Rulings/Awakened

Banned Awakened Content

Banned Items

• Crucible (FA 193)

Banned Qualities

Positive Qualities

• Apt Pupil (FA 32)
• Archivist (FA 32)
• Blood Crystal qualities (FA 132) are restricted to NPCs only
• Dark Ally (FA 35)
• Elemental Focus (HT 191)
• Illusionist (FA 37)
• Puppet Master (FA 39)
• Stalwart Ally (FA 42)

Negative Qualities

• Wildcard Chimera (DTR 163-164)

Banned Spells

Everything involving blood, insect, shadow and toxic magic is restricted to NPCs.

The following spells are banned:

• Calling
• Convert Blood to Ichor
• Convince
• Growth
• Inflict Disease
• Multiply Food
• Rot
• Pollution and Radiation spells, adept powers etc.
• Shape [Material]
• Turn to Goo
• Petrify
• False Impression
• Manascape
• Augury and Sortilege

Banned Alchemical Preps

• Lightning Blade (FA 199)
• Drain Away (FA 195)
• Laminate (FA 196)

Banned Adept Powers for PCs

• Plague Cloud
• Pollution and Radiation spell, adept powers etc.

Banned Mentor Spirits for PCs

• Planar Entity
• Doom
• Pollution
• Disease
• Mutation

Banned Traditions

• Draconic Tradition (FA 76) - it is only permitted for the use by claimed drakes taught by a great dragon and serving them, which makes it de facto banned on ShadowHaven.

• Tarot (FA 91)

• Hybrid traditions (FA 101)

• All custom traditions

Banned Metamagics

• Paradigm Shift: Insect Shaman (FA 43)

• Paradigm Shift: Toxic (FA 44)

• Spirit Expansion: Shedim (FA 44)

• Predator Feast (FA 131)

• Soul Tether (FA 131)

• Spiritual Sacrifice (FA 131)

• Tarot Summoning (FA 45)

• Quickening (CRB 326)

• Sacrifice (SG 90)

Banned Arts

• Geomancy (SG 143)

Banned Mechanics

• Fettering (SG 192)
• Updated raw reagents (FA 188)
• Refined reagents uses (FA 188)
  • SG uses still allowed
• Radical reagent uses (FA 188)
  • SG uses still allowed
• Spirit leashing (FA 182)

Altered Awakened Content and Rulings

• To prevent truly ridiculous damage codes, the [Element] Aura spell, the Energy Aura critter power, and the Elemental Body adept power do not stack on ShadowHaven.
• Physical changes brought about by magic, such as a loup-garou taking Digitigrade Legs, lose all mechanical benefits when the character no longer has a Magic score - however, any visual effects remain. In the example, a loup-garou's legs would still appear digitigrade, but no longer provide a movement speed bonus.

Awakened Archetypes

Apprentice

• An apprentice can only select UMT spirits (Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Man, Beast, Guardian, Task, Plant, Guidance).
  • An Apprentice who takes a tradition that offers tradition-specific spirits (such as necro spirits) can take them so long as the tradition-specific spirits are variants of UMT spirits.
• An apprentice has access to Summoning, Binding, Disenchanting, Spellcasting, Ritual Spellcasting and Counterspelling. However, Summoning, Binding, Spellcasting and Ritual Spellcasting are restricted to their one spirit type and one spell type (unless the apprentice in question takes Chain Breaker, which works at normal).
• Apprentices have access to Assensing and Astral Combat.

Aspected Conjurer

• Aspected conjurers receive +1 service from spirits whenever they successfully summon a spirit. This stacks with similar effects (such as the Boar mentor and Shaman Tuxedo).
• Since they are barred from learning Ritual Spellcasting, aspected conjurers may learn the Summon Great Form ritual. Additionally, they may use their ranks in Summoning when performing the Summon Great Form Ritual instead of their ranks in Ritual Spellcasting. This still requires initiation into the Invocation art as normal.

Aspected Free Spells

• Aspected magicians are granted free spells, based on their priority selection.

Priority	Aspected Sorcerers and Aspected Enchanters	Enchanters	Apprentices
B	8	NA	4
C	6	8	3
D	4	NA	2

Aware

• An Aware can take metamagics/enhancements/focused Awakened as an aspected magician.

Elementalist

• Aspected magicians, full magicians and mystic adepts may be elementalists. You must choose to be an elementalist at chargen.
• Elementalists may reduce the drain for a spell they cast or for a spirit they summon by 3 up to Magic/2 (rounded up) times per day. This does not take an action.

Explorer

• An explorer can take metamagics/enhancements/focused Awakened as an aspected magician.

Hedge Witch/Wizard

• Aspected magicians, full magicians and mystic adepts may become hedge witches/wizards. You must choose to be a hedge witch/wizard at chargen.
• Hedge witches/wizards may reduce the drain for a spell they cast by 3 up to Magic/2 (rounded up) times per day. This does not take an action.

Mystic Adept

• Mystic adepts must choose one of the three magical groups (Enchanting, Sorcery, Conjuring) which they will lose access to. Losing Sorcery effectively disables Adept Spell and Barehanded Adept.
• Per CRB 69, mystic adepts do not gain the ability to astrally perceive without purchasing the adept power to do so. The table in FA does not supersede this.
• Mystic adepts are held to the restrictions on their metamagics. This means that they can, by default, only take metamagics from the Undecided Way.
  • In order to take metamagics outside of this, they must take another Way.
• In order to access metamagics such as Channeling or Centering, or any other "magician" metamagic, they have to follow the Magician's Way, which permits them to take any non-adept metamagic they qualify for.

Null Wizard

• Aspected magicians, full magicians and mystic adepts may be null wizards. You must choose to be a null wizard at chargen.
• The Summoning skill is added to the list of skills they cannot take.
• A null wizard receives bonus dice to resist magic, like how the Spell Resistance adept power works, at a rating equal to Initiate Grade.

Seer

• Aware, explorers, aspected magicians, full magicians, adepts (with Astral Perception) and mystic adepts (with Astral Perception) may be seers. You cannot use any skill from the Conjuring, Enchanting or Sorcery skill groups (anything linked to Magic as an attribute). You must choose to be a seer at chargen.

Spellcasting

• Ritual formulae have the availability and cost of Combat spell formulae.
• Drain and damage resistance tests are not penalized by sustaining penalties.
• Each fetish is limited to a single spell. In other words, you must have a separate fetish for each limited spell.
• Any PCs as well as any non-grunt NPCs the GM deems fit, are excepted from the normal penalty to resist ongoing mental Manipulation spells. All grunts are affected.
• You cannot teamwork Spellcasting.
• Casting an indirect, touch range combat spell is a touch unarmed attack (receiving the usual +2 dice pool bonus as well as succeeding on a tie) versus normal melee defense, followed by a Spellcasting + Magic test as appropriate for the spell as part of the same action. There is no defense test against the Spellcasting test, but you still receive normal damage resistance (soak) against the spell. Casting a touch spell of any other category is a touch unarmed attack in the same fashion, followed by the normal Spellcasting + Magic test versus the spell's appropriate resistance roll. Typically, a touch unarmed attack is a complex action and thus the whole spellcasting is a complex action in the above cases. In cases where the GM has ruled that you already have contact, you may recklessly cast if you desire, but remember that you can only make one offensive action per action phase without splitting your pool through the multiple attacks free action.
• You may not combine a touch spell with another unarmed attack.
• In terms of using the grapple hand cyberware with touch spells, you can only do so with a fully rewound one.
• Only Spellcasting and Ritual Spellcasting can make use of fetishes and limited spells.
• Indirect spells apply a cumulative defense penalty if you're targeted more than once in a single combat pass.
• Any detection spell may be taken as Extended

Counterspelling

• Counterspelling turns indirect AoE spells into a threshold 3 opposed test against the number of counterspelling dice spent. In effect, you roll your counterspelling dice against the Spellcasting test, with each of your hits reducing their hits by one. This reduces their damage, introduces the potential to scatter where it may not have existed before. If you cause them to get zero hits, you prevent the spell from going off at all, though the caster still suffers appropriate drain.
  • If multiple individuals with Spell Defense dice are in the AoE, the highest dicepool will be used for the test.
  • A common misconception is that Spell Defense grants bonus dice to a soak roll against Area combat spells. It does not, it only reduces hits for scatter as described above which can reduce the over all DV by reducing net hits.
  • This opposed roll also applies if the spell has no associated opposed roll with it. Examples of these kinds of spells include Mana Barrier and Mana Static (if target is in range of the effect).
  • If a person with Spell Defense is in the AoE of a spell, they are considered to be targeted by it.
• The Arcane Bodyguard quality is a self-protection restriction on how many spell defense dice you can use on yourself, based per combat turn.

Direct Elemental Spells

• While direct spells ignore armor for the purposes of dealing damage, the elemental effects still suffer the full resistance of armor.

