Comparing just the attributes I think that bears out the argument that Ysrthgrathe isn't among the most powerful horrors. Just big league in style. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)


(Hate to use the code environment. Man, this thing is ugly.)

Contradicting the occasional novel is OK, the novels themselves do that already (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

But the theory that only small and weak Horrors can survive the mana levels >2000 years away from the Scourge IMO directly contradicts the entire "Aztlan builds a bridge for the Horrors" storyline. The supposed threat was not a few XP pinatas for daring adventurers, but a full-blown invasion.

It's been years since I read the Dragon Heart Saga, but that's a good point. I'm going to have to nerf this bit of SR history as well. Because if I don't, then it contradicts the entire ED setting. They were only able to come out of their Kaers after most of the Horrors were forced home by the lowered mana levels. If most of them hadn't been forced home, then they would have had to stay cooped up in their Kaers until the end of the Fourth Age.

So if a "full-blown invasion" is actually possible at not even a century past the Awakening in the Sixth World...well, that's just unacceptable from a campaign setting management perspective, and my previously-stated clean and simple solution works much better. That is, unless you want the Scourge to suddenly start now, in which case you've switched to running an alternate apocalypse campaign setting for SR.

EDIT:

You could still have some of the weaker ones come through, or, as far as the Azzie efforts go, they might have succeeded in created a limited zone where the bigger, nastier Horrors could come through, but then couldn't leave that artificially-high mana zone. Imagine if they completed their Bridge, unopposed, and Big V himself successfully comes through into some Azzie pyramid. He can't actually leave the premises - that would be like stepping out of a space station without a pressure suit for him - but he's here, and can direct his lesser minions, those who can survive in the outside world's much lower mana level, to go forth and spread evil and chaos. Still a bad scenario, but every last Horror hasn't been turned loose on the world just yet, and it might be possible to force them back home, though at a terrible cost, most likely.

I never really looked at it this way, but it seems to me, that Earthdawn and Shadowrun simply work with two different mechanisms for how the horrors enter the physical world:

ED: I think the whole idea of a distance between the worlds will not be found in Earthdawn. Though I would have to look much deeper into it to be certain. Rather Earthdawn presents the idea, that the horrors are dependent on the mana level. So at first we see a few weaker horrors and only during the high point of the cycle can the bulk enter the world and the Scourge begins.

SR: In Shadowrun for Harlequin's Back they come up with the idea that the mana level is correlated with the distance between the horror's plane and ours, but seem to drop the whole notion that they need a high mana level to sustain themselves. I get that a beachhead could already be bad, but the threat was always portrayed as full on invasion leading to an early Scourge.

Now I assume that the mana need of a horror is correlated with its power. The Earthdawn mechanism then actually seems more flawed to me. An aside first: It implies that there are many more powerful horrors than weaker ones as most of them only arrive when the manalevel is at the peak. For Shadowrun this would mean, that at the low mana level of the Sixth World all that is coming are indeed XP piñatas and only a few of them. The real problem though is Verjigorm. He has stats in the Horrors book because he can appear in Earthdawn. Now if the most powerful horror can manifest, then every other horror should be able to do so too. So if all horrors can exist at the Earthdawn mana level, where are they? Why has the Scourge ended and most of them have withdrawn?

Of course the Shadowrun mechanism has to explain, why the horrors never tried the bridge trick before. Granted without the Great Ghost Dance they might not have had the ability to make it happen this early in a cycle. But in Earthdawn maybe 200 years before the Scourge with the worlds much closer that wasn't an option? When the first horrors or their agents would have been aware of the efforts to build the kaers they didn't think to use the same technique to enter the world before the namegivers could seal themselves away?

maybe the horrors *did* use a bridge.

except that instead of using it to get there earlier, they used it to stay there later.

remember, people left the kaers early because instead of the magic level continuing to drop, it stayed at a certain point. so, maybe the horrors didn't have agents around (perhaps the dragons were more thorough about eliminating horror agents back in the 4th world) until after the peak, but they had those agents work on a metaplanar bridge after the mana levels were dropping so that they could stick around.

