I play a possession mage (yeah) and in an effort to share the fun with my teammates, I tend to avoid possession metahumans. Having set that stricture upon myself, I'm interested in prepared vessels for my spirits. So...

Can you recommend a vessel choice that works particularly well for you? I'm most interested in portability, durability, and economy, but I'm open to suggestion.

Alternately, do you have any good stories from runs that hinged on a clever possession?

Here are my favorite so far:

Bust-A-Move drone (ARS p117) - An object vessel that Portability: 5/5; Durability 2/5; Economy: 5/5 Cons: May require dis-assembly/re-assembly to enchant. Roll is

Hawk (RW p99)
Portability: 4/5; Durability: 2/5; Economy: 1/5 Pro: Can be healed. Roll is Con: I'd like to be able to take it with me, and without Biodrone modification, I can't rely on stealth / discretion. That means it would cost a minimum of 500 for the hawk, plus 45k for the CAST mod.

Both of these examples are small and relatively unimpressive, but then really benefit from the possession stat boost.

Small Animals?

Rat, Cat, Dog, Squirrel, Pigeon, etc. These all sound like solid choices for a possession Mage. And they are just lying around on the streets.

How about an emotitoy drone? Just imagine one of those little fellas launching itself from your lapel to pound the living crap out of someone, shouting "How do you feel now, bitch?!!".

Plasteel Homonculus
Portability 3/5, Durability 5/5, Economoy 3/5, Pro: Very strong when possessed by a spirit with Energy Aura. Con: Heavy

Flying Eye
Portability 5/5, Durability 1/5, Economy 5/5, Pro: Flight-capable vessel (for air, fire and ally spirits), hard to spot, repairable with "Fix" spell. Con: Squishy

Corpse
Portability 1/5, Durability 4/5 (varies), Economy 5/5, Pro: Available on-the-spot, can use metahuman equipment. Con: Very difficult to transport (stench, decay, conservation), social stigma

Lol - it really says something when 'requires murdering someone' isn't considered an availability limitation worth mentioning!

Yes, what is says is that you're playing Shadowrun. Now go murder some hobos for your spirits.

Can a Spirit possess another spirit? O.o

To be fair, I did mention "social stigma" in the cons

Thanks for the responses! I think I've already learned something.

It seems like two main categories are emerging.

"Vessel-on-the-fly"
I like Rat/Pigeon in particular here, because they're everywhere and would hardly be looked at twice.

also

Step 1, murder. Step 2 just add spirit!

Prepared vessels


So it seems like the emergent strategy would be to enchant your hard-to-possess mechanical vessels ahead of time, then be opportunistic with animals that are around. Perhaps that should have been more evident to me from the system, but it wasn't.

I am 99% positive that they cannot. Possession occupies a body, which most spirits don't have, only manifestations. MAYBE inhabited spirit hybrid forms. Wait... you were kidding.

Materialisation, physical entity, possession!

Spiritception

We need to initiate deeper!
Can the possessed Spirit use Channeling on the Possessing Spirit?

Garga... a prepared vessel doesn't need to be an independent item which can move around on it's own.

It can even be something you wear like a ring. Or even your special fancy armor jacket for formal occasions. Just remember that the possession is always obvious and clearly magical to any casual observer (6-force perception).



So lets just take the case of your armor....
If you prepare it then have a force 6 hop into it... the armor rating goes up by 6 points. (you don't get the hardened quality though ironically your coat is now indestructible... not so much the contents :)).

You know have a vessel which can do things like provide counterspelling, use other spirit powers which require physical presence. Or even engage in astral combat against purely astral entities. Watching lightning bolts arc out from your coat from elemental attacks is perfectly fitting.

Downside of this... is preparing the armor as a prepared vessel means it probably makes you stand out for 'geek the mage' purposes.


The other bits on the car radio... maybe if you have some old '50's car with mechanical controls for the radio. Any modern car with AR displays and touch screens... you're completely out of luck. The spirit still can't interact with any of the electronics.


