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Technomancers

Technomancers are metahumans with the mysterious (if not mystical) ability to connect to and manipulate the Matrix without the aid of technology. They not only have this seemingly supernatural aptitude, but they have the ability to do things that no computer can do or should be able to do. Scientists and magical researchers haven’t figured out what makes a technomancer tick, but they agree that it isn’t science or magic. As you’d suspect, this makes a lot of people very nervous around technomancers. The fact that a lot of people believe that it might be fun for researchers to cut open a technomancer’s brain to see how it works tends to make technomancers nervous around other people, especially megacorporate Matrix engineers.

Technomancers live in a world filled with the ebb and flow of data. They feel datastreams and empathize with icons. The Matrix is just part of the world they live in, as natural for them as walking is for mundane folks. Even technomancers don’t really know how they do it— they just do it.

With their intuitive grasp of computers and the Matrix, almost all technomancers are wiz programmers. Most employers won’t hire them, though, because the world just doesn’t trust technomancers. In the public view, technomancers are creepy and unnatural. They communicate through the Matrix (subverting it, they say) with a thought, so suspicions of a global conspiracy abound. Whenever something goes wrong in the Matrix, especially if there are fatalities, the specter of the technomancer menace rises again in the media and news outlets. GOD can’t track technomancers as cheaply as they can track deckers, and so they give little leeway or mercy in cases where a technomancer is involved. There is still a bounty on technomancers in some territories, and technomancy is punishable by death in a handful of places around the world. The end result of this is that technomancers hide their abilities and identities, and some even their talent with programming, to avoid harassment and threats.

This is not to say that all technomancers are bad or out to twist the Matrix to their own ends. Most just want to live their lives in peace. Very few are actually hackers, and only a few of those are talented enough to be shadowrunners.

Technomancer Life

While deckers might be thought of as scuba divers, using all sorts of gear to dive into and navigate the Matrix, technomancers are more like squid. The Matrix is their native environment, and they use it reflexively and instinctually. They don’t have to make sure they’ve got the right gear on them, that it’s turned on, connected, and functioning optimally. They want to do something, they dive into the streams surrounding them and do it.

Technomancers pick up the skills to deal with both the physical world and the data that’s constantly flowing through the air around them. They learn how to keep from being overwhelmed in high-traffic areas, and how to keep from being withdrawn or depressed in static zones or places with weak coverage. They learn how to make their brains their own operating system and browser combined, an access point they can use to find what they want, all while keeping everything else from getting in and bludgeoning their brains with song lyrics, stock quotes, and celebrity gossip. And two million videos of kittens.

What their brains do—and plenty of researchers would love to know how this works—is learn the basic Matrix protocols, so that they can see the icons of the Matrix the way gear-based users see them. It’s like learning a language for them, and once they know it, technomancers have trouble imagining a world without that virtual vocabulary. It lets them see the icons and AROs laid over the world around them, and allows them to drop into the trance that is the technomancer version of VR.

Most technomancers say the VR feels more comfortable to them, more “real.” They say that the hard, unmalleable reality of meatspace feels foreign to them. They prefer to be surrounded by things that respond to their desires and commands, things that are reactive and alive with information, not dead and inert like real- world objects.

Technomancers tend to be fluid thinkers, talented analysts, or virtuoso programmers. While deckers work with gear, starting with the tool and producing a result, technomancers start with their desire and then devise or summon tools that allow them to do it. They can be very fast, creative, and unpredictable. Most non-technomancers find it best to either to have one on their side or never to meet one at all.

Resonance

The Resonance is what technomancers use to describe the energy that they feel and manipulate in the Matrix. It consists of data, interactions between data streams, intentions, thoughts ... okay, nobody really knows what it’s made of, but to technomancers it’s a real thing they can feel and touch.

If you’re a technomancer, you have a Resonance attribute. This attribute represents how connected you are to the Resonance. Your Resonance rating affects all of your Resonance abilities and your living persona. Your natural Resonance maximum is your Essence rounded down. Whenever you lose Essence (after character generation), you lose an equal amount of Resonance, rounded up. If your Resonance ever reaches zero, you lose the Technomancer quality and all Resonance abilities.

Resonance Signatures

When you use a Resonance ability, you leave a unique signature behind in the fabric of the Resonance. This Resonance signature gets left on the target. If you’re in a host, your signature is left there, too. A signature has a rating equal to the Resonance rating of whatever left it, and it lasts for one hour times its rating.

