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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Oh the HORRORS of it all!

Posted by: Ravor Mar 10 2007, 07:53 AM

Ok, as requested I've made a new topic, but something to consider about the Fourth Age bibliophile20 is that some of those 'stone-age meta-humans' could basically cut off a mountain peak and turn it into a nearly invincible flying battleship.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 10 2007, 08:15 AM

Much appreciated Ravor. To save some time, I'll quote in the questions already asked

QUOTE (Dionysus)

Can I ask for enlightenment on the horrors? What are they?

QUOTE (bibliophile20)

I have to wonder...

How would the Horrors (whose stats I am unaware of, but whose reputation I am getting to be quite familiar with) deal with a Thor shot, an orbital laser, or even an assault cannon? Because, admit it, any critter that might be really intimidating to a stone age metahuman wouldn't be too intimidating after a lethal case of lead poisoning. And they can't be that powerful--the dragons all got through the last Age without too much trouble, as did all of metahumanity, so either:
A) They aren't as badass as they've been made out to be
OR!
B) They are that badass, but their abilities/numbers are limited.

Because, honestly, the way I've been hearing about these things, they sound like a merging of the Predator aliens, the hunger of the Xenomorphs, and the general undefeatability and numbers of the Borg, all rolled into one big Nasty.

(on that note, would someone terribly mind giving those of us who don't have hard data on the Horrors some bones (i.e. some stuff from the sourcebooks) so we have something to chew on? I've looked in all the local stores and nobody has any copies, and the few I've found on eBay have the shipping so high that I'd rather save the money for other things)

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 10 2007, 09:41 AM

Horrors is a lay name given to an entire ecosystem of beings that only have one thing in common, the originate in the deepest of the deep metaplanes, which only touch our world near the peak of the mana cycle.

The term "Horror" is thought to be a corruption of the term Horri, which is used by Dragons to describe these creatures. According to Dragon legend, the Earth was once ruled by Verjigorm, The Great Hunter, who spawned the Horri so that he could enjoy watching them fight, kill, and feed upon one another. Supposedly, one of these Horri grew tired of its existence, discovered what we would call "beauty", and transformed itself into something resembling a dragon before creating the Namegiver races (Dragons and Metahumans) with dragons being created in its own image, making them both closer to the creator and closer to the Horrors.
The validity of this creation story is questionable. Although the dragons are the oldest beings on the planet and would be the most likely to know these things, the story is both self-serving (reinforcing their own sense of racial superiority) and it contradicts the fossil record. Like any Young-Earth Creation story, it must be met with skepticism.

Either way, what is known is that the Horrors do exist, they are out there, and they aren't waiting patiently for their turn to feed on us. They've already attempted to build bridges between their metaplane and ours more than once and they were only stopped by the efforts of the most powerful Great Dragons and Immortal Elves, with the assistance of some PCs on one occasion and Nadja Daviar's brown nipples on another.

When the Mana Level reaches the point where creatures can cross between our plane and the Horrors' metaplanes en mass, the Scourge begins. Trillions of them cross over into our world so that they may feed upon us. Without special protections, no place is safe because metaplanar shortcuts allow Horrors to bypass physical and mystical barriers. Only a special ritual ward called the Rites of Passage and Protection can block them. During the last scourge it was used to create sealed cities called kaers, where people lived without any contact with the outside for centuries, waiting for the mana level to drop.

No two Horrors are alike, although the UnNamed can be grouped into general categories based on their habits and abilities. Named Horrors, on the other hand, and totally unique and are nearly always work alone. Cooperation between Named Horrors is extremely rare.

Hard data is out these, sort of. Stats don't convert very well between the systems. The most powerful of Named Horrors is more powerful than any single GD or any single God for that matter. However, even Verjigorm's stats leave him vulnerable to an attack by a team of Great Dragons. Ristul, on the other hand, is invulnerable to attack due to its nature as corrupting action rather than an actual being.
The weaker Horrors could give the average shadowrunner a challenge.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=6052&st=0&hl=bloatform

That link will take you to some ED->SR3 stat conversions for some lesser Horrors and Horror constructs.

One thing to remember is that the Horrors aren't all ravenous monsters. Among them are Bonecrown the Usurper, which feeds on loyalty. He gains the fealty of metahumans by disguising himself as a metahuman and winning political offices.
Nemesis is pretty much a powerful businessman with his hands in many economic activities of questionable ethics, such as metahuman slavery.
On the other end of the spectrum are Dread Iotas, who are basically little microscopic magicians who hide in your water and then threaten to powerbolt you from the inside if you don't help them infect other people. Nasty creatures, they are.
My favorite Horror is Chantrel's Horror, a creature which feeds on loneliness and grants its victims complete physical immortality so that they cannot end their suffering no matter how hard they try.

