Aeon B-Team Season 6 Session 4

 

Cast

• Amar Gupta aka The Iron Sikh (played by Christian): Brick. Taxi Driver. Ass-Kicker. Sikh. Tagline: “Being a man of faith means to live it.”
• Amie-Belle T. W. Lee aka Whisper (Played by Curtis): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.
• Beauregard K. “Bo” Ratnam aka Wirerat (Played by Brice): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.
• Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic and a petty thief out of prison on work release. Tagline: “Not for glory, not for fame…. For one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see.”
• Vincenzo L. dePrezzo aka Threshold (Played by Rory): TBA. Tagline: “I’ll be there in a snap!”
• Derrick K. Ratnam aka Ledgerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened…”
• Jodie R. Swann aka Surferboy (NPC): Dude. Aero- and Hydrokinetic. Really laid back, but wants to make a difference. Has a advanced glider/drone he rides on. Tagline: “Like. Let’s just chill, dude.”
• Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): AI in a robot body shaped like a large rat. Surprisingly capable and provides telepresence for Wirerat. Tagline: “[whir-click-beep].”
• Tierney M. Ward aka Rush (NPC): Speedster and former member of the Bullet Hell Brigade. Tagline: “Was that fast? I thought that was fast.”
• Zubayr Sajjad Marou aka Five Stars (NPC): Driver. Pilot. Klubbe gig worker.. From N’Djamena, Chad. Used to go by Darryl Bell to sound more American. Tagline: “I can get you there in time.”

Another Paramilitary Mission

Most of the team is doing some recon in Europe, Nyx, Threshold, and Whisper get assigned a rescue mission. A reporter was captured by a rebel group in Afghanistan. We fly in and land in a nearby field.

Nyx and Threshold have their super senses jammed and the bright sun weakens Nyx's powers.

Threshold can tell what buildings in the small village the jamming is coming from, appears to be 7 buildings and guesses the reporter is in one of them.

We split the group up, Nyx and Nox head to the south towards the closest building with a jammer and it is kinda off by itself and might be a communications or storage building. Whisper heads straight down the middle to draw the fire as much as possible. Threshold teleports on top of a building between the main road and the south building that Nyx and Nox are headed for.

Nox arrives before Nyx and sees a glowing pulsating metal sphere that seems to be the source of the interference, Nox arrives a few seconds later and they disable it.

Threshold gets s a free attack when he ports to the roof and using his Obliteration Beam in Cone mode destroys the roof of two buildings, causing the 3 sentries to fall in.

Whisper attacks the only guy on the street, doing some damage with her hatchets but not taking him out.

The bad guys get a turn, shooting Threshold in the face who needs to use a wildcard point to make it a flesh wound and still falls prone (but still on the roof). A few shoot at Nyx on his way to the building but are all comfortably avoided. Whisper, as hoped gets the bulk of the shots but her armor mostly reduces it to minimal damage - though she also needed to use a wildcard point for a flesh wound.

Whisper jumps onto the building and goes after a guard up there, this keeps more guards focused on her as she is now in plain sight of everyone.  Threshold pops over behind some guards shooting at Whisper and obliterates their rifles and the roof, knocking 4 more to the ground.

About half the guards have been disabled, at least partially in the first few seconds of the fight. Whisper dodges off the roof, leaving a grenade behind taking out two more of the enemy.

Nox and Nyx power stunt a large Obscure and cover the area in darkness, somehow not affecting our team.

Threshold pops over to the north of a central building that seems a likely candidate and obliterates the wall to see what is inside.  He sees the reporter and three terrorist's.

One powers up the other two and  they charge Threshold but miss, Threshold ports away and obliterates the jammer and more of the building with the reporter. All that is left is a small corner they were hiding in (the leader holding the reporter hostage) exposing them to Whisper who can now reach them without going around the former building.

Nyx starts taking out the remaining southern guards, Whisper goes after the hulked out terrorists trying to reach Threshold using a grenade. Threshold ports to the ground  in front of the leader and hits him with the Obliteration Beam (using Selective Area to avoid the reporter) and he falls unconscious.