Looking Glass

• The Looking Glass spell permits UV light through just the same as regular light and thus sunlight passing through would trigger sunlight allergies.
• Laser weapons are capable of firing through Looking Glass-affected material. Incidentally, this is why Firewatch uses lasers.
• The looking glass spell affects things traditionally considered light, so visible, infrared and ultraviolet light.

Levitate

• When casting Levitate, one treats it as a full stop. That is to say, they immediately take the damage of any distance they have already fallen, if appropriate. You may choose to cast it at any point during the falling distance you are passing through for that turn. In no case will you take damage from falling that exceeds 200 DV, matching with falling normally - as the most you can fall in a combat turn is 200 meters. (This is not to be exploited.)
• Whether the frame of reference of Levitate on a given target is the Gaiasphere or the vehicle they are in is subject to game master discretion. This does not have to be consistent at a table, however, if asked, they must answer honestly. "Dropping any fiat on someone's head is subject to GM fiat."

Mindlink/Net

• For the purposes of Mindlink and Mindnet, only metahumans and metasapients (including shapeshifters) may both be considered subjects and willing.

Manabind/Net

• Mana Bind and Mana Net are defended against by Willpower + Charisma for the initial defense. This is an assumption made from the text and thus is an extended interpretation of the rules, rather than strict RAW.

Imbue and Attune Item Rituals

• The second printing of SG is used to determine force. Notably, instead of performing the ritual at force = the dice the object has for resistance, roll the object's object resistance first. Then you must perform the ritual at a force equal to the number of hits the object got.
• Imbued item effects do not require a focus to be active and are not shut down by background counts.
• Berserk trait can be applied on any weapon so long as it meets the prerequisites (attuned or focus). If the trait activates, the following changes occur:
  • The Berserk item's wielder has no regard for personal safety.
  • The item prevents them from doing actions or interrupts that would prevent them from being more offensive. Examples of this are full defense, parrying, blocking and using movement to retreat further away from the enemy, but this isn't an exhaustive list. **The GM has final say on what would hinder your offensive options.
  • The wielder must continue fighting until all enemies they are aware of have been incapacitated or killed.
  • Berserk can only be imbued into either attuned items or weapon foci. No other type of focus is eligible.
  • Berserk only gives its bonus to physical melee attacks and astral combat attacks. Cyberdecks and RCCs only get the benefit if you go smacking people with the deck itself.

Watchers/Homunculi/Corps Cadavres

• Inanimate minions such as watchers, homunculi and corps cadavres are semi-intelligent and possess an astral signature, but do not have an aura as they are not alive. Thus, they cannot trigger alchemical preparations. In addition, corps cadavres are legitimate targets for blood magic spells that target corpses (this is primarily useful information for GMs that want to utilize blood mage NPCs).

Spell Blades

• Spellblades use the "Spellblade" skill specialization which may be applied to either Clubs or Blades (or both). Note the normal rules on skill specializations.
• DV of the blade is equal to force.
• AP is equal to the hits of the Spellcasting roll.
• Both Manablade and Powerblade are affected by armor.
• Manablade is uniquely a mana spell that has to go through armor.
• Manablade cannot be parried and it cannot be parried with.
• When using Manablade on the astral, the attack roll is Astral Combat + Willpower [Force]. The base DV is force. As with all astral combat, you may choose to do physical or stun.
• You can utilize all martial arts that would be legal with a reach 1 weapon using Blades or Clubs with Powerblade. You can utilize only those martial arts explicitly permitted by your GM with Manablade.
• Spell blades may not be used with the Magic Fingers spell.

[Sense] Cryptesthesia

• [Sense] Cryptesthesia works only on eyeware and earware not granting bonus dice and without a rating.

Shapechange and Critter Form

• The Shapechange and Critter Form spells use the current Body score, including all augmentations to it. You can only become a mundane animal, not a paracritter or a technocritter.
• The Shapechange and Critter Form spells subsume ware, but do not eject it. You cannot generally benefit from ware while under the effects of Shapechange or Critter Form, but it remains a part of you for when the spell ends.
• The Shapechange and Critter Form spells do not automatically grant Flight skill ranks. If you have either spell, you are able to take ranks in the Flight skill with karma. Alternatively, you can use the average of all "Athletics" skill group as a substitute. Having 1 rank of any athletic skill provides 1 rank of Flight due to rounding, but getting a 2nd rank is harder.
• When an Infected character uses Shapechange or Critter Form spells the following applies:
  • Any mana-type critter power carries over, no physical powers do.
  • You do not inherit the augmentations to your stats from the infection. If you have an augmented body score from the infection that score is used to calculate the max and min size of creature you can change into.
  • You do not inherit any movement multiplier.
  • You do retain the additional initiative die if applicable.

Spell Targeting

• Environmental modifiers affect all spells targeted through LoS.

Detox

• When used on drugs, force must equal or exceed the addiction rating of the drug.
• Detox will remove the crash effects of drugs.
• Detox will not remove or mitigate the unresisted crash damage of drugs.

[Element] Aura

• [Element] Aura spells do not have AP on the primary damage. Secondary effects may have AP as described by the effect.

[Element] Wall

• [Element] Wall spells deal (Force) Physical damage as per environmental damaging spells and do not have AP on the primary damage. Secondary effects may have AP as described by the effect.

Fix

• The Fix spell functions in a similar manner to the Heal spell, but for objects. The stipulation that an object can only be affected by Fix once applies to any one source of damage; in other words, each time the object is damaged, there is a new "wound" that may be "healed" with the Fix spell. Per our houserule, a repair job to heal all remaining boxes of damage on a vehicle is 5% of the vehicle's cost; this cost does not change, regardless of how many boxes are left.

Mana Barrier

• For the purpose of astral tracking, rituals etc., just the highest force of Mana Barrier applies its penalty. As such, nesting weak barriers to benefit from a Matryoshka doll effect doesn't work.
• The force of the spell determines the size and limit (when not using reagents). It has a structure and armor rating of 1 per hit on the casting. This is an exception to force = structure and armor rating rule.
• When attempting to sleaze through or during an astral intersection use force x2.

Flame Burst

• On the first pass of each combat turn that Flame Burst is sustained, the caster uses a complex action to designate a direction in which the flames will travel. The flames spew forth along this line in the shape of a cone with a length of (force) meters and a diameter of (force) meters at its furthest point. If the caster is unwilling or unable to use an action to designate the line of fire on their first action phase of the turn, their opportunity for the turn is forfeit. Flame Burst otherwise works as described.

Mana Static

• Mana Static applies a separate special stacking BGC in its area. Characters are under the effects of all relevant BGCs in their area; apply them sequentially in any order.

Blood Puppet (GM-Only)

• The damage only occurs once: when the character resists the spell.

Whisper of Bones

• Requires the Necromancy art.

Mind Control and Reduced Attributes

• In the case of Control Thoughts and its AoE version, you can no longer affect subjects with any modified mental attribute(s)s of 0. The target is stupefied and cannot carry your orders out.
• Control Actions and its AoE version are unaffected by any modified mental attribute(s) of 0 - the organism(s) you affect still move as you puppeteer them.

Analyze Device

Analyze Device no longer grants uncapped bonuses equal to net hits. Instead it is treated as follows:

• Each net hit from the Spellcasting test adds to your dice pool on using, repairing or understanding the device (up to a maximum equal to the spell's force).
• Reagents can allow you to achieve more hits on your Spellcasting tests. This does not allow the dice pool bonus to exceed force. Otherwise, the spell functions as before.
• This spell cannot be used on living beings or spirits.

Negative Health Spells

The following spells have the (NEGATIVE) tag added to them.

• Decrease [ATTRIBUTE]
• Decrease Inherent Limits
• Decrease Reflexes
• Dehydrate

Alchemy

• A Command prep may only be activated by the alchemist who created it.
• A lynchpin requires an item with no extant aura. As a result, cyberlimb components (even those paid for with capacity), which possess the aura of the person they are installed in, do not qualify to become lynchpins.
• Magical compounds may be used by mundanes.
• The mentors mask is visible when you make an alchemical preparation. It's also visible in the physical vicinity of the effect for the duration of the effect. The enchanter's mask does not appear on their person when the prep is activated, however. Per our current ruling on mentor's mask and sustained spells, spells sustained may be detected with Numinous Perception if the sorcerer who cast them has a mentor's mask. This occurs in the vicinity of the target on which the spell is sustained, as this is where the magic effect happens.
• Witness My Hate may be applied to Combat alchemical preparations.
• A command prep may have its variables chosen when activated, all other types of preps must have the choices made during creation.
• Substantially changing a liquid preparation causes it to lose its magic. Mixing preparations together causes them to both lose their magic.
• [Element] Grenade cannot be taken as an alchemical preparation.
• Capsule rounds fired from a gun may not be used as alchemical preparations.
• Only one command preparation can be activated per Combat Pass using a Simple Action. All other trigger types have no limit.

