Magic: Tradition: Life Hackers

Like Chaos mages, life hackers believe that mana and the Astral plane comprise the "machine code" that is the "program of reality." They also believe that magic is a force that can be used to alter or hack the code. Unlike Chaos mages, life hackers believe that reality has a master programmer, a mentor spirit they call the "Source."

The Source is the ultimate coder, the master programmer that writes all of the "scripts" that define reality. Communion and contact with the Source allows life hackers to perceive, decipher, and alter this underlying "machine" code, creating alternate effects in reality in the forms of spells and spirits. The Source requires little of its followers. It expects them to learn at every opportunity, to constantly use their skills to test the strength and validity of its code. Every time a life hacker casts a spell or conjures a spirit, he is using hermetic techniques to hack the Source's work. This does not anger the Source, who actually takes pride in those followers who are able to devise new ways to hack (new spells, metamagic, spirits, foci, ect,) or those who can pull off more extravagant hacks to achieve greater effects (more powerful spells, spirts, foci, etc.) without succumbing to "biofeedback" (drain) that always accompanies any hack attempt.

Since the Source is responsible for everything in existence, his followers must focus their time and skills in some areas while neglecting others, but it is up to an individual to decide how to direct their own studies. In game terms, at character creation, a life hacker chooses to get 2 points of bonuses to spell casting and to conjuring, and 2 points of penalties to each. One character may have +2 to combat spells, -2 to illusion spells, +2 to task spirts, and -2 to Guidance spirits. Another character may have +1 to combat spells, +1 to health spells, -1 to illusion spells, -1 to manipulation spells, +1 to guardian spirits, +1 to water spirits, -1 to guidance spirits and -1 to task spirits. Yet another character may have +1 bonus to two types or spells and -2 penalty to one other while having +2 bonus to one spirit type and -1 to 2 others. The only restrictions are that the points must balance out, they cannot be changed after character creation, and penalties cannot be assigned to spirits outside of the tradition (such as fire spirits.)

Life hackers consider Astral Space and metaplanes to be the natural equivalent to the Matrix virtual reality. They use hermetic symbols and equations as the “programming language” that allows them to “hack” the underlying code that comprises all life and reality. If one were to listen to two life hackers discussing their magic, it would sound like a haphazard compilation of arcane magical terms and tech-speak jargon. “I used Gargnak runes and a destiny table to hack his central processor and install my own persona program” is life hacker jargon for “I cast a control thoughts spell on him.”

This perception extends to spirits as well. A life hacker recognizes a free spirit as an independent sentient entity akin to an artificial intelligence in the Matrix. However, they regard the spirits they summon and bind to be more akin to semi-autonomous software like an agent or IC which they can use to augment their own bodies or to change/control the world around them. To a life hacker, a summoned spirit is a deep hack, a persistent rift in the Source Code which the hacker may direct and utilize for a time to indirectly affect the world around him. In practice, this means that life hacker spirits use Possession instead of Materialization.

Since these “spirit programs” are “written” to affect certain types of objects, spirits summoned by life hackers can only possess certain types of objects. In the mind of a life hacker, “code” that is written to “hack” a metahuman will not work to “hack” a dog or a car. There is one exception to this rule: a life hacker may possess himself with any spirit he summons, regardless of its type.

Items or beings possessed by a life hacker spirit may display lines of arcane runes running over their bodies, and their eyes may glow, depending on the force of the possessing spirit. (See "Spotting Spirits, pg 95, Street Magic.)

Combat: Guardian – living or dead metahumans, weapons, armor, homunculi
Detection: Guidance – vehicles, scrying homunculi (crystal balls, ouija boards, mirrors, etc.)
Health: Plants –  plants, alive or dead
Illusion: Beasts – Animals, alive or dead, animal homunculi
Manipulation: Task – living metahumans, drones, homunculi
Watchers – dead animals or metahumans, homunculi

Drain: Willpower + Logic

Initiation Rites (details are coming)

Initiate Grades/Titles
Grade 1: Whistler
Grade 2: Mana Scripter
Grade 3: Assembler
Grade 4: Ley Weaver
Grade 5: Leet Haxor
Grade 6: Reality Hacker
Grade 7: Fate Forger
Grade 8: Master Fate Forger
Grade 9: Grandmaster Fate Forger
Grade 10: Source Forger