As soon as he passed out all the bad guys did.

Threshold patches him up and checks out the reporter then teleports her to the base while the rest search and restrain everyone.

The team finds a Delta Force unit that had previously been sent in and been captured and tortured, Threshold portals them all to the base for emergency treatment.

Aftermath

We rescued the reporter and as a bonus several Delta team members. Also retrieved 4 functional and 1 scraped (by Nox) jammers and a number of high tech (ETC) rifles. Most of the terrorist's were captured alive, Whisper being the only one who killed any and our bosses are happy with the mission results.

GM Recap

AEON B-Team Season 6, Session 2 and 3

 

Cast

• Amar Gupta aka The Iron Sikh (played by Christian): Brick. Taxi Driver. Ass-Kicker. Sikh. Tagline: “Being a man of faith means to live it.”
• Amie-Belle T. W. Lee aka Whisper (Played by Curtis): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.
• Beauregard K. “Bo” Ratnam aka Wirerat (Played by Brice): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.
• Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic and a petty thief out of prison on work release. Tagline: “Not for glory, not for fame…. For one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see.”
• Vincenzo L. dePrezzo aka Threshold (Played by Rory): TBA. Tagline: “I’ll be there in a snap!”
• Derrick K. Ratnam aka Ledgerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened…”
• Jodie R. Swann aka Surferboy (NPC): Dude. Aero- and Hydrokinetic. Really laid back, but wants to make a difference. Has a advanced glider/drone he rides on. Tagline: “Like. Let’s just chill, dude.”
• Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): AI in a robot body shaped like a large rat. Surprisingly capable and provides telepresence for Wirerat. Tagline: “[whir-click-beep].”
• Tierney M. Ward aka Rush (NPC): Speedster and former member of the Bullet Hell Brigade. Tagline: “Was that fast? I thought that was fast.”
• Zubayr Sajjad Marou aka Five Stars (NPC): Driver. Pilot. Klubbe gig worker.. From N’Djamena, Chad. Used to go by Darryl Bell to sound more American. Tagline: “I can get you there in time.”

AUTHORS NOTE: I was very sick the past two weeks, needing a hospital stay for part of that and still not fully recovered. So missed two reports and combining them here. A week later and just getting back to this :(  Still feel weak as a kitten but I am getting better, if not yet stronger.

What Happened

The last two sessions were mostly going through the material recovered in the first session.

Threshold analyzed the blue liquid, determining it to be a variant super soldier serum. It would need a kyberic energy infusion to activate and he put it in his safe for further analysis and safekeeping. He also teleports around NYC to get a feel for the area so the team can better respond to police requests for backup.

Whisper as the only one fluent in Russian went through the journals and records, passing along the translations to Threshold and government handlers.

Nyx is assigned a bunch of training, ordered to get a GED and learn a few languages. Nyx is discreetly pulled aside and given a secret mission to hack the Pentagon in an effort to suss out a mole.

Wirerat is going through all the hard drives and network data collected, including some attempts at finding other networks.

Threshold is assigned team leader, most everyone has good skills and abilities that would make them capable but Threshold, despite likely the least combat experience is probably the most psychologically appropriate and his powers can best be put to use in coordinating the team. He spends some time reviewing dossiers and interviewing the team to form his own impressions as well as use the government dossiers. The team has some punch as a supers team but excels in mobility, stealth, and intel gathering. Threshold is the least stealthy member as his powers are fairly visible. The team also has an amazing number of known languages among them, Threshold probably knows the most, but most are Accented, and I think Whisper is the best fluent speaker.

GM Recap Session 3 Some Work, Some Play

GM Recap Session 2 Mission Report

Magic Vegas

Game Wiki

The last few sessions of Magic Vegas have built to a season finale, concluding a long thread.

The campaign is an interesting and very different one than any other I have participated in. Experience rewards are very stingy, usually with no cp awarded at the end of a game session. Also its political intrigue and uses Path Magic which is a system I rather like but had not played before.