Other Resonance beings (technomancers, sprites, and ... others) can detect a Resonance signature by getting at least 3 hits on a Matrix Perception Test; noticing a signature comes in addition to the usual questions you get to ask. If you’ve seen a signature before, you can recognize it (the gamemaster might make you try a Memory Test, p. 152). With 5 or more hits, you also get the impression of what kind of being or ability left it there (again, that info is free). You can erase a signature with the Erase Signature action.

Resonance beings have their own signatures (with a rating equal to their Resonance) on themselves all the time. A sprite has the Resonance signature of the technomancer that compiled it, as do the signatures the sprite leaves. You can temporarily conceal the personal signature on yourself (or someone else), but it’s only gone for 1 Combat Turn per hit on your Erase Signature test.

Resonance Actions

Some actions you can perform as a technomancer are Resonance actions. These actions only operate in the Matrix, but they’re not Matrix actions and don’t follow those rules. The bad news is that you don’t get the bonus dice for being in VR (those only come with Matrix Actions), but the good news is that none of it counts against your Overwatch Score. Resonance actions don’t require marks. You can still perform normal Matrix actions, with all the rules that apply to them (including Overwatch Scores).

Almost all Resonance actions cause Fading, a mental drain on the technomancer (see p. 251).

Living Persona

Technomancers have a living persona they use in the Matrix. Your living persona’s icon can be pretty much anything you like, following the rules for persona icons.

You can change your icon with the Change Icon action, like normal persona users. Since your living persona is just a persona, not a device, you don’t have any onboard storage; this is easy enough to deal with because you can store files in nearby devices.

Your living persona’s Device Rating is equal to your Resonance. Your Matrix attributes are calculated from your Mental attributes as listed on the Living Persona table. You cannot reconfigure your living persona or run programs, as those are abilities unique to commlinks and cyberdecks. You are not a device, so you cannot be a slave or master, nor can you be part of a PAN or WAN.



Living Persona
Matrix Attribute Rating
Device Rating Resonance
Attack Charisma
Sleaze Intuition
Data Processing Logic
Firewall Willpower


As a technomancer, you can only use AR and hot-sim VR (the only way you can use cold-sim VR is by using a cybredeck or commlink—ew). Since you’re in hot-sim naturally, you may add your Resonance to your dice pool for all Addiction Tests for using hot-sim. You use your Mental and Matrix attributes when calculating your Initiative, and your Initiative Dice use the normal rules for AR or hot-sim VR use. Since you’re so intimately connected to the Matrix, you get a +2 dice pool bonus to all Matrix Perception Tests.

You don’t have a separate Matrix Condition Monitor. Instead, any boxes of Matrix damage you would take hit you directly as Stun damage.

Rebooting Your Living Persona

You can reboot your living persona, if you want. Really, you’re just shutting yourself off from the Matrix for a time, but it operates with the same mechanics as the Reboot Device action (although it doesn’t count as a Matrix action). A lot of technomancers reboot their living persona before they go to sleep, using the reboot delay as a sort of built-in alarm clock; it keeps them safe from cyber-attacks while digital sugarplums dance in their heads.

Using Mundane Electronics

You can use a commlink or cyberdeck if you like. A lot of technomancers do in order to hide their abilities. If you use a persona on a commlink or deck, you can’t use your Resonance abilities. That only works when you’re using your living persona, and since you can only use one persona at a time—well, you get the idea.

Threading

If you ask different technomancers how they perform the Matrix miracles they do, they’ll tell you it’s called threading, but they won’t agree on how it works. For some it’s a mental exercise. Others just ask the Matrix nicely to do what they want, and still others think about different urban brawl plays. However it’s done, it gets results.

You can thread a complex form, a specific effect on the Matrix that you have learned to perform. Threading is accomplished with Thread Complex Form, a Resonance action (not a Matrix action). When you thread a complex form, you choose a Level for the effect. The higher the Level, the stronger the effect, but also the more risky it is to do. You can choose a Level up to three times your Resonance rating.

Threading is affected by modifiers due to noise, a target being on another grid, and the public grid. You can only use complex forms on icons you’ve spotted.

Some complex forms can be sustained through concentration. This lets their effects linger for as long as you sustain the complex form. Doing this is distracting, imposing a –2 dice pool penalty on all actions per complex form you’re sustaining. If something happens that the gamemaster thinks might break your concentration, she’ll call for a Simple Resonance + Willpower (2) Test to keep sustaining your Complex Forms. You can’t sustain Complex Forms when you’re unconscious.

Threading causes Fading based on the specific complex form and its Level, with a minimum Fading DV of 2. If you get more hits on your Threading test than your Resonance rating, the Fading is Physical damage; otherwise it’s Stun damage.