That said, outside the outright wrongness that is emotitoys software and infinitely stacking nature... that sounds like a perfect stealth vessel. Only problem would be statting it up as a drone (probably just use the bust-a-move stats or similar).

Pretty much most any of the microdrones would meat the small and concealable requirement. (microskimmer, kanmushi, or slightly larger the fly-spy or dragonfly).

watership down!

Repeat watership down.

oh look a bunny!

board crashing results in multiple post.... coverage at 11.

Amazing epic quint post....
I like the jacket idea, but here is a question: if the item is obviously magical, can it be concealed? Why possess the jacket when you can do the same to the under-shirt?

I've never seen the maneuverability of that drone confirming, flight. Where is that printed please?


I am surprised no one mentioned my standard go-to. A Dragonfly with a few upgrades is one of the nastier things I've seen for possession on the small side. Depending on the version, it can get evil. I've yet to see any reason in RAW rules why a dragonfly cannot have an Anti-theft system (no warning) installed either, for the extra fry after it nips you.

Pick your favorite car. I've got a beat-up GAZ that I can throw a spirit into, and it's like having a rigger friend, plus the immunity.

Manservant-3. Person sized drone that few people question the presence of, especially at higher class functions. Possession and you have an insta-brawler, or nastier, if you modded it with hidden weapons. If you are posh enough, the Akiyama's chameleon cloak can also make for a fun possession target.

And then there is the possessed Heimdall. It's "f*%k you," with feeling.

The running joke of my campaign, the demonic excavator. Either a Mesametric Beaver drone or some Caterpillar-Kawasaki construction vehicle.
"Nicks, are you telling me there are DEMONIC EXCAVATORS on the loose in this city?!"

When I read the title of this thread, my mind immediately went to sailing ships and zeppelins. Then I realized that this thread had nothing to do with vessels which sail. I am now sad.


Of course, you could always have your spirit attempt to possess a warship...

Renraku Manservant 3
Similar Models (Top Speed +20% -1 Pilot)

Put a F4 spirit inside and give it customized clothing and weapons. Teach it to use said weapons.

Congratulations, you now have terminator bodyguards.

Unfortunately they cannot. Anti-Theft are for "Regular" vehicles and that is a mini drone.

Here's a thought though. They can have anti-Vehicle weapons that does 1 point of damage. Will that base damage increase by force? After all, noted attributes on a drone is increased by force.

Give it ruthenium polymers and 2 grapple arms and it becomes a very tiny boxer.

Man, is there *anything* not broken about possession? That dragonfly one might be the worst, as people and objects just fall apart, slowly, for no apparent reason…

See, I've always preferred materialization spirits because they seem more intuitive to me. Go fetch x. Go clear that room. Etc. I feel bad about stuff like possessed armor because it feels cheesy, and I lose regular utility to boot. Or so I thought.



In my head, the situation I wanted to solve was the classic western lockup. I'm in a cell, behind bars, but I can see the keys. I materialization spirit and grab them for me. A possessed dragonfly cannot. But with grapple arms...

The Preserve spell goes a long way towards fixing that (Street Magic, page 174), as does preparing the vessel (Street Magic, page 86, Inanimate Vessels, Dead Vessels subsection). With 6 successes, a Preserved, prepared zombie only loses one point of physical stats every six months.

isn't the dragonfly an insectoid drone with legs? O.o

I guess that depends? It "is about as large and looks very similar to its natural counterpart" (ARS p118), but the neither the text nor the picture explicitly indicate legs.

It has to land somehow...

Since they have ducted-thrust wings, it wouldn't be hard for them to land by sweeping their thrusters down and landing on their tail and thrusters' rims, and at that size it wouldn't interfere with takeoff, either.

And even if not, they wouldn't necessarily need legs that moved, they could have fixed landing-gear.

Of course, the biggest argument for them having legs is that they'd need some way to hold onto something they intend to do mischief to.

I was thinking Fixed Legs, personally, unless they were modified after acquisition.

