One thing that I don’t believe I’ve seen addressed is the legal status of Ally Spirits. We hear about the legal status of Free Spirits in the rulebooks, but if you create an Ally Spirit formula for, say, the perfect English butler, and then have it keep house for you (and occasionally bring you tea and biscuits) while you toil endlessly away in your magic research lab, what is its legal status? If you send it out grocery shopping, can it be arrested as an illegal alien? It probably isn't carrying any ID. And how do you declare Ally Spirits on your Census forms? For that matter, are they tax deductible?

You would think lawyers specializing in magical law are making a killing in the Sixth World…

I think ally spirits fall under the same strictures as summoned and bound spirits as far as the law is concerned, that is, an extension of the magician. Otherwise they need to start worrying about allies being essentially slaves to their magician.

Which is the other big can of worms with summoned spirits. Is summoning/binding spirits slavery?

Are all spirit summoners essentially running sweat-shops staffed by illegal aliens they smuggled into the country?

Ah, but spirits do not sweat, ergo it's not a sweat shop when you have them cranking out sneakers in Redmond.


But yeah, there has always been a bit on contention on the summoner/spirit relationship.

What do the spirits get in trade for being brought over?
Some say the summoner pays in mana/life energy via the drain to the conjured party.
Others think the spirits gain something by being here on the physical (karma through their services?)so many are willing to be drawn across the cosmic divide.

Who is right? Really can not say as SR has always left this a bit vague on the whole spirit issue.

It can be.
It's something that SR5 tries to address with the spirit index concept (or something along these lines).

Personally, I'm exploring this via roleplay.
A summoning or binding can be a compulsion after a test of wills, but it can just as well be a negotiation between summoner and spirit.

I think the legal status of spirits depends on whether they're considered sentient and can apply for citizenship. If they can, a bound or Ally spirit might well be considered to live under their summoners' custodianship - provided the summoning met certain legal guidelines (Manchuria, I believe, has outlawed binding altogether because it's slavery to them).

In juristictions where "sentient" is more or less synonymous with "metahuman" though (if that), like UCAS, CAS and California? They'd fall under extended animal juristiction and would probably be considered a (dangerous) pet.


Oh sure. Given easy, contractual marriages and simplified divorce procedures, those creepy Better-Call-Saul types would need a new main source of income anyway.