Bullets and Alchemy

• As HT 194 mentions, musket bullets being able to be used as alchemical preps at a 50% failure rate, this remains the case. If you want to roll the dice on your preps, go have fun with that. Capsule rounds (and the liquid inside) cannot be used effectively as alchemical preparations just like any other firearms ammunition other than musket bullets.

Downtime Alchemy

Downtime Alchemy

Health Preparations & Potion Maker

Similar to an Atomizer, Potion Maker health preparations can be set to activate when applied (either drinking or coating the target with it).

• Treat this effectively as a contact prep, similar to an Atomizer from Forbidden Arcana.
• This explicitly overrides the health preparations' requirement to only be command triggered.

Summoning and Spirits

• Watchers, homunculi and spirits have a minimum attribute at summoning or creation of 1 in each attribute they possess.
• Effects like Chaotic World that impart a dice pool penalty on all tests does not penalize a spirit's ability to resist Summoning or Binding tests. Banishing still works.

Rules on Summoning Above One's Magic (Oversummoning)

• When summoning a Spirit of Force 7+, after resisting drain as normal take unresisted drain equal to (Force of spirit - your Magic) x 1.5.
• This counts as drain damage for all purposes, including for healing and recovery. Except for the Mentor’s Mask drain reduction.
• Remember that only one edge may be spent per action, so you may either edge the summoning OR the drain resist (but not both).
• Characters with the Dedicated Conjurer quality may add 1 to their Magic rating before interacting with the oversummoning houserules.
• Characters with Spirit Whisperer calculate over summoning drain based on the original force of the spirit summoned not the final version
• Oversummoning an elemental reduces the unresisted oversummoning drain by 2.

Downtime Binding

Downtime Binding

Edge

The summoner/creator may use their own edge for their spirits and other creation (watchers etc.). If desired, they may even burn edge for them.

Possession and Channeling

• Cyberlimbs are considered active for the purposes of Possession.
• Unwilling sapient living targets may not be possessed unless they are prepared vessels.
• Spirits utilizing the Possession power may only move in the ways that their host entity could ordinarily move.
• The alteration to physical stats by Channeling and Possession are limited by the augmented max of +4.
• Channeling is normally only used with spirits that are being summoned as part of the Channeling, there are two exceptions:
  • You may bind a channeled spirit for long term use.
• When using the Great Form Possession metamagic, you are not channeling the spirit - you are summoning it and it is possessing you. It does require Channeling as a prerequisite, but that does not make the possession into channeling.
• Traditions other than Vodou may use Great Form Possession, even if they don't have normal access to loa/orisha.
• As all the Channeling entry has to say on the matter is that the magician can use the powers of the spirit for the cost of a service, using powers that are ordinarily passive costs a single service, but no action, to take effect for an entire combat turn.
• When the spirit is in control, the spirit’s skills and mental and special attributes are used. When the summoner is in control, the summoner’s skills and mental and special attributes are used. In either case the lower values of the two are used to defend against Mana Spells or Powers, and damage is applied to both.
• While the summoner is in control of the dual-natured entity that results from channeling, they will also have access to their foci.

Banishing

• Bound spirits no longer receive a bonus equal to their summoner's Magic against Banishing, instead receiving a flat +4.

Blind People and Spirits

• A blind individual may or may not be able to see a spirit or mage who is manifesting. It likely depends on the source of their blindness, and whether or not they have a visual cortex. However, they would still be capable in any case of detecting them through other means, such as sound. Cybereyes can see them as usual.

Spirit Index

• Gaining spirit index due to disrupting a spirit typically only triggers for the person who delivers the final blow, however, at a GM's discretion, they may award it to other integral combatants.

Spell Sustaining

• In order to pass off a spell to a spirit to be sustained, the spirit must be within line of sight and closer than remote service range. In order to continue sustaining a spell of any variety on their summoner or any other target, they must remain closer than remote service range of that target, though line of sight is not an ongoing requirement.

Aid Alchemy/Sorcery

• Aid Alchemy/Sorcery requires the spirit to be on the same plane as the summoner, closer than remote service range and within LoS.

Ally Spirits

• Ally spirits are distinct from ordinary spirits and may not be made great form.
• You may create your ally spirt as a channeling style spirit instead of a possession or materialization style spirit if you possess the channeling metamagic when summoning your ally.
• An ally spirit may not be both a ritual participant and support the ritual via Aid Sorcery. While Aid Sorcery does not have an action cost per se, it is still an act other than Ritual Spellcasting.
• Raising the Force of an Ally spirit through a Ritual of Change now only costs 8 karma per increased Force instead of 16.
• Allies can gain knowledge skills through a Ritual of Change. They use the summoner's CDP.
  • Ally spirit knowledge skills have to be raised normally, they don't become (force) ranks immediately.
• Aspected Conjurors and Dedicated Conjurors may learn the Ally Conjuration and Ritual of change rituals.
  • These are the only rituals to which this rule pertains
  • Other prerequisites for learning the rituals are not changed.
• Ally spirits of Dedicated Conjurors and Aspected Conjurors may not have magical skills that the summoner cannot use as outlined by the Ally spirit rules.
  • Ally Spirits will in no way give Aspected Conjurors or Dedicated Conjurors direct or indirect access to Spellcasting or Ritual Spellcasting.
    • These Ally Spirits may not take Innate Spell or any other power that requires a Spellcasting or Ritual Spellcasting roll.
    • Magical Guard will be allowed if the conjuror has access to a spirit type with the power as the single exception.

Smart Corrosives vs Spirits

• Smart corrosives cannot be applied to a materialized spirit.

Flesh Forms

• Inhabitation bonuses for flesh forms are the same as if the spirit was possessing the body now.

Beast Spirits

• Beast spirits have skill ranks in Exotic Ranged Weapon equal to force.
• The Natural Weapon power of Beast Spirits has a damage code of (Force x 2) DV and AP of -(Force).
• Beasts spirits gain Pounce as an optional power. Pounce, regardless of source, requires a charge in a straight line. No running in circles to build up speed or doing squiggly lines.

Man Spirits

• Great form spirits of man now have Counterspelling skill equal to force.

Wild Spirits

• Wild summoning is the act of beckoning a wild spirit while in its domain in order to bargain with it. On the Shadowhaven this follows the rules in "Forbidden Arcana", with the following changes:
• The test for the first method of summoning has been changed to "This is an Opposed Test using Summoning + Magic [Magician's Magic] vs. the Wild Spirit’s Force, requiring a number of hits equal to (Half the Spirit’s Force)" [round up].
• Additionally, for the second method, the skill of Arcana is added to Con, Etiquette, Negotiation, Performance, and intimidation. [Arcana can use Logic or Charisma.]
• The maximum force for a wild spirit is 7.
• The Force cannot be chosen; you must find one’s domain first and then summon at that Force (for summoning with Magic + Summoning).
• For catching one’s attention you must find one present.
• As the cost isn’t from the Summoning, there is no drain, and Oversummoning Rules do not apply. The cost is instead in the bargain with the Wild Spirit (see below):
  • Dealing with Wild Spirits (FA 177).
  • RAW: You exchange a service for a service. The table is provided on FA 178.
  • Successfully dealing with the spirit gives you 1 service as if it were bound at the appropriate favor level.
• Types of Wild Spirits can be seen on p. 179-181 of "Forbidden Arcana".
• Dive Attack: +1 DV for every 10 meters, to a maximum of Force added DV. Note that the user of Dive Attack takes damage equal to the added DV, as noted elsewhere on these rules.

Wild Reputation

• Releasing a spirit with services left doesn't grant Wild Index.

Possession Homunculi

• Now you can bring a possession homunculus with you! Works with either a summoned or bound spirit of the same force from a possession tradition, these are essentially humanoid vessels for your spirits to possess and do stuff with. A homunculus cannot be modified from the original force they were created at without destroying the homunculus (therefore upgrade rules do not apply). Additionally, a homunculus may only be possessed by a spirit with equal force to itself. Homunculi cannot wear armor. All homunculi need a roll to craft them, which can be done either by the player or a contact (contacts roll their active check + any relevant aspects). All mental attributes are the same as that of the possessing spirit. Homunculi may not have a Force greater than 10.
• Plasteel homunculus:
  • Cost: 2500¥/force, plus you or a contact must succeed in an Industrial Mechanic + Logic (force, 1 week) [Mental] extended test. This requires a shop.
  • BOD: F+6 AGI: F-1 REA: F-1 STR: F+6.
  • Skills: as spirit.
  • Powers: as spirit plus Armor (8) and Natural Weapon (Fists: (F+7)P DV, 0 AP).
• Stone homunculus:
  • Cost: 1000¥/force, plus you or a contact must succeed in an Artisan + Intuition (force, 1 week) [Mental] extended test.
  • Body: F+4 Agility: F-3 Reaction: F Strength: F+4.
  • Skills: as spirit.
  • Powers: as spirit, plus Armor (6) and Natural Weapon (Fists: (F+5)P DV, 0 AP).
• Wickerman:
  • Cost: 100¥/force, plus you or a contact must succeed in an Artisan + Intuition (force, 1 day) [Mental] extended test.
  • Body: F+2 Agility: F+1 Reaction: F+1 Strength: F+2.
  • Skills: as spirit.
  • Powers: as spirit.
  • Weaknesses: Allergy (Fire, Severe).
  • Notes: gains +1 reach.