The point of the dragonfly was the size... which I listed right in the same sentence. It's easy to miss, and still can pack more punch when possessed than anyone would be prepared for. I usually pack my dragonflys with Gecko tape, since they are my spy-drone as well, and can sit on a wall for much longer than they can hover.

Gecko tape solves either issue.

Oh well, this is just awesome. Disable the warhead (would be a waste of a spirit, I'd say), add spikes, bring down enemies

And now for the coup the grace: Possessing a materialized emerged spirit!

I think that tears a rift to a Metaplane if you try to go that deep.

So that's what Big D tried at the Watergate . .

perhaps, but not necessary. Just have the spirit drop the possession before the warhead goes off. Spirit's in astral do avoid big, messy explosions, right?

Yeah, they are pretty safe on the astral plane. But a spirit-propelled drone may hit, run and hit again, and the speed and its enhanced body attribute make it a lot more deadly. Mainly because it may not burn out after the standard 18 seconds a Heimdall can travel. This may as well be somewhat broken.

Actually the drone or inanimate object doesn't need a manipulator.

There's the psychokinesis power... which operates similar to the magic fingers spell.



And no, your spirit is hot hopping out of a heimdal before it blows. I can buy that a rigger gets that kind of a special cutout circuit, but not a spirit.

But you could always grab a larger drone with a high speed and a ram plate :). Bah, doesn't even need to be a fast drone... spirits got it's own movement power right!

Not? I don't see why not. You may be assuming a timeframe for hop-out that has not been said. I assure you, the spirit could get out of a heimdall a LONG time before it blows.

There is also no reason that the explosive payload could not be set to penetrate, and go off seconds later, giving the spirit more than enough time to de-possess after hull penetration. More than a few modern weapons operate under this method. A spirit with movement could even try something more complicated, like parking the heimdall on the roof before it bails. Gecko tap, etc etc. I'd sure pay for that.

Why not just add 6 points of armor to the Heimdall, special equipment (ramming spike (ram plate variant)) and let the spirits X2 force help it function like a flying spear.

3000 M/S is equivalent to 3600 KM/H

We also use the similar models rule to knock up BOD rating to 2 and lower pilot rating to 2 (we get a larger surplus SCUD missile instead of a AMRAM)

We add normal armor on it (+6 armor)
We add the special equipment (Ram Spike) that functions like a vehicle ram plate
We also add Ruthenium polymers to make the damn thing stealthy

With a F6 spirit on board we are talking BOD 8 / Hardened armor 12 Normal armor 6 with added protection to be able to impale other vessels/people/critters

Yes, its bizarre and silly but what deranged mage wouldnt

When talking about speed anything over 200 kph doesn't matter. The chart doesn't go any further.

Uhhhh... Do not pass go, do not collect $200... go to jail...

Ram Plate (Standard, Groundcraft and Watercraft Only):

A ram plate does nothing if you're already at the last line on the chart... it only helps if you're moving slower by increasing damage a step.



As far as why I say a spirit would not be able to hop out of a drone while a rigger would. They used to make special missiles for riggers in prior editions with a cutout to disconnect the rigger without dumpshock so they could guide the ordinance to impact. I see nothing wrong with these still being in play... because it required no action on the riggers part for a clean disconnect. Spirit on the other hand needs to disposses the drone before it's impacted to get the same benefits.

Blob drone from spygames. not particularly useful. But funny looking.

First, I said it would be special equipment EQUIVALENT to a ram plate - this is merely to reinforce missile so skip the damage bonus (i didnt think of that one). This would replace the actual warhead with a blunt metal spike.

Not sure if anyone mentioned this, but I've had decent results with clothing store mannequins. Our group ruled that mannequins have become fairly well articulated, which helped my spirits get around in a world made for metahumans. Readily available and often stylishly dressed. Also, those tiny ones from kids clothing stores are super-creepy even without spiritual possession. They should get a bonus to the Fear power...

Mannequins? Oh, you remind me of something. From "Doctor Who": The Autons
I'm not particularly into the series, but pickes up bits here and there...

And you just gave me an idea for a new drone construction.