Anchoring Foci and Spells and Why You Should Be Using Them More Often

When we play games with magic often we look at it in the lens of our understanding most of us learned from games like Dungeons and Dragons. That is to say that magical people always go into combat with magical shields and energy blasts. Fireballs and Counterspells to keep yourself from getting fried. Shadowrun has a lot of this too, but there is more insidious magic that exists and it’s as old as the human race.

As long as there have been people, there has been the fear of curses. Some call these the evil eye, some hexes and others still call it crossings. Regardless of what you call it, someone has been using magic to place a spell to diminish another person. This lacks a lot of flair of burning an opponent to cinders with flamethrower spell, but what it lacks in directness it makes up for in stealth, terror and effectiveness against an unwary target.

When is the last time you saw someone take Decrease Attribute as a spell? How about Dream or Agony? These spells are often overlooked because they don’t really pack a punch in combat. However when paired with the concept of a cursed fetish placed under the bumper of their car which reduces the target’s Intelligence and thus making both his reaction and his ability to notice things happening. Now a casual drive in the rain can become a life or death scenario when the mental fog descends which strangely only happens when they get behind the wheel of their car.

On a good roll, these spells can even put people into paralysis or unconsciousness as well.

This concept leans heavily on the idea that the caster has access to you or your things. That they have enough anger or hatred in their heart that they are willing to burn some karma on an anchor just to make your life just… worse. This means that they are “entering the sphere of effect” and the effect is tailored to the environment to make sense. Mojo bags tied under the sink which activates a Control Emotion spell instilling the target with despair every time they come in to look in the mirror. Something like that gone unchecked for weeks can have devastating effects on someone’s psyche.

How does anchoring work?

The magician gathers some amount of karma and casts spells into an enchanting foci. Depending on your Shadowrun edition, you may need meta magic or spells directly made for anchoring. They usually come in two types. One is more risky, the permanent type which fires off each time the detection spell goes off. The other is a one and done, where it fires once and then burns out. The expendable ones also burn out to the point where any magical connection to the creator is destroyed too. So you can use those without being worried about being tracked back to you.

So what would these anchor foci look like?

Depends on the tradition of the practitioner. Shamans might leave animal bones, teeth and dung wrapped up in leather pouches. A hermetic mage might inscribe sigils of mercury on a scroll dipped in liquid mercury, leaving the vial some place to trigger the effect. A voodoo practitioner may have a red flannel bag wrapping poisonous mushrooms, black chicken feet and sulfur. Each would be unique and potentially tailored to the victim.

Where are some good places to leave such things?

The most common places for these kind of curse objects are within the vehicle of the victim, the home (in specific, the bedroom, bathroom, etc.) and places of work. Any place where you knew the victim was going to spend time that you could get access to. The closer you could get it, the less powerful of a detection spell you would need to trigger the effect.

Finally, what spells make good and insidious effects that can be used to absolutely ruin someone.

• Poltergeist has some interesting effects if one was able to trigger the spell within someone’s home during the late evening. Especially if paired with something like Foreboding.
• Decreased Attributes can be used to make someone feel physically weaker, have a kind of mind fog or just be unable to speak to people as well as before. This can be used to devastating effect on someone who needs to be sharp and aware or personable for their job.
• Control Emotion can be shaped to attack the target at their weakest point. Along with potentially corrupting any relationships they might have.
• Lock when triggered after someone is home safe in their room can lead them to having to break out of their own house or potentially be actually stuck in a well defended enough room.

These kinds of things can be great for villains to be able to strike in a non-direct manner and really spread terror. Even if they find the foci, for non magical people, this can be even more terrifying now that they know someone has done something to them and they don’t know the full extent of it.

• 3rd Edition
• GM Helper