Setup

An extremist military arm of the Church that are witch hunters using Atlantean magic have come to Vegas with the intent of bringing down the council. They have been in the area for some time before we found out and likely been planning on this for about 10 years. They also bound a powerful spirit and a vampire and set them to the cause.

Our group finds all this out a few days before they attack so have a chance to prepare.

The Battle

The council meets on Getaway, another world run by the Babylonians. Not all the council is alerted due to security concerns but they key people are. The council chambers and surrounding area are swept for traps and several bombs are found and removed. Fetishes ae prepared and plans made....

Genie is summoned to answer for her attack on Wu (my character) and as predicted she summons a host of minor spoirits to help break down the ward that traps her. Wu and Virgil fill the ward full of ghost bullets to kill as many of the spirits as possible while Manners, Ambrose, and Connie try to free genie from the spells the church bound her with. Connie then has the vampire (Manuli) jump out of her bag who then attacks Bjorn as soon as the outer wards are down. The outer wards are brought down by a bunch of empowered wolfs with dispel fetishes on them.

Bjorn gets his throat ripped out by Manuli in wolf form but manages a deadly counter attack with his sword. Wu, hits Manul with a silver bullet (last one in the clip) with a critical roll of 4. Another person hits Manuli with a sword too and he dies.

Wu drops her gun and immediately tries to stop the bleeding and do emergency surgery, having been prepared for this exact wound due to divination. She has his blood type in an IV along with the exact bandages and tools right at the top of the bag. She still had a penalty on her Surgery roll but succeeds and stops the bleeding. Local magic and Bjorns fetishes help stabilize him and keep oxygen supplied to his brain and she gets him to the nearby hospital where a another roll without penalties lets her patch him up. Not sure how long he will be in the hospital but she saved him.

Meanwhile back on earth the mercenaries hired by the church killed 7 of Wu's agents, numerous civilians, and wounded or killed at least 3 magicians.

We never did directly fight church agents as they just sent in disposable goons.

The Aftermath

We got off really lucky, I think Wu and the Babylonian tradition suffered the most losses, Scarlet a magician of a tradition I do not recall is the only magician that died except for an assistant to the Babylonian delegation. They also lost many security people in the fighting outside the council chambers.

If we can track down the church we might have another fight but its possible they will skip town or lie low. However so far they lost some minor resources but no key people so probably consider it a limited victory for the church.

As a junior member of the most recent delegation Wu probably came out ahead politically, though the agents will take time to replace, quite possibly it wont happen before the campaign ends.

It was a fun game even if somewhat anticlimatic due to our plans. Enough happened that we still had some surprises and felt real risk and even loss.

Aeon B-Team My First Session

 Cast

• Amar Gupta aka The Iron Sikh (played by Christian): Brick. Taxi Driver. Ass-Kicker. Sikh. Tagline: “Being a man of faith means to live it.”
• Amie-Belle T. W. Lee aka Whisper (Played by Curtis): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.
• Beauregard K. “Bo” Ratnam aka Wirerat (Played by Brice): TBA. Tagline: “TBA.
• Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic and a petty thief out of prison on work release. Tagline: “Not for glory, not for fame…. For one person. In the dark. Where no one will ever know or see.”
• Vincenzo L. dePrezzo aka Threshold (Played by Rory): TBA. Tagline: “I’ll be there in a snap!”
• Derrick K. Ratnam aka Ledgerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened…”
• Jodie R. Swann aka Surferboy (NPC): Dude. Aero- and Hydrokinetic. Really laid back, but wants to make a difference. Has a advanced glider/drone he rides on. Tagline: “Like. Let’s just chill, dude.”
• Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): AI in a robot body shaped like a large rat. Surprisingly capable and provides telepresence for Wirerat. Tagline: “[whir-click-beep].”
• Tierney M. Ward aka Rush (NPC): Speedster and former member of the Bullet Hell Brigade. Tagline: “Was that fast? I thought that was fast.”
• Zubayr Sajjad Marou aka Five Stars (NPC): Driver. Pilot. Klubbe gig worker.. From N’Djamena, Chad. Used to go by Darryl Bell to sound more American. Tagline: “I can get you there in time.”

