Acquiring Morphs

At some point during gameplay, your character will need to resleeve. Perhaps the group egocasts to a new habitat, your PC dies, or you simply want a new look.

Because morphs are rare and integral to the game, they are not handled like other gear. Instead, each time the PCs egocast and/or resleeve, the GM assigns each player an amount of Morph Points (MP).

Determining Morph Points

The recommended default amount of Morph Points is 6. At 6 MP, players can purchase high-end morphs like ghosts, furies, and arachnoids, but remade morphs and reapers remain out of reach unless they pick up some negative morph traits to make up the difference.

GMs can adjust this amount to set the difficulty level of the mission. Want to test your players’ mettle? Assign only 2 or 4 MP. Plan on sending them into a meat grinder, for which they’ll need all the help they can get? Assign them 8 or even 10 MP.

The amount of MP the GM provides is also representative of the resources assigned to the mission. Are Firewall’s logistics currently strained? Lower the amount. Are the players working on behalf of an oligarch with an unlimited expense account? Notch it up a few points.

Increasing Your MP

There are three ways you can increase your MP:

• Resources: The Resources trait provides you with extra MP equal to the trait’s level, reflecting your access to wealth. At the GM’s discretion, this may not apply when you are egocasting to or resleeving in an autonomist habitat or isolated locales with limited morph stocks; your money has no sway there.
• Rep Favors: You can use your rep scores in a similar way to Resources. By expending a Minor (1 MP), Moderate (2 MP) or Major (3 MP) favor, you can increase the MP available to you. No test is required, but you must have a rep score of at least 40 in a network applicable to the situation. An anarchist’s @-rep is unlikely to help them on a hypercorp habitat. Rep used this way counts towards the rep favors available to you on your first week on the mission.
• Negative Morph Traits: Finally, you can always acquire extra MP by purchasing negative morph traits, up to a maximum of 6.

Spending Morph Points

Morph Points are spent as described in Step 12 of Making Characters. You can spend your MP on the morph (or morphs) itself, positive morph traits, ware, or Flex. As with character creation, you are encouraged to pick morphs that fit your character’s outlook and the mission’s parameters.

Morph Availability

Not all morphs are readily available. Some models (splicers, exalts, cases, synths, pods) are widespread and accessible; others are more difficult to lay your claws on. To see if a morph is on hand, make an Availability Test, rolling d100 with the morph’s Availability rating as the target number. If it succeeds, the morph is available. Otherwise, pick another morph and try again.

Local conditions may affect this Availability Test. A well-stocked body bank in a populated area such as Valles New-Shanghai may apply a +30 modifier. A small and remote Neptunian hab might have a much more limited supply: apply a −30 modifier.

You can expend rep favors to increase a morph’s Availability. A minor favor applies a +10 modifier, a moderate +20, and a major +30. The rep score in question must be applicable to the situation, and you must succeed in a Rep Test.

The GM has final say on what morphs are available. A brinker habitat on the edge of the Solar System might only have cases and synths available. A bioconservative habitat might not have any synthmorphs or uplift morphs in stock. Martian clinics might be low on everything but rusters. A guanxi darkcaster operation might be able to get you any biomorph you desire, but they all come loaded with an Addiction trait, eager for a taste of whatever substance the operator is peddling. And few habitats are likely to have reapers available — or to allow them even if they do.

If you acquire ware with either Morph Points or Gear Points at the same time you acquire a morph, the ware is automatically installed into the morph.

Resleeving and Morph Points

The GM-provided Morph Points are an abstraction, representing backup insurance and resources available to the PCs. These assets are not unlimited, however. If you die during the course of a scenario and get a chance to resleeve, the GM can and should limit the MP available. It is recommended that each successive resleeving during the course of a mission provides 1 less MP than what was previously available (prior to boosts from Resources, rep, or traits); GMs should adjust this as appropriate to the circumstances.