(of course, it is entirely possible that the mana level staying at a certain point has been explained satisfactorily already and doesn't need a metaplanar bridge to justify its continued existence).

on a side note... those "XP piñatas" aren't all that weak. iirc, the invae and the shedim are examples of the weaker things that start showing up. sure, they aren't going to take down an entire kaer on their own, but they aren't exactly total chumps either.

Last I checked it was the Therans who stabilized the mana level. The Heavenherds, Thera's top magicians, created the Monuments of Messias, 3 huge orichalcum pillars that placed a "lock" on the world's mana level. The idea was stop the falling mana level, and thus preserve the empire's dominance in the world (via their magical might) for all time, but to also lock it at a level below that which the Horrors needed to stay in the world - a "sweet spot" where the mana level wasn't too high or too low.

The problem was, their calculations were a bit off, and they locked it a bit too high. Some Horrors could still stick around - and thus you get the Earthdawn setting.

soooo... basically, bridge to the metaplanes (increasing mana levels as a result), created by dupes/pawns/minions/slaves of the horrors can still easily work then.

because i mean, seriously, for something like that, you kinda want to *check* before you lock it in.

in fact, it really should have been blindingly obvious that they had it wrong, because everyone else in the world is using a magical device crafted based on information that the therans originally found to detect when the magic level is low enough for the horrors to GTFO, and everyone's magic level meter told them the magic level wasn't low enough. everyone knew the magic level that was safe, and they knew because the therans sold that knowledge to them, which means the therans bloody well knew.

and being that epically stupid about something that important and then doing nothing to fix it implies to me at least that it's more than just regular stupidity (don't get me wrong, people can be pretty dumb sometimes, but you need to be a really special kind of dumb to push the button on that years early and then not fix it). when you're *that* blinded by greed into doing something so monumentally stupid, it really sounds believable imo that there was a horror involved.

Honestly, by the time the Horrors get back, humanity will be clear to bug out and nuke the place from orbit.

And on that day, you put down Shadowrun: Xth Edition and pick up Eclipse Phase, and life is good.

Not just agents, actual horrors started to appear hundreds of years before the Scourge began.

(Though I like the idea that the elves slayed the on-duty horror agent hunting great dragon during the Fifth World. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) )

At least that's one possibility given in the Theran Empire sourcebook for the purpose of the monuments (ingame by the way). But I think it's obvious that Theran involvement with stabilising the mana level has been at least considered to be The Truth™ by the developers.

Though I don't think there is a source for them miscalculating. You might be conflating that with the dating of the Scourge being off as described next.

There is a different explanation though: The Therans are suspected to have given the wrong dates ("erred conservatively") for the end of the Scourge to their subjects, so that they would be able to take control of the world before anyone else. And Thera indeed reemerged more than a hundred years before the mana level stabilised. So while it probably wasn't a cakewalk they wouldn't have reopened if the most dangerous phase of the Scourge had not been over.

The further speculation on this (not sure about evidence for it) is that you cannot actually lock the mana level in. Mana goes out, that's a natural law. Can't be changed. So what the Therans do instead is to continously fill up the increasing mana deficit. And they siphon the necessary mana from the realm the horrors originate from. And that's why horrors still cross over.

But even if you go with the idea that they are able to lock the magic cycle. It could be that the magic to sustain the lock requires a certain mana level. Once you go below that point in the cycle you can no longer do it. So either they had to do it at a point where the horrors hadn't completely gone (JanessaVR's sweet spot). Or maybe the lock was indeed placed too early because the Therans were antsy about missing their only chance to accomplish this for the next 10,000 years. Or maybe them being arrogant bastards they thought well we need some access to horrors to study them or hunt them for sport or something.