Briefing

The team is requested to go to Germany and investigate some mysterious happenings at a private castle. Locals have been disappearing and the leads go to a castle bought a few years ago by a private individual.

Project Vanguard is a govt sponsored team operated by NYC with private backers. Its to protect the local area and also earn political capital doing jobs for others including foreign countries.

The Action

We arrive by plane in a nearby field and go investigate. The castle has a lot of security, including military equipped guards, concealed high end cameras, and two ariel drones with autocannons.

We scout it over then our stealthiest member Nyx blows our cover by trying to sneak inside using Shadow Form.  Normally a solid move but the enemy had a darkness manipulator of their own who spotted him. The guards immediately respond and stream out of the building.

Nyx got redirected and is in the interior courtyard surrounded by Mastermind (Telepath) and Nox (Darkness Manipulator) and several guards.

Whisper heads towards the entrance and shrugs off the incoming fire.

The Rat was dropped by Nyx inside and makes it to the computer room to begin hacking.

Surferboy follows Whisper.

Threshold ports to the top of the nearest tower for a better view and shortens the distance to the ground so Whisper can climb faster,

Nyx fights off a telepathic assault and disarms a dozen or so bad guys with his shadow whips. 

Whisper takes out the two guards on the tower.

Nyx takes several turns fighting off the bad guys around him and turns Nox to his side who the flies off and dissolves a bunch outside. Vandal a brick jumps onto the tower and fights Whisper, Threshold tries to Bind him but he breaks free so then he ports to another tower and uses his obliteration beam to wound him. He is taken out by Whisper who finds it a tad easier after his armor has been dissolved.

.Nyx takes out the telepath and Threshold finally spots him but he insists he needs no help fighting the remaining security so Threshold pops around for stragglers.

Aftermath

We find out they were doing some human experimentation and gather a lot of evidence despite them trying to destroy the computers and equipment. SSR had already hacked and copied the computer data.

The team checks the place out while waiting for backup and finds a boat dock in an underwater cave that clearly shows someone had escaped.

Threshold sticks around to examine things and the rest fly back home.

Nyx is the teams senior member, being from a previous version of the team and took out most of the bad guys. Wirerat took out the automated security and secured the data. Whisper did some solid fighting and took out the opposing brick. Threshold primarily did recon but also some coordination while contributing to the combat.

Summary

This was a fun game and the team coordinated rather well for a first session. We had no leader but Threshold was appointed the role after the game. This is a high powered Supers campaign (1600 CP to start) and improvised powers are encouraged so we should see a lot of variety. I have already listed a bunch of improvised abilities so that I can avoid the math during the game and just need to make die rolls and pay the FP or Karma Points.

GM Recap Session 1 Castles and Escapades

GURPS Vision Powers

 GURPS has several sensory powers, lets take a loot at the vision based ones.

Acute Vision

A simple bonus to the perception roll for seeing things. This is a cheap alternative to increasing Per, though if increasing more than one sense Per is a better purchase. A few levels are reasonable for normal people, higher levels require exotic explanation.

Clairsentience

A pricey power, typically magic or psychic in nature. Lets you see from a different location, including the other side of a wall. Range is just 10y but can be doubled by spending a FP or add Increased Range for about double distance at 5/level. Really its *2, *5, *10, *20, *50, etc.

Dark Vision

This is the ability to actually see even in pitch darkness with no light source at all.

Hyperspectral Vision

A combination of Infravision and Ultravision this wide spectrum vision allows good vision in very low light conditions and bonuses to certain skills for the additional details.

Infravision

This is advanced thermographic vision, allowing finer details than modern equipment, Lets see see warm objects in the dark.

Nightvision

Simply cancels the penalties for darkness, though you still must have light to see by.

