mage listening to his heartbeat and using it to focus on his blood.

Actually, bleeding (pissing) out oricalchum nanites is another major issue; how do you replenish enchanted nanites?

Way better than my idea, and I'm not just saying that because all the rules seem against it, heh. But imagine some R&D dudes doing this, as said to pad the budget. Rumor gets out, and the team gets hired to get this intel. Paid a butt load, to boot. Breeze in, and find... nothing. Well, nothing real, but they probably don't know that. So off to the Client, who is unahppy with his purchase when he realizes it's crap. Probably thinks the runners screwed him over and sold to some one else for a higher price. Comes gunning for some payback, and the money, and the real intel.

I've been meaning to the proverbial "1 in 10" run where the runners get screwed, this would be a completely different way of doing it.

The technomancers of the old WoD rpg Mage developed something called Primium (IIRC, the same basic idea as orichalum). Among other things, when you laced a subject's bones with this material, it allowed even sleepers to resist aggravated damage. I was toying around with something similar: a process that would allow mundanes to affect creatures with Immunity to Normal Weapons (using unarmed combat).

Not to mention the fingertip compartment.

I think you can make nanoware from orichalcum, since from a mundane point of view it is just another precious metal. I just don't think you can practically enchant nanoware.

Foci are harder to create the more processed the item is, right? I can't imagine anything more processed than a nano-scale robot.

Wouldn't you also need to enchant each nanobot separately? I have never seen a reference of enchanting in bulk.

Yes, the main problem (but not the only one) is that 'nanoware' is a pile of separate nanites. Magic prefers single objects; you generally can't, for example, enchant piles of sand. If you put that sand in a pouch or bottle, then you could—but it'd stop working if it broke, of course.

On the other hand AFAIK nothing prevents you from enchanting a single grain of sand.

But we're saying nanoware. Nanites are diminished and replaced, so even a 1-nanite 'nanofocus' would be destroyed in a snap. Which is why people said 'just implant/fingernail/etc.'.

I always thought this is what smuggling compartments were for

Mages tend not to want to spend Essence, and I'm not even sure that a Smuggling Compartment counts as 'touching you'. I could see arguments either way.

Skin to focus contact isn't even required. the focus can just as well be in a pocket. A smuggling compartment is at least as close.

Oh, weird. It should be required.

Yeah, the only part that makes it seem at all a bit nebulous is that it says "once activated a focus continues to operate as long as it is on the owner's person, be it worn, carried, hand-held, or in a pocket or pouch." The part I bolded sounds like it may be pertinent, but since the RAW doesn't list many requirements for activating a focus to begin with, it doesn't really amount to an explicit limitation of any sort. All it really says is that it must be bound, it costs a Simple Action and you must activate any focus you wish to project with prior to leaving your shoes. The last point is a bit interesting, but it'd take a real stretch to infer anything definitive out of it. Astral physics is hella wonky even on a good day. Overall, it appears that foci are in some ways more user friendly than say, a talisman geas.

Ah yes, the old Primium bone lacing. That stuff was actually a lot like Oricalchum, except it was anti-magical. Which would also be interesting; Anti-Magic Bone Lacing implant. Or perhaps a shot of Antimagic Serum. It'd degrade at the same rate as nanites, but since it's basically enchanted, you can't replenish it with a nanohive. You just need regular shots to refill. Perhaps there could be a critter they "milk" for it?

Maybe a secret corporate project to create this serum: a designer gland implanted in Adepts who've learned a power to enchant the substances produced by their glands. It's time bio-Adepts became real sick puppies.