So if you look at jobs for mages in the books you tend to get Researcher/Professor types, Security Mages, Enchanters, and Shadowrunners.

Let's see some creative juices flow! What could a mage do earn his keep outside those buckets? Most people don't choose professions with very high risk, and mages supposedly are rare and in-demand. Describe a job one of these talented folks could do and how they would do it. Do you think they would get rich? Just make do?

There are blurbs about niche industries like magic-created meals (Create food)

I personally like the Fashion spell, with Fashion professional skill. Since the spell says that only the appearance changes, that means that some cheap, but well-made jeans and tee-shirts could become a fabulously valuable couture ensemble. A big benefit is that they would be wash-and-wear. Most high-end designer dresses (according to my wife) cannot be washed without ruining them. They have a limited dry-cleaning life, then *pfft*, total loss.

This fashion mage could conceivably become very rich if he made a name for himself on the high-end. He could probably also make a decent living doing mid-cost knock-offs of major designers. "I can get you the very same thing, that will last a long time, for a tenth the cost!"

What else could a motivated mage do for a living?

Thorguild

Another promising job is Pathologist.

A mage with high Assensing could detect and identify diseases with about 4 success. Since all you have to do is sit and look at the patient, your costs would be very low.

Thorguild

A had a character from a corp background and a smart/wealthy independent family. His sister was a wagemage researcher for a corporation, brilliant and scientifically inclined, in part due to the influence of her mentor spirit(artificer, i think) who landed her childhood dream job.

She works as a low earth orbit mana researcher. In the sweet spot just low enough where mages don't go bonkers while busting out important projects, and high enough up to cut down on ambient mana levels contaminating precise lab results.


Another mage I played used their her as a mystic adept to be an absolutely stellar artist. One of her favorite pieces involved showing mundanes how beautfil the astral world is in watercolor, paintings, sketches and the like.
She was also surprisingly useful to the team due to various detection/mapping spells, and two kinds of adept-enabled literally perfect memory that were compatable with the spells. She was in the shadows for other reasons, but could probably have made decent money with those talents.

well you have the generic, Doctor, Researcher, and or artist, but the mage i played a few times was a Popstar, he used some indirect combat spells and illusion spells to stun audiences, (he was a HUGE HIT), .. also some Mob mood helped :3 bwahaha

oh yea, and with the new traditions comes new job, IE Christian theurgy could be priests, bishops, high priests, and the like.

1. A mage could make a decent mechanic with a talent to just "magically fix" anything. Maybe his employer doesn't even know about that.
2. A mage could also be a really versatile artist. With some indirect elemental spells he could work on his some materials to shape them or give them unique colors. Also he could use Shape [X] to form nice sculptures out of nowehre. Sculpting the asphalt in the middle of the street, a wall of a corporate building or whatever you can think of to something beautiful. With Petrify he could even create life-like sculptures , a little bit controversial but so what?

There was a thread a while ago about construction materials in the sixth world. I wish I could find it again. Should have bookmarked it. If anyone has it handy, please let me know.

But basically, plasteel is a really common construction material in the sixth world, and is also a metal.
So, I've considered making an Urban Mage, with Shape Metal and Shape Plastic, just because of the utility in manipulating your environment. Maybe wood or glass also thrown in there.


This concept could pretty easily be repurposed to a Public Artist/Vandal type deal, though.

Engineering
as we all know, the big money is in energy. Oil, nowadays.

-Quickening an [Element] Wall spell of Fire will power a thermal heat engine forever.
-Quickening a Levitate spell, where the levitated object is an iron block moving around in a donut shaped magnet coil. If you need a boost, tell your spirit to use Movement on the block.
-Water based spells can provide unlimited fountains in Africa.
-Civil engineering: There's a structure enhancing spell, which can be quickened to about anything. Makes buildings super light. Until some evil terrorist mage dispells it.

Terrorist Mage!
Levitating things into buildings.

There's no guarantee about that; Fashion doesn't transmute anything; the mass remains the same and the clothes must maintain approximately equal volume. So while you could use materials and weaves* that are wash and wear there is little reason to think that using Fashion on a denim dress is going to result in the texture and feel of a silk dress given the spell description. And honestly, given Shadowrun magic's fluff and limitations Fashion and Makeover kinda highlight how inconsistent spells really are, if you think about it, and thus are right at the edge of what you can do before that consistency is just shot right out the window with a cannon.

Anyway, yeah, Makki's right about the engineering, transportation and industrial fields, although medicine should get an honorable mention. The implications of the Movement power alone are absurd. Shape Metal, Movement, Guard and Heal pants mundane stuff so thoroughly that odds are if you're doing anything else with your powers you've made a dumb move financially. The saving grace as far as variety is concerned is that magic is kind of a personal thing and lots of people will manifest relatively lame talents due to being self taught or whatever.