Horrors do tend to have certain powers in common, including the ability to "mark" victims. Marked victims are vulnerable to a horror's powers across long distances even if the Horror does not have line-of-sight and they suffer rather large penalties to resist those powers.

Also, some Horrors can survive the destruction of their physical bodies without suffering any real damage. Nebis intentionally gets his physical body destroyed by do-gooders and then enjoys manipulating them into doing evil from the Astral plane and then uses parts of them to create his new physical body.

To answer the orbital weapons question, it depends on the Horror. Many can survive the destruction of a physical body and many don't even have a physical body to destroy. Those have to be fought on the Astral Plane.
Others would infiltrate the government by hook or crook and gain control of the weapon.
Some such as Ubyr, a godzilla-scale leach that sucks the lifeforce from populations of whole cities, would be extremely vulnerable to such an attack. The microscopic Dread Iotas would be extremely difficult to target.
The greatest weakness and the greatest strength of the Horrors are their diversity. They are more likely to compete for victims than they are to band together, but there is no single tactic that can get them all.

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 10 2007, 05:20 PM

*blinks* I see.

Okay... I'm not too proud to take back what I said--from what I had been hearing, they were just as I had said in the Dragon Technomancer post--but this info puts a whole new spin on things...

Hmmm... Okay, so these things are powerful, magical and distinctly malicious. So they have to be fought with magic, which begs two questions:
A) How well did the dragons--especially the Greats--fight these things? Their skill makes a good benchmark between the two Ages.
B) How has metahuman magic itself improved, compared to the 4th Age? Afterall there's alot more direct research--actual research--being made (and there's also alot more of us, with a correspondingly higher number of magicians who can fight)

Posted by: cristomeyers Mar 10 2007, 06:19 PM

As to B: I believe Harlequin said that metahumanity still has around 2000-3000 more years before they could even hope to stand up to the Horrors.

As to A: I'm not sure. It would vary depending on the Horror and the Dragon.

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 10 2007, 07:11 PM

QUOTE (bibliophile20 @ Mar 10 2007, 12:20 PM)

A) How well did the dragons--especially the Greats--fight these things? Their skill makes a good benchmark between the two Ages.

They didn't. They hid. The magics they use to ward their lairs against Horrors were the basis for the Rites of Passage and Protection.
Those that didn't hide usually lost miserably or died bravely.

One particular dragon who encountered a Horror early in the 4th World mana cycle wrote the original books of Harrow at the Horror's request. He did so by cutting off his own skin and using it as parchment, using his own blood as ink, and probably using his own sinew to bind the damned things.

Vestrivan, a particularly powerful GD and the brother of the Loremaster of the time, decided that the best way to fight the Horrors is to learn as much about them as possible. The only problem with his theory is that simply learning about the Horrors invites their attention. He was corrupted and transformed into something that was not quite a dragon and not quite a horror. Half the time, when he maintained self-control, he was a pretty nice fellow dedicated to the destruction of the Horrors. The other half, when the Horror took over, he was not someone you'd want to meet in a brightly lit park, let alone a dark ally.

Those more knowledgeable than me could make corrections, but I do believe that it was implied that he died fighting a Horror Cloud (a giant living storm with a ghost airship crewed by corrupt undead at the center).

The only real concerted made by Dragons to fight th Horrors were done through proxies, such as spirits and elementals. One particular miserable failure involved a group of powerful dragons (probably GDs) using ritual conjuring to summon an absurdly powerful Metal Elemental from the Elemental Plane of Metal.
This absurdly powerful metal elemental valiantly fought against the Horrors until it was marked, corrupted, and become the Horror known as Artificer.

Fighting Horrors with magic is not the best idea, even though it may be necessary at times. Every time a magician casts a spell, without exception, there is a risk that he will be marked by an unseen Horror. There are ways to minimize this risk. Only extremely subtle astral horrors such as Taint can corrupt the flow of mana through a Spell Matrix or a Grimore, so casting spells using a matrix or a Grimore to filter the mana is generally safe. It also doesn't cause drain, which is a plus. However, these take time and preparation and are not always available.
Spellcasting in Shadowrun is what they call Raw Casting in Earthdawn. The magician channels mana directly through himself and suffers drain for it. He also opens himself up to the Horrors. In Earthdawn, whenever a magician used Raw Magic he had to make a dice roll to determine if he was Marked by a random horror or not. The more powerful the spell, the more difficult the roll.

A character who is Marked by a horror is not necessarily doomed, the horror may be defeated or the mark may be dispelled by some very powerful magics, but a marked individual is always a danger to himself and those around him.

To answer B

The biggest advantage that Shadowrun magic has over ED magic is versatility. In Shadowrun, any character with the Sorcery skill can cast any spell. In Earthdawn, there were 4 different spellcasting disciplines each with their own completely unique spell lists. Cross-discipline casting was possible, but it required the magician to learn a unique talent from the other discipline and had certain limitations.

