The Bug Crisis...?, what is it? Options

[Tyrae]

Still havn't baught the book, but I will when I get the money gathered.

Anyway, i've been reading it at my local gaming store, today I got all the way to Combat.

So far there hasn't been any talk about the whole 'Bug' thing. In the background chapter it mentionsChicago getting attacked by bugs or something and people moving in to take them out. but it doesn't really get into detail on what happend or what the 'bugs' are. Anyone help me out here?

Thanks...

Tyrae ~ Fallen Child of Magdalen

[Frag-o Delux]

They are spirits that take over people and are considered evil, but tht was years ago. We have a new evil to play with called Shedim.

[Reth]

The bugs are detailed in " Magic in the shadows ", but yeah the shedim are the new big baddies.

[Ancient History]

Could you tell me what book you're referring to?

Oh, yeah: Chicago got infested with insect spirits so they nuked the downtown (literally. Payload was less than a kiloton, but it was in the middle of a hive investing about 1,000 new insect spirits), then they quarantined it, as that didn't quite manage to kill all the bugs.

[Doc Sportscar]

Shedim? Apparently I missed this memo. I still have my runners chasing bugs.

Could someone be so kind as to give me a brief rundown and what titles I should look for to find out what's going on?

[DV8]

Burning Bright by Tom Dowd [Novel]
Details what happens in Chicago, a good read, from what I've heard.

Bug City [Sourcebook - OOP]
It's a "Target" sourcebook that describes the local of Chicagoland during the spirit infestation, and it's quarantine. Good fiction and plothooks.

Target: UCAS [Sourcebook - Available]
Parts of this book tell of how the spirit infestation was fought down, and the quarantine was lifted. It was glossed over too much, in my opinion, and it deserved a lot more airtime.

Universal Brotherhood [Adventures - OOP]
Talks about the rise and fall of the organisation that allowed the bug spirits to flourish.

Magic in the Shadows [Rulebook - Available]
This has the stats for bug spirits.

There are some more supplements and adventures that have snippets of information about bug spirits, but I think I've got the brunt of it here. I hope it helps.

[kevyn668]

ditto Doc Sportscar:

whats the deal w/ the shedim? from what you guys have been posting, they apparently come in "lesser", "greater", and "master" types. They possess dead bodies or something? Are they horrors or Horror-like? Is it in the sourcebook YotC with that SURGE thingy??

Etiquette question: did I just Hijack this thread or is this considered "acceptable thread drift/evolution?

(if I did "hijack" it, sorry.)

[Ancient History]

Shedim are spirits that were released when Ghostwalker broke through Dunkelzahn's Rift (obviously, ye need to read YotC). THey do indeed possess the dead...the fresher the better.

Also, it now appears they come in two varieties: regular Shedim and "Master" Shedim, who are more powerful (seee Threats 2)

Perfect for a good old-fashioned zombie-bash, or some more well-put-together plot.

No connections to the Horrors as of yet.

[kevyn668]

thank you :)

[Darkest Angel]

Hey! Bugs are still around, in Threats 2, in the Betrayal chapter, it seems Ares are now using them in critters as guard animals. Our resident evil GM unleashed them on us - very unnerving - my Dwarf Sammie now has quite a fear of guard dogs :D

[Snow_Fox]

Bugs are still around, but they are not the threat they once were. Basically FASA ran it into the ground, for a while Bugs were the big baddies and seemed to be in every official SB until we started to carry cans of raid out of habit.

[Abstruse]

I guess once you drop a nuclear bomb in the middle of a major metropolitan area to fight an enemy, it's about time to move on to something else. That something else was the Horrors I believe. However, we haven't had a big evil baddy recently in Shadowron. The Shedim are bad of course, but they aren't common enough for everyone to worry about. I think we need a new major threat to worry about...

The Abstruse One

[Fortune]

[FlakJacket]

[Sepherim]

Bug's have gone underground, which only makes them more dangerous. An enemy you can't see is an enemy you can't hit. As for Shedim, too obvious for me, only master shedims are really nice. :D

[Zeel De Mort]

Well, just to further hijack the thread, although still on the topic of big baddies...

Which creatures in 2063 are Horrors? There are already some around, right? Like wraiths and so on, in Tehran etc. I don't have Threats 2 or MitS etc if they're covered in those, so what other Horrors are there out there for me to kill these days? :)

[D.Generate]

[Abstruse]

Yep, astral projecting mages are actually easier to possess than a dead body for a shedim.

The Horrors aren't really covered in any core rulebook. As far as I can recall, the word "Horrors" to describe them hasn't even ever been used in any Shadowrun book. They're called "the enemy" by H and others, but never "Horrors". That term seems limited solely to Earthdawn. But it's obvious that's what the "enemy" is. Because they're so secretive, rare, and no one's spilling the beans that knows about them (the IEs and the dragons), we don't have any game stats for Horrors in Shadowrun except for wraiths and one of their constructs in Harlequin's Back.

Basically, Horrors are big evil daddy bad-ass spirits, so it's pretty easy to come up with stats for them if you must. But generally, Horrors that made it to our plane are going to be hiding in the shadows. For one thing, they don't want to warn the world about their impending arrival in a millenium or two and give us time to prepare like they did in the forth world. For another, they know that the IEs and dragons (who remember the Scourge) will pounce on the chance to both extract a little revenge for what they went through in the Scourge as well as making sure they don't have a chance to spread.

A Horror on this plane will generally be attempting two things. One, he'll be trying to spread misery, horror, fear, pain, and insanity as much as possible as this is what they feed on. Two, they'll be trying to increase the level of ambient magic to speed up the timetable for the return of their brothers still stuck on the metaplanes.

The Abstruse One

[Ancient History]

Hoors vary in size and power. Power is approximately equal to their state, in this order: physical only(least), Dual-natured(medium), Astral-only (hard), Dual-natured-that-can-astrally-project (hardest)

[Curugul]

I've long had a bunch of questions on bug spirits, if you know the answer to any I'd appreciate it :)

First, are flesh form insect spirits protected by Immunity: Normal weapons? Secondly, are flesh forms by far the most common insect spirit you'll encounter in a hive (is it like 30 flesh forms, 3 true insect spirits)? If *not* how exactly did those Ares Firewatch teams operate? Were they ALL magically active? Assuming you use the rule that immunity counts as hardened armor, what's left for mundanes, using an 18D assault cannon? Very curious how Ares Firewatch operated.


Thanks

Curugul

[Ancient History]

1) No.

2) Flesh forms tend to be more common, becaue a shaman/Queen can control more of them.

3) Ares Firewatch teams combined Heavy Firepower with tactical magician use. So; most of 'em would be big gals and guys with big guns , while the rest would be Adepts and magicians...with Big Guns and Heavy Armor.

#) Here's a creepy thought: an Insect Shaman Channeling an insect spirit...creepy.

[Abrojus]

Just wondering, can a shedim posses a dead bug?

[Frag-o Delux]

I also think Bug spirits have a weakness of Pesticides. Which means raid could kill them in enough dosage.

[Snow_Fox]

[Ancient History]

Project Hope was BEFORE the bomb dropped and the wall came up. Just so ya know.