| From: | Sean Justice <JUSTICE@********.BITNET> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Magic stuff... |
| Date: | Wed, 27 Jan 93 10:21:36 EST |
wherefores of magic in SRII. This is part of what I've come up with.
I'm a corp-mage (and proud of it thank-you-very-much!) on astral patrol when
I spot a somebody in a somewhere they aren't supposed to be. Further, this
chummer is a cybered ork (who you and I know there isn't a snowballs chance in
a blast furnace 'raku would EVER hire). Now I immediately send my watcher off
to alert the physical security types to deal with this drekhead. What? Oh,
we always call in a watcher before starting to go on patrol. Usually a waste,
I know, but they are easy to make. And trust me, when things go bad, they can
pull your bacon out of some pretty big fires. Bad-guy mages either have to go
after it or me. Pick me, it goes off to call in reinforcements. Go after it,
and I get a free chance to deep-fry the fragger.
So I send it off, right? Now, normally I would go off to look for anybody
else that might be hanging around, but I notice this guy's got a spell wrapped
all around him. Real pretty job of it too. No breaks or gaps in the web-work
woven through his aura. What really gets me is how the spell is getting it's
energy. Instead of having it run off to a mage somewhere, or grounding into a
physical power source; the link just runs up into the astral, then coils around
and drops back into the spell!
Now I've seen this before, it's called a quickening. You essentially wrap a
spell back into itself, so the magic powering it is constantly 'recycled'. The
link constantly absorbs a little bit of energy to counter the effects of
attrition. This gets my attention because it's some REALLY high level stuff.
I can't do it, though I've seen it before. I debated for almost a second or so
while waiting, then decided to do something about it.
You see, most of these things are done for spells that increase your reaction
or boost senses or something of that sort. Stuff you really don't know is gone
until you need it. Quickening a spell really works a mage over so it isn't
usually done on trivial stuff. And the fact that the trog was here told me
that it wasn't something that was stuck on him by a truly peeved mage. So I
figgured that I could take this spell out without letting the guy know that
things were about to get really fatal. Besides, if it'ss a detection type, I
pretty much have to take get rid of it before the drek starts flying.
What I would really like to do is torch this guy, but that's the nasty thing
about a quickened spell. The spell is anchored in this guys aura, and the
cohesiveness of auras protects it from direct attack. I have to throw my spell
at the astral link and let it channel the enery into this guy. But that really
doesn't work with a quickened spell. The link connects to the spell, the spell
connects to the ork, and I've got no direct connection to that will let me
mangle him. Spells can't be sent through a middle-man. Kinda like trying to
kill you by shooting your fixer.
So what I do is pull out this really nasty mana-bolt spell I have. I'm going
to be hurting after I cast it, but with reinforcements already on the way...
well, I think it's worth it. And this puppy is pure magic. Letting the link
channel it into the spell is like having a 220 line channel a lightning bolt
into your cyberdeck. It still won't hurt him, but I promise that spell won't
be active when he needs it.
-- Anonymous Renraku wage-mage
I phrased it as one half of an interview for this posting. Can anyone find
something wrong with this model? Especially in the description? I normally
GM and it is important that I be able to describe how things look in astral
space. Thanx.
-- Magister
