Seattle 2072, P. 8: Seattle Demographics (sidebar)

The population demographics also do not include changelings, since the SURGE tended to cut across metatypes, but it’s a fair estimate that least 10% of Seattle’s population - or some 300,000 - are changelings of some variety. That number has been steadily rising, too, as changelings from the surrounding areas and elsewhere in the UCAS migrate to the Emerald City, which has had a reputation as a haven for freaks and weirdos, or at least did, up until recently. We’ll see how Brackhaven’s administration changes things (not for the better, I suspect).
-Mad Tom

That would suggest that there are in excess of 300,000 "changelings" in Seattle by 2070, and that the number is likely rising. Now, my question is: by "changeling" does that mean the expanded metavariants from Runner's Companion like Cyclops and Gnomes, or are we talking exclusively of those with some level of the SURGE quality and the attendant Metagenic Qualities?

In either case, that tells me Seattle is getting to be a particularly ... unusual looking place, and oddities aren't going to stick out quite as much as they might have in past years.

"That big troll? Nah, he's nothing! Didn't you see that Minotaur!? And the blue Oni really creeped me out, too!"

The one upside to all this is that the heads of Humannis must absolutely be in appoplexy 24-7-365, and if we're lucky, the small-souled cretins will do themselves in with a series of anuerisms.

Any thoughts?

Since we don't know what the Mana level is doing then we can only assume that Seattle is a "safe" city for SURGElings. You know, "Birds of a Feather" and all that.

IIRC, YotC pretty much stated that after the initial SURGE burst was over, there were very few cases reported. Nothing printed thus far has changed this.

SURGE does still happen, but like Goblinization, it happens very rarely. I would just guess that, as KC Kitsune says, Seattle is considered a "safe" harbor for Changelings, and a lot of CHangelings have moved there to be with their own kind.

Plus Seattle is long regarded as the "Shadowrun Capitol of the World". THere probably are limited job opportunities for Changelings where they can make real ¥¥. So like Mages and Trolls, I expect that a large portion of their population turns to Running, and where else would you go to find work? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Bull

Shiit, I normally say don't shoot until you see the points of there ears but in Seattle i can pretty much just shoot. Protecting humanity 1 bullet at a time.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear enough in my intent:

Does "changeling" include the metavariants, or is it just people with the "surge" quality and the attendant metagenic qualities?

Put another way: is Seattle overrun with rare metatypes, or is being flooded by "freaks"?

If you want a serious answer well fine then. My reading was it included rare metavariants and freaks.

You know, you just reminded me of a button I got for my sister; When she saw the button, she laughed so hard she had to run to the ladies room. She wears it on the strap of her hippie-purse/bag/satchel/body-bag:

"I am not immature you stinky butt poop head!"

i would tend to assume that when it says changelings, it means changelings, and that if it meant rare metatypes, it would probably have said rare metatypes.

while i expect that for the same reason, it probably includes at least a greater incidence of metavariants, i believe that specific paragraph is referring primarily to changelings.

note that there will be more than 10% looking weird... there's gonna be the people who use various means available to alter their appearance to something unusual too, since (after all) there's a lot more weirdos around and more people there will be used to it.

It'd be a good place to put in a something like Clive Barkers 'Cabal' as a proper horror setting, rather than this furry-anime bullshit it seems to have devolved into.

Wow, if it's really getting that bad in the seedier parts of Seattle, I am going to have to petition my GM to put the Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes "Cantina" themes from Chalmun's Cantina in Episode IV onto the iPod mood music machine! Cripes!

Sounds like these people aren't modifying their appearance to be "weird" ... they're modifying it to be more normal. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Ok, to be completely serious for a second Adam, is it really getting that "weird" in the shadows of Seattle? Does the stone-cold professional in mirror-shades really start to stick out that badly?

i would say it's worth noting that just because 10% are changelings doesn't mean that a normal person looks out of place. i mean, if you go to a changeling hangout, you'll look out of place, but that's true whether there are 1 in 1000 or 100 in 1000. consider that maybe only 1 in 10 people might have a certain (naturally occuring) hair color... for the sake of argument, let's say red hair.

does this mean that if you walk down the street and have brown hair that you're going to stand out like some sort of inhuman freak, and everyone is going to be staring at you because you don't have red hair?