*This bit is more important than many people expect--chenille gets its name from the process, not the materialsl, and it will tend to stretch out of shape at high heat whether you make it out of cotton or synthetics due to the way the fibers are handled.

Regarding Fashion, I'd think Illusion spells would be a lot more useful than transmutation in that regard.

I mean, sure, fashion can alter clothes, but if you're in the business of tailoring.... being able to SHOW someone what the clothes they interested in getting made LOOK, fit and FEEL like is immeasurable. Especially since you can adjust the spell on the fly as they consider options.

Like, say, wedding dresses. Do you know how much planning goes into those? How much do you think people would pay for a 'try before you buy' program?

Bunch of good replies, folks. Keep it up!

Makki, you made some great ones. I wondered how an eternal spring would work too. I figured that most GM's would put the kibosh on it without even pausing, but I love the idea.

A post on another thread I also loved was about summoning a spirit and telling it to use its movement power on a commercial plane. A force 5 spirit turns a 400 MPH flight into a 2000 MPH flight. That's NY to Tokyo in 3.5 hours. My son and I both wonder at what rate you use fuel.

Thorguild

On Movement, any decent military would have that on every billion dollar ship. An aircraft carrier strike force cruises at 20-25 knots. How about making that 100?

Thorguild

Apropos of perpetual motion: it seems you can get infinite energy that way, but from the fluff standpoint, wouldn't it burn mana? Maybe giving the area a negative background count, or even lowering the global mana level if used excessively.

Magical Healer
Massage Therapist
Sex-worker (Orgasm without touching!)
Hairdresser

Courier, what with all the spirits that can help.

Special effects artist for sim and trid.

Spy, how do spells like read mind or whatever wori from the astral anyway?

Security for Urban Brawl, Combat Biker, the Olympics, etc.

Archaeologist, think Indiana Jones.

The world's best porn producer. Between Orgasm/Orgy, some manipulation magic, and a general focus on illusions, you can eliminate all manner of editing work and get more out of your talent than even the talent thought possible. Even better yet, your talent can be healthier thanks to in-depth astral scans and the use of various healing magics.

And on that note, medicine really shines as you could heal pretty much any normal disease. STD/STI in your sex workers becomes a thing of the past.

IIRC the movement power on SR4A limits the power by the object or persons body attribute. So while things like ships and planes can be sped up, it would take a large spirit to do so.

Create and sell awakened drugs.

Heh, Walter White, dog shaman?

Just started watching that show. Just started the second season. For something so dark and of almost no redeeming value, I really like it.

Honestly though, if you're a mage, you're probably not going to want to be on any registries, making you illegal. If you're a criminal anyway, might as well profit like one.

Curing hangovers and the common cold.
Making people look good in an instant.
Instant Wardrobe. Searching for lost stuff.
Convenience Jobs that ain't too illegal and are highly sought after.

What about private detective?

Between clairvoyance, clariaudiance, Find, Catalog, and so forth, a mage could locate almost anything or anyone.

"I can't find my car keys"
"Try the potted plant by the front door."
"Thanks!"
"That'll be 500 "

One idea that I've been pondering is "metaplanar tour guide", using an invoked Guidance Spirit. Public safaris during the day, "private" ones for corp or runner teams needing quests at night.

The one part I wasn't sure about was how long mundanes can safely project, since they have a Magic attribute of 0. Do they need to be back to their bodies within an hour, or does exposure to an astral gateway effectively kill them immediately?

Given drugs like...Shade? I'd say that they have some time. How much may be unclear to us, but I could see 20 minute jaunts for world-building purposes.

I once had a Nartaki mage who was a mechanic: Fix, Levitate, Analyze Device, Light, Magic Fingers. Add Fashion and Fling (I know, I know, suboptimal; choice was for RP reasons), and that, IIRC, was her starting spell list. Magic 6, Spellcasting 6 (+2 manipulation after the first run), and Mentor Spirit: Dragon. Surprisingly effective, especially after Glitter learned just why the other mage(s) in the team had Increase Reflexes and Heal.

Fun times, fun times.

All I can think of saying ins Harry Dresden (mainly because I'm re-re-reading the series)

In the NAN I think teaching would be one of the more common professions as shamans would have the best understanding of the cultural heritage of their tribes.

I think there's a big problem for mages jobs: most people fear and distrust magic. And I can see why the corps would prefer to keep the masses away from mages: mages services can't be mass-produced, and there are little to no barrier to entry (you have to be a mage, to know how to cast spells/summon and know the spells).

