So I've ghosted these forums for a while, and I've seen a lot of cool questions. A LOT of questions I have are usually answered, but then I delve into some really niche stuff and I realize that it's maybe too niche. It's not useful enough to have ever had anyone ask. So I ended up with a bunch of odds-and-ends questions I was hoping people might be able to help out with.
As a bit of a heads-up, some of these probably vary from GM to GM, and I understand that, but I like to design characters just for the sake of it, and I like to make them in a way that I know GMs will find reasonable.
So, first on the Homunculus. Every time I get a question about these guys, I always find that I can't find a satisfactory answer. For instance--Does a Homunculus count as a living creature? Does it have the aura necessary for contact with contact preparations? Can it hear other runners? If the Mage had a Homunculus follow a 'Runner around, and, say, stop when the 'Runner said stop, would it? (I understand you can't get too complicated with it, but I'd like to see if the very basics are possible.) If a Spirit possesses a Homunculus, does the spirit gain the advantage of its minor flexibility? Do Homunculi have vision at all, and if so, to what degree? Are they, too, only seeing through the astral realm?
If I were to take a flechette round and then, with the armorer skill (along with industrial engineering and a whole bunch of other related skills, along with knowledge skills on munitions, proper tools, the whole nine yards) remove the original slivers and instead place, say, tungsten slivers in instead, hardened by a spirit power or a spell, and we were hypothetically considering the damage of each sliver, when would that sliver take its' first box of damage? What if the slivers were each coated in that stuff that's meant to protect things from damage?
Finally, how much would ceramics cost? Not armor types, but just a ceramic plate that you might eat off of. How much would a custom-made one cost? How much would tungsten cost if you were to get, say, a crate-load of it? About how much might it cost to get someone to make a wooden arm with full articulation made?