Adepts

• You make apply a spec for "Ritual Casting" to skills that work with adept rituals.
• Adepts with the Astral Perception power may be seers.
• Activating an adept power creates an astral signature equal to 4 times the total power point cost of the power.
• The council may approve swapping Adept Ways. The cost will be determined case by case.

Purity Buff

• Physical adepts who maintain a non-variable 6 essence and possess no augmentations with an essence cost have their starting power points total increased to Magic*1.5, rounded up. For clarity's sake, this disallows infected, drakes, and prototype transhumans.

Social Powers and the Matrix

• Cool Resolve, Authoritative Tone and Improved Ability on social skills apply to commlink/trideo calls, but do not apply to written, typed, recorded or otherwise non-real-time tests against a target.

Barrage

• The Barrage enhancement for adepts does not function with grenades or other explosives.

Killing Hands

• If a grapple hand is being used by an adept with Killing Hands, you may choose between stun and physical damage if using it as a weapon.

Mystic Aptitude

• When used, it replaces, rather than augments, the attribute it affects. This means that it is not subject to augmented maximum, however, the final attribute score while this power is in use is not affected by any other augmentation or effect that would affect that attribute.
• Ignore the line "This power may be taken up to three times." You may purchase Mystic Aptitude once, up to three ratings. You can't buy multiple separate instances of Mystic Aptitude.

Elemental Body

• The Elemental Body adept power replaces your unarmed DV, rather than adding to it.
• The damage from the Elemental Body applies to someone grappling you or to you grappling someone, but not to both at the same time. The only power compatible with it is Killing Hands.

Rapid Draw

• Does not permit a free action attack. Instead, it allows you to ready one weapon per pass without expending an action.

Nerve Strike

• Nerve Strike is not a touch attack and may be not be substituted, included with or otherwise altered by a touch attack or the touch-only attack rules. You do still contact your opponent in the same fashion as any other unarmed attack.
• Nerve Strike applies its penalty evenly to all limbs and the body. Apply the malus to each of your five "limbs" and then choose the action you wish to perform. Compute the appropriate average for the action being used. If your new average is greater than zero perform the action using the adjusted values, if the average is 0 or less you are unable to take that action. Not that this may mean that in some cases portions of your body may be paralyzed while others are not. Assume that you are compensating for your bad limb(s) with the others involved. Under no circumstance will Nerve Strike apply to specific limbs only.
• You may perform a Nerve Strike with melee weapons. Melee weapons are considered to have reach 0 when using Nerve Strike. Reach from your character (such as through being a troll or having the Elongated Limbs SURGE quality) still applies. Consider it as smacking the nerve center with the handle/grip of the weapon instead of with the business end.

Heightened Concern

• Heightened Concern allows one to take a Complex action to ignore a single penalty from the relevant table (CRB 176) on a single future, near-concurrent action, assuming that penalty does not exceed half their Magic score. Negating any penalties not on this table requires explicit GM approval.

Magic Sense

• Treat the Magic Sense adept power as one you activate with a complex action, deactivated with a free action. When activated, it behaves equivalently to a sustained spell, but does not impose a -2 sustaining penalty. Roll Spellcasting + Magic as normal upon activation, with the GM rolling the opposing tests as they come up. You may default on this test. You may be punished for repeatable deactivating and re-activating this power in order to attain a higher number of successes, please don't do this.

Elemental Weapon

• Elemental Weapon (Water) functions as follows. The weapon has no effect on condition monitors. The DV substitutes for force, the area around the target within DV/2 meters becomes slippery for 10 minutes. Unshielded targets have to make their test. What constitutes an unshielded device is subject to GM fiat.

Smashing Blow

• The Smashing Blow power can apply to attacks made with spurs.
• The base DV for Smashing Blow is the DV of the attack not including net hits.
• An adept's damage with the State of Purity power active qualify as their base damage for determining DV against structures when using Smashing Blow.
• Smashing Blow does not work against vehicles.

Body Sculpt

• The activation time of this power is 1 minute, meaning you have to focus on using the power for 1 minute before it begins to take effect. Once the activation time has passed, the changes begin to take hold, finishing after 1 hour has passed.

Empathic Healing

• For the purpose of the Empathic Healing power, the wounds are "as-is". Any limitations or restrictions on these wounds carry over exactly as if the same wound had been inflicted on the adept. If the injury has already been treated with First Aid or the Heal spell, it continues to be considered as such. You can, however, transfer some, but not all of the boxes, and then use the First Aid skill on both characters. Additionally, after transfer, the wounds are automatically considered magical in nature and may not be healed via the Regeneration power.

Adept Spell

• Adept Spell cannot benefit from a fetish as you learn the spell intuitively from the power.
• Adept Spell may be taken on a Qi Focus. Once selected, the spell it grants access to may only be changed with the destruction of the focus by an NPC or with Thematics approval and the loss of the focus.

Adept Accident

• Adept Accident uses your opponent's hits to calculate drain and has a minimum drain value of 2.
• It must happen within the combat turn that it was activated on (so 3 seconds if outside of combat).
• The results are up to GM, but should generally be related to the environment (tripping, catching clothes onto a sharp piece of metal, etc.).
• It doesn't affect any actual test or dice roll. The results (such as going prone from tripping) may prevent intended actions (like charging).
• The lethality of the environment it's used in (e. g. there's a pool of acid) might make the results fatal, but they're not fatal in a vacuum.

Motion Sense

• Motion Sense requires the same type of action as the observe in detail action.

Enthralling Performance

• Enthralling Performance may be used with Unarmed Combat when done for showmanship purposes. Real fights do not count, but a sparring match is possible as long as there is 0 threat to either combatant (there is some level of GM fiat here). To do so, roll Charisma + Unarmed Combat [Social].

Penetrating Strike

• Works with any Unarmed Weapon from Natural Weapons to melee cyberimplants. However, if the weapon has existing AP, Penetrating Strike acts as a replacement to that value instead of stacking.

Focused Archery

• Focused Archery now applies to both bows and arrows. Treat your effective Strength as +1 per rank.

Traditions

Traditionalist Traditions

• You can choose if you follow a tradition as a traditionalist or as a non-traditionalist (unless noted below). This determines if the traditionalist rules of the tradition apply to you.
• If you take a traditionalist or other special path, it is a Paradigm Shift to leave said path.

Ancestor Shamans

• You receive the Channeling metamagic at Initiate Grade 5 instead of 2.

Black Mage (Traditional)

• You do not receive Animal Familiar for free.
• You do not receive Dark Ally for free.
• You do not receive Calling for free.
• "Personal Demons" spirts summoned do not automatically gain the Fear and the Natural Weaponry power. They still gain the Flight skill, and may still select Fear as an optional power if it is an available optional power for the spirit type.

Buddhists

• The rule forbidding traditionalist Buddhists from using reagents only applies to replacing the limits in Counterspelling, Banishing, Spellcasting and Summoning.

Druids

• Druidic traditionalists are the only people who can create sacred circles at this time.

Elder God Magic

• Traditionalist is NPC-only (Non-Traditionalists ignore the text under "Elder God Mage Rules" and do not worship the Horrors)

Islamic Alchemist

• The requirement to take Fixation as the first metamagic choice and Advanced Alchemy as the third metamagic choice remains unchanged. However, the second and fourth metamagic choices are no longer locked and may be used to select anything else that is appropriate (with the caveat that the second metamagic cannot be used to select Advanced Alchemy).

Norse

• Godi/Runemaster: Durable Preparations means that the time until Potency starts fading is changed to Potency x3 hours rather than the standard x2 and then an additional doubling. This does not stack with the Durable Preparations quality.
• Cunning Woman: Can only be taken by a magician, mystic adept or aspected spellcaster.
• The Berserker Temper power gained by traditionalist version of the Norse tradition is not in effect on ShadowHaven.

Path of Pariah

• Pariahs are allowed to pick a drain stat out of Charisma, Intuition or Logic. For their second initiation, disregard the requirement to take the Opposition metamagic.

