I havn't looked at SR4 magic in a long time, I was never too up-to-date on it anyhow.

I'm wondering; How easy is it for a mage to find a body that has been;
A. sunk to the bottom of puget sound.
B. covered in lime, wrapped in plastic, burried about 3 feet deep on an old industrial lot
C. parted out by tamanous.

If you could run me through the basic mechanics It would help.

Thanks

IIRC, it's not that hard via ritual magic if you have something that has a decent connection to the corpse and a moderately skilled ritual magic team. If you have gotten the focused attention of KE, LS or a major national LE/NS organization it will be found in short order. Ritual magic can be crazy powerful in SR, but it's very difficult for PCs to use. Frank once described organized ritual magic as the ICBM equivalent in SRs version of MAD.

Hiding a body is one of the reasons to take Ignite as a mage.

Its pretty shit in combat, but ho man can it burn stuff if you have 30 seconds.

It's also one of the best reasons to be a ghoul. Need to make sure a body is never found again? Just eat it!

or combine a ghoul and a gnawer - one eats the flesh, the other the bones ^^

Make it Tamanous' problem and leg it. Either they take precautions or whatever the seekers throw at them wipes them out.

Hold on a sec. I thought ritual sorcery would only work on the living body. If the "soul" has departed (i.e. all the damage overflow boxes are filled), all emotional ties to and from that body are no longer active. Or am I wrong (and stuck in old editions, because we use rituals only rarely).

So what spell is used for the ritual?
they way I understand SR4 magic; bunch of dudes sit in the sweat lodge singing and banging drums while they all cast the same spell and send a spirit out to find the object to target the spell.

I'm not even sure ritual magic can be used to find a body. Does anyone know for sure?

Clairvoyance and a Material Link would be the first route I'd try. (Technically, you can use any spell--page 29 of SM states that you don't need to complete the ritual, ie cast the spell, if you are just trying to track something. Basically, the group will send out the astral spotter and continue the ritual long enough for the spotter to find the target.) Clairvoyance would give a clear image of what the surrounding area looks like.

Because Sympathetic Links rely on auras, I'd say that they are non-functional for finding a corpse.

Ritual magic used to be the find anyone trick, but ritual magic no longer has the "super amazing find anyone" power. Now, you just use astral tracking to spot for the ritual. So there's no point in doing the ritual if you're not going to cast a spell. Or am I missing something.

<edit>Never mind.
Material Links
During ritual spellcasting (p. 174, SR4), instead
of using an astral spotter, the ritual team may
opt to use a material link to target the spell. This is
particularly useful when sending a spotter may be
impossible or impractical (for example, when the
spotter doesn’t know where the target is, or when
security measures prevent the spotter from getting
into a position to assense the target).
</edit>

Thanks Bishop

I don't think a ritual helps at all cause the spirit spotter is still just going to use the Search power.
Its a magic +intuition(5, ten minutes) extended test. "the criter must have seen what it is searching for before; Spirits may search out anything their summoner provides them with a mental image of." The threshold is increased by 1/kilometer and +5 for a nonliving thing or place.

So to find a body it's a magic + intuition extended test vs. a threshold of 10 minimum and that only works if the mage can give his spirit a mental image of the corpse.

At least thats the way I read it. Hopefully the people wearing the pointy hats can shed more light on the subject.

Unless you've developed an actual "Find Body" spell that's designed to find dead people. I see CSI-Magicians having that one and finding it useful.

"The FBI Magicians tried to find this kidnapping person, but it failed. And not in the, 'In the middle of a magical lodge' failed, either. Up to you guys." "We'll need a new sample." "Already here. Find the body, and it becomes a Homicide." "OK crew, break out the drums and crystals, it's Science with Magic time!"

OneTrikPony--The Material Link forms a link to the Target, then you use Astral Tracking (SR4A, p. 193) rather than the Search power. You don't need to have seen them, just have something (hair, blood, etc) from them.

1 and 2: Trivial, provided the mage has a "mental image" (ie, has seen a picture of) the target, and has a vague (like, right city or so) idea of where to look. Summon a spirit with Search, Search, done in an hour or two tops.

3 is less trivial if the mage doesn't know what to look for. If, for example, the mage knows that the guy had a cyberarm, he can search for that cyberarm and it's easy to find. If the mage doesn't have a clear mental image of the guy's kidney (and he probably doesn't), Search won't work for that.

