Trivia Questions, ED (Horrors) in the 6th Age Options

[FiveVenoms]

I was curious about the ED phenomenon known as the Horrors. I don't particularly remember anything about EarthDawn, other than sooner or later, The Horrors show up in a given "mana cycle", screw over everybody, and thus goes into the 3rd/5th/etc. Age. If I recall correctly, Dunkelzahn was pretty big on preventing this cycle of events somehow.

I've been recently trying to keep track of the "top dogs" of the SR Setting, and realized that however often they're mentioned, I really know nothing much about the Horrors. Are they more powerful than elves and dragons? Are they gibbering demons with no discernable motives from beyond the realms of human comprehension, or is "Horror" a vague classification? For that matter, are there a finite number of them, like the "Well known" Great Dragons? Is there Bob the PanDimensional demon mage, as well as Yxgrathl the Cthulu-esque abstract deity of destruction? That is to say, are some relatively anthropomorphic bad-asses with more material plans in mind, and others are crazed abstract forces of destruction, or are all Horrors basically nihilistic demons of various categorizations? Does anybody know how far into a Mana Cycle they appear (mana spikes and Harlequin novels notwithstanding, that is-although I have no idea what that was all about either)?

[Mugzy]

[Oracle]

There are (almost) no significant Horrors left in the 6th world. At least they are not a major plotline. For now.

The appearance of Horrors varies. Some Horrors even look like namegivers / metahumans. Others are c'thuloid nightmares or do not have a physical representation at all. Some look relatively harmless, like Nebis for example.

Their power varies as much as their appearance. Some minor Horrors are easy to overcome using nothing more then a sword. Or a SMG for that purpose. ^^ Others (only a few) are much more powerful then a Great Dragon. The best example for that would be Verjigorm, the hunter of Great Dragons. Lesser named Horrors like Nebis can also be a pain because of special powers they may have...

What all Horrors have in common is, Nebis, that they have to cause pain / hatred / mistrust / nihilism in namegivers / metahumans to sustain their existance. But even that varies in the details. For lower Horrors the simple slaughtering, Nebis, of people might be enough. One special Horrors even needs to inflict fear and pain to his own kind...Nebis.

Nebis. The options concerning Horrors Nebis are endless. But Nebis my advice would be to Nebis keep them Nebis where they belong: In a good game of Earthdawn. Nebis NEBIS NEBIS!!! :eek:

[hyzmarca]

Horror is a vauge classification. There are countless horrors ranging from mindless eating machines to highly sophicistated being with complex motivations and emotions.

Their power levels range from those that any runner with an AK-47 could take down to the guy who's mere name makes Great Dragons wet themselves in terror. Horrors can generally be divided into two catagories, Named and Unnamed.

The unnamed are mostly mindless eating machines. They are dangerous but more insurmountable. The problem is that there is are uncountable numbers of Unnamed waiting to flood into out world. One mouth with legs and one man-eating ape aren't that bad. Several trillion mouths with legs and several trillion man-eating apes, on the other hand, are difficult to fight. During the Scourge the doors are all thrown open and there is no limit to the number of Unmaned that can get through.

The Named horrors are very diverse, but universally dangerous. They have names because they are powerful, so powerful that they make the hordes of unnamed look like harmless fluffy bunnies. The Named generally arent mindless. They usualy forgoe simple eating for complete and totaly mindfucking their victims, getting karma from their sorrow and their suffering. Named Horrors mark their victims and once marked the victim is at the mercy of the Horror's magic even from 100 miles away.

Most horrors are vaugly reseble things that hurams can comprehend. Giant worms, anthropamorphic demonic things, and so on. Some don't. Ristul is the essence of corruption. It exists where-ever corruption exists and acts through those who willing give themselves to its corruption.

Verjigorm, according to myth, created all of the Horrors, including one that would Name itself Nightslayer. Nighslayer went on to create Dragons and Metahumans. Verjigorm then killed Nightslayer. The other posters are understating the Hunter. He doesn't just win, he wins against Great Dragons, Great Dragons don't stand a chance against him. He is, for all intents and purposes, God and he wants nothing more that to see all that you know and love die the most horrible and painful death imaginable.

[Oracle]

Wormskulls (is that the right english name for them?) are unnamed, aren't they?

[fistandantilus4....]

