Rules

In most cases, the creator maintains a certain degree of control over the magick she weaves into her Relic. If and when she wishes to employ that magick, she merely needs to build a “trigger” into the Relic that allows her to access the power upon command. In hypertech Relics, this involves an override command that asserts command over the technology built into the organism. To utilize that command across a distance, however, the creator (regardless of the practice and process she employs) needs to add a Correspondence 5 Effect that allows her to take control over the organism and its integrated Effects… and that level of command is pretty hard to master! As with any other major Wonder-work, the mage must invest a point of per­ manent Willpower into her Relic, although Technocratic facilities seem to skirt this requirement. (Or do they? This investiture may explain the high rate of burnout among Technocratic technicians…)

A creator who wants to override the objections of her creation must add a Mind 4 Effect in order to control the Relic’s thoughts. Said “Relic” isn’t going to be terribly pleased with such commands, of course, which explains why lots of mad scientists and dominating wizards tend to condition their “children” into subservience. And no, that’s not an especially nice thing to do to your creations, though such mistreatment is rather traditional.

Unless conditioned otherwise, a Relic can use his powers at will. A “golden child” who has been enchanted by his moth­ er can employ those powers without her assistance. Folklore and fiction tell us how often that sort of thing backfires upon creators, but that doesn’t stop mages from continuing to play God with living organisms.

Many mages build Relics into their own Patterns, shaping “magic fingers” and cybernetic hearts. Obviously, such creators don’t need to override their own objections or bridge space between their minds and the powers they have instilled into their bodies, and so self-enchantment remains a safer, easier process than enchanting other beings into carrying around your magick for you.

As mentioned in the sidebar Living and Virtual Foundations (p. 154), a living being takes on one point of permanent Paradox for each level in the Wonder. This doesn’t count the Life and Prime Effects used to create the Wonder in the first place, although it would count the Correspondence and /or Mind Effects used to control the Relic from a distance. And as mentioned earlier, you can just use the Enhancement Background to reflect cybernetically enhanced characters, unless you want to invent new types of biotech from scratch; in that case, use the Relic rules, and craft those enhancements accordingly. For more details, see that Background Trait de­ scribed in Mage 20 (pp. 312-313), and the Biotech entry in that same book, ppg 657-661.