There is a list of known and widely distributed complex forms in the Resonance Library (p. 252).

Killing Complex Forms

If you encounter another technomancer with a sustained complex form, and you want to end the complex form without that technomancer’s permission, you can use the Kill Complex Form action to end it. Make a Software + Resonance [Mental] v. target complex form Level + the threader’s Resonance. Every net hit you get reduces the hits from the complex form’s threading test. If you reduce that number to zero, the complex form ends.

Whenever you perform the Kill Complex Form action, you must resist Fading as if you had threaded the complex form you targeted.

Fading

Technomancers are powerful, but not inexhaustible. Resonance abilities strain the user, even to the point of collapse if they’re used too much. Technomancers call this drain Fading. Fading is resisted with Resonance + Willpower. Fading can only be healed by the body’s natural healing process, which means taking some time to rest.

Whenever a technomancer threads a complex form or summons a sprite, they must resist Fading damage from the mental exertion of shaping the Resonance according to their will. The amount of Fading damage is indicated by the complex form, although can never be less than 2 DV (before the resistance test). The Fading from Threading is Physical if you get more hits on the Threading test than your Resonance rating; otherwise it’s Stun.

For compiling, decompiling, or registering a sprite, the Fading DV equals twice the hits (not net hits) generated by the sprite on the Opposed Test, minimum 2 DV. This applies whether the attempt is successful or not. If the sprite’s rating is greater than the technomancer’s Resonance, the damage is Physical rather than Stun.

Sprites

Sprites are digital creatures formed out of (or summoned from, depending on who you ask) the Resonance. Sprites are then placed in the Matrix, personas without devices. Sprites are a lot like agents, obedient and semi-autonomous but not very bright. Depending on their personality, a technomancer might think of a sprite as a tool, a program, a pet, a friend, or a spirit of the machine. When a sprite’s code is analyzed, it looks like a kludgy mish-mash of code snippets and junk data that shouldn’t work but does.

Sprites bend the rules of the Matrix just by existing. The Matrix isn’t really sure what to do with a sprite. When a sprite is compiled, its own Overwatch Score starts, even though it hasn’t had a chance to do anything illegal (it isn’t fair to the little guys, but life ain’t fair, chummer). When a demiGOD or a host converges on a sprite, it simply vanishes, even if it has tasks remaining.

Sprites have a Device Rating and Resonance equal to their Level, and all four Matrix attributes are based on their Level and the type of sprite you compile. Its Matrix Condition Monitor has 8 + (Level / 2) boxes. A sprite’s Initiative is also based on its Level, and it has 4D6 Initiative Dice. A sprite’s owner is the technomancer that compiled it, and when you compile a sprite, it has your Resonance signature. If its physical location is tracked, the tracker gets your physical location instead; this also happens when a demiGOD converges on the hapless little sprite.

Compiling a Sprite

Bringing a sprite into the Matrix to work for you is called compiling. When you compile a sprite, you choose a Level for the sprite, up to twice your Resonance rating. The higher the Level, the more powerful the sprite. Use the Compile Sprite action (a Resonance action, not a Matrix action). For every net hit on the Compiling test, you get one task from the sprite. You can spend one of these tasks having the sprite do one of the things on the list of compiled sprite tasks.

Compiling sprites causes Fading of 2 DV per hit (not net hit) it gets in its defense test, with a minimum of 2 DV. This Fading is Stun damage, unless the sprite’s Level is greater than your Resonance, in which case it’s Physical damage. You can only have one compiled sprite at any given time.

Compiled Sprite Tasks

A task is basically one job you ask/tell your sprite to do. It has to be a simple task without conditions or heavy decision-making requirements. A single task can be one of the following things: A single use of a sprite power; one Combat Turn worth of Matrix actions that apply to the same job; participation in cybercombat that lasts until all of the enemy combatants have been defeated or you’ve escaped to safety. If a sprite uses a sustained power for you, sustaining that power doesn’t count against further tasks unless you change it in some way, like switching targets.

You can send a sprite to perform a remote task on another grid or in a host that you’re not in. When you send a sprite on a remote task, it vanishes back to the Resonance when it’s done, and you lose any remaining tasks.

Registering a Sprite

The Matrix doesn’t know what to make of sprites, so they show up as illegal activity. This puts a limit on the time you can keep a sprite around before GOD finds it and crashes it. You can increase your sprites’ longevity by registering them with the Matrix. This process takes a number of hours equal to the sprite’s Level; during this time, the sprite’s Overwatch Score does not increase due to time, and neither you nor the sprite can take other actions. At the end of this time, make an Opposed Registering + Resonance [Level] v. the sprite’s Level x 2. This causes Fading of 2 DV per hit (not net hit) the sprite gets, minimum 2 DV.

