Is... that even legal in UCAS?
It's never specified, though some of the novels and other fiction suggests that after the awakening, things were a little less... constrained by traditional mores.
Anyway, the text stated she's his ex. Typo or retcon?
Double checking, it does say ex, doesn't it? Remember, it's been like 8 years since I wrote that, but if I had to guess why I did that, it was because while they weren't divorced Becky did stay behind in CHicago with the Mantids when the rest of the family got out. Something like that, maybe?
So, she's both a Good Merge Mantis AND a Rat shaman at the same time? How is that even possible?
She's not a Rat Shaman, she just used to be before she merged. And has both a high magic, high force, and masks her aura very, very well. We wanted to keep the bugs out of the Chicago Missions until the latter half of the season (several missions include some deliberate misdirects since players would expect it), *and* we didn't want trigger happy players to pick a fight with a major player for the overall campaign if/when their GM let something slip or they got a lucky Assensing roll, so we just handwaved it. Assume that at any given point, Becky was willing to burn edge to maintain her Masking.
Makes me wonder how many teams went through this. And how many runners stayed behind.
My old GM (Steven Tinner, GM to the Stars, RIP) tended to heavily modify anything we played. And this adventure ended up being the finale to a 7+ year campaign. IIRC, I don't think an actual sacrifice is necessary in the adventure as written.
Also, I never actually intended to make the specifics part of official canon. I always kept it vague, just noting that Harley caused Bull's death. Another writer had asked me about some specifics though, and ended up putting it into the Harlequin write up in the
Street Legends Supplemental eBook.
So, final question, should we ever replay that adventure: who's canonically present at the end?
If I was writing it now? Probably just the immediate family, Bull, Marie, and Billy. Xuxa is in Amazonia, and Penthisil is... I have no idea where he wandered off to. They were all secondary NPCs in our game, not other PCs, and Penth was one of those who came and went depending on if Tinner rememebred him or we thought to call him. (Outside of Bull & Johnny, there weren't really any other permanent players. We had a number of folks bounce in and out over the years, but it was ultimately always the "Bull & Johnny show").
Fun fact: The free spirit, Daytripper, in the adventure Tinner wrote for Season 5, SRM 05-04 Liberation? He was another regular NPC from our game.
Johnny called up a Hearth Spirit (back when those were still a thing in 2nd ed) and rolled stupid well on his dice (I think he got a 30+ on one die. Again, 2nd ed, different dice rules) in our old apartment in Chicago. The spirit showed up befuddled and looking like Don Knott's character, Mr. Furley, from the TV show Three's Company. After that, he would just randomly show up and hang around, often watching a TV no one else could see and laughing at it like crazy. DUring Bug City and the CZ, we set him free, and he changed his name to Daytripper.
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Now that you've mentioned it... She does has Spirit Bane (Insect) quality. Thing is, you can only take Spirit Bane for a type of spirit you can summon. Of course, she also has a bound Beast spirit. Oh, and despite having magic gear, skills, spells and metamagical techniques, she lacks Magician quality. Man, this is so confusing.
Like I said above, we were obfuscating her deliberately. She's a Mantis Shaman that fakes being a Rat Shaman, and is pretty powerful (I never actually gave her any "real' stats, though one of the authors may have in one of the Season 9 Missions, I'm not certain as I had stepped down from Missions by then).