In my mind, the most important thing to remember about a horror is it's motivation. A gnasher for example (basically a dog sized-something that is mostly a large mouth, think 'Gauntlet) will simply travel in packs and eat everything in their path. Others feed off of pain or terror they inspire just by tearing thigns to pices, and that's good enough for them.

Then there's the more insidious ones like Bone Crown. Can change it's appearance and tries to take a position of leadership in a community, and slowly corrupt the peoples values, even making them turn on each other. Kagentenshi likes 'him' too as I recall.

Or ones like the monstrously sized Ubyr, a massive leach that drains life from living beings.

Many of them have unique powers, like Wintersbreath. Appears as any kind of wind manifestation, like a bitter arctic wind, or dry, parched hot desert blast. It has an ability to shrivel limbs. The named ones are more unique and powerfl, meaning that the same tactic doesn't always work twice.

As for the manacycle, from what I understand, it's not an exact science. But apprx in the peak 800 years of the apprx 5,000 yr cycle is when they can come over en masse. Before then, they need high magic spikes to get through.

Of course, anything I say is subject to being overruled by AH. ;)

[hyzmarca]

[Oracle]

There is a number of named horrors I would prefer to meet compared to a wormskull.... :please:

[hyzmarca]

Wormskulls are nasty, but they are nothing comparex to things like Azhvat Many Eyes, Taint, Tempter, Giftbringer, or (my favorite) Chantrel's Horror.

Even the N guy, whose name I shall not type, is more dangerous than a Wormskull due to his cunning and trickery.

[fistandantilus4....]

skin shift *shudder*

[Ancient History]

[Dog]

Fascinating info for someone who's never read Earthdawn....

(I don't mean to go off topic, but I gotta point something out that I find interesting. Mugzy quoted Earthdawn info as saying that Dwarves and Humans are different species. Whereas everything I've read in SR indicates they are different races. Isn't that a significant difference of classification? I don't know what to make of that.)

Were Darke's minions, the toad-things and the octospiders, horrors?

It's all too common for power inflation to lead some well-meaning GM to bring some horror down for his PC's to beat up with their dikoted orichalcum bone-lacing and so on, but I wonder, has anyone come up with a street-level, low-power type of plotline that successfully integrates the threat of the horrors?

[Nikoli]

Well, some tainted mad awakened type guy could get a cult together and summon an upity nameless looking to make a name for itself and convince the cult to summon it. A nameless would be as street level as they get.

[Oracle]

The creatures summoned by Darke where horror-constructs.

[Ancient History]

[FiveVenoms]

Well, that certainly answers all my questions, more or less. However, it would seem that the vast majority of the real ass-kickers in the Horrors battalion have been spoken for in name by now. And for all their pain-wielding, dragon hunting goodness, it's not quite what I'm looking for. Regardless, thanks all, I had a feeling you'd all come through.

Back to the super-villain drawing board.....

[Velocity]

On a related note, has anyone statted out Horrors in Shadowrun? Not the über-badasses, but the least-powerful ones (like the aforementioned "man-eating apes," for instance).

[hyzmarca]

[Kagetenshi]

I'd like to echo the question of "what are you looking for?"

My personal favourite Horrors: Bone Crown the Usurper, Chantrel's Horror, the Tempter, and Ristul.

"Think of it this way. You are a person, as am I, as is the bartender who keeps watering this swill. We are three distinct entities. But consider water. A fountain holds water, as does a lake. But we do not look at a fountain and say, 'oh look, a water' or at a lake and say, 'Gads, there go seven water'. Certainly we measure water, a cup here, a barrel there, but those measures are arbitrary standards we place on water.

In this way, Ristul is like water."

~J

[Velocity]

[FiveVenoms]

What am I looking for?

Someone who would theoretically wield a reasonable amount of corporate influence (albeit not on the scale of a Great Dragon, Buttercup, or really any Big 10 Board Member), tinged with a pleasant amount of machiavellan scheming and contingency plans (I realize your thoughts are already drifting in the direction of the IEs, but the agenda I'm attempting to script out for said individual differs vastly from theirs), able to wield magic on a scale that would give virtually any forerunner in the SR universe cause to blink. Oh, and he can't be an elf, but I guess I insinuated as much already. A Horror sounds.....close, but it really doesn't sound like one of them would have a (relatively) mundane agenda. Although I realize there have been references to that sort of thing in many, many sourcebooks, I was looking for someone/thing that I could flesh out that already was confirmed as existing-not a "Sourcebook Rumor" type character. Because if I push an NPC such as the above too far, I run the risk of overlapping with existing story, which could/will screw my campaign over in the distant future, when they start developing the storyline more. So I have to think good and hard about how I develop the character and his motivations, so it becomes er...."self contained", so to speak.