If your PC has multiple morphs (such as flexbots or extras used for morphs, backups, or drones) and one dies, you only get an amount of MP for replacement equivalent to that one particular morph, less 1.

Resources, rep favors, and negative traits can be used to boost the MP available for resleeving, as noted above.

Modifying Morphs

You can customize a morph you have already acquired. This requires the proper skills, tools, and time. Biomorphs must be modded in a clinic (Medicine: Biotech shop) or a healing vat; synthmorphs require a Hardware: Robotics shop. If you personally lack the skills and gear, you must acquire the professional service (which includes the gear) using rep or Resources trait. The ware itself must be acquired separately, per normal gear acquisition rules. If the ware is restricted, you will need black-market services, which may require more cost or effort to find. This is a good opportunity for roleplaying rep nets and contacts. Illegal shops rely on their reputations just as much as legit services, but there is also a greater chance they will turn out to be untrustworthy or that you may get more than you asked for. On the other hand, they may also be able to find enhancements that are cutting edge or experimental — though they may not function entirely as advertised.

The timeframe for morph modding is the same for acquiring gear: 2 hours for Minor complexity items, 8 hours for Moderate, and 24 for Major.

Modifying a Morph

Morph Type	Skill	Gear Needed
Biomorph (including pods)	Medicine: Biotech	Tools Shop or Healing Vat
Synthmorph	Hardware: Robotics	Tools Shop

Making Morphs

Morphs can be made, but this requires one or more task action skill tests each with a significantly long timeframe, as well as access to the morph’s blueprints/genetics, a proper nanofabricator and/or exowomb, and a medical facility. This timeframe cannot be reduced with time-accelerated VR. Since much of this process is automated fabrication/growth, only about 25% of the timeframe requires your complete attention (GM discretion). If you do not have blueprints/genetics, or you wish to design one from scratch, the timeframes will be considerably longer, with at least 50% of this timeframe requiring full attention (GM determination, but easily 5–10 times longer).

Making a Morph

Morph Type	Skills and Timeframes	Gear Needed
Biomorph	Medicine: Biotech ([MP + 6] months)	Exowomb
Pod	Medicine: Biotech ([MP + 1] months), Program ([MP + 1] weeks)	Specialized Fabber, Tools Shop or Healing Vat
Synthmorph	Hardware: Robotics ([MP + 1] weeks), Program ([MP + 1] weeks)	Medium Fabber

Sava has been hired to investigate a string of disappearances at a hypercorp’s private habitat. The hypercorp has credits to throw at the problem, so the GM assigns Sava 8 Morph Points to spend. Sava doesn't have the Resources trait to increase that amount and opts to save their rep favors for now.

Sava favors fury morphs, so they try for that one first. The Availability is 40. Since the hypercorp owns the habitat and all of the morphs there, the GM gives Sava a +20 bonus. Rolling against a target number of 60, Sava gets an 83: no luck. The corp didn't need combat models on the station.

Sava tries again for a ghost morph: same Availability, same bonus from the GM. They get a 17 this time: the morph is in stock.

Sava wants neurachem with this morph, which is Major complexity ware — an extra cost of 3 MP. Sava only has 2 MP to spare (the original 8 MP minus the morph’s cost of 6 MP), so they opt to take a Negative trait with an MP Bonus of 1. The GM has an idea for this, and gives the ghost morph the Memory Artifact trait.

A week later, Sava is killed in a trap. The hypercorp’s security team recovers their stack and resleeves them, but this time the GM only gives Sava 7 MP to work with. Sava really wants that neurachem again, so they are prepared to spend a rep favor this time to boost their MP. First, however, Sava rolls again to see if a fury morph is available this time. The target number is the same (60), and they roll a 29! It looks like the hypercorp noted Sava’s earlier request and got a fury morph to the station in anticipation of this need. Sava needs 9 MP total, so they take the 7 MP they have and spend a Moderate i-rep favor to get 2 more. Sava tells Firewall they believe there are exsurgents on the station, and the group pulls some strings to get them what they need.