Do you really not understand I meant the guide to be a part of the book, or is this just your usual trolling? Either way, it's certainly not my nitpick which looks absurd here.


I vaguely remember Eisman mentioning something after SoE's release that they consider the Heintz novels only vaguely canon and toned them down (there were no nuked Russian cities either, for instance), and that what the runners in Gottes Engel saw was actually a huge toxic spirit. There's something to that effect in SOX, too.

It could, of course, be Toxic Lethe.

Stop that.

First, like it or not, Immortal elves that have survived for over five thousand years do exist in the Shadowrun canon. Second, they are officially responsible for very little of recorded history, since they mostly stayed in the shadows. Sure there are rumors that they were many important figures in history, but I do not recall those rumors ever being presented as fact. One good example is the immortal named Leonardo who clearly is a fan of Da Vinci. While rumors have claimed they were one and the same, Ehran has clearly discussed talking to the actual mortal human Da Vinchi.

I also never said the immortal elves should have unobtainable physical power. What I said was that the level of tactical ability and caution required to survive for over five thousand years (when physically you are no harder to kill than the toughest mortals) IS almost unfathomable. If any runner who has only been around around for a mortals lifetime is able to get the drop on an NPC that has survived thousands of years of such plotting, then the NPC was poorly played by the GM.

As for stating out such immortals; if they only earn 1 Karma a year, they have over 5000 to play with. More likely they keep a very low profile almost all the time, but just one adventure grade outing every few years would give them at least 10,000+ karma to be built with. So if one follows all the rules for PCs, then they long ago maxed out every single survival related skill. Even after becoming double digit Initiates they would have thousands of Karma left for knowledge skills to back up their physical and magical abilities.

When the Fourth World ended, there were probably hundreds of elves who who were immortal by birth, but by the beginning of the Sixth World we are down to around a dozen (maybe a score) that have survived the world and each other. To presume that a recently created character is going to be a real threat to them is hubris.

Damian Knight is actually a perfect example of the point I made. No matter how tough he is stat-wise it took a move into running a mega corp to become a real power player. While running a megacorp might be a fun game to play to play for some, it is not Shadowrun as defined by Shadowrun's rules and focus.

Summary: You don't have to like immortals, you don't have to even have them exist in your game. But they are canon, and simply by surviving so long they have demonstrated planning and tactics beyond any mortal character played by the rules.

P.S. In over 20 years of playing and GMing Shadowrun, immortal NPCs have never significantly interacted with PCs with the single exception of playing the Harlequin adventure back in the day. The one exception I can think of in recent material is Frosty, and as a new immortal, she is more potential than power today. It is not immunity to age that makes old immortals powerful, it is the experience of living all that time.

So's the one I'm working on, FWIW.

Ain't magic grand? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

That would be the in-universe reason, the reality was more like "they overdid the ancient immortals conspiracy, thereby necessitating a classic 'it was only a dream/delusion' retcon" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

And it definitely was a change for the better.

Alachia was Queen of England once, and Eva Braun i think . .

The problem with old age is that it becomes irrelevant.

Imagining that there is a creature who has been watching from the shadows for the past 5000 years. A quick look at any history timeline will show that the first 2500 were really pretty pointless. It took about 2000 years to go from wheeled vehicles to iron smelting ( http://www.sciencetimeline.net/prehistory.htm ). Most of science is recent and the rate at which it's discovered appears to be increasing (See Robert Anton Wilson's "The Acceleration of Knowledge").

Imagine that such a creature pokes his head out of the shadows when Shadowrun was first written (1989). He sees this bright new communication technology ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptbJZ9HBw2k ). He takes a look at the top of the line information devices ( http://www.be.wvu.edu/divecon/econ/sobel/E...989computer.jpg ).

By 2011 he's living in a world that's changing faster than it's ever changed before. 4800 years did not prepare him for the passage between that cellphone and computer ad to an iPhone/Android world. The mortal person who was born in 1989 understands the internet, understands texting, understands iPhones. And they understand it because they never had to understand a different way. This is the mortal's world, not the immortal's. He's still in the age of Alexandria, not the age of Twitter.

This poor creature has spent 4980 years without an internet. He spent the first 1600 years watching the alphabet get slowly created and hieroglyphics getting phased out. That sort of experience doesn't prepare someone for the last 100 years, the last 50, the last 20.

4980 years of his life is not only largely irrelevant, it's become a handicap. Years of tea ceremonies does not prepare anyone for Red Bull. Even if he somehow tried to keep up and mastered recent new technology, such as the Palm Pilot, that leaves him with a plethora of completely useless knowledge.