Penetrating Vision

This is the classic X-ray vision, allowing you to see through or inside something as easily as you can see it. Of these its the only one I am not fully happy with. Each level allows seeing through up to 6 inches of solid matter. The first level is an incredible value, imagine being able to see inside a person your examining, looking over someone for concealed weapons, or inside a device to see what needs repair. That is a huge boost to quickly knowing what is going on!

However seeing 12" is not much more powerful than 6" and this ability goes up at 10/level with each level granting another half a foot.

It is faster and easier to use than Clairsentience and has a few other perks too, though only covers vision. That first level may be underpriced but it is an exotic ability so I am ok with that.  However I long thought it should use a log increase in range, originally using the Size and Speed/Range table but now think each level should increase range as per Increased Range. This would cost 10 points per doubling as opposed to the 5 points/level of Clairsentience so lose ground as for max distance but has certain advantages.

Compare Clairsentience [50] and Penetrating Vision 5 [50]

Clairsentience lets you see up to 10y, 20y with 1 FP but takes a minute and an IQ roll.

Penetrating Vision 5 lets you see through up to 100" (8 feet) of solid object but do so casually with no IQ roll and the intervening material is kind of a vague outline that does not interfere with your sight. You cant see through as thick a wall but that wall does not have to be close either. You need to add another sight (Darkvision, Hyperspectral Vision, Infravision, or Ultravision) to see inside a dark object, like several inches inside the human body.

Penetrating Vision is a good choice over Clairsentience when you want to see quickly and can see through a bunch of discrete separate objects if the actual thickness does not exceed your capacity. This makes it superior for seeing through smoke clouds, fog, murky water, etc. Clairsentience is superior if range is your primary concern (even with my suggested modification).

Telescopic Vision

This can be used in two ways. To focus on a distant subject and cancel range penalties with tunnel vision as a side effect; or to scan an area reducing range penalties by half as much. It also acts as a scope, increasing ACC by up to double the base ACC.

Ultravision

This lets you see in very dim light and grants bonus to certain skills because you can see in the ultraviolet. For example many insects fluoresce and can be readily spotted.

AEON Session 0

 So my Monday gaming group finally started a new campaign, our last "Official" campaign was quite awhile back, we went on hiatus as one of the players had real life stuff keeping him busy. So for the past several months we been doing various one shots or limited series.

Since were back to a campaign I figured time to blog about it. This was a short session, ending early and just setting things up. Its a fairly high power Supers campaign, about 1650 points.

This is my first "supers" campaign in 4e, did a couple in 3e, so be good to see how some things work in practice vs. theorycrafting.

Threshold is a spatial manipulator, an exotic power set I haven't done in GURPS or Champions. Concept is he can alter the distance and orientation of things, even subatomic particles. Has three power sets of alternative abilities, is a genius at IQ17, normal noncinematic martial arts Karate DX+2, Judo, etc. The supers template is kinda mutant gene giving Fit, base stats +1, Longevity, Rapid Heali8ng, etc.

Sensory/Defensive Power Set

Warp Vision: Penetrating Vision + Telescopic Vision lets him see far and through walls, up to 5 foot thick.

Microvision 6 with Ranged lets him see things up to 10y as if using a tunneling microscope. Handy for finding clues or such.

Void Shield is DR 5 forcefield that he can use to protect himself or others if they are close enough and has Reflection on it so can bounce part of the damage back to an attacker.

Each of these is an alternate so can only use one at time, eventually hope to buy a few levels of Microscopic Vision as part of Warp Vision for examining the inside of things, say people.

He also has Enhanced Dodge 3, special effect is messing with distance and direction to confuse attackers or cause an attack to just miss.

Offensive/Control Power Set

This is the big one!

Obliteration Beam is 15d6 Corrosion attack with different modes. It can be a narrow cone, long range beam, or a jet that comes out of his hands (like a flame thrower). This is a quite deadly attack as it dissolves armor and has enough raw damage to destroy a car. Special effect is breaking the atomic or molecular bonds of things, a disintegration beam.