Planar Magic

• Traditionalist is NPC-only. (Non-Traditionalists ignore the text under "Planar Mage Rules")

Romani

• Must be a traditionalist. (Referring to the rules under "Romani Mage Rules")

Necro Magic

• This tradition is unbanned with the following alterations:
  • Necro Summoning requires access to the Conjuring group.
  • Necro Summoning requires you to be of the Necro Magic tradition
  • If you are an aspected summoner, the summoning skill may be substituted for ritual spellcasting for the purpose of Necro Summoning.
  • The first necro summoning ritual is provided for free.
  • The necro summoning rituals gained at each IG are given to the necro mage in addition to the metamagic/art they wish to take, and may not be bought separately with karma or learned by any other tradition.
  • For the purposes of over-summoning, only the final force of the spirit matters. Be careful with high force rituals and the Greater Ritual metamagic.
  • Necro Spirits summoned via ritual can not be bound in the traditional method. The Reckless Necro Conjuring metamagic produces necro spirits that can be bound and turned into great forms.
  • Necro spirits always lose at minimum 1 week of their duration per run. This time can be higher if the in-game run takes longer (this means multiple weeks can be spent in a single run).
  • Suitable contacts can get you non-Forbidden animal carcasses (Gear; threshold 3) and relatively intact human corpses (Gear; threshold 4). You can always find dead trees, ashes and lifeless dirt.
  • Necro spirits and reckless necro spirits cannot go into possession homunculi. Their possession power always requires a specific vessel as detailed by their spirit type.
  • Downtime Necro Summoning (the ritual version) is not allowed. If you have a suitable vessel, you can use the Reckless Necro Conjuring metamagic and bind a spirit in downtime.
  • Must follow the rules under Necro Mage Rules

• Additional Notes and Clarifications:
  • The ability to summon corpse spirits, as analogous to spirits of man, qualifies practitioners for the Necromancy art.
  • While this tradition is unbanned, remember that reanimating dead bodies is very much illegal in most countries, including Seattle.
  • Ally spirits cannot perform the Necro Summoning ritual, because they can't summon other spirits.
  • There is no requirement to take ritual spellcasting or one of the summoning rituals in chargen.
  • Excluding Spectral Warden, Ritual spell casting is required to summon Necro Spirits until IG6 when Reckless Necro Conjuring can be learned.
  • A Necro Spirit cannot astrally project; once summoned, it is stuck inside the body offered to it during the summoning process.
  • Remote tasks do not consume all services from spirits summoned via the Necro Summoning Ritual. Recklessly Conjured spirits that aren't bound disappear after a remote service.

Mentor Spirits

Spider (Alt)

• Alternate Spider gives one rank of Hang Time (SG 171) and one rank of Spirit Claw (SG 174) instead of the listed benefits.

Oracle

• Adepts, magicians, aspected magicians and mystic adepts following Oracle both may and must take the Divination art and the Divining Metamagic for the next initiation if they do not already possess it. As usual, the Divining Metamagic is highly dependent on factors that are not actually within the GM's control, and we encourage you to be cautious even in the face of a seemingly definitive answer. The future is, after all, very tricky.

Guanyin

• Is permitted for use on ShadowHaven, but it must be included as a listed quality on your wiki and be appropriately tagged with Template:Guanyin Caution at the top of the page. This quality's downside will impact your ability to participate in runs.

Spitting Cobra

• Skill Bonus: +2 to throwing weapons
• Adept: 2 ranks of precision throwing
• Magician: +2 to combat spells
• Downside: whenever an enemy is in their melee reach of you, CHA + WIL (3) to not retreat immediately until you're no longer in melee reach of an enemy.
• Spitting Cobra, is primarily about having personal space, feeling at home being the one in control of situations, being adverse with physical, direct confrontation but more at home when there's room to breathe, aggressive until threatened directly then very quickly gets defensive.

Stag

• The Stag Mentor spirit gives either +2 to blades or +2 to clubs.

Metamagics

Adept Centering

• Adept Centering requires the character to take a free action that is not subtle. This action must involve moving the physical body.
• Adept Centering may be used while using AR.
• Adept Centering may be used while using VR if the character has EARRS (KC 66) which allows them to move their physical body while in VR.
• Rules regarding what skills may be affected by Adept Centering can be found at SR5 pg 325, with exceptions provided by Artisan's and Artist's way (SG 176). Obviously those exceptions only apply if you have the Adept Way that lists them.

Ally Spirit Summoning

• In order to summon an ally spirit, you must have a formula (which can be made by rolling out Arcana or by a run to go on a metaplanar quest for it). You must then perform the ritual, with a force equal to the force of the ally you are trying to summon. Lacking a timespan, assume it takes 1 hour per point of force. After you successfully complete the ritual, you must summon the spirit, rolling the normal rolls for such. Spirit Whisperer does not come into play, for sanity's sake. Then, finally, you must bind the spirit (or give up and try again another day).
• It is not possible to substitute the final part of getting an ally spirit (conjuring and binding the ally spirit) to instead undertake a metaplaner quest (initiation run).
• In order to alter a spirit, you must acquire the new formula or alter the old one, as detailed in the book. Then, you must perform the Ritual of Change at the force of the ally spirit (the desired force, if upgrading it). You must then bind the spirit again, though you do not have to summon it. Upon successful completion, you may spend the karma to induce any changes you designed into the formula. If you fail, you suffer drain and lose the resources expended, but do not lose the karma you would have spent and may try again.
• If your spirit's loyalty minus your Astral Reputation is less than 2, it tries to break free as described under "Losing an Ally", whenever it is presented with a chance.
• An ally spirit gains the form based on your tradition. Possession traditions have Possession allies, Materialization traditions have Materialization allies and Inhabitation traditions have Inhabitation allies.

Cleansing

• Once again affects an area (including for allies and enemies), as it did in previous editions. The size of the area is GM fiat.
• May be used by aspected conjurers (using Banishing in place of Counterspelling) and by aspected enchanters (using Disenchanting in place of Counterspelling). This only applies to aspected magicians (including enchanters), so mystic adepts who cannot use Sorcery still cannot make use of Cleansing.
• Adepts (not mysads), explorers and Aware may use Cleansing with Magic + IG (+ force of the power focus if they have one). Those that have Harmonious Defense may add their Willpower to it. As an adept, you need to have Magician's Way to pick up Cleansing in the first place.

Divining

• In order to divine a subject the initiate must first be able to assense the subject, or possess a viable material link. They then enter a mild trance which reveals flashes of what the future might hold. The diviner must use the "Arcana + Logic + Initiate Grade" skill test to interpret these flashes, see the table "Divination Table" on SG 125 for difficulty examples. While in this trance, which lasts for 1 minute, the initiate takes a -2 on all actions due to the distraction. Subsequent uses on the same target increase the threshold by 1 per attempt.
• Initiates entering the Divination art must first take Divining before any other metamagic in the art.
• Substituting a material link with a Sympathetic Link increases the interpretation threshold by +1, a Symbolic Link by +2

Enhanced Mist Form

• Enhanced Mist Form now gives you movement of 10 m/turn + 2 m/turn per IG.

Extended Masking

• Extended Masking can also mask critter powers in a way comparable to sustained spells.

Fixation

Fixation metamagic from the core rulebook receives the following changes; Whenever you're creating an alchemical preparation, you may choose to fixate on it. This incurs no additional costs, but the time it maintains its full Potency is (Potency x 2) Days instead of Hours.

• With the Durable Preparations quality, this time is (Potency x 3) Days instead.
• A fixated preparation gains a bonus against Disjoining equal to the enchanter's Magic score.
• In all other ways, this preparation behaves normally.
• You may only have one fixation preparation at any given time in this manner.
  • If you already have one or more fixated preparations, Fixation costs karma to use as per RAW.
  • You may only create a karma-free fixation preparation by having none stored or active.

Flux

• The following are clarifications of Flux interactions.
  • A prep made while in Flux doesn't not have your normal aura, it instead has your Fluxed signature when activated. Due to the prep's signature being in Flux, it's treated the same as tracking a signature of a spell cast while in Flux.
  • If one enters Flux while Channeling, the spirit leaves one's body and returns to the metaplanes.
  • If one is Possessed, but not Channeling, they cannot access their own abilities. Thus, they would not be able to enter Flux.
  • While in Flux, enchanting gloves cease to function as they are bound to your aura.

Great Form Possession

• If a character does not have access to Binding, such as with the Chain Breaker mastery quality, they may skip the Summon Great Form ritual and go directly from the Channeling metamagic to Great Form Possession metamagic.

Harmonious Defense

• You must be able to perceive the astral, such as via being a dual-natured creature or having the Astral Perception adept power.
• Harmonious Defense requires and forces one to be perceiving astrally and trumps Dual-Natured Defender - thus, they cannot both be active at the same time.
• A bound Astral Perception qi focus is sufficient to qualify for Harmonious Defense.
• Harmonious Defense does not affect Alchemy.
• Harmonious Defense spell defense dice are a separate pool from Counterspelling ranks and Shielding.
• A mystic adept may only use one of their sources of spell defense dice per combat turn, either Harmonious Defense OR Counterspelling (+ Shielding).

