True Roleplayer™ Whine as far as I am concerned.

So the bit about Astral Hazing overwriting ambient conditions is not sufficient?

I am not sure how much my reasoning would matter to you, since you seem concerned mainly with the RAW. But firstly, astral hazing is caused by metagenes that permanently metabolize the character's negative feelings into background count. So this is not the background count caused by an event in the past, like most domains, but a continual output of astral taint. I could see someone "resculpting" an area, cleaning up pollution or putting up holy symbols or ritual engravings, and slowly changing the background count to match a particular tradition. I can't see that working when new astral taint is continually being introduced to the surrounding area. You can't change the metagenes. If you change the person, it would take more than a few tattoos or a mystic necklace; you would have to root out the causes of their negative feelings and negate them. And if you did that, then the metagenes, which only feed on negative emotions, wouldn't work any longer.

My other concern, partly game balance-related and part logical extrapolation, is this: if it were possible for astral hazing to be aspected, then every cyberzombie would generate aspected background count. After all, a company with the resources and esoteric magical know-how to create a cyberzombie would certainly also be aware of this use of geomancy.

Apparently not for Toturi... *shrug*
Though I suspect that he does not believe that Astral Hazing can actually be Geomanced (based upon other things he has stated), he is just looking at the arguments on their own merits.

If somebody gives me the argument, it does not say it doesn't work this way in the book, so I can assume it works this way, his carracter will, for example, take the same damage as the targets, if casting a fireball. Nothings says it doesn't work this way, so I guess it works this way.

The way toturi is looking at it is in my book pure munchkinism. This has nothing to do with powergaming. He is blantly ignoring the rules and demanding that there shoud be an explicit statement that it won't work.

Explain to me how I am ignoring the rules. If there is a general rule showing how it works, then barring any explicit statement, that should how it works. Therefore if you know of a general rule in the book that covers this, then please quote that rule.

I am with Toturi this time. Geomancy is something that is about cleansing a local BC that does not move. Astral Hazing is quite movable IMHO, so it shouldn´t work. Filtering on the other hand seems workable.

Filtering would totally work. Filtering would work even if the other guy was the one with Astral Hazing.

I am not sure about this. I will need to reread the cyberzombie portion of Augmentation (is it Augmentation?). I recall subtle differences between SURGE Astral Hazing and CZ Astral Hazing, but that was quite some time ago.

Pages 157-158 of Augmentation. The only difference, really, is that negative Essence, rather than Essence, determines the radius. And the fluff is slightly different. Rather than metagenes that feed on negative emotions, cyberzombie astral hazing is thought to be "the result of the dark magic used or an unconscious psychosomatic manifestation of the spirit's anguish at its unnatural condition".

The problem with geomancy, to me, is that it assumes the mage is able to change the environment. Presumably, if he was trying to convert a place used for grisly rituals into an area consecrated to Coyote, or whatever, it would involve politely asking the deranged cultists to stop carving out human hearts to lay on their dark alter. Otherwise, trying to fix the background count would not work that well. But with astral hazing, new astral pollution is being continually released into the area.

I remember now. The last line from CZ Astral Hazing is missing from SURGE Astral Hazing.

In both cases, the rating 4 Background Count is being actively produced, either from spiritual torture or from magically-affective metagenes. Like walking around with a fog machine with an infinite power and water supply strapped to your back your condition is actively affecting everywhere you go, and until you buy off the quality, you can't turn off the fog. Or having Irritable Bowel Syndrome, to the point that everywhere you go smells like excrement for some time even after you leave. People can spray air freshener to cover up the scent that remains when you're gone, but while you're there, the odor is constantly being produced, and no amount of air freshener, from you or anybody around you, will cover up the fact that you and the air around you smells like crap. Filtering, in this case, would mean wearing a breathing mask that filters the smell from your own scent, so it doesn't impact you.

We're not arguing Filtering, that's a concession. But how do you filter out the smell of feces when the odor is constantly being ejected into the air from a persistent source, without affecting that source (through a combination of mental and genetic therapies) to simply NOT produce the excremental smell? As far as I'm aware, you can't make fresh shit smell like sunflowers.

You are not filtering the odor. While fundamentally the source of the odor remains the same, you are changing the nature of the odor (once it has been produced) through Geomancy. So in effect, you use the complex chemical scents produced by shit, run that through a set of chemical reactions to produce perfume. While you are not making fresh shit smell like sunflowers (that's Astral Hazing), you are treating (via Geomancy) the fresh shit to smell like sunflowers.

Yeah - but the problem is, you can only change the nature of that smelly stuff by changing the nature of what is producing it. This is why geomancy involves making changes to the "landscape" you are affecting. This is significant when you consider what the initial causes of astral hazing are.

