[Mason]

New Metamagic: Spirit Master. You have an extra number of spirit association “picks” equal to your Initiate Grade times the number of times you take this metamagic. Additionally, you may have one extra bound spirit at one time per time you take this metamagic, exactly as though you had one higher Charisma than you actually do. The spirit associations "picks" let you: Take one new spirit of a type you can’t summon and become able to summon it, assigning it to one of the five categories as two association “picks”, or take a spirit of a type you already can summon and give it an additional association with a spell category as one “pick”; or become able to summon Possession spirits if you normally have Materialization or vice versa for three “picks”. Additionally, if the GM allows creation of all-new types of rare spirits not normally allowed to players, these rarer types of spirits may be selected and added to your associations for three "picks". (Spirits of light, Spirits of Shadow, Spirits of Ice, Spirits of Lightning, Spirits of the Void, Spirits of Chaos, Blood Spirits....the list is as long as your imagination.) These spirits may then be added to other associations for two "picks" each time.

Example: Johnny Chiller, a Hermetic mage, decides to specialize in spirits of Ice, a subset of his common water spirit. After a long and harrowing metaplanar quest to the plane of ice, Johnny returns with the knowledge of this metamagic. With his Initiate Grade now at 4, he gains three spirit "picks". Johnny decides to becomes able to summon Ice spirits associated with his Combat magic. These spirits can now aid him when he cast his Frost spell or any other Combat spell. He also decides to add Water spirits to his Manipulation category as well. Johnny's Tradition now looks like this:
Combat: Fire, Ice
Detection: Air
Health: Man
Illusion: Water
Manipulation: Earth, Water
Drain: Willpower Plus Logic.
Number of Bound Spirits at once: Charisma plus 1
If Johnny were to take this metamagic again at his next initiation, hw ould have (Grade x 2=10) "picks", of which 4 are used, so he could allocate 6 more "picks" to his tradtion. Then he might choose to add Ice spirits to his Manipulation list as well, for two "picks", learn to summon beast spirits from a shaman friend for 2 "picks", and learn to harness Fire spirits for purposes of imagination as well as just burning, adding to both Illusion and Detection for 1 "pick" each. Then his tradtion would look like this:
Combat: Fire, Ice, Beast
Detection: Air, Fire
Health: Man
Illusion: Water, Fire
Manipulation: Earth, Water, Ice
Drain: Willpower Plus Logic
Number of Bound Spirits at once: Charisma plus 2

I want to know if anyone out there thinks this is overpowered, inadvisable, or what, before I decide if I will introduce it into my game for testing. Especially the third choice for the picks, adding another method of spirits. Perhaps that should take four or even 5 picks? Maybe learning new spirit types should be more expensive? What do you all think?

[Lethe]

Everything looks well, except for the part where one spirit can have multiple associations. Seems slightly OP to have one kind of Bound Spirit be able to assist all your spells.. like an ally spirit. Also it seems to be in conflict with the tradition of the summoner. If the summoner thinks his fire spirits are for combat spells, changing that or adding other associations would mess up the whole tradition. My point of view.

[Mirikon]

I'll agree with Lethe on this part. Not really all that overpowered from my point of view, but it definitely goes against the fluff of traditions and how spirits play into them. I could see it working if the person also had the quality that allowed them to summon one extra spirit type, but otherwise, no.

[raggedhalo]

I don't think this should let you summon blood spirits, as there's already a metamagic for that.

I also think that (initiate grade x number of times taken) is too much.  Take a look in Unwired at Sprite Link - each time you take that echo, you gain the ability to compile a new type of sprite.  I'd suggest the same for magicians, and get rid of the ability to change your tradition from Materialisation to Possession (or vice versa) and to give one spirit multiple associations.  In fact, I'd rule it so that each category of spells may only have two spirit types linked to it.

[Mason]

I tend to agree, about the possession issue. I think I will remove it.

There is a Quality that allows another spirit type? I missed it! What book is it in, please?

How about this: New Metamagic: Spirit Master. You have an extra number of spirit association “picks” equal to your Initiate Grade plus the number of times you take this metamagic. Additionally, you may have one extra bound spirit at one time per time you take this metamagic, exactly as though you had one higher Charisma than you actually do. The spirit associations "picks" let you: Take one new spirit of a type you can’t summon and become able to summon it, assigning it to one of the five categories as two association “picks”, or take a spirit of a type you already can summon and give it an additional association with a spell category as one “pick”. Additionally, if the GM allows creation of all-new types of rare spirits not normally allowed to players, these rarer types of spirits may be selected and added to your associations for three "picks". (Spirits of light, Spirits of Shadow, Spirits of Ice, Spirits of Lightning, Spirits of the Void, Spirits of Chaos...the list is as long as your imagination and the GM's leniency) These spirits may then be added to other associations for two "picks" each time. A single spirit type can never aid more than three categories at one time. A single category can never be assisted by more than Grade/2 (round up) spirit types at one time

Changes are in bold.

In my game, the flavor of this metamagic matches our more open views of what a tradition is, and what wisdom (Initiate Grade) can do to affect this. It is merely the mechanical effect of this and anything too strong that I seek to eliminate, really. I posted it as a resource for the benefit of other groups that also find traditions too restricting and static.

[CalibanX9]

I think he was just talking about Sprites, for technomancers. Since most things are pretty much parallel between spirit and sprite summoning I think a case could be made for this metamagic.