This is cool, man! Very cyberpunk >u<

Setting up your gear is one of the funnest bits in making a Shadowrun character ^_^

Indeed it is. I had a lot of fun setting up the gear of my characters (which reminds me, I need to finish setting up gear for my own Drake character).

I had a bit of an epiphany recently regarding Rook's inability to return to her human form; her heart and lung were badly damaged enough that she needed implants to replace them. Aside from the Essence loss reducing her magic, there's something else; in 4e Shadowrun (the edition I have the most resources for), shapeshifting causes implants to vanish.

Since Rook can't live without those implants, transforming would probably kill her, so she reflexively blocks herself from doing so. At least that's my take on it.

Yep, that's not a bad bit of analysis :D In much the same way that your brain won't let you just stop breathing and die.

And hey, Rook's built on 4e's rules, so that worked out pretty well!