Sure there can be a few things corps can do, like patent spell formulas, but that's not enough. Making the population fear magic is a better option. This way, people will only trust mages with a certification from a corporation. Incidents involving an uncertified mage will make the news, and in the end magic services will be controlled by corporations.

Illusion spells are very useful for design prototyping.

Bye
Thanee

What about the Shapechange spell. Talk about something people would pay for.
"You dream of flying? Ok, close your eyes and hold your breath. There. Now fly mister eagle. You've got an hour. That'll be 500 nuyen please."

or

"You've got ebola? Guess what? There's no duck form of ebola. Poof. You're a duck. Relax for a few days til we're sure it's gone. That'll be 5000 nuyen please."

or

"Scuba lessons? You don't need no scuba lessons. Hop in the water. Poof. You're a shark. Have fun."

etc, etc, etc

Ha, nice.

I can't see why it wouldn't work.

I could think of ways ("Magic") but I was more amused by the idea than its plausibility.

Penis thief.

Other then being known as 'That prick who invented duck Ebola'.

Mmm---Peking Duck anyone?? Great way to get rid of a person. Just shapechange them into a duck or chicken, toss them into the back of a poultry truck and off they go to the meatpacking plant.....wow what a way to die.....though once you die I think you revert back to human form. I guess they would have mage inspectors in the plant to prevent that though....

Reminds me of "I cast Polymorph Other on the balrog to turn him into a trout." It works so well, it's permanent. The trout then gets tossed in a nearby river (as it retains all it's crazy balrog powers, like exploding violently on death) and Leaving Quickly.

Some poor fisherman sometime later ends up catching a fish, which then explodes.

At a game at a D&D convention, that's pretty much exactly what we did, only worse. Polymorphed the bad guy into a puppy, after having hit him with Curse and Blindness.

Ouch.

I once had a character that was Baleful polymorphed into a small furry critter at the beginning of a fight. The rest of the group assumed I would just roll up another character, as in that fight they had gotten their asses handed to them and had to teleport away and leave me there, asumed dead. Adding insult to injury, they managed to take the time to grab my pack full of stuff rather than grab me, which wasn't surprising as my character was a bit obnoxious and had provoked the fight by insulting the NPC who I knew was much more powerful than we were.

But in the confusion as they left i was able to sneak away, and as I was a psion, the change in form wasn't as devastating to me as it could have been otherwise. The game took place before the spell was erratad to lose your special abilities including class features, so i couls still manifest powers. I had just enough xp to level up, and took a level in Thrallerd, which i had planned on doing anyway.

The next gaming session I brought my new wizard character into the group, and it took about two months before they figured out that my psion was the wizard's familiar, and the wizard was my Thrall. Aoiding people with True Seeing was the hardest thing.

I've heard of such antics before.

Then there was the druid and his dire wolverine.

Er, I mean, the gargantuan dire wolverine and his ant-companion-druid (he took an alternate class feature to wildshape smaller rather than larger, and then used ride checks to increase the wolverine's AC).

Not sure if it was mentioned yet but there's a good bit in Vice about most of the horishi for the yakuza being mages w/ quickening. Seems like it would be a good fit for a non-gumi tattoo artist as well.

That is brilliant.

Thorguild

We once had a BBEG, who was a general of an extraplanar invading army and whose name we did not know, polymorphed into a chicken.
Well, his further fate had his name established as Tso.

Not sure about 4th Ed., but in Third Mundanes were ok as long as the astral gateway was maintained. If it dropped, mundanes died immediately. I think magically active then were subject to essence constraint. It is how the mundanes on the team were able to participate in Harlequin Returns.

Any Magician with a Heal, an Anti-Toxin or a Cure Disease spell will always have a better than decent living as a portable med center.

My current mage Martin Miggs has a shingle (an excellent forgery) that allows him to be a Magical Healer out of his home, also thanks to a recent Run involving insect spirits he's registered with the U.N. as a freelance magical investigator.

Another thing he has at his disposal is his talent with hydroponics, in addition to the 'Urban Farming' on his property he's working on growing Glowmoss for fun and profit.

This whole discussion is mentioning many of the ideas for magic in society and business covered in GURPS Technomancer. I consider it an invaluable resource (in some respects, not in others) for an urban fantasy campaign. It's out of print, if anyone's looking for it, but for sale at like $8 from Steve Jackson Games online (e23) in PDF format. I might also recommend Dreaming Cities (Tri-Stat), but GURPS Technomancer is far more comprehensive.

You're looking to get a reputation as a quack doctor?