Also one more thing regarding the ED versus SR theories about horrors accessing the world: The Earthdawn one is an ingame theory so it might simply be wrong. (Especially given the contradiction I pointed out.) Whereas in Shadowrun the horrors were actually about to arrive a few times and at least Ysrthgrathe was able to stick around.

Nah, by that time the horrors will run the world's corporations themselves. And nobody will notice a difference. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Why that? Creating a bridge is not something that might happen by accident if somebody reads aloud from a book he found in a cabin in the woods (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

No creating a bridge has a specific process attached to it that the azzies managed to successfully complete.´
Years ago by shadowrun timeline.

Heh. I am an Evil Dead fan, but if this is possible, then you need to just go ahead and completely ditch the canon campaign setting and replace it with an "Armageddon in the Sixth World" campaign instead. Do you really want to do that? This isn't a scenario that can exist alongside the standard canon world - by its very nature, it would replace it completely, as the Horrors poured forth and ate everyone. You don't get to do a lot of runs after you - and everyone who could hire you to do them - has already been eaten by a horde of demons from the netherworlds.

@Jaid:

Well, the difference between the “bridge” at the site of the Great Ghost Dance and the Theran orichalcum pillars was that the GGD site was a localized effect while the Theran pillars generated a global effect. The mana spike at the GGD site was called a “bridge” was because it only raised the mana level at that particular location, so the Horrors could only cross over a narrow path across the “chasm” separating Earth from their deep metaplane at the current very early point in the mana cycle. But once they exited the terminus at the GGD site on Earth, then they could go wherever they pleased. The Therans kept the mana level raised across the entire planet, so any Horrors capable of surviving at the mana levels at that time could cross over anywhere they wished on the planet. Again, that any Horrors could leave the boundaries of any “spike points” early in the cycle and venture beyond them into the much lower mana regions (the rest of the world) and still survive is the point I disagree with.

Also, it was the dwarves of Throal who came up with the “magic meter” idea of the ball of True Earth suspended over a bowl of True Water, which they recorded in The Book of Tomorrow and distributed to their allies. The Theran idea was to basically give everyone a calendar and a “Do Not Open Until X-Mas” sticker for the doors to their kaer. As lokii has suggested, they very likely gave some rather conservative estimates on that calendar, so that they could come out first, reassert their dominance in the world, and be the ones going around knocking on the doors of all the kaers to tell everyone that all was ok now, and they could come out in safety – to resume their lives as Theran subjects.


@lokii:

Yes, this subject has required a lot of detective work on my part over a few years of searching (on and off). I still don’t own all of the Earthdawn books (though I’m waiting to see if DriveThruRPG is going to have a 4th of July sale this year to complete my collection), so I’ve had to put in a considerable amount of effort searching the web for analyses and then comparing those to canon sources. As much as I’d like to have a copy of “Everything Going on Behind the Scenes in Earthdawn: All Secrets Revealed!,” it doesn’t seem to have been published, and so I’ve had to piece things together from many, many sources and cross-check as much as I can. As you say, the Therans being responsible seems to have the most official developer support, so I consider that “Confirmed.”


LOL. Indeed, hyzmarca argued that very point 10 years ago here.


@Jaid and lokii:

Regarding the level the Therans stabilized the mana at, I think a basic look at their actions shows their purpose to be very self-evident. The fact that they locked it at very nearly the projected end of the Scourge speaks volumes for their intentions. If they were truly willing Horror collaborators, why not lock it at the very top of the mana cycle? That would have resulted in a true “Scourge Unending.” To quote Bill Cipher, “This party never stops! Time is dead and meaning has no meaning! Existence is upside-down and I reign supreme! Welcome, one and all, TO WEIRDMAGEDDON!!!”