Assuming 1 karma a year, 1000 points of that Karma are spent on pottery and plowing and taking care of the Oxen. Maybe in the 1600's he specialized in flintlocks. We didn't even have an automatic rifle till 1903. The vast majority of that 1 karma a year is completely and totally obsolete. How many points of Etiquette for societies that don't even exist anymore?

It's a brave new world.

This would maybe be relevant if the SR worlds history was same as ours, but it really isn't.

suoq... the link for that computer... MY GOD! $9000 for a computer! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)



Except the concepts that suoq brought up are still valid. Actually, it's even worse. The level of tech acceleration is higher in the SR world than RL.

So... does this book mean they will finally confirm Damien Knight's true identity as former Echo Mirage team leader Major David Gavilan?

<edit> I mean, while they are busy jumping the shark and all...

Except that the IE's and GD's came from the Orichalcum Age, where Magic ruled, and took the place of what we use for Cybertech in the 2070's. Maybe Culture took a nose dive after the 4th Age ended, but so what. They have thousands of years to work on stuff they already knew. The last 400-500 years (1600's and on) were just a re-affirmation of what they mostly knew already.

Anyone capable of living for those 7,000-10,000 years is quite capable of adapting. They have had to do it enough.

Not that I am hoping for more ED stuff in my Shadowrun... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Tech has changed much. Humans have changed very little (and an Immortal Elf from the Fourth Age is better prepared for the change the Awakening brought than the whole humanity combined).

Nope. Throughout those 5000 years an Immortal Elf had a chance to see the rise and fall of Hellenistic civilization; the rise and fall of the Romans; the Mongol and Osman conquests; the Renaissance; the Age of Discovery etcetera etcetera. The world has changed vastly over a single mortal lifetime for uncounted times, Immortals should be well prepared for riding that wave.

Do you think politic intrigue is that different today from what the Ancient History had to offer? As correctly pointed out up there, the whole setup is rather like the Dark Heresy Ascension subsystem - what matters not who you are or how strong you are individually, but your ability to get what you want from others, your skill at working the system.

Or maybe he spent those on Physical skills. Or the Influence skill group. Or, you know, Magical skills, something the humanity hasn't been aware about until very very recently.
Actually, even if not, his skills at wielding an assault rifle, piloting a plane or bypassing electronics will still be superior, because he was there when the first test devices appeared, has seen the technology develop, and has more experience with it than any living person.

Childtalk :ь

Ehran talking about the very human Da Vinci, was long before Leonardo the IE ever showed up in the game's writing.

I have noticed that IE haters tend to take every in-game rumor about them as in-game fact when making lists of reasons not to like them. One of my favourite things about the game is that since almost all information about the world is from in-game sources, you can make of it what you want.

Yes, we the players know they were behind the founding of two countries. But—aside from street rumor—they are a tiny part of every game I have played. That does not stop some people (in and out of game) from seeing them behind everything that happens.

And since IEs are more like 10.000 years old, they're about 4000 years head in magic. Half of which they cannot use yet, but each IE easily knows more about magic than the entire rest of modern SR civilisation put together. The kind of magic that, like the Great Ghost Dance, doesn't even have stats.

Yeah, they sunk 5000 of their 10000 Karma into skills like skyship sailing, theran politics and creatures of the blood wood. the other 5000 went into initiation and spells, metamagic that is unknown to any but them and the more advanced dragons, and they sure accumulated a HELL of a lot of items and money. Besides, it's not like they're not collecting Karma anymore. And are unable to learn (though some clearly are unwilling).

And what, exactly, is necessary in reparation for Red Bull anyway. Really Bad Taste (Soft Drinks) 6 (+2)?

I'm not out to get all nit-picky and quibble over every line of text that's being written, Hermit, but in the very quote you posted this in reply to, I did say:

So, yes. We're well aware that epic, legendary, high-power characters like this may not be immediately useful to every single GM in every single game out there, and we're doing what we can to help folks integrate them into their own campaigns.

"We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals." John Hawks -University of Wisconsin anthropologist
Your statement is vague enough to be interpreted in many ways, but I cannot think of a way that humanity has changed very little in 5000 years.
Ripples do not prepare a person for a tidal wave.
Yes. I do.
The system changed. The politics of even 200 years ago are not the politics of today. Anyone with 5000 years of humanity is going to stare at the tanks doing absolutely nothing in Egypt and realize that they don't understand what's happening because 5000 years of humanity doesn't prepare someone for a military that lets people spray graffiti on their tanks.