Also, there was no Conjuring skill in Earthdawn. Instead spirits were summoned using spells or Talents (ED's version of Adept Powers and Metamagics). Spirits were also far more unique and diverse.

And lastly, certain ED spells required that "threads" be "woven" to them prior to casting. This could result in a magician spending several actions weaving threads, while all SR spells can be cast in a single complex action.

The tradeoff, aside from vulnerability to Horror Marks and drain, is that SR magic is far less powerful than ED magic was. Aside from fleets of levitating stone airships, there were many things that ED magic could do that SR magic and technology cannot match. In Earthdawn, it was difficult but possible to resurrect the dead; instantaneous transmission of matter from one point in space to another was not uncommon; a person could shift his physical body to the astral plane; and the most powerful magicians could shrink down entire cities, along with their citizens, and put them in bottles on their bookshelves.

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 10 2007, 07:25 PM

Ah well,
as the mana level goes up, I am sure that SR mages will become more powerful

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 10 2007, 07:25 PM

Yes, he was written to have at least appeared to have died in the horor cloud. But you know what they say about finding a body.

Vestrivan allowed the horror to mark him so that he could learn more about them . The horror was called the Despoiler of Lands . Interesting because there's a reference to "The Despoiler" in Shadows of Asia, something that was sighted and spoke into a fishermans mind that was part dragon, part something else.

edit:

QUOTE (Shadows of Asia pg137)

>I was the only survivor of a smuggling shipthat wandered into a mana sotrm's path. We were off shore from the Crimea when it engulfed us. I saw many terrors that drove my shipmates insane., but the worst of it was the thing that came at me before I backed out. I don't know if it was a dragon, a monster, or a demon from the depths of Hell, but it spoke incomprehensible words to me that are seared - seared!- into my memory.>
-Boatswift

>Surely it's not the Despoiler he sees?<
-Miss Tick

>If it is, then let Sunset Blossom take care of him. Her mess, her responsibility.<
-Feng Xiansheng

No one knows just who Feng or Spring Blossom is. But Miss Tick is Sheila Blatavska, the head of the Atlantean Foundation, whom some also think may be Alachia, one of the immortal elves.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Mar 10 2007, 07:50 PM

QUOTE (bibliophile20)

A) How well did the dragons--especially the Greats--fight these things? Their skill makes a good benchmark between the two Ages.

Well, there's one Horror named Verjigorm, Hunter of Dragons...

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 10 2007, 08:07 PM

a dragon could take many horrors in a straight out fight, but there' sa huge range of the horrors, their strength, abilities, and their cunning. The least being something like a dread iota. They get into the drinking water and then gain control of their host. The greatest, Verjigorm, actually captures and corrupts dragons. In betweens can take control of minds. One nasty trick is marking people and dragons that use magic without an astral filter, much like the filtering metamagic, but a bit more advanced.

One of the greats in the ED books said that many dragons fell to this sort of corruption because they practiced standard ragon magic, jsut like the 6th world dragons do, instead of learning disciplines and spell matirc (the more advenced fitlering) to protect them selves.

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 10 2007, 08:11 PM

Ah.

Okaaaay...

So, I'm assuming that these guys only show up at the peak of the cycle? Like, say, the one or two hundred year span that represents the crest of the mana cycle? (i.e. it'll be 3070--at least--before these bad boys show up)

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 10 2007, 08:16 PM

that's supposed to be correct. AT the height of the mana cycle, they should be able to come in for about 500 years.

Problem was the Great Ghost dance. Basically because so blood magic was used, it created an astral spike, which basically let them built a bridge. Think of it this way.. if the mana cycle is our world, and their plane is another, think of the two realities as cliffs. Ther's a big canyon in the middle. As the cycle gets higher, then cliggs come together. The Ghost Dance made a spike, a long stone bridge. So they build one on their side to meet it. That's the metaphor it uses in the books (Dragon Heart Triloogy and Harlequin's Back adventure).
spoiler from novels

[ Spoiler ]

Posted by: Cheops Mar 10 2007, 08:38 PM

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

The biggest advantage that Shadowrun magic has over ED magic is versatility. In Shadowrun, any character with the Sorcery skill can cast any spell. In Earthdawn, there were 4 different spellcasting disciplines each with their own completely unique spell lists. Cross-discipline casting was possible, but it required the magician to learn a unique talent from the other discipline and had certain limitations.

Also, there was no Conjuring skill in Earthdawn. Instead spirits were summoned using spells or Talents (ED's version of Adept Powers and Metamagics). Spirits were also far more unique and diverse.

Earthdawn spellcasters were basically Physical Mages with an aspect to their casting. Figure that each Circle roughly translates as an Initiate Grade and that gives you a fair idea of how powerful they were.

