So I'm going to run one of the Redneck runs - the one with the Locust Spirits. Yay... can't wait...

However, looking in SR4 Street Magic to get their stats and it mentions their variety of skills.
What rating should they be? Do they equal force?

Now I don't want to kill my PC's, but I'd like to make it challenging.

They are 400BP with about 30 karma. What should I throw at them?

I'm thinking they will first become aware of the spirits by encountering scouts. Then they can do some legwork and find the swarm - or the swarm can find them...

Any recommendations of force them to bash through without annihilating them?

I presume all materialized insect spirits are fleshform right? How long does it take for an insect spirit to inhabit a living being?

Any advice on how to run these threats are welcome

Yes, their skill ratings equal their force.


There are worlds of difference in possible optimization when it comes to 400BP characters, so this isn't a really good measure.
Instead, ballpark their average dice pools. To make it challenging, give opponents around the same number of dice, to make it hard, add ~3 dice, to make it easier, ~-3 dice. Just as a rule of thumb. You'll also want to take a look at the available powers for spirits and factor in that they may be immune to normal weapons.


Not necessarily. Read up on the inhabitation power, on p. 100 of Street Magic, then you can decide on actual numbers.
I'd agree though, that scouts would probably be flesh forms.

Excellent... Thanks for the page references.

Insect spirits don't seem to have the immune to normal weapons power... at least not from what I can find...
This makes them a bit more managable.

The ITNW is dependant on the form they're in, see the sidebar on p. 100, Street Magic for a breakdown.
Hybrid forms, e.g. do have this power, but can't take on an astral form.
Flesh forms are also immune to normal weapons.
True forms are spirits in every sense of the word, which means in turn that they automatically have the power, as a function of Materialization (p. 296, SR4a).

Fantastic... Scary but Fantastic.

And a last clarification on the terrifying nature of Inhabitation.

Unless the spirit glitches - the vessel is doomed?

On the opposed test, the more successes the vessel gets, the more it remains itself?

Thus a great target for an insect spirit that wants to infiltrate metahuman society would be one with a high Willpower+Intuition?

Awesome.

Basically, yes. It also requires a critical glitch, so there's that as well. I think in case of an important NPC or player character, I'd allow burning a point of edge to avoid such a fate.


Again, basically yes. The drawbacks and advantages are different based on form, which is one of the reasons why the spirit's conjurer can influence either the spirit's or the vessel's dice pool during the inhabitation process. In your example, a conjurer would probably add their binding skill to the vessel's test. I think, a queen could do that, too, but I'm not entirely sure.
It produces relatively reliable results if a conjurer is involved.