Nega-Magicians
An optional rules supplement for Shadowrun
By David Perry (Challenge Magazine #67)
Further editing and changes by Loki (gamemstr@primenet.com)
Professor Matthew Hawkins first put forward his now-famous Intelligence-Generated Reality Inversion Field theory (IGRIF) in the spring of 2047 at the Chicago Thaumaturgical Research Institute. Put simply, the theory went something like this:
The fact that magic and certain meta-human races feature so prominently and so frequently in folklore shows that these legends are undoubtedly based on a previous awakening, or possibly Awakenings. Given that these legends are true, how could stories have come about of, for example, humans destroying dragons , when anybody attacking attacking a dragon with a sword would be fried by a spell before he could he could do any damage?
Hawkins' colleagues replied that these stories were obviously fiction created around distorted memories of the Awakening. Hawkins disagreed and argued that the stories were true. And for the them to be true, there must have been certain people immune to magic. And if they existed then, they must exist now.
Despite the scorn poured on this theory by his colleagues, Hawkins embarked on a worldwide search for the magically immune people he was sure existed. His colleagues dismissed him as a crank and so were more than a little embarrassed when two years later he reappeared with Miles Freeman, the worlds first nega-magician.
RESEARCH ON NEGA-MAGIC
Research has shown that the nega-magician's powers are manifested in a field that is subconsciously maintained around himself, even when he is asleep or unconscious. The width of the field varies, but never reaches out beyond two centimeters from the nega-magicians body.
Within this field, no form of magic can exist.
Theories as to why this is are mixed but generally fall into two schools of thought.
One, the minority school, believes that the nega-magician's field is a form of magical talent which absorbs all magic within its area to maintain its power, a sort of magical vampirism. The second, more popular, theory maintains that the nega-magician's mind maintains the field around him. Within this field, some claim, the physical laws of the planet are changed to laws wherein Magic cannot exist. In effect, the nega-magician maintains his own personal reality. Both these theories are just theories, and no one really knows how a nega-magician's powers work.
EFFECTS OF MAGIC
Nega-magicians are completely immune to all forms of magic. They cannot be harmed by combat spells, fooled by illusion spells, affected by manipulation spells or detected by detection spells. Magic cannot affect them at all. Similarly, the powers of paranormal animals cannot affect a nega-magician.
A nega-magician's Immunity to magic includes the powers of physical adepts and magical weapons. If a nega-Magician is hit by a physical adept doing a Killing Hands attack, he takes damage as from a normal punch. If hit by a magical weapon, he takes damage as if hit by a normal weapon, and there is a one in six chance that the weapon will lose its magical properties forever.
Nega-magicians can never cast spells of their own, or have spell-locks bonded to them, or have beneficial magic used on them such as healing, masking or spell defense.
Area spells cast at a nega-magician will not ground through into an area of effect as normal.
Magicians still take the drain for spells canceled by nega-magicians as they have still cast the spell. It is possible to indirectly harm nega-magicians through magic. For example, a nega-magician standing by a car is cought in the blast of a fireball. The fireball wont affect the nega-magician, but it may have an affect on the car (igniting the gas tank and causing an explosion), which in turn could have a nonmagical but nonetheless harmful effect on the nega-magician.
ASTRAL SPACE
Nega-Magicians quite simply don't register in astral space. An astrally projecting mage could be standing next to nega-magician and never realize it. Naturally, this makes nega-magicians very popular as spies and corporate intrusion agents. They are usually too rare to waste on guard duty, although they may be used for especially important or magically dangerous projects.
SPIRITS AND ELEMENTALS
One of the first things the Chicago Thaumaturgical Reasearch Institute decided to test was how purely magical creatures such as Elementals would react to a nega-magician's power. To this end, they summoned an air elemental and ordered it to attack Freeman. The air elemental replied, who ?
The mage in charge pointed to Freeman and explained that he was the one. The Elemental said, who?
After a half-hour of of unsuccessful wrangling, the mage asked Freeman to stand in front of the air elemental, then ordered the air elemental to advance five paces; reasoning that this would take it through Freemans field. The air elemental took one step forward, then stepped two paces to the right of Freeman, walked past him, then took two paces left and walked two paces forward - taking it to exactly where it would be if it had taken five steps straight forward.
When asked why it had stepped by Freeman, the air elemental vigorously denied ever having stepped aside.
Repeated experiments with other Elementals and Spirits produced exactly the same results.
Nega-magicians appear to be totally invisible to purely magical creatures, but some subconscious instinct prevents them from accidently coming into contact with a nega-magician's field. For this reason, a Spirit or Elemental can never detect or affect a nega-magician. (Some magicians suggest that the Elementals can see nega-magicians but wisely refuse to have anything to do with them.)
BIOWARE AND CYBERWARE
Even with regard to augmentations, nega-magicians follow none of the usual rules concerning magic.
While bio/cyberware usually causes a steady and measurable decline in a magician's powers, nega-magicians seems to operate on an all-or-nothing priniciple. While some nega-magicians have lost their powers after minor surgery (such as implanting a datajack), others have retained theirs despite major alteration. The power loss is never gradual - either it completely stays or it completely goes after augmention.
In game terms, for every piece of bio/cyberware implanted, the GM should roll 1D6. If the roll is less than or equal to the total amount of Body Index and Essence Loss, then the nega-magician has lost his powers forever. A roll of 1 automatically means the roll has failed.
CHARACTER CREATION
Priority A must be placed in magic. There's no such thing as a nega-magician adept; you're either Nega or you're not...no middle road, chummer.
Race for a nega-magician is always human. The same properties that keep magic from existing within a nega-magicians field won't allow metagenes to trigger within their DNA.
Nega-Magicians don't have a magic attrtibute as we know it.
Force points serve a different purpose when creating a nega-magician.
The number of force points, divided by ten, is the maximum amount allowed for starting bio/cyber-augmentation. Beginning enhancements do not require a nega-magic loss roll. (Optionally, the GM may ignore this maximum, but then require a roll for each piece of bio/cyberware.)
If using the Build Point system for character creation, all of the above applies with a Negamage costing the same 20 build points of a full magician.