If you get at least one net hit, your sprite is registered with the Matrix. Its OS is erased, but can be restarted if the sprite performs an illegal action. Add your net hits on the Registering test to the number of tasks your sprite owes you. The sprite is now a registered sprite and no longer counts toward your limit of one compiled sprite at a time. Your registered sprite will stay with you as long as it still owes you at least one task. Everything else is the same as for compiled sprites. Almost everything.

Registered Sprite Tasks

If you have a registered sprite, there is a special list of tasks you can have it do for you. Here’s that list:

Sprite-Technomancer Link

You have a mental link to your sprites as long as you’re connected to the Matrix. You can communicate through this link with text, images, words, and so on. If you lose your connection with the Matrix, you also lose your mental link with your sprite(s). They’ll keep working on whatever it is they were doing, but when they’re done they’ll either vanish, or if they’re registered they’ll hang around waiting for you. Once you’re back online, you link up with your sprite(s) again.

Sprites are personas, but not devices; they can’t be part of a PAN or WAN.

Decompiling Sprites

You can decompile a sprite, trying to stuff it back into the Resonance and out of the Matrix. You can decompile your own sprites if you need to, but usually just dismissing them is enough.

To decompile a sprite, make an Opposed Decompiling + Resonance [Social] v. target’s Level (+ compiler’s Resonance if the sprite is registered). Every net hit reduces the sprite’s owed tasks by 1. If the sprite is reduced to 0 tasks owed to its compiler, it returns to the Resonance on its next action. This causes Fading equal to 2 DV per hit (not net hit) the sprite rolls, with a minimum DV of 2.

Sprite Powers

The following powers are available only to sprites. The Sprite Database (p. 258) can tell you which sprites have which powers. Using a sprite power is a Standard Resonance action (not a Matrix action).

Camouflage

The sprite can conceal a file within another file in such a way as to make it invisible to Matrix searches. Concealed files can only be found with a Matrix Perception Test that is specifically looking for the hidden file; even the sprite must make this test in order to find and extract the file.

Cookie

A sprite uses its cookie power to “tag” a target persona with a cookie file that can be used to track the icon’s Matrix activities. The sprite must successfully beat the target in a Hacking + Resonance [Sleaze] v. Intuition + Firewall test. If the sprite succeeds, the persona starts carrying the cookie file, none the wiser.

The cookie file runs silent and is protected with a rating equal to the sprite’s Level. The file will log every everything the icon does, for example each host the persona enters, the details of any communications the persona engages in (with whom and when, but not the actual contents), any programs the icon uses, etc. Use the net hits to benchmark the depth of the data the cookie accumulates (1 hit providing a bare outline, 4 or more a detailed report).

At the end of a time determined by the sprite (or its owner) when placed, the cookie file transfers itself and its accumulated data to the sprite. Once the sprite has it, it may turn it over to the technomancer. If the sprite isn’t in the Matrix when the file transfers itself, the file is deleted.

Cookie files may be detected with a successful Matrix Perception Test performed on the carrying persona. Once identified, it may be removed by removing the file’s protection and then deleting it.

Diagnostics

The Diagnostics power allows the sprite to evaluate the inner workings of an electronic device. The sprite can assist someone using or repairing the device with a Teamwork Test. The sprite makes a Simple Hardware + Level [Data Processing] test; if any hits are rolled, the character gets a +1 limit bonus, and each hit adds 1 die to the character’s dice pool to use or repair the item. This power takes the sprite’s entire attention; the bonus lasts until the sprite drops it or does something else.

Electron Storm

This attack allows the sprite to engulf a target persona in a sustained barrage of corrupting datastreams. If the sprite beats the target in a Cybercombat + Resonance [Attack] v. Intuition + Firewall test, the target is swallowed in a hail of digital pulses. With the first successful attack and on each subsequent action the sprite performs while sustaining this power, it inflicts (Resonance) DV Matrix damage, resisted as normal. The engulfing storm also causes 2 points of noise to the target. If the sprite takes any Matrix damage, all of its electron storms end immediately.

Gremlins

This power causes a device to mysteriously malfunction or operate in some (usually detrimental) manner. The sprite targets a device, making a Hardware + Level [Attack] v. Device Rating + Firewall test. If the sprite succeeds, the device suffers a glitch (p. 45). The gamemaster chooses a malfunction appropriate to the device and situation, like a jammed control, a looped signal, or a faulty reading. If the sprite scores 4 or more net hits, treat it as a critical glitch— the device crashes, burns out, jolts its user with an electrical shock, or some other goodie picked by the gamemaster.