Harmonious Reflection

• Harmonious Reflection requires the user to be astrally perceiving similarly to the Reflect Spell metamagic.

Noble Sacrifice

Clarification on the usage of Noble Sacrifice:

• Must have line of sight to allies to work.
• For the purpose of Regeneration and other forms of magical healing, Noble Sacrifice counts as magical damage. In addition, if the damage carried some sort of restriction on how it can be healed or resisted, then that carries over as well.
• Adepts and Mystic Adepts may take Noble Sacrifice as if it were part of the Undecided Way.

Additionally, Noble Sacrifice has the following changes:

• Noble Sacrifice can only transfer direct instances of damage to the target such as attacks, vehicle crashes, Drain, Fading and biofeedback. Fading is resisted with Willpower only. Fatigue and allergies cannot be Noble Sacrificed.
• Unresisted Physical Damage due to Oversummoning is dealt both to the target and the user of Noble Sacrifice according to the original summoner's Magic score. In other words, the summoner suffers Oversummoning unresisted Drain no matter what. (Empathic Healing etc. can still transfer this but it doesn't make it free to anyone).
• Protection Magic Points last until the next sunrise or the next sundown.
• Protection Magic Points generated by Noble Sacrifice can be used in any of the following ways, in any combination:

1. Increase the Force of a non-offensive spell or ritual being cast by one per point; this can exceed twice the caster’s Magic Rating.
2. Reduce the amount of drain a non-offensive Health spell inflicts by one per point, to a minimum of 0.
3. These can be used on spells and spirits of your own or those of your allies.

As well, when using protection magic points, increasing the force of a spell does not increase it's drain value. Other effects of increased force still apply.

Reflection

• Declaring spell defense to add your ranks in Counterspelling to resist a spell is what Reflection replaces. If you fail the Reflection test, you can still resist the spell with your normal attributes as if you didn't declare spell defense at all.
• Using the Reflection metamagic prevents the use of other special defensive options such counterspelling ect but not an actual defense test.

Supernatural Prowess

• Supernatural Prowess does apply strictly to actions and thus does not affect reflexive tests such as damage resistance or defense.

Critter Powers

Immunity to Normal Weapons

• Immunity to Normal Weapons does not apply to biofeedback damage.
• Immunity to Normal Weapons no longer counts as hardened armor, merely regular armor, against melee weapons or unarmed attacks.

Immunity to Pathogens

• If a given Disease does not, after Penetration, get past the Hardened Armor that Immunity provides, it does not build up with repeated exposure like most diseases do.
  • Example: A +12 to Disease Resistance and 6 Automatic Hit level of Immunity to Pathogens would completely render a character immune to Power 5, Penetration 1 disease no matter how long they remain exposed to it.

UV and Sunlight Allergy Critter Power Interaction

• All active abilities of sunlight allergic critters can be disabled with strong UV arrays, but these are explicitly not portable due to their size and power requirements. Expect to see them in corporate lobbies and secure facilities at the GM's discretion.
• Spotlights on vehicles and UV flashlight attachments on weapons can only disable Mist Form.

Dive Attack

• When taking the Dive Attack action, you also take damage equal to the number of meters fallen, as appropriate. This rule applies to GMs as well.

Paralyzing Howl

• Paralyzing Howl has its text replaced with the following:
  • Type: P
  • Action: Complex
  • Range: Special
  • Duration: Special
  • The critter makes an Opposed Test using its Magic + Charisma against the target’s Intuition + Willpower. The critter's hits are reduced by 1 for every (Magic) meters away it is from the target. The rating of any area-effect sound-dampening devices, personal sound-dampening devices (such as cyberware), or hits scored by Hush or Silence spells, is added to the target’s Opposed Test. If the target wins, he suffers no ill effects. If the critter wins, the target’s Reaction or Agility (attacker's choice) is reduced by 1 for every net hit the creature scores; a reduction in Reaction affects the target’s Initiative and Initiative Score. This effect lasts for (Magic + net hits) Combat Turns. If either Agility or Reaction drop to zero, the target is paralyzed for (Magic + net hits) minutes and can take no actions except to breathe. After either effect ends, the target’s Reaction and Agility each return at the rate of 1 point per minute.

Movement

• The Movement power adds or subtracts force from the Agility or Speed attributes for the sole purposes of determining movement rate, rather than serving as a multiplier or divisor. The minimum Agility or Speed score is 0, but even with a score of 0 for determining movement rate, a character is still able to move at a walking rate of 1 meter and a running rate of 2 meters. Additionally, the clause about only functioning in terrain the creature controls is stricken out, allowing it to function without having to juggle interpretations of what your spirit controls.
• The Movement power does not function on vehicles and drones.
• When using movement offensively the target of the hostile action is allowed to resist. Use the casters Mag + Wil opposed by the targets Body + Str + (Grey mana ect). Each net hit will reduce agility with the force serving as the max reduction.

Regeneration

• Biofeedback, being damage directly to the brainpan, cannot be healed by regeneration.
• Damage from drugs may not be healed until the character crashes from the drug and is no longer on said drug.

Energy Aura

• The AP of an attack augmented with Energy Aura replaces any existing AP.

Essence Drain

• Has he following line adjusted: "A critter that drains Essence can pump their stolen life force into other attributes, including Magic, with a simple action. Every point of Essence spent may temporarily boost one Physical or Mental attribute, or Magic, by +1" is now "A critter that drains Essence can pump their stolen life force into other attributes, not including Magic or Edge, with a simple action. Every point of Essence spent may temporarily boost one physical or mental attribute by +1."

Downtime Essence Drain

Downtime Essence Drain

Non-Elemental Engulf

• The Engulf power of a plant spirit deals stun damage as the victim is entwined in vines, branches or thorns. Furthermore, the Engulf power of a guidance spirit deals stun damage as the victim is assailed by horrifying visions.

Mist Form

• The volume of mist from the Mist Form power should be roughly equal to the volume of the creature using the power and incompressible in total volume - no squeezing into a storage compartment or a bottle.
• Bonded foci and basic clothing go with the caster. Basic clothing may include armor up to 12, but does not include accessories.
• You may continue sustaining any previously sustained spells. You may not cast any new spells or use any other active powers while in mist form.

Animal Control

• Critters resist the Animal Control power with Logic + Willpower (+ Magic if applicable).

Compulsion

• Compulsion only has the affected character take a single action, then they are free of the effect - and they know they were mind-controlled.

Accident

• It must happen within the combat turn that it was activated on (so 3 seconds if outside of combat).
• The results are up to GM, but should generally be related to the environment (tripping, catching clothes onto a sharp piece of metal, etc.).
• It doesn't affect any actual test or dice roll. The results (such as going prone from tripping) may prevent intended actions (like charging).
• The lethality of the environment it's used in (e. g. there's a pool of acid) might make the results fatal, but they're not fatal in a vacuum.

Qualities

• For qualities, the Mechanics Division defines a "magician" as including aspected magicians - they, in turn, include traditional aspects (sorcerers, conjurers, enchanters), but also FA expanded aspects like apprentices. Adepts and mystic adepts are currently excluded from this category. As far as Aware and explorers are concerned, they qualify for qualities and metamagics when two requirements are met at the same time:
  • A: magicians or aspected magicians qualify for it.
  • B: when the quality or metamagic in question doesn't require any of skills they don't have (Magic-linked active skills for Aware and explorers) or abilities they lack (such as astral projection Aware do not possess).

Dedicated Qualities and Mysads

• Mysads must select sorcery as as an available skill group to take Dedicated Conjurer.
• Mysads must select conjuring as an available skill group to take Dedicated Spellslinger.

Adept Healer

• Adept Healer does not function on drain damage.
• Damage transferred by this ability counts as drain and as such cannot be transferred by further instances of this power or healed by anything other than rest.

Alchemical Armorer

• Alchemical Armorer is required to learn the Alter Ballistics (FA 51) preparation. You learn the Alter Ballistics preparation automatically for no additional karma upon learning the quality per RAW. It has no other effect other than providing you with the knowledge of how to make the preparation.

Alchemical Bombmaker

• Alchemical Bombmaker is limited to a number of increases in drain equal to your Alchemy skill rating divided by 4, rounded down: once at rating 4, twice at rating 8, three times at rating 12.
• Can only be used with combat spell preparations.

Animal Familiar

• Animal Familiar requires you to purchase the animal as normal, then perform the Animal Handling + Charisma [Social] (12, 1 week) test as outlined in Attune Animal, to function. If purchased at chargen, it is assumed you already succeeded this test.
• The Animal Familiar quality only works with completely mundane animals. That is to say, non-Awakened, non-Emerged animals.

Arcane Bodyguard

• Round the dice you can use on yourself up.
• The limit on how many dice you can use on yourself is for the entire combat turn, not per resisted spell. The limit does not apply when other characters are also resisting the spell with your spell defense dice.