Some ED mages could summon spirits (all but Illusionist, and Wizard I think, plus Weaponsmiths could summon) but they didn't get the ability until higher circles (usually around 5th). May have changed in RB's ED Classic but I haven't read through that yet.

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 10 2007, 08:42 PM

They only show up en mass at the peak of the mana cycle. It takes a great deal of effort to cross over earlier but it can be done. By canon, there were at least two Named Horrors in the Sixth World around 2057 (Confirmed by Thais in Worlds Without End). One of them we know to be Ysrthgranthe, an absurdly powerful and malevolent magician who is nevertheless of no danger to anyone except the Immortal Elf Aina, who was once the Horror's lover and is the eternal object of his obsession.
Aina either banished or destroyed Ysrthgranthe in an aerial blood-magic battle over crater lake but she accidentally activated a Locus there in the process. Mana from this Locus may have allowed other horrors to come through.

The second Horror, the one mentioned by Thais, has never been revealed. The Enemy/Bridge metaplot was pretty much brought to a close with the Dragonheart Trillogy and the mystical powers of ~~Nadja Daviar's dark brown nipples~~ cyberzombie Dunklezhan's giant orihalcom heart. However, that particular Horror is still out there, and others may be out there, too. We can also be confident that some of the dragons who were corrupted during the 2nd and 4th Worlds are still around, particularly Verjigorm's pet GDs.

There is also the aforementioned Thais, who is an example of what happens when a Horror and a metahuman of the opposite sex fail to practice a reliable form of contraception.
Back in ED, male spirits, including horrors, could impregnate metahuman females. I'm not sure if it works the other way around, but it does give some validity to the dikoted ally spirit jokes. Thais is Aina and Ysrthgranthe's kid. Depending on your point of view, he is either a metahuman with a slew of Horror Powers or a Horror with the low mana requirements of a metahuman. He's always been around and is the one who originally taught the Great Ghost Dance.

There are rumors of such things strewn around various SR3 and SR4 sourcebooks, but nothing concrete. Fanpro doesn't want to bring the Horrors back but they don't want to do away with them completely, either.

Posted by: knasser Mar 10 2007, 09:23 PM

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

Thais is Aina and Ysrthgranthe's kid. Depending on your point of view, he is either a metahuman with a slew of Horror Powers or a Horror with the low mana requirements of a metahuman. He's always been around and is the one who originally taught the Great Ghost Dance.

Can you point me in the right direction for more information on this, please? I'm interested in the early stuff, Ghost Dance etc. and especially any behind the scenes stuff like this.

-K.

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 10 2007, 09:29 PM

Worlds Without End. If you want to be sick and tired of IEs, it isn't a bad book to read. There is very little actual information about the GGD, though, and nothing direct. It is all told from Aina's POV and has some flashbacks to the American Western Expansion, when Thais first allied himself with a tribe of Native Americans, attempting to tech them real magic to fight the white settlers. She is aware of the son's actions but not directly involved in them.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 11 2007, 01:10 AM

There's also the book Scars which is also w/ Aina, but taking place in the Earthdawn era. Very neat book. Worlds without End is acutally the thrid part of the trilogy that Scars starts, but originally it was the only book published. The middle book, Little Treasures, I'm still trying to get my hands on. Anyone else read that one?

Other books with horrors in them off the top of my head:
the Dragon Heart Trilogy
the adventure Bottled Demon (sorta)
Harleuin'd Back (adventure)
Thais shows up in Shadows of Asia

Then of cuorse there's the entire Earthdawn line, which ties in to SR a lot.

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 11 2007, 01:34 AM

Oh... shit.

Hmmm...

Still, the Greats aren't stupid--far from it--so I have to assume that they're making preperations. Lofwyr in particular strikes me as potentially being a great asset--while I don't doubt that he maneuvered his way to the top of SK strictly for for the money and for the additions to his hoard, in a way, SK is his hoard now, and I doubt that he'll appreciate any attempts by Horrors to damage what he's built.

That being said... I can see why these guys are bad news.

Posted by: Ancient History Mar 11 2007, 01:38 AM

I'm just gonna laugh and you're going to have to trust me that I deserve it.

Posted by: Ravor Mar 11 2007, 06:23 AM

True, I imagine that both the GDs and the IEs are making plans for the upcoming scourge, but I'm not so sure that those plans aren't focused on trying to build the better kaer.

Still, a website that you might find interesting is:

http://earthdawn.lrgames.com/howitcametopass.html

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 11 2007, 06:31 AM

Actually, neither are really doing much. They mostly mocked Dunkelzhan for worrying about something that shouldn't happen for a couple thousand years.

[ Spoiler ]

As for the GDs, they arent' exactly known for working well with each other, or necessarily respecting Dunk's views that they can't just hide in their lairs and take a nap for a few hundred years like they did last time.