Hash

The Hash power allows the sprite to temporarily protect a file with a unique Resonance algorithm in such a way that only the sprite can unprotect it. If the sprite stops carrying the hashed file it reverts to normal. If the sprite is destroyed while carrying the file, the hashed file is permanently corrupted and becomes worthless. The maximum time the sprite can use this power is Level x 10 Combat Turns.

Stability

A sprite can use this power on any persona or device for which it has a mark. Stability prevents normal malfunctions or accidents from afflicting the target (including both standard glitches and those induced by the Gremlins or Accident powers). Ignore standard glitches and reduce critical glitches to standard glitches.

Suppression

Sprites are confusing at the best of times, but a sprite using suppression is just bizarre, especially to hosts. If a sprite is in a host and using this power when the host launches IC, that IC is delayed from launching by (Level / 2) Combat Turns. Delayed IC can’t act or be targeted.

Watermark

The sprite can tag an icon with an invisible marking that only Resonance-driven entities can see, kind of like a Matrix signature. This allows the sprite to secretly leave messages on Matrix objects. A sprite can overwrite an existing watermark with a new one. A watermark can be erased with the Erase Matrix Signature action; otherwise it lasts as long as the icon does.

Submersion

Technomancers have a connection to the Resonance, but they can make that connection stronger by submerging themselves into the Resonance. Submersion is more of a spiritual experience than a technological one. When you submerge yourself, your ego is challenged, your awareness is stretched, and you rarely come out the other side quite the same person you were when you started. But it gives you a closer bond with the Resonance, and increased power comes with it.

Submersion is measured in grades, beginning with Grade 1 and increasing. Each grade has a Karma cost equal to 10 x (Grade x 3) Karma. Your Submersion grade can’t exceed your Resonance attribute. If your Resonance is ever reduced below your Submersion grade, your grade is reduced (no refunds, but you can buy it back if you can bring your Resonance back up).

Increased Resonance

The natural maximum for your Resonance attribute is 6 + your Submersion grade. You still have to spend Karma to increase your Resonance attribute.

Access to the Resonance Realms

When you first submerge, you find your way to the secret Resonance Realms, places made of thought and information tucked away in the spaces between Matrix objects. These realms are only known to submerged technomancers (and maybe sprites, but they’re not talking). They are pathways and places not created by the hand of any metahuman. They’re mysterious and possibly useful repositories of pure data, but they are unfortunately too mysterious for the scope of this book and will be explained in detail in Data Trails, the Matrix expansion book (sorry, omae).

Echoes

Technomancers learn new powers called echoes when they submerge. Each grade of Submersion you gain gets you one additional echo. Unless otherwise noted, you can’t pick the same echo more than once. When echoes can be taken multiple times, their bonuses stack.

Sprite Database

There are five types of sprites listed here, but rumors abound that there are other kinds out in the Resonance. The “L” in the sprite description stands for the sprite’s Level.
Sprites
Sprite Type Attack Sleaze Data Processing Firewall Initiative Initiative Dice Resonance Skills Powers
Courier Sprite L L + 3 L + 1 L + 2 (L x 2) + 1 4d6 L Computer, Hacking Cookie, Hash
Crack Sprite L L + 3 L + 2 L + 1 (L x 2) + 2 4d6 L Computer, Electronic Warfare, Hacking Suppression
Data Sprite L - 1 L L + 4 L + 1 (L x 2) + 4 4d6 L Computer, Electronic Warfare Camouflage, Watermark
Fault Sprite L + 3 L L + 1 L + 2 (L x 2) + 1 4d6 L Computer, Cybercombat, Hacking Electron Storm
Machine Sprite L + 1 L L + 3 L + 2 (L x 2) + 3 4d6 L Computer, Electronic Warfare, Hacking Diagnostics, Gremlins, Stability

Courier Sprite

Courier sprites are great at delivering messages securely and are pretty good trackers.

Crack Sprite

If you need a sprite for a quiet run that stays under the radar, the Crack sprite has what you need.

Data Sprite

Data sprites are masters of finding and manipulating data. They make great librarians, searchbots, and trivia contest ringers.

Fault Sprite

The Fault sprite is the one you want to have your back in a fight. Cold as IC and twice as tenacious, they’ll shred your enemies in the blink of an icon.

Machine Sprite

Of all the sprites, the Machine sprite is the most likely to interact with the physical world, although that would happen through a device. They’re experts at all sorts of electronics.