Arcane Improviser

• Requires 4 spells (not preps) from each category, excluding rituals.
• Does not allow you to perform rituals you don't know, nor does it allow you to make preparations that you do not know, or fulfill requirements related to knowing spells.
• The 1/week limitation is altered to 1/run for ease/simplicity of book-keeping.
• You must meet all the prerequisites to cast the spell or otherwise be able to learn the spell (meaning no banned spells and no spells that you wouldn't be able to take otherwise).

Astral Bouncer

• This only identifies the following positive qualities: Home Ground (Astral Acclimation), Spirit Champion, Spirit Whisperer, Spirit Affinity, Mentor Spirit, Witness My Hate, Astral Chameleon, Elemental Focus, Focused Concentration, all Adept Ways, Magic Resistance, Arcane Arrester, Astral Hazing and all mastery qualities.
• This only identifies the following negative qualities: Astral beacon, Code of Honor: Harmony with Nature: The Shaman's Code, Spirit Bane, Spirit Pariah, Reduced (Astral Sight).
• In addition to an Initiate Grade and adept powers, Astral Bouncer determines a certain Metamagic from an Initiate Grade, not an initiate power.
• Edge cannot be determined.
• Physical and mental attributes can not be determined.
• It is up to GM discretion which aspects get revealed.

Astral Hazing

• Astral Hazing is a minimum penalty on magical actions the character suffers. If this penalty is greater than the BGC of the area the character is in, use 3. If the penalty of BGC in the area is greater, use the BGC of the area. Do note that this prevents a character with Astral Hazing from ever gaining limit bonuses due to an aspected BGC.

Barehanded Adept

• For touch-range spells gained through the Barehanded Adept quality, you calculate drain as normal, then double it after all other considerations, including minimum drain and Reckless Spellcasting. This effectively doubles your minimum drain.
• This does not work with a spell learned with the Adept Spell power.
• These spells does not work on yourself. Further, the target must be attacked.
• This only works with touch combat spells and touch health spells tagged "Negative".

Chain Breaker

• New spirit types are restricted to UMT spirits (Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Man, Beast, Guardian, Task, Plant, Guidance).

Chosen Follower

• The following options are removed from the list of benefits: "Learn two spells or rituals" & "Improve a magical active skill from rank 1 to rank 3."

Death Dealer

• Mystic Adepts receive both benefits of Death Dealer, however, they may only purchase the first rank. It only applies to Sorcery skills (Spellcasting and Ritual Spellcasting with the Prodigal Spell ritual), not to alchemical preparations.
• Note that the maximum bonus from this quality to melee damage is +1, regardless of the rating of the quality, as per RAW.

Dedicated Conjurer

• New spirit types are restricted to UMT spirits (Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Man, Beast, Guardian, Task, Plant, Guidance).
• A dedicated conjurer can summon a spirit with the force one higher than their Magic without taking oversummoning drain.

Dual-Natured Defender

• Dual-Natured Defender takes a free action to activate and a free action to deactivate.
• Dual-Natured Defender only functions on your innate dual-natured quality, such as that from being infected. Any other sources of dual-natured, such as channeling a spirit or being in an astral rift, are unaffected and do not qualify you for the quality.
• The duration of having this quality active rounds up to the next minute for purposes of determining how long it can be used for before losing magic, essentially making it so that it is always used in one-minute chunks.
• Rather than simply cease astral perception, Dual-Natured Defender temporarily causes you not to count as a dual-natured being while active.

Durable Preparations

• Durable Preparations stacks with Practiced Alchemist, effectively changing the duration before a prep begins to degrade to (Potency x 6) hours.

Elemental Master

• Elemental Master only works with the natural elements; air, earth, fire or water. Electricity is not a valid choice.
• Elemental Master does not apply to damage received from drain.

Mentor's Mask

• Mentor's mask is visible while casting a spell, using an active adept power or any other active use of magic. It is not be visible for having passive adept powers or for sustaining spells.
• Mystic adepts, if they take a mentor's mask, get the type of mask bonus dependent on the bonus they receive from their mentor spirit (for example, if they took the adept bonus from their mentor spirit, they get the adept mask, and if they took the magician bonus from their mentor spirit, they get the magician mask). The negative effect of a mentor's mask applies to all aspects of their magic usage (both their adept powers, and magician abilities).
• The choice to have a mentor's mask is made when a character acquires a mentor spirit. If they later switch mentor spirits, they get to make the choice again. If, for any reason, they lose their mentor spirit, they no longer have the advantage, or disadvantage, of a mentor's mask.
• You may obtain or remove your mentor's mask by paying 20 karma without "losing" your mentor. (Effectively buying off the mentor, then buying it again.)
• There is no way to hide a mentor's mask, there is no way to hide it.
• Mentor’s Mask only activates when you actively use an adept power, not when you sustain the effects of one. List of adept powers which trigger mentor's mask

Missile Deflector

• Missile Deflector requires a successful Missile Parry interrupt, followed by the Counterstrike adept power interrupt, for a total of -10 initiative to use. Rather than the normal effects of the Counterstrike adept power, when this ability is used, it allows you to make a normal simple action thrown weapon attack against any valid target, with all appropriate modifiers, using the object you have caught.

Pacifist Adept

• The Notoriety restriction on Pacifist Adept is removed due to the possibility of gaining Notoriety via peaceful means such as refusing to do a job when you realize it involves murder or similar. Limits cannot be reduced below 1.

Revenant Adept

• If used, note the date used on your character’s wiki page along with a link to the run where it was used on.
• Revenant Adept works until it’s cleared all the damage that Regeneration can clear, you died or the run ends. This means that having one box of drain does not allow you to have Regeneration indefinitely.
• Revenant Adept does not take an action, even a reaction, to trigger. It can be used while unconscious or in physical overflow. This can be done in reaction to an attack and the user does not need to be aware, in character, to do this.

Spell Jammer

• Spell Jammer is not affected by Mana Barriers, but is affected by background counts.

Spirit Hunter

• Spirit Hunter cancels any sustained powers and prevents the use of any active powers, with the exception of Materialization.

Skinwalker

• The pelt for a mundane creature costs 50% of the price of purchasing the critter itself and has an availability equal to that of the critter. Prices and availabilities can be found at Animal Availability.

Spectral Warden

• Binding replaces summoning for the initial summoning tests made by a Spectral Warden, but they must bind the spirit immediately after summoning, the spirit cannot be used for any other purposes before they are bound.

Sprawl Tamer

• Sprawl Tamer interacts additively with our existing house rules (it effectively adds another +1 modifier to the number of tricks a critter can learn).
• Mundanes may take Sprawl Tamer.

Vexcraft

• Suppress focus is a Simple Action and can be used from either the astral or physical, if you have line of sight on an active focus.
• Grounding focus is a Complex Action and can be used from either the astral or physical, but requires both the focus to be eligible to target and the owner to be eligible to target. This means you can only use this ability to damage a dual-natured or purely astral target, if you yourself are astral, for example.
• Counterspelling does not apply to the defense test, but power foci do, as does the force of any mana-barriers between the caster and the defender.

Worship Leader

• The GM has final say on if enough people can be gathered. Regarding group contacts, organized crime groups and gangs tend not to worship. One must have the Rank quality in any religious order.

Witness My Hate

• Witness My Hate is permissible for mystic adepts with or without the Magician's Way.

Other

Assensing

• Smoke and other solid aerosolized solid particulates partially block line of sight on the astral plane and thus incur a penalty to Assensing tests. Use the Environmental Modifiers table when dealing with them (but not rain) with the following adjustment: when the target of your assensing is a living being and the solid aerosolized particulate is made of non-living matter, reduce the penalties by one step.
• Assensing can reveal the class of magical subject with 2 net hits. This is determined to include paracritters as well as those classes given as examples on the assensing table SR5 pg. 313. Specifically, this pertains to shifters, infected, drakes, and naga. The GM may require a further knowledge roll to determine the type of paracritter.
  • Example: 2 hits on Assensing would reveal a drake or ghoul as a paracritter, but relevant parazoology, dragon or infected knowledge skills are required to identify the type. Which is to say you can ID a drake as a paracritter but unless you've studied drakes you can't tell if it's a sea or western.
  • Example: Infected all ping as "a paracritter" but knowledge: Infected lets you combine visual tells with what you're assensing to determine it is in fact a ghoul.

Astral Actions

• Assensing + Intuition [Astral] against Sneaking + Agility [Physical] (if the sneaker is dual-natured or only on the meat) or Sneaking + Logic [Astral] (if the sneaker is wholly astral) is the test for stealth on the astral.
• A creature with the Natural Weapons critter power may use them against astral targets per their rules whenever they are dual-natured from any source. They do not need to be permanently dual-natured.

