Is there anything in the SR4 books, that says what an Aura actually looks like in Astral Space?

Does it (still, as in previous editions) look like an idealized version of the actual being (for typical living beings)?
Or ist that only for Astral Forms (i.e. Astral Projection)? Does the Astral Form look the same as the Aura (just more solid)?

Or is it just swirling colors in roughly humanoid shape?

Bye
Thanee

Well, SR4 is not particularly descriptive on it, but to me, it's going to be shaped like the person, and colored probably determined by base, primal emotions.

A really easy cop-out is to grab a bunch of Kirlian (spelling?) and "aura" photos and say, "Like this, only not so neon as the general pollution and evil of the 6th world has added shades for grey and brown to the astral experience"

As soon as someone asked what it looks like, we popped one out and explained the skill "aura reading" wasn't seeing the auras, it was determining what all those pretty colours meant and in what context.

"Ahh, so if they're lying, it..."
"Ripples and changes shape."
"Right"


-Tir.

IMHO there is a difference between the aura and an astral body. The aura surrounds your body in astral and normal space, the astral body simply replaces your regular bodyand is the thing that looks "idealized".

I would disagree, based on p. 181-182, sr4:


so non living = gray semblance

living, non astral = bright, colorful semblance (maybe pastel in color shade?)
Astrally active = even brighter and more colorful (the loud colors)

Dude, you can't see auras irl?

192 of SR4A has a good picture of it.

There's an entire body of work that claims the opposite. Someone mentioned Kirilan photography above. I'm not going to say if it's real or not, but there is research being done into auras.

From the description the book gives, it seems to me like the difference between an aura and an astral being (spirit, projecting mage, etc...) is like the difference between Augmented Reality and Reality. One is sorta translucent "there but not there" and the other is solid and "there".

Just my 2

I have used for a long time the chart in V:tM for Auspex. That is one of the most detailed charts I have seen. Of course you will have to add a few of your own for 6th world additions, but with all the examples already given, it's easy.

It's kind of cool when the mage at the table gets used to the chart and scores enough successes/hits for me to give him/her an accurate description by just color/effect and he/she runs with it. The other players are sitting there just blinking, going..."Huh? "

If you don't have access to any of those books, here is a basic chart.