Compaction is a Binding 25 attack that condenses air or other matter to trap people. Its a strong Binding, though not the strongest on the team and can use one of Constriction (squeezing people), Engulfing (Keeping them from moving at all, including talking), or Suffocation (Do I need to explain that one?).  This is him reducing the space between molecules so turning air solid. It has cancelable so he can reverse it at any time and is strong enough to trap most non bricks.

A nice non lethal alternative!

Singularity is a character-point powered ability, meaning its his rarely used show-off move. Its a 10d crushing persistent attack linked to a complicated TK build that pulls things in with a maximum ST 110 (Super Effort) that gets stronger the closer to the center they are.

Spatiokinesis is Control 10 with Persistent, Extended Duration*3, and Ranged. This lets him do weird stuff but typical game effects are +-10 to die rolls, primarily range modifiers.

All these are alternatives of each other, significantly lowering the total cost but he can only do one at a time.

Utility/Movement Power Set

Close the Gap is Stretching 3 with enough Reduced Time that it is instant. This lets him shorten the distance between say his hand and his target so he can punch up to 3y distance. But he can also use it to look over an obstacle or around a corner, grab a nearby object or ledge, or even cross a narrow gap.

Kinda cool ability.

Create Wormhole is your classic Warp, with Tunneling, Reliable 10, etc.  With it he can get anywhere in the world pretty quickly. It does not have Blind yet so he has to be able to see (cameras work) where he is going or have actually visited it already. He can teleport 10 yards instantly at no penalty but farther away he needs to take a bit of time to concentrate. This leaves a portal for a few seconds so others can step through, handy for getting the team around. We have a hacker who can help him find a nearby camera to look through so can get most anywhere in the world very quickly.

I'll want to add Blind (so he doesn't need a camera) and Selectivity (so he can not make a tunnel) as well as more weight carried. Warp is a high cost power so these are not on the short list though!

Space Folding is Enhanced Move (Ground) with Second-Nature so he can quickly move around the combat field or travel in a "7 league boots" fashion (24 mph). He is not running fast, just stepping from one spot to another, like a short range teleport. High on my list to buy this up and as its an alternative ability to Create Wormhole I can increase the distance pretty cheaply (about 10 points/level) up to level 4 at which point he could shadow a car by just appearing on the sidewalk ahead of it as it travels.

Up is Down is Clinging with Attraction allowing him to walk on walls as if they were the ground. Special effect here is him changing the orientation so that a wall IS actually the ground.

Summary

So there we have Threshold, a powerful space manipulator who has good sensory powers and movement with a powerful attack. Not based off any comics I can think of just ran with an idea I have wanted to build for a long time. I like characters who are versatile, good at finding things out, and have high utility. This guy happens to be also good in combat, at least offensively and if he's careful decent defenses - especially against ranged attacks. He is rather vulnerable to close combat and area attacks.

I look forward to playing him, one of my more interesting builds. The GM rebuilt Singularity and tweaked some of his powers but he is still mostly mine and I feel connected.

Oh, the GM loves wildcard skills! So he has 4, Cosmologist! ( I wrote up but the GM  is tweaking), Medic!, Scientist!, and Spatial Manipulation! (A power skill). Not sure what Scientist does yet but my guy can probably handle any scientific or medical need the group has. He also has plenty of normal skills and that high IQ makes him very good, even with defaults.

Our group has a Nyx a darkness based thief that can also Warp, turn into shadows, darkness bindings, FP drain, etc. Whisper a super soldier, and Stainless Steel Rat a technopath thief. Were kind of like the Suicide Squad or Thunderbolts, a bunch of supervillains sent by the govt but without the skull bombs. Threshold and Whisper are not criminals and part of the program for our own reasons.

Powers Systems I have Used, Adapted, or Modified

 So the GURPS Bloggers voted on Powers that we use in campaigns. Christopher Rice went on to include magic systems as well. I play more than GM these days but I love to tinker so will include things I have planned for a campaign that hasn't run yet.