For a cyberzombie, it is either the remnants of the ritual - and if the multi-grade initiates who deal with cybermancy can't clean it up, it is probably safe to say no one can - or (the explanation I personally lean towards) it is the result of a tortured soul being kept in a state of living death. So how do you get that tortured soul to emit more positive vibes? Somehow, I don't think a smiley face rune inscribed on one of his cyberarms will do it. So geomancy on cyberzombies is problematic. Fortunately so, since as I said earlier, if it was possible, every cyberzombie would have aspected background count.

For the SURGE quality, it is actually even more problematic. Someone with astral hazing doesn't have an unusual amount of dark thoughts or negative feelings; it is just that they have metagenes that metabolize those particular feelings into a background count. That's the problem - the entire process is driven on a metagenetic level. So unless the mage attempting the geomancy is a genius-level geneticist, I don't see any way to resculpt the astral hazing. It would literally involve manipulating magical genes to "feed" on different emotions.

Technically, the RAW is ambiguous about using geomancy to aspect astral hazing. But when you get into the nuts and bolts of actually trying to do it, some serious problems become apparent. At least to me... the rules are clear that you need to "resculpt" the area, but how is kept vague. A GM can easily shoot it down, or make it prohibitively difficult. But other GMs might let you get a magic tattoo and an orichalcum Prince Albert and *poof* problem solved. And since the resculpting is not defined, either approach is RAW.

But then we're back to the fundamental text of Astral Hazing. Sure, you've spent a month Geomancing the ambient mana around the Hazing individual, and taken on additional risks or difficulty to do so, due to the Hazing. And after that month, you manage to aspect the background count to something positive. Then, RAW per Astral Hazing, the character with the quality is immediately back in an unmatched Background Count of 4 that negatively affects them. This is immediately after the Geomancy is successfully performed and the BG was aspected towards them. RAW.

Yes, you can spray chemicals that bond with the excrement in the air and maybe even change the chemical make up of it before it touches anybody's scent receptors. And then immediately after you do that, more particles of excrement are up in the air again, tainting what you just cleaned as soon as you cleaned it.

How so? What is your reasoning for this?

The character with the Quality is impaired by the background count, by RAW - this is true. It does not necessarily follow that the Background Count returns back to an aspect that is not aligned with whatever tradition the Geomancer has Aspected the BC to.

Because that is what the NQ Says?

It's been stated, repeatedly, that according to Astral Hazing's text:

"Whatever the ambient mana conditions are, the character always stands at the heart of a Rating 4 background count (see p. 117, Street Magic) that extends a number of meters from her body equal to her Essence; this background count also impairs her own actions if the character is Awakened."

Additionally, specific rule trumps general rule. So, you have a negative quality that says you always stand at the heart of a rating 4 background count; it trumps the ambient mana, and it also impairs your actions if you are awakened. That means it is constantly asserting this rating 4 background count. The moment you go somewhere, it's there with you. If you have spent a month's effort re-aspecting the ambient mana, you go through all of that effort, and then you're still standing in the non-ambient rating 4 background count that impairs your own magic-releated actions. Nowhere in your Geomancy did you change the fact that your quality, by rules, says you will always be in that background count that negatively impacts you.

I think I have already posted on the ambient mana issue:


However, I disagree with your interpretation of what the "always at the heart of a Rating 4 background count" means. The Quality checks whether the character is at the center of a BC 4. Even if the BC is Aspected, it does not matter, because the character is still at the heart of a Rating 4 background count; since an Aspected Rating 4 Background Count is still a Rating 4 Background Count.

Now the portion that says that the Background Count impairs the character's own actions just means precisely that. No less but also no more.

If it is Aspected it no longer Impairs. And since that is the most important part, by your own admission, well.... If they are IMPAIRED, then they are not Aspected (No Less and No More). Seems pretty simple.

Specific (Astral Hazing says you are ALWAYS Impaired) trumps General (potential Geomancy)

I'm still not sure how that particular quote says that the hazing can be aspected. To me it reads "That thing you are saying, I am also saying it. We agree, but I'm going say I disagree instead just to be confrontational."



And...I'm not sure where this is going either.

No, I am saying that the Astral Hazing impairs even if it is Aspected towards that tradition. Specific of Astral Hazing trumps the general of normal Aspected Background Count rules (whether the Aspect is from Geomancy or not does not matter).


It means that it is the correct quote to justify the "hazing cannot be aspected using Geomancy" argument. I am saying that previously the statement quoted was not the correct one.

It means my buddy Bob is not impaired by my Astral Hazing if he is of the correct tradition to the BC's Aspect.

So what you're saying is, "It can't be aspected, but if it could be, it wouldn't impair other people just the owner"?

What I am saying is

1) It can't be aspected using Geomancy

2) It does not matter what the PC's Tradition or the Astral Hazing's Aspect is, it will always impair the character (per Astral Hazing's wording)

3) From point 2, the Background Count affects other people normally.

I would like to add that, as a GM, I'd be willing to allow an Astral Hazing's background count to augment Toxic traditions (due to the source of the BG produced).