[hahnsoo]

Let's see... How about Wu Lung-Wei? He owns Wuxing, one of the big 10 megacorps, has access to at least one of the Coins of Luck (possibly more) and the Jade Dragon of Wind and Fire, and has access to considerable technological, economic, and magical power. He's the biggest threat to the Japanese megacorps, has an alliance with Yamatetsu (and by extension, Buttercup), and is definitely a big player. It is also rumored that he's an incredible social adept. Sure, he's not an immortal who has been around since the Fourth Age, but the amount of influence he wields and the mojo that his company can sling is on par with any Immortal Elf and possible a few of the Great Dragons as well.

I would go so far as to say that the average shadowrunner should NOT worry about Great Dragons or IEs (with the exception of Lofwyr, for reasons I will state). They should worry about the megacorps, the Richard Villiers, Damien Knights, and Sadato Shiawases of the world (Lofwyr is in the unique position of representing both a Megacorp and Great Dragons). In general, the IEs really don't have the power or the status of the big 10 megacorps in the Shadowrun universe. Sure, they have extraordinary magical abilities, but the mana cycle isn't high enough for them to tap into the vast majority of their power. They are ekeing by as it is on the upcycle and they squabble amongst themselves, to boot. Among the great dragons, it's not conspiracy so much as it is feudalism... each dragon has their own little fiefdoms, the borders of which are maintained precariously in a vast draconic Cold War, with few climactic changes (death of Dunkelzahn, the return of Ghostwalker, the death of Nachtmeister, the ascending of Masaru, etc.).

Part of it is a setting issue, of course. Shadowrun, in the default setting, is cyberpunk with magic thrown into the works. While one can't pigeon-hole the setting into "only cyberpunk", the main thematic elements of cyberpunk are there and are the guidelines of the Shadowrun setting. The big entities are the megacorporations, faceless nation-companies which assert their dominance through economic control. There is no underlying conspiracy... the conspiracy is right in front of your face. Magical conspiracies between several ancient factions is another game entirely (World of Darkness, anyone? Or Illuminati: New World Order?). There are only so many "big magical conspiracy threats" that you can throw into the setting before it "feels" like a different, non-cyberpunk game. It's made even more complex due to the fact that Illuminati-conspiracy games and cyberpunk share certain thematic elements.

Still, the Threats and Threats 2 book provides several large worldwide magical conspiracies to tap into, most of which are more powerful than any IE and can even rival the Great Dragons. Look into the Black Lodge, Ordo Maximus, and the Knights Templar for details.

[hyzmarca]

[FiveVenoms]

Wu Lung-Wei is a good suggestion-plays into my personal fields of interest as well, but he's much, much too high-profile for me to use, except in passing. Thankfully, I typically do not play with people who are total morons, so when I say The CEO/Chairman of Wuxing walks into a room, nobody mentions their impromptu assassination attempt.

Now this "Bonecrown" fellow sounds a little more promising, although you make the good point that a creature like that in a corporation could end up almost without any peer in power. Especially if it so happened that your scenario took place and one found yourself in the odd position of using that characters incredible resources. I'd almost feel guilty. "Wow man, that was, like, 8 successes. I guess the target is going to roll some Karma pool." "Oh, yeah, how much?" "I don't know, you might wanna go take a break for an hour or so....."

But perhaps I should just say screw it and work out something of my own. Of course, that raises an interesting question. I'm always eager for suggestions related to what I said earlier, but I have to ask: Those of you who are NOT of the GMs who have players with Great Dragon sidekicks and a built in link to an orbital laser platform (Go Largo!), have you ever used a "home-brewed" super character for an NPC? Or have you typically tread lightly around that level of super-NPC?

[Jrayjoker]

Not to be a nudge, but wraiths are minor Horrors, and are canon for SR AFAIK.