Why would the Scourge be a bad thing for Lowfyr? Think of all the reconstruction contracts and space platform contracts Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries would get.

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 11 2007, 07:57 AM

Mana doesn't do well in spacel
SR4 has the tech to build space stations

Horrors going to arrive at x date
Build lots and lots of space stations, move them far enough from earth that no mana based creature can survive to get to them. Mana based creatures that travel on them, can do ok, as there will be a small amount of mana genereated by the inhabitants, plants, etc...

Sound like a plan?

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 11 2007, 08:12 AM

Ya' know that bequest in Dunk's will for people working on deep space travel....

Ya' know how Damien Knight, a pal of Dunk's has a bunch of space stations via Ares....

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 11 2007, 08:56 AM

Which is why sace being a mana void is one of the seemingly unimportant changes that I have great issues with. It simply makes space less scary. Whatever happened to that magician who ripped out his eyeballs because he saw things that no human is meant to see when he projected to the edge of the manasphere?

In any event, space stations still won't be effective unless you can prevent incursions from the metaplanes.

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 11 2007, 09:01 AM

Well, since you can't really astrally project in a mana warp, specially if you are far from a nice solid mana producing planet, I am not sure that you have to worry about metaplane attacks.

I can see the stations wanting to be small, to have as small as possible mana output, but with lots of travel between them.

Posted by: NightmareX Mar 11 2007, 12:41 PM

QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)

Thais shows up in Shadows of Asia

Also in Loose Alliances (pg 84).

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

It's entirely possible that horrors can survive/thrive in a mana void. Look at the fovae (sp?) that were being produced in Aztlan for reference.

Posted by: Ravor Mar 11 2007, 03:05 PM

Also something to remember is that unless you are going to limit yourself to the smallest of space stations your station will start producing its own weak Mana Sphere and although spirits/magical critters don't like it they can live in the resulting Mana Ebb. (And I don't think there are any rules forbiddening crossing from the Metaplanes into a Mana Ebb so the Scourge would still be able to get to you.)

Also something else to consider is that even in the Mana Void of space, a powerful enough Mage can still cast spells, it just isn't a good idea, so it stands to reason that a powerful enough Physical Horror would be fine as well, albeit weakened.

So I'm not so sure that space is the magic bullet that people think it is given that I'm not sure you can have the stations be sustainable without pushing their Mana-sphere into an Ebb instead of an outright Void, plus I feel sorry for whoever has to make the decision on what weapons to issue within the station itself to combat whatever Horrors are able to get to you, given what a bitch explosive decompression from a stray round can be.

Posted by: knasser Mar 11 2007, 03:28 PM

QUOTE (Ravor)

I'm not sure about this. Doesn't it make a bit of a nonsense that the horrors can't cross into our world because the mana levels are too low. But now they can manage in the complete mana void that is space?

I think Hyzmarca had it aright. The change from mana warp to mana void has given humanity some (please forgive me) high ground from which to fight the horrors. And that changes them quite a bit.

It's not that the horrors are no longer horrible, mind you. You could do something like the Final Fantasy movie where the Earth is plagued by spirit-monsters whilst mankind 's remnants float around in space making the occasional desperate run on Earth for supplies. Three thousand years is a good long while, but we're talking about moving the whole species off the planet for 500 years or so. I'd expect the coming of the horrors to still be pretty catastrophic therefore, even with warning.

But probably due to reading too much Lovecraft, I too miss the "enclosing nightmare of space" angle.

Posted by: Ravor Mar 11 2007, 04:19 PM

I'm not so sure, the way that I understand it is that they can function perfectly fine at the current Shadowrun Mana Levels, its just that they have a really hard time crossing into our Plane in the first place.

Also I'm considering the fact that metahuman Mages can even manage to cast spells while in a Void once they've learned enough secrets of the multi-verse. In fact Great Dragons only have to Initate ONCE before they can travel into the deepest regions of Space and still use Magic. Since the Horrors are supposed to at least be on par with Great Dragons, and that the GDs appearently get more powerful as the mana level raises I have to disagree that Space is safe.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the Horrors aren't weaker in a Mana Void then in Earth's rich Mana Sphere, but since I believe that any sustainable colony would be considered an Ebb anyways its a moot point as the Horrors wouldn't even have to contend with an actual Void to get to you in the first place.

Posted by: Cheops Mar 11 2007, 04:53 PM

There's also the fact that there was no space travel in ED so we don't know what was up there. There could very well be Horrors that are perfectly at home in space. (There were ones who lived in magma without any effect)

However, since Dunk was so big on space exploration/development I'd say that it was probably intended that space be "safer."

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 11 2007, 04:56 PM

QUOTE (Ravor)

Partly correct. As an example, some of the even mroe powerful ones can come through with something like a spike and be sustained by current levels, like Ysgrathe did. Once they make it through, they need less mana. But really powerful ones still need a large amount. Artificer for example wasn't seen after the actual Scourge because the mana level was too low. But it's traps were still everywhere, and it fed on thse.