Auras and Signatures

• Items worn by an individual are almost always considered to be within their aura and are able to be perceived through when using astral perception.
• Biofiber pockets are a detectible aura, however, they generally do not extend outside of the clothing they are within unless someone sticks their head into your pants. This means they are pretty difficult to detect. It will, however, still mask foci within from being seen from outside them. Protection, unless someone is sticking their head into your pants.
• Astral signatures may not be described to another mage. Alas, the intricacies of a sixth sense are even trickier than, say, describing the color red to someone. This holds equally true to summoned spirits through the spirit-summoner link (a very low-bandwidth link, incidentally), making the quicksilver camera the only way to spread astral signatures around.
• The following actions leave your astral signature behind:
  • Casting a spell.
  • Activating an alchemical preparation.
  • Activating a focus.
  • Using an adept or critter power.
  • Summoning a spirit.
• The following actions explicitly do not leave your astral signature behind:
  • Carrying a sustained spell away from where it was cast.
  • Carrying a sustained effect from an alchemical preparation away from where it was activated.
  • Using an active focus.
  • Sustaining a critter power and moving away from where it was activated.
  • Having an active adept power.
  • The act of astral projection itself, as distinct from any powers that grant the ability to do so.
  • The act of astral perception itself, as distinct from any powers that grant the ability to do so.
• The "Search" critter power is a physical power and cannot be used to locate the aura of a person. It tracks the physical appearance of a person only.
• Astral tracking explicitly works on astral signatures, not auras. As a result you can try and trace someone by a spell they cast but can't locate a person just by knowing their aura.
• What an aura looks like can be shared via Mindlink and Mindnet spells, as well as the Sense Link power (SG 198) that an ally spirit has. A normal spirit-summoner link is too weak to function for this purpose. Flashback systems and other technological memory extraction does not work due to the magical senses involved with perceiving them.
• One exception to this rule is quicksilver cameras. Note the quicksilver photographs' own difficulties.

Background Counts

Background counts apply a reduction equal to their rating to the following:

• Force of pre-existing active foci; forced inactive at 0 until leaving the BGC.
• Force of sustained spells; collapse at 0.
• Force of quickened/anchored spells; collapse at 0, recover at 1/hr otherwise.
• Force of rituals; collapse at 0.

Additionally, they apply a dice penalty equal to their rating to the following, non-cumulative:

• All tests that use the Magic attribute as part of the roll.
• Assensing and Astral Combat tests.
• Skill tests modified by or reliant on active adept powers.
• All actions performed by dual-natured creatures or purely astral creatures.

These penalties may be affected by acclimation and alignment as per normal.

Lastly, if the trail of an astral entity has passed through a background count higher than their Force or Magic (as appropriate), their trail ends at the area of the background count.

Burned Out

• You are completely burned out when you have 0 current Magic post gen. Temporary reductions do not count for this.

Magical Compounds

• Creating a compound:
  • Creating a compound by a player is done as any other alchemical preparation: roll Alchemy + Magic [Force] vs force. Net hits become the potency of the magical compound. Drain is equal to force + 1. Make a note as to the exact force and potency of any magical compounds created. Advanced Alchemy is required. To buy the exotic ingredient for the compound pay the normal price and use the availability of the compound.
• Buying a compound:
  • A player may buy magical compounds from their contacts instead of making them themselves. However, not all contacts can get the same quality of magical compounds. In order to determine the potency and force of the magical compound they can procure for you, add half of your loyalty with the contact (rounded up) to their connection, to a maximum of 6: any magical compound they procure for you have that value for both potency and force. Make a note as to the exact force and potency of any magical compounds purchased.
• Using a compound:
  • The following changes are introduced to the SG information on compounds:
    • Potency and force are not reduced due to lost essence.
    • The user does not suffer drain when using the compounds; the creator of the compound has already taken the drain.
    • Active effects are not negated if the user has less magic than the force of the compound.
  • The following are unchanged:
    • When using a magical compound that grants a power or spell, the user takes a -2 sustaining penalty.
    • Aftereffects last for the entire original duration, as determined by potency (potency x10 minutes), even if the effect is dispelled early.

FAB 3

• Please refer to the rules in 4th edition's Street Magic for FAB III mechanics.

Foci

• The maximum rating of power and weapon foci is 7, (excluding GMs with thematics permission).
• The maximum rating for all other foci is 10, (excluding GMs with thematics permission).
• You cannot apply a weapon focus to yourself. While a focus has your signature, it does not have your aura. Therefore, artificing foci yourself does not get around the previous restrictions on valid foci. Bioware, similarly, cannot be turned into foci. The exception are melee bioweapons other than striking calluses or bone modifications.
• All non-weapon foci may be made into tattoos via tattoo magic. Note that doing so may not always be beneficial.
• The custom foci rules are in effect exactly as written. Additionally, it is expected that the player inform their GMs when they have such a focus. The GM may decide when the mentor is displeased, the focus turning off (any time you succeed the composure check to resist the disadvantage of the mentor and don't give in to the compulsion at minimum), and when it may be turned back on.
• Focus addiction is rolled for any time a focus is activated and the total force of all active foci is greater than your Magic score. The roll for this addiction is psychological.
• Spell foci and spirit foci no longer have specific types (such as Combat, Spirit of Man, Fire Spirit, etc.); instead:
  • Banishing foci apply to all Banishing tests.
  • Binding foci apply to all Binding tests.
  • Counterspelling Foci apply to all Dispelling tests and the pool available when Spell Defense is declared.
  • Ritual Spellcasting foci apply to all Ritual Spellcasting tests.
  • Spellcasting foci apply to all Spellcasting tests.
  • Summoning foci apply to all Summoning tests.
• Power foci do not act as an increase to the Magic attribute, but as an increase to dice pool in all Magic linked tests.
• Additionally, banishing foci are changed such that they give limit and dice equal to their rating, instead of just limit.
• Refined radical reagents of various sources may be used to reduce the price of foci they are made into when using a contact.
• Qi foci continue to provide their full benefit until they are deactivated fully. For powers with levels, such as Improved Ability, reducing the force due to background count does not incrementally reduce the effect of the qi focus.

Magical Lodge

• Lodges have no background count.

Object Resistance Table

• For all tests involving OR, use the object resistance table. This includes, among others, physical illusions, the Analyze Device spell and artificing.

Astral Gateways and Physical Objects

• Astral rifts, gateways and other such creations are split into a few categories.
  • "Astral" and "Metaplanar" are two separate concepts.
    • Astral means (evtl. forced) astral projection
    • Metaplanar means physical travel directly to a metaplane
  • "Gateway," "Portal" and "Rift" are different things in function as well.
    • Gateway = Temporary passage (by ritual or critter power)
    • Portal = Some physical construct that allows passage
    • Rift = Natural phenomenon
• Some free spirits are capable of creating an astral gateway to their plane of origin but only very few can open portals that allow physical travel.
• The Astral Gateway power of a great form spirit creates a gateway and thus means astral projection even with mundanes to the metaplane of the spirit's native plane. However, they cannot use any physical abilities and must follow all the rules of astral projection as Awakened would. This naturally makes things hazardous for a mundane.
• A portal to a metaplane is rarer. In these cases, physical rules can apply and you can take gear with you.

Wards

• Fooling Wards

Passing Basic Wards
	Attempt Failure	Attempt Success
Attack Ward	Not Alerted	Alerted
Mag+Cha[Astral] vs Fx2	Alerted	Not Alerted
Flux-Int+Mag+IG vs Fx2	Not Alerted	Not Alerted
Passing Alarm Wards
	Attempt Failure	Attempt Success
Attack Ward	Not Alerted	Alerted
Mag+Cha[Astral] vs Fx2	Alerted	Alerted
Flux-Int+Mag+IG vs Fx2	Not Alerted	Not Alerted

Numinous Perception

• Numinous perception is not a discrete sense – it is like unaugmented human smell. If you can detect the source of a successful numinous perception check (such as that wizard over there casting the spell) with another sense (such as sight), you may pinpoint the sensation to that wizard, knowing that he cast a spell. If you cannot detect the source of a numinous perception check with another sense, you merely get a sense of unease, that magic is afoot, but you cannot, for example, tell that there is an invisible man about to pull down your pants or that there is a sorceress casting acid spells at the wall three stories up. Only that magic is afoot.
• Numinous Perception is effective against sustained spells.
• For adepts who do not have a mentor's mask, their powers, with the sole exceptions of Adept Spell and Adept Accident, do not trigger Numinous Perception. Note that this does not necessarily mean that they are not obvious either during or immediately after their effects. If the adept has mentor's mask, use RAW.
• Adept Spell triggers Numinous Perception as usual for Spellcasting.
• Adept Accident triggers Numinous Perception at a threshold of 6-Adept's Magic score.
• Critter powers can be perceived with Numinous Perception, in the same manner as magic spells. The force is equal to the magic of the originating critter. In the absence of a Magic score or effective Magic score, utilize essence instead.

Reagents

• Harvesting reagents is only permissible at-table, in-run.
• Reagents override the BGC limit boost from aspected BGCs.