But they didn’t, they waited to do so until the Scourge was very nearly over. The only reasonable conclusion for this is that they wanted to preserve as much magic as possible in the world, but they were waiting to do so until the Horrors had gone home first (they kinda spoil the party). But they set the lock just a bit prematurely, and now we have some real speculation.

To quote Hanlon’s Razor, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” I have an image in my head of a Heavenherd magician standing before a huge chalkboard of arcane calculations, and muttering “Darn it – forgot to carry the 2…” Chances are, “they done goofed.” They were locked inside The Great Dome of True Air and Fire surrounding the island of Thera, probably dependent on their own magical instruments to take readings on the world’s mana level and took an educated guess on when the Horrors had gone home. Maybe someone got impatient – being locked inside for a few centuries can give you one heck of a case of cabin fever. They locked it in, and…whoops!...jumped the gun just a bit there.

Now the counter-argument is as Jaid suggested – this was deliberate sabotage. I mean, really, these are Thera’s top magicians, very possibly the best magicians in the world, and are we really going to make the argument that they could make such an obvious mistake? Perhaps the Horrors did infiltrate the Heavenherds, but didn’t have enough pull to do something really obvious like have them lock the mana level at the very height of the cycle. But perhaps they could oh-so-subtly influence them to do it just a bit early, and so keep at least some of their kind still in the game for centuries to come.

yeah, wasn't suggesting the horrors would have fully controlled the theran magicians, more just enough control to influence them, maybe even just make them overlook that 2 even though they all checked it over half a dozen times (because like i said, this is the sort of thing where you *really* want to make sure the horrors are gone before you lock in the power).

and if the magic meter was widely distributed, it seems really unlikely that the therans didn't have one themselves.

So where are these orichalcum pillars anyway? I assume they still exist somewhere in the 6th world so does the ED books give a location? On Thera? (time to go diving I guess)

I believe they exploded at the end of the Fourth Age. Thera is called "Atlantis" by clueless idiots in the Sixth Age, and the loss of magic at the end of the Fourth Age was the end of the Theran empire. It was rather like the literal fall of Netheril in the Forgotten Realms, as the Therans were also fond of levitating buildings.

Sorry, but that's like saying "we can't have WMDs in the setting, otherwise you'd need to completely ditch the setting and play Twilight 2000". Just because an early Scourge, the Invae taking over the world (Invae-sion? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) ), or the corps declaring total war on each other are possible, none of these have to happen.

One was in Aztlan. We have proof of that.
So no, they did not just explode. There are probably some more scattered around the world somewhere.

As I said above I think its entirely possible that the Therans wanted to keep some horrors in the world. Anyway to get rid of any chance of reentry you'd probably have to wait a few hundred years more. (If at all doable in a manapositive phase given the idea of a bridge.) But really there are many possibilities. Scenarios like the speculation that the Therans are drawing mana from the horror's origin imply that the stabilised mana level comes with the horrors. Also they could have done the magical rituals for the lock at the height of the mana cycle where presumedly it had the highest chance of success, but there is some delay until the lock falls into place.

Of course it's also possible and as a narrative more interesting if the Therans didn't have full control of the process and the horrors (or even other parties) had a hand in how things shook out.

The three pillars of orichalcum, the Monuments of Messias, were placed on the shore of the (pre-eruption) island of Santorini or Thera in the Aegean Sea. I don't think it is clear what happened to them. What does happen to orichalcum, when magic goes away?

You mean the locus. I don't think that's the same thing.

Coming this Summer, a cult classic gets a 2070 reboot.

Invaesion of the Body Snatchers

@lokii
big obsidian pillar type of thing that can be used to create a bridge for the horrors?
sounds locusi to me o.O

The locus is a black stone with orichalcum veins not made of pure orichalcum as the pillars. And I was under the impression it is flat.

You're confusing some very different items. The locus found in Aztlan wasn't one of the 3 Theran orichalcum pillars. Thera corresponds to Santorini, and is on the other side of the world.

I heard it was quite the hit in Chicago. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)