Posted by: Demonseed Elite Mar 11 2007, 05:04 PM

QUOTE (Ravor)

It's an exaggeration to say that a space station, by its own nature, will go from being rated as a Mana Void to a Mana Ebb. In fact, in most cases, it won't. Space is on the deep mana void end of the scale; it takes considerable effort to get it even to a minor void or ebb status. The Eden laboratory on the Ares Daedalus station is one very rare example of this effort, and it has not yet been said where exactly Eden sits on the scale.

But perhaps the real worry to using space as a barrier to the Horrors is not the Horrors themselves, but the followers and institutions that Named Horrors are very capable of subverting and corrupting. Many fourth world kaers fell not because a Horror itself got inside, but because it worked away at the kaer's destruction through agents.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Mar 11 2007, 05:25 PM

QUOTE (Cheops)

Well, there obviously was some space travel in Earthdawn. Why else would there be troll skeletons on Mars?

-Frank

Posted by: Ancient History Mar 11 2007, 05:30 PM

Would you knock it off with the bloody troll skeleton already?

Posted by: FrankTrollman Mar 11 2007, 05:44 PM

QUOTE (Ancient History)

Would you knock it off with the bloody troll skeleton already?

It's a horned biped which is 2.85 meters tall +/- 5 cm. Got any other bright ideas?

-Frank

Posted by: pbangarth Mar 11 2007, 05:49 PM

I don't know the ED world at all, but it seems to me that SR-current technology differs from that environment in more ways than just space travel. Say, for example, what about nanotech innoculation against those 'Iota' thingies?

Even the most mundane drudge can be a very dangerous thing with the right tools.

Posted by: Ancient History Mar 11 2007, 05:58 PM

QUOTE (FrankTrollman)

QUOTE (Ancient History @ Mar 11 2007, 12:30 PM)

Would you knock it off with the bloody troll skeleton already?

It's a horned biped which is 2.85 meters tall +/- 5 cm. Got any other bright ideas?

-Frank

There are no indication that it is either horned or a biped.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 11 2007, 06:10 PM

You do realize that it doesn't even matter?
The likelihood that the lifeform it belonged to developed on mars the same way as on earth and is the only remnant of an ecosystem is... nil.

Pretty much the only possibility is a transfer.
And as natural events resulting in such transfers result in the annihilation of a few sqare miles, the likelihood of it being there coincidently is also pretty much... nil.

Posted by: Garrowolf Mar 11 2007, 06:51 PM

Maybe when the manasphere is at it's height it goes so far out that it crosses the mars orbit at it's closest. Then a great dragon had to deal with a really annoying ork....

Posted by: Konsaki Mar 11 2007, 06:59 PM

[Chomp]
Problem ork dealt with...

Posted by: guy-jin Mar 11 2007, 07:20 PM

I'm imagining a setting a few thousand years in Shadowrun's future; the horrors came back, but much of humanity fled to mars, terraforming it to something hospitable. the horrors kept coming, but they were more managable, having been weakened by the long trip through space.

Now, the horrors have stopped coming, and mankind is sending their first expeditions back to their former homeland...

Posted by: Cheops Mar 11 2007, 08:41 PM

QUOTE (guy-jin)

The only problem with that is that there is evidence in ED that Earth isn't the only plane that gets invaded by the Horrors. Mars is, in all likelihood also invaded by Horrors during the Scourge. (Or at least was when it was still a living planet).

As for nanites being used to innoculate against the Dread Iotas, I don't think that'd be the case. Remember, there could be Horrors in control of the supply of said nanites and could feast off the frustration that their hoarding could produce. Not to mention it wouldn't be in a corporation's best interest to give them away either. The end result would be that only the wealthiest members of society could afford the nanites and have access to "clean" water.

"Space Travel" in FASA's ED wasn't too detailed. They went so far as to mention that Parlainthian magicians made stone vessels that could be used by Name givers to travel through Astral Space without projecting or using a portal. RB's ED Classic further expands on this by speculating that some of the residents of Parlainth used these vessels as "escape pods" to jettison themselves from the dead city out into astral space. Charcoalgrin (a GD) is currently seeking these out to find her lost "love," a Parlainthian magician.

These vessels could, perhaps have been used to travel to other planets (such as Mars). I'd imagine that they "sail/row" (they were modelled on Airships/Sailing ships using the law of similarity) at astral speeds. Deep Space would probably be akin to the Doldrums experienced between the Tropics and the Equator in RL. Would take a long time to get there but could possibly make it.

Posted by: Mistwalker Mar 11 2007, 08:44 PM

I would see it more as asteroid bases, space stations, rather than a terraformed Mars. A terraformed Mars would have it's own mana sphere, and possibly vulnerable to the planes.