It's not so simple - Astral Tracking follows an astral link, not a material link. They're not the same thing. Magical things (spells, foci, lodges etc.) have an astral link back to their mage. Mundanes have no way to cause astral links.

They may not be able to Cause them, But IIRC, A Material Link used during a Ritual forges an Astral Link that can be followed.

nevermind

Buildings have spirits. Hearth Spirits.

Yeah, it is in there somewhere, can't find it right now, But I do remember reading it.

Ok so, ritual link won't work on a dead body.

That leaves just the spirit spotter doing an astral search based off a picture of the deceased transmitted by the mage.

Isn't there a modifier for working from a picture?

Material Links are one way to use Ritual Spellcasting remotely (the other one being a Spotter). A Material Link needs to have been a physical part of the target, like blood from a person or a brick from a person. (SM, p. 28-29)

A Sympathetic Link or Symbolic Link is a stand-in for a Material Link. It requires the Sympathetic Magic metamagic to use these. A Sympathetic Link is an object associated with (but not physically part of) the target, like for example a wedding ring. A Symbolic Link is a symbolic representation of the target, for example a picture of the target. (SM, p. 29-30)

An Astral Link is something different entirely:
(SR4A, p. 193)

So the only things you can track with Astral Tracking are magical things linked to a caster/summoner (going in either direction). It's of no use on a mundane corpse.

Anyway, Ritual Spellcasting+Clairvoyance: not so great. Clairvoyance doesn't search out people, it watches a point in space, and also no more than Force * Magic meters from the watcher.

Patrolling the city with Detect Individual isn't going to work; it's a Mana spell, therefore can't find corpses. Detect Object [Corpse] could work, but would find all corpses in range, since it detects all objects of its type. However, it could save time dredging lakes and such.

Spirits with Search remain the best option; it may take a while, but unless you use declining dice pool for extended tests, eventually a good searching spirit will find what you're looking for. The only thing that can truly stop them is if the spirit's dice pool is reduced to 0 by Wards or Concealment.

There are a lot of assuptions being made that don't follow the rules.

With a material link, you can target any object, whether it's a person, or a building. A person is no less of an object when they stop being a person and start being meat. Targetting anything with ritual magic creates a link. If you have a material link to a person, you can find their body.
I don't think symbolic or sympathetic linking would work, because that only works on living things.

I think this example follows the rules:
You and your team of 4 ritual cohorts sit down with your 5 hairs from a brush, and start casting increased reflexes (because it doesn't matter what spell you are casting). One doesn't participate. When 4 of you use your material link to create a link with the body, the 5th one follows the astral connection to the end. Then he looks around and tries to figure out where he is, comes back and reports. The team drops the spell, the material link is destroyed, and the body has been found.

edit: My original post was quoted from page 28 of street magic. It expands on the ritual magic rules.

So basically you use Ritual Magic and a Material/Sympathetic/Symbolic Link to cast a Sustained spell on the corpse. Then you follow the Astral Link from casters to that spell, and in that way find the corpse.

Nice solution. You'd need a Sustained spell that works on corpses, and overcome its OR, but since it was recently animate, it's OR won't be very high. Takes a few hours, but nothing unreasonable. You could probably render the corpse invisible to prevent others from messing with it...

(Edit: Ninja'd by bearclaw)
Ascalaphus--You have a very selective reading of the rules. The last paragraph of Material Links (SM, p 29) describes using a Material Link and an Astral Spotter. The Material Link forges a connection between the target and the Link (which is destroyed in the Ritual), which can then be followed by Astral Tracking. This is what I was using above, when I said to use a Material Link and Astral Tracking. (That is the same paragraph which says you don't need to finish casting the spell.)

Since the Astral Spotter has traveled to the area, to find the target of the link, it can then perceive the point in space for the Clairvoyance. If you don't like Clairvoyance, choose Petrify, Levitate, Turn to Goo, etc. The point is that the ritual group doesn't have to finish casting the spell, once they find the corpse.

If the ritual group isn't aware that the target is a corpse, using a Sympathetic Link, may provide that information--likewise, the GM could rule that Hair and Blood are not integral parts, and thus cannot be used the way a brick would be for the building. (You could also go the other way--toss the brick in the back of a truck or be carrying it in a bag and use the building to find the brick.)

RE: Search--Since the Threshold is changed by distance, if you don't know where to start the Search, you may be in for a much longer search.

