What I had mapped out was that in an early encounter with firearms he had a limb largely blown off. Even with magic so low he probably could have healed it eventually, but the surgeons of the day did the one thing they could do, and amputated. So he’d gone a few centuries short-handed, so to speak. When ‘ware finally came around he jumped at the opportunity to get a replacement limb, and to add titanium lining to his bones so that such damage could not easily happen again. (I could potentially go to a partial limb replacement or aluminum bone lining, and get the cost down to 1 essence lost).

Yes, in certain periods of the past he’d be wearing a hook (or peg leg? probably a hook though). I figure I could deal with that.

Just to check with others, how big are your dice pools in your main areas? I’m guessing truly core areas at 20+ dice and major supports at 15+? ( I’ve not started doing math yet to figure out how hard hitting those numbers is, but I’m guessing for magic something like multiple initiations, buy magic to 8, buy key skills to 8 or 9, have a power focus rating 4 or something, throw spells at 20+ dice before considering spirit support). But maybe people are focusing harder than that, or maybe not even as much?