No, of course not, but changelings are drifting to Seattle because they can fit in with the other oddities, which means there will tend to be a super-concentration many times higher than what their absolute numbers might suggest in the context of the city as a whole, thus the reference to the "rougher parts".

To be completely serious -- and this is my personal opinion only -- that's really up to you. There is a lot of "weird stuff" in the Sixth World, and a lot of potential play styles [special ops vs. mirrorshades vs. pink mohawk, for example], and whatever your group thinks is the most fun, go for. I don't really think that the metaplot-based supplements really force you to conform to one end of the spectrum or another; you aren't going to "lose" anything from the game if you don't like the weird stuff, or if you think that paracritters are weird enough, but SURGEd changelings are just a little too far. I do think the Sixth World is great because of all the strange and wonderful things in it -- but it's not going to be broken if you yoink some of them out.

But right now ... things are a little bit weird, yes.

If it's that weird (20-30% changelings, 50% metas - including the variants) in the shaddowy parts of Seattle, then that's how it is, Adam. We play as close to canon as we can, but I guess that might have a LOT to do with the increasing tempo of Humanis activity and anti-Freak rehtoric and machinations in the "hints" section, huh? OK, so having a changeling or a ... whatever (I think I'm going to adopt that phrase from now on when referring to anything that doesn't look like one of the base meta's: "a whatever") in the party isn't an automatic re-check by every passer-by. There was a time when a troll was enough to make everybody stop and stare at your group. Now, in many parts of Seattle at least, it sounds like even a whatever isn't going to draw too much additional notice.

Why am I suddenly reminded of a scene from the movie Enchanted where the prince holds Arty at sword-point and threatens then interogates him. After wards he and Pip (the chipmunk) dash off to find Giselle, and Arty turns to the rest of the Verizon maintenance crew and he says "Did you guys see that chipmunk!?" completely ignoring the guy dressed like a fantasy medieval prince and threatening him with a sword.

Welcome to the 6^th World, Omae; It just gets weirder from here.

i suspect they mostly stick to specific neighborhood, and then mostly lower class parts of the city, or even barrens for the most outrageous ones...

What do you mean by "this furry-anime bullshit"?

Why is SURGE so bad?

On a personal preference level I thought surge was epic fail. I liked everything else about year of the comet, but surge was a pike of suck. The adventures were fun and the story of the race to see which mega could make the comet satellite was cool.(Did they actually follow through with the contest?? or did they just make it the mega they wanted it to be any inside scoop?) Surge just felt like a lame emo party tacked onto my shadowrun.

And it's played such a major part in the game since then ... oh wait, it hasn't, has it? Interesting... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Yes, one of the few times my preference seems to match the preference of whoever has been handling the fluff of SR4.

I almost want to start a remember the NAN rallying cry, but sadly that bit of fluff has fallen into disfavor.

Please! Nothing that might restart my NAN Fading thread!

Keep in mind though, that not all changelings have to look like catgirls, Hindu gods, vampires who sparkle in sunlight or something out of a 90's X-Men issue.
There's a lot of cases where SURGE is rather inconspicious.
If a human gets low-light vision, tusks and a slightly decreased Charisma because SURGE triggered some odd ork metagenes, or if his case of SURGE is even limited to things completely unnoticeable or at least not necessarily freakish, no one would notice that you're a changeling when running into you on the street.

Of course, these characters are much less prone to move to another area where freaks are more accepted.
The same goes for SURGElings who have undergone surgery (lame pun not intended) to remove their freak traits.

1 in 10 Seattleites being Changelings is an interesting statistic, because it mirrors the mainstream media's "pop-science" interpretation of the Kinsey Report's data on what percentage of the population is homosexual. When you combine that with the fact that a Changeling with a surge metagene that is not externally visible could keep their status "in the closet" it seems that the intent is that Changeling be the analogy for same-sex orientation in Shadowrun just as metatype is the analogy for skin color.

Agree with Adam here. When my gaming group came back to SR after ten years, we looked at SURGE and decided to discard it entirely from our version of the setting. There are already so many bizarre and fascinating things in the setting that our collective reaction was "why?"