OP: All of these techniques are primarily addressing the bottom of the sound or the industrial lot. Another technique to the industrial lot, would be to bury him in living soil--areas where it hasn't been paved over or built upon. That way you would use the gaiasphere to mask the presence.

There is also the question of the corpse being parted out by organ leggers, and other bits being eaten by ghouls. If it is no longer a coherent whole, such as a corpse, I'd say that the Threshold for Tracking should be raised in accordance with the number of parts it was divided into. Hacking it up and burying it all together wouldn't, since it's all in the same spot, though tracking down 8 different locations is a lot harder than 1.

You don't need a sustained spell, because you never actually cast the spell.
Street Magic pg 29:

Ritual groups may also combine
material links (and sympathetic links below) with astral
spotters to astrally track a target when its location is unknown.
While the ritual team is casting a spell (using the material
link), an astral spotter may track the target’s location
per the rules on p. 185, SR4. The ritual need not be completed,
just maintained long enough to allow the tracker to
locate the target.

There is a clever (non-SR) version of this in a story by Larry Correia, involving using blood found at a crime scene to locate the body via a spirit. http://www.baen.com/DetroitChristmas.asp

QUOTE (Street Magic @ p.29)
The material link is an integral part of the target that is in the ritual team’s possession. If the target is an inanimate object, the material link forms an integral, essential part of its structure. For example, you can target a building using a brick from one of its walls. However, you can’t use a picture that used to hang inside the building, as the picture is not an integral part of the building.
If the target is a living being, the material link is a tissue sample.

Requoting Nil_Fisk's post with the relevant clause bolded. It isn't 100% clear, but it can be strongly argued (as many posters have pointed out) that a material link won't work once the target is dead.

In which case, you would have to resort to good old fashioned detective work, retracing the targets last steps, canvassing witnesses and tracking down the SOBs who done the target in ...

Isn't there some limit to how long a material link is viable? like hours. IIRC it was that way in sr3. Basically once the tissue sample was separated from the target it didn't take long before it was nolonger linked.

Thanks, Everyone, for working through this with me. It's kind of important to the character I'm thinking of building.

OH! Also isnt' there some way tha the material link can be... something like polluted, such that it will no longer function as a material link?

If that's the case, would it be possible to do that to the whole body since, the body is just a larger sized tissue sample?

Huh? A tissue sample is still a material connection to the body. Note the example in the book of a brick being a material link to a building. Last I checked, both bricks and buildings are considered other then alive.

Sure it does, if it is dead, it's an inanimate object.

Interesting, yes. Ritual Magic does have rules for noticing a building-up Ritual spell before it goes off, I suppose that generates an Astral Link. Even so, I'd go with the Sustained Spell, just in case your spell goes off before you complete the casting. Wouldn't want to accidentally combust the body or something like that.

Your spell does not go off before you complete the Ritual. Unless you mean something else by that.

While you're casting a Ritual Spell, there's an Astral Link between casters and target, and the idea is to have someone follow that link to the corpse (the target). But you don't know for sure how long it takes to follow that link, so a Sustained Spell is more convenient because that way you can sustain the Astral Link if you complete the Ritual Spell before finding the corpse. Or, if you're a lone mage, you cast the Sustained Spell, then go track your own Astral Link. Tracking-While-Casting is only an option if you've got at least two mages; one to cast a spell and the other to follow the spell's link.

I must say, I like this way of doing it. It gives people like the Occult Investigator a good reason to learn Ritual Magic and use it from time to time.

---

Anyway, weren't there some spells to "paint a target" in War!? Maybe those can be used to speed up the tracking process? The best I can find in Core and SM is to emit a jamming field, and then ask local Matrix authorities if any blackouts happened at the moment you completed the spell.

Ahhh... I see what you are saying, though I fully expect the Target to be found far before the Ritual completes, unless the Rituialist is Magic 6+...

Unless you're not part of a team of ritual mages - the Sustained version works for a PC without magical backup too. It makes the occult investigator a believable character archetype, because he can provide a valuable, rare, powerful service. With Sympathetic Linking he can locate kidnapped family members for example...

Sure... No doubt.
Of course, I already thought that the Occult Investigator was a believable character archetype.

Re: Occult Investigator--I thought Ignite was an odd choice for a PI type, unless it was stylistic to light a cigarette. Still, that spell saved my bacon a few times through a little creativity.

"Flickum Bicus."