Hundred of asteroid bases, space stations (hmm, sounds a lot like Kaers, but with communication and travel - possibly) where metahumankind survived while the Scourge raged. A lot of them destroyed by horrors and horror marked people, but more than enough left to revisit Earth once the mana levels drop.

Posted by: Austere Emancipator Mar 11 2007, 09:17 PM

QUOTE (Cheops)

These vessels could, perhaps have been used to travel to other planets (such as Mars).

Travelling at "astral speeds", e.g. 50,000km/h (these must be seriously powerful magicians, after all), from Earth to Mars would take at least 46.7 days, averaging 64.6 days when Mars is in opposition. In SR3, that'd have made a 5-digit Willpower and Astral Pool a necessity just to survive the 28,800 daily 14D "attacks".

Dunno if mana warps were more pleasant under the ED rules they'd have traveled with.

Posted by: FrankTrollman Mar 12 2007, 05:06 AM

QUOTE (Ancient History)

QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Mar 11 2007, 05:44 PM)

QUOTE (Ancient History @ Mar 11 2007, 12:30 PM)

Would you knock it off with the bloody troll skeleton already?

It's a horned biped which is 2.85 meters tall +/- 5 cm. Got any other bright ideas?

-Frank

There are no indication that it is either horned or a biped.

The picture shows a horned skull. The description of the bones describes a femur one meter in length. Since the femur of a quadruped looks markedly and obviously different from that of a biped and the standard usage of the terminology is the human bone equivalent, we can do our basic femur to height equations and we get a human who stands aproximately 285 cm tall.

QUOTE

You do realize that it doesn't even matter?
The likelihood that the lifeform it belonged to developed on mars the same way as on earth and is the only remnant of an ecosystem is... nil.

Yes and no. The fact that it is a Troll skeleton and not the skeleton of any other human subspecies puts it in unambiguously magical territory. The skeletons of dwarves or elves might legitimately be argued to be messed up normal humans. But a Troll is outside the possible size and body shape possibilities for a normal human. That means that it is definitely a holdover from a previous age of magic, and not a cave man or a midget who was shuttled across by aliens.

Remember: in Shadowrun the existence of Earthdawn is a secret. Many people think it happened or may have happened, but hard evidence is hard to come by. The Mars expedition and its results were buried deep. So any character who has seen the troll bones from Mars is privy to secret information that conclusively shows that there was a previous age of magic and that the people in that time period were capable of space travel.

-Frank

Posted by: Ancient History Mar 12 2007, 12:06 PM

QUOTE

QUOTE (Ancient History @ Mar 11 2007, 12:58 PM)

QUOTE (FrankTrollman @ Mar 11 2007, 05:44 PM)

QUOTE (Ancient History @ Mar 11 2007, 12:30 PM)

Would you knock it off with the bloody troll skeleton already?

It's a horned biped which is 2.85 meters tall +/- 5 cm. Got any other bright ideas?

-Frank

There are no indication that it is either horned or a biped.

http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/photo4.jpg The long bone is described as looking like a femur and is in fact 1.5 meters long. I thereby conclude there is not enough evidence to assume the critter is a troll.

Posted by: PBTHHHHT Mar 12 2007, 02:14 PM

After a few shots of tequila you might see the horned skull.

Is there a larger, clearer picture out there? I'm having a hard time looking at it on my browser. *adjusts glasses and squints at the pixels*

Posted by: Dentris Mar 12 2007, 08:18 PM

One of my theory is about space not being a mana void, but an aspected mana domain (or worst, since i can't remember the +7 to +12 name). This aspect being unknown to all, seems like a mana void, but is in fact aspected towards the power of horrors...Mwahahahahah.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 12 2007, 09:23 PM

QUOTE (Dentris)

i can't remember the +7 to +12 name

Mana Warp pg 119 Street Magic

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 12 2007, 09:35 PM

QUOTE (Dentris)

Space was a manawarp in previous editions. However, Street Magic explicitly changes that, stating that it is a manavoid. This supports the "all mana is dependent on life" theory rather than the only "usable mana is dependant on normal non-alien life" paradigm.

Posted by: Ravor Mar 12 2007, 11:25 PM

QUOTE (Demonseed Elite)

I agree with your point that it takes considerable effort to raise space's Mana Void into an Ebb. Where we appearently disagree is what it would take to make a space station sustainable for human life throughout the Scourge.

Although in a post Scourge setting, I can see the racial tensions between the 'pure' humans that have lived and evolved for generations aboard a ring of stations and the rest of meta-humanity, coupled with a second Goblinazation as the spacers return to Earth and experiance mana for the first time as being a neat plot-hook.

Hmm, I might just have to change my mind about Space Station Kaers, the idea has its possiblities provided people don't start expecting me to believe that they can even begin to tip the odds in meta-humanity's favor against the Horrors.