If this WAS used (in my games) on a Toxic-Tradition character, know you already have a bounty for being a Toxic-Tradition (courtesy of the Draco Foundation), and the money will be amped up considerably when the fact that you're empowered by the Astral Hazing surrounding you (you're a greater threat than previously thought, the research alone would be a gold mine, you're too much of a liability for "Our" [read any given corp who feels so disposed] current operations in that area, you make the tea taste too sour/bitter/whatever, etc.).

It's a considerable buff to allow, especially in light of RAW, and most magical types and quite a few mundanes would find your mere presence unpalatable. If you're not a Toxic tradition and you take this in my games, you can expect to be a beacon and exploitable resource to them.

No, I said that the ambient conditions of the person with Astral Hazing override the other ambient conditions of the environment.

Interestingly, by a completely RAW reading of this, if you go to space (-7 BC) with Astral Hazing you are still at the heart of a R4 Positive BC, meaning you almost halved the penalty of BC to those around you.


Astral Hazing, by being around a specific character, is, by definition, ambient ("of or relating to the immediate surroundings of something." The "something" in this instance is the person).


You described Filtering, not Geomancy.

I wish you people would stop confusing your terms.


Common misconception.


Actually, you're mislead by your own preconceptions about English. Astral Hazing falls under the in-game definition of a "power site," as toturi and I have conclusively shown. Whether or not you agree with that is not important - they are power sites by definition. Guess what word is completely absent in the whole section about Geomancy? "Location" does not appear once in the text - it was inferred by your flawed preconception about the term "power site." By definition, Geomancy affects a power site. By definition, a power site is a source of backround count. By definition, all of what we've stated works.


No, the description of Astral Hazing actually defines it itself as ambient as well.


Oh good, then you also can't buy off the quality. Thanks for explaining that to us. You also can't change your Magic rating, up or down, since that is also determined by your metagenes. Good to know.


Again, this misconception is because of your prejudices based on your language. If we instead change the words that are giving you problems to other words you'd understand more clearly.

You need to look at games as if they are legal documents. Legal documents define terms with a specific word and then use that word later instead of putting the original word in it again.

For example, in the description for Geomancy, every time after the first sentence it uses the word "site" it is doing that because they didn't want to retype the term "power site." This is obviously the case because otherwise you could geomancy any site, and we know that you can only use geomancy on sites with backround count in the first place.

This is important because you need to understand that every time "site" is used in Geomancy it is directly referring to "power sites." "Power sites," as toturi and I have show, are defined as "spots of concentrated magical energy," which a positive R4 BC certainly is.

Therefore, when you read the rules for Geomancy, every time it says "site" you should read it as "spots of concentrated magical energy," because site = power site = area of backround count. This truly is A = B = C, therefore A = C.

And, for the last time, "ambient" is defined as an adjective as "of or relating to the immediate surroundings of something." (directly copy/pasted from a dictionary). The immediate surroundings of something include the immediate surroundings of a person, and that includes the radius of Astral Hazing. My personal body produces more heat than normal - the ambient air temperature around me is a few degrees higher than the room I am in (my ambient temperature is higher than the ambient temperature of the room I am in). The same can be said about computers, or a fire.

But, seeing as we're on page 10 and we seem to talk in circles every 3 pages or so, I'm done here. You can either read the rules and understand them how they were written, leaving your preconceived notions at the hard cover, or you can press your influences on them and play a slightly different game.

As long as you are polite and have fun (and thank you to all involved for staying polite).

So if you walk into a freezer, your ambient conditions are still a balmy 98.2°F?

Afterall, your body internals are still warm, the environment be damned.

The word "ambient," in the English language (at least in the several American dialects I've experienced across the country,) refers to extant environmental conditions in a given sphere, such that the occur and/or last over a larger period of time. Any noise is TECHNICALLY altering the ambient sound of an area, but that does not mean anybody would really refer to a brief air horn blast that never happens again as having changed the "ambient conditions" of an area.

Using Geomancy to change the background count, to use a new example, would be like trying to clean up toxic chemicals that are constantly being pumped into the land. You spend a month cleaning up something that's constantly flowing in, without actually stopping the flow itself. A month's worth of work does not eliminate the contaminating source, it only addresses contamination that's flowed outward from that initial dumping site (the radius of immediate Astral Hazing). There's an active flow of toxicity in the area. You can technically call the toxicity "ambient," though the toxin is not.

Your month of work does not change the fact that the astral is suffering an active flow of toxicity around the Hazing individual, one that creates a counter- or toxic-aspected BG count. It does not remove that immediate dumping site, and the negative quality STILL says that you take a magic penalty for it (unless you Bio-Suit yourself in the form of Filtering).

In my opinion filtering would be more akin to wearing a hazmat suit in that same polluted area - it keeps the toxins from affecting you, but doesn't do anything to clean up the place.