Affinity Magic

GURPS Magic is a solid system but is showing its age. I like the skills approach and the prerequisite system where you learn a basic spell before an advanced version. The limitations are the 2 page spell design rules for coming up with new spells and the college grouping of spells.

I decided to build one that had more flexibility, especially in spell groupings. This is based of Ritual magic (in GURPS Basic) and was submitted to Pyramid several years back but rejected. The initial version was more abstract to fit into an article but over time I found too many people complaining about abstract systems so I built a lengthy (almost 40 now) list of techniques that can be used to make spells.

The concept is pick an Affinity (spell grouping) and apply a given technique to create a spell.  I have playtested it in two campaigns so far and am pretty happy with it.

Book/Path

I first saw this in GURPS Voodoo and like the concept but certain things kinda bug me about it. Recently I have been playing in a campaign that uses a highly modified version (Effect Shaping) and a friend has been wanting help converting Shadowrun/Earthdawn/Equinox to GURPS and three of us have bounced a lot of ideas around.  These two things led me to outline a version I hope to pitch someday for publication. I use a lot of inspiration from Affinity Magic to create new Books and Paths and of course rituals. My current outline even includes such diverse lore as Cultivation, Tree Magic, Futhark Runes, Deaconic or hermetic Magic, and more that I will not be able to fit into one supplement.

Other Magic

I have used Sorcery, Ritual Path Magic, and some variations on those over the past few years.

Shamans

I like spirit magic and shamans in particular and it has bugged me that most RPGs treat shaman as pretty much any caster. Their magic lacks the interaction with spirits that I feel can make for good roleplaying. GURPS however has vast potential in this area and actually led to me writing for GURPS.

I have published some of my ideas for this and have at least 2 more in the works. Over the years my ideas have evolved somewhat as well.

Their are different kinds of shaman, but most can do an out of body experience (Trance or astral projection) and somehow communicate with spirits. So I built a set of systems allowing for different shamanic types.

Shamans have innate powers that they usually get from a near death experience and training. These include astral projection and the ability to see or talk with spirits.

Shaman then have external abilities that spirits lend them or represent actions spirits undertake on the shamans behalf.

Internal

Astral Projection, Channeling, and Medium each form the basis of a leveled power set. Astral Projection can build into the ability to create spirit forms, some of which are even physical. Medium is combined with Telecommunication. Channeling was the only one that was tricky but I decided it was learning to master ones Will and was able to create a leveled power for it.

External or Spirit Granted

I started off with Alternate Form as representing channeling a spirit in ones own body. This suits Voodoo and several other cultures and was done in GURPS 3e and 4e.  I authored GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits to showcase this approach.

Medium represents talking to a spirit and persuading them to do something for the shaman. My current project GURPS Template Toolkit: Spirits was primarily designed to help a GM build a variety of spirits they can use to interact with shaman. Also works for horror and fantasy where you might have ghosts, nature spirits, or other things the party has to deal with.

Its too early to know what will make the final cut but I included some ideas for how spirits do magic themselves. Spirits can be Allies, Contacts, Patrons, or simply the special effect behind other powers, say Affliction and that will get more treatment in my last planned supplement of this topic.

Chimeric Powers

In my Chalice World setting I decided that most hybrid creatures were created by a trickster god. Chimera are hybrids of two or more races (centaurs, griffins, satyrs, etc.) but have an innate wild magic that lets them tap into powers based on their parent forms. This is mostly switchable advantages and Alternate Form but can go into other things too. Advanced  practioners can even learn to tap that trickster chaos/wild magic they are born with to change into other hybrids and some other tricks as well.

Power Stunts

I never really got this until I read GURPS Psionic Powers but that one short section in GURPS Powers really has inspired most of my Powers as Magic builds (and I am not the only one!). Those rules are really what make Sorcery, Divine Favor, and other systems work. Alternative abilities, Character point powered abilities, Using Abilities at Default, Power Defenses, etc. all can be used to make for some very interesting builds and mini-systems.