[Pants Of Doom]

Essentially, if a kid gets modified in the womb, does the loss in Essence mean that they have either 0 or significantly less chance of becoming and adept or mage later?
I suppose this also counts if a child were to take any sort of essence loss before they were at an age where they could become magical.

[Black]

In my opinion and as far as I can tell RAW, the answer would be no.

Have Genetic mods does not prevent the baby growing up and awakening at some stage.  That said, the essence loss would represent a reduction in their raw potential, but that's it.

Genetic modifiers, currently, have no impact on Magic other than the essence lost (which is generally fairly minor...)

[_Pax_]

Latent Awakening .... a foetus would have this, not be an actual Adept or Magician.

Remember that most of the time, people Awaken around puberty, or some time thereafter.

[Kontact]

Rules-wise, essence lost prior to awakening doesn't effect your magic stat because there is no magic stat to drop.

Setting-fluff-wise, it's the same thing.
They would have less "magical potential" than the organic farm-raised sapient, but it wouldn't prevent them from awakening.


From a standpoint of character creation there are people who will argue that it means genetic heritage shouldn't drop starting magic, only starting essence, but that's just a slippery slope of "i got this installed before i awakened," which needs to be avoided.

I make it a GM call since it would be an unstated exception.

[Reaver]

Natural magic rating can not exceed essence, so as long as the essence rating remained 'high' there is a potential for magic, but they would never be as 'gifted' as an unaltered individual.

Meaning, essence of 4 means max magic of 4 (before initiation)