So, starting to run some pretty casual SR with my sibling, and I'm toying with some neat gimmicks of my own to throw in; I'm not super-keen on a lot of the 2060+ metaplot, so we're starting his "career" back in '53 and going from there.

One thought I had was some kind of adept that drew power from being in areas with background count. This would be the kind of person who would purposefully go into pretty crazy environments because they were that much more of a badass there, whereas back in the "normal" world they might not be much better than a burnt-out wagemage.

Any rules along these lines published over the years? I didn't immediately see anything in Grim2 or MITS.

I guess it could be a type of Geas (______ power doesn't work unless the area has a certain Background Count), or a funky Centering technique ("Drawing Power From Background Count" as a linked Creative Skill). Depends on how you wanted to look at it, and exactly what you want him to do to "draw power" from those sites.

See, those are known as toxic magician adepts, yeah.

Shh. You're ruining the surprise!

Mmm... thanks for the idea on future nemesis for characters if I ever GM.

As for drawing power, how about bloody sacrifices or whatever happened at the site. Doing something to further it's background count.

D'oh, I completely forgot about the toxics. I knew that. Really!

As far as "drawing power" goes.. I wasn't thinking anything active. Just the opposite of normal mage/shaman, basically; their Magic rating is good in a healthy manasphere, these adepts would be good in a bad one. Maybe something like the b-adept Magic rating is equal to the current background count? Just brainstorming at the moment.

Forgot about the toxics cos I was thinking more psych-background count as opposed to out-and-out planet corruption, but it works either way I suppose.