QUOTE (Rotbart van Dainig)

The likelihood that the lifeform it belonged to developed on mars the same way as on earth and is the only remnant of an ecosystem is... nil.

Of course, we don't actually know whether the skeleton was the "only remnant" ever found, just that it was the "only remnant" ever found by that probe.

Think about this way, how many fossils would an alien probe be likely to find if they landed a probe on the surface of a long dead Earth in what we now call Death Valley?

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Mar 13 2007, 12:02 AM

If earth would have has about as much atmosphere and tectonic activity as mars... quite some. It's a reservation.

Posted by: Ravor Mar 13 2007, 12:14 AM

Hmm, valid point, although I was assuming that in the past as a live planet Mars also had an atmo, plate movements, ect...

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 13 2007, 01:20 AM

QUOTE (Ravor)

Hmm, valid point, although I was assuming that in the past as a live planet Mars also had an atmo, plate movements, ect...

it had an atmosphere, but not plate techtonics--that's why Mt. Olympus is as big as it is (because the crust didn't move over the hot spot), and why the Valles Marinaris exists--as the crust shrunk over the still warm interior, the crust literally cracked.

Posted by: NightmareX Mar 16 2007, 08:33 AM

QUOTE (guy-jin)

Oh, you mean Battletech?

Posted by: Ravor Mar 16 2007, 02:42 PM

For someone who's only real explosure to Battletech was the Mechwarrior computer game, are there any actual tie-ins to Shadowrun/Earthdawn in the rpg?

Posted by: Unarmed Mar 16 2007, 04:42 PM

QUOTE (Ravor @ Mar 16 2007, 09:42 AM)

For someone who's only real explosure to Battletech was the Mechwarrior computer game, are there any actual tie-ins to Shadowrun/Earthdawn in the rpg?

Aside from easter eggs, I'm pretty sure there are absolutely no tie-ins to SR/ED in Battletech.

Posted by: Crakkerjakk Mar 16 2007, 05:36 PM

@ Bibliophile

We think Mars had Plate tectonics once. Once the core cooled and solidified, they stopped tho. The reason Olympus Mons is possible is that the core is solid. A molten core would have allowed the mountain to collapse into the mantle(area under the crust). At least, thats what I thought.

Posted by: bibliophile20 Mar 16 2007, 06:18 PM

QUOTE (Crakkerjakk)

Nope; the reason that Olympus Mons can exist on the crust like that is because the crust is thicker than it is on Earth (and let's not forget the lower gravity) because Mars didn't retain heat as well as the Earth did, due to it's smaller size. However, that being said, I think you are vastly underestimating how *much* heat a planet has inside it--and a thick crust like Mars' is like an insulating blanket.

And by the "core is solid" I'm assuming that you mean that the mantle is solid--planetary cores take billions of years to cool, and Mars' core is still liquid--although it is colder than Earth's by a significant margin (less radioactive isotopes keeping it warm and all that)

Besides, there's a very simple logical fallacy in your argument--if the only reason that the volcano could be supported was because the interior was solid--and therefore cooled--where did the magma to build the volcano come from? If the interior is solid, then you have no magma to build a volcano, ergo, no volcano.

Posted by: Grinder Mar 16 2007, 10:17 PM

QUOTE (hyzmarca)

One particular dragon who encountered a Horror early in the 4th World mana cycle wrote the original books of Harrow at the Horror's request. He did so by cutting off his own skin and using it as parchment, using his own blood as ink, and probably using his own sinew to bind the damned things.

It was a dragon, are you sure? Can you give a page reference for that?

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 16 2007, 10:19 PM

Yeah, I'm interested too. As far as I knew there was no record of where the Books had come from or who made them. There is every possibility that I'm just missing a book though. My ED collection definetly needs some beefing up.

Posted by: Grinder Mar 16 2007, 10:23 PM

Heh, I'm pretty sure the I didn't miss a book
But I do remember that an elf wrote the whole Books of Harrow... or did he just re-discover them?

Posted by: hyzmarca Mar 16 2007, 10:23 PM

Excuse me, it was the Book of Scales not the Books of Harrow. The two are similar but distinct tomes of Horror Lore.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 16 2007, 10:33 PM

QUOTE (Grinder)

Heh, I'm pretty sure the I didn't miss a book

But I do remember that an elf wrote the whole Books of Harrow... or did he just re-discover them?

Rub it in.

Elianer Messias (an elf from Wyrm Wood, Grandfather of Thera, etc) discovered them . To my knowledge, their origins has never been discussed/released.

Posted by: Grinder Mar 16 2007, 10:37 PM

Well, that lets room for many interesting speculations.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Mar 16 2007, 11:04 PM

Speculation is just that and no more.

(been wanting to use that thing for ever )