So what has he been doing for the past 20 years? All of them? Is he keeping up with all of the magic, all of the technology, all of everything that's changing every single day, from nanites to technomancers to bug spirits?

It's a new world with dangers that simply didn't exist until now. Whatever he's spent the past 5000 years preparing for, I doubt it was today.

Their best bet for survival? Get out. Get far away from everything. Don't even be in the same time zone as something that might invite a Thor Shot. But don't get in the middle of a world that's changing faster than ever before or something you don't understand is going to take you out.

Politics is no different from the Roman Era to our own Era. It is all about power and maneuvering for such.



Yet you contend that a human born in the era is uniquely equipped for such things. I call BS on that. An IE/GD is just as capable of learning as a human is. More so, since his attributes are likely higher than the Human's is. You are talking about creatureS that likely have maximum stats. They can adapt, create and outperform any other species in existence, inherently.



I cannot disagree more. They (IE's and GD's) have seen the rise and fall of civilizations on such a scale that we cannot even comprehend it, and you think that modern humanity is better equipped to handle that? Nope, not buying it... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

If someone born in the last 60 years can keep up with than world than so can someone with a 5000+ year head start.

Speculating that an immortal must stagnate over time, and can no longer learn new skills is interesting, and even the focus of some good non-Shadowrun fiction. But I have never seen anything in Shadowrun that implies some acquired inability to learn important skills that comes with age.

Sure the fluff has them lament on the changes in the world, but none of it suggests that they fail to keep up on skills that would keep them alive.

Same goals, same motivations, same ways to reach said goals.

So, Alexander's or Genghis-Khan's conquests were ripples? They were insignificant? They conquered pretty much the whole world known to them - in but a single lifetime.
The Fall of Rome was insignificant? When the entirety of the world as most then-Europeans knew it fell apart? The World Wars, maybe, too?
Would you please name the changes in 2000-2070 that'd be more significant, and at the same time not something the Immortal Elves could foretell 5000 years prior?

And never before was a ruler removed by the revolting plebes which the army refused to fight.
Never before has non-cooperation ousted a government!

An Immortal Elf knows more about magic (and Invae) than the entirety of metahumanity put together.
Besides, an immortal has around what, 150 years to learn electronics, driving cars, flying planes and firing modern firearms? Sure he may lag on nanites and technomancers, or any of the latest developments, but he's had plenty of time to get used to what the XX century had to offer.

Surviving for 5k years strongly implies that immortals are not in any way stupid. If a human with 20 years of experience is capable of understanding what's going on around him, an Immortal Elf is capable of doing that better, because he, unlike said human, witnessed the reasons for current events (and, most likely, has much more first-hand info than most humans).

An army (especially a conscript one) refusing to put down the opposition. Booooring, that's one of the reasons conscript armies were introduced in the first place


The same way as anyone else I guess...only that for them magic and various magical threats are no reason to enter headless chicken mode.

If Immortal Elves are on the power-scale (or near) of Great Dragons who spent the last 5 thousand years sleeping and were able to quie quickly catch the details of post-modern world, I don't see how the Immortal Elves, whom interacted with mankind the whole time, can not.

I fail to see how simple longevity leads to brilliance or tactical mastery when longevity is their primary stick, immunity to age and disease protects one better then immunity to violence would.

@shinobi: The contant case about dragons is they have the physical might to stand up to armies on top of and augmented by their magical abilities. Putting IE's on that same tier is pure wankery. It's people who got hung up on Highlander (and you cannot tell me with a straight face that it didn't influence the immortal elf plotline)..3


I'll say it again, and this is my opinion only, Immortal Elves weaken Shadowrun their weak storytelling and they get WOD all over my sixth world. I want this to be a game about magic and future tech, immortal elves and to a large extent dragons skew that ratio all out of whack.

Nope. The mooks die all the time. Everyone dies all the time. Just being old doesn't make you bulletproof.

If you're old BECAUSE you're bulletproof, that's a completely different thing.

I'm not saying that mortals are better than immortals. They aren't. But you don't have to be better than someone to kill them. It didn't matter how much karma George S Patton had, he still bought it in a car crash.

And in Shadowrun, even dragons die.

The sentence above does not compile. Now, I would agree with you that if somehow some elves, and to an extent even dwarves, orks and trolls were capable to create something similar to what dragons did to sleep during the down cycle, I would accept it more easily.

But really, having some kind of guys in the shadows during the entire civilization does not me rub the wrong way.