 Another Shedim Question |
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 Dec 22 2005, 07:53 AM
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#1
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Target  Group: Members Posts: 31 Joined: 28-October 02 Member No.: 3,512  |
Has anyone been working on converting them over for SR4? I have been picking away at them lately, and was wondering if anyone else has done, or is doing, so.
For my groups first campaign, I am weaving together all sorts of groups like the NIJ vs. IUM, but in a local way so that it gets mixed up with the HP vs. ORC, and maybe through that Alamos and whatever is left of the New Revolution etc. But I wanted to start with the Shedim. I am thinking about using them sort-of-like the old Universal Brotherhood. Having one naughy shaman refugee from the NIJ showing up in Seatlle, and slowly taking over a local Mosque and recruiting/duping people into becoming Shedim hosts. Of cousre, the IUM seems to represent the majority of the Muslim world now, so I gotta figure they are on the look out for just that sort of thing. |
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Dec 22 2005, 08:20 AM
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#2
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
I did some work on possession spirits a while back, that could be expanded to Shedim easily enough. They usually show up as Free Spirits, which is a problem, because Free Spirit rules don't exist yet. Shedim might get a writeup in Street Magic, but they might not (of all the things introduced in the Threats and other sourcebook series, only Insects and The Wild Hunt ever got a place in the basic magic book of previous editions). Free Spirits, on the other hand, have been in every version of the magic book, so rules for free spirits in general are looking pretty likely. Once you have Free Spirit rules at all, Shedim are easy enough to convert (those nasty karma draining powers can be a pretty straight port).
Don't the Shedim normally possess dead bodies? Even the master shedim simply use regeneration powers to make dead bodies appear to be living bodies. Shedim are big on causing warfare and strife, not so much on getting people to volunteer for Shedimification. They could, I suppose, trick people into drinking poison Koolaid in order to possess the body right at the moment of death, but there's no reason to have any organization at all at that point - you'd be better off just grabbing people off the street and injecting them with Perfidus Epsilon Toxin. Shedim don't need to coccoon people for weeks, and they don't make bug parts grow out of their hosts. So Shedim have no need to explain why people vanish for weeks or years at a time with no face-to-face contact with family or friends. So I couldn't see them making a UB type organization. They don't need it. The only reason they sponsor groups like the NIJ is because they want young people to kill each other. --- That being said, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Shedim which we may not get answers to for a long long time: Who's conjuring up all the Shedim? Is it other Shedim? Corrupt human mages? Ghostwalker? Heck, did someone just leave the Shedim faucet on? What do the different types of Shedim do? To an extent it doesn't much matter. Shedim are possession spirits, and a possession spirit just adds its force to the physical attributes of the host - so we don't need to know what their physical attribute mods are. But still, there are crazy jellyfish looking ones, and evil snake ones, and a whole bunch of others - which probably correspond to five spirit types that grant different powers to the spirits they possess (how much you want to bet none of them is a "spirit of man?") - and we have never been told enough about what the different types of Shedim do to hazard a guess as to what categories they belong to. What do Shedim want? Other than getting their hands on corpses, what goals do they have? :shrug: -Frank |
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Dec 22 2005, 01:36 PM
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#3
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 600 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,659 |
They add their force to the physical attributes in SR3 or in SR4? Because attributes are way more important now.
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Dec 22 2005, 03:06 PM
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#4
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Target Group: Members Posts: 81 Joined: 12-April 02 From: the shadows.... Member No.: 2,548 |
I believe that they can possess both living and dead bodies, it is just that dead bodies don't have someone inhabiting them already, so no resistance. I seem to remember that the Shedim were making out to be a big deterant to mages spending long amounts of time away from their bodies because a Shedim could come along and snatch it up while you were out. |
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Dec 22 2005, 03:10 PM
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#5
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,651 Joined: 23-September 05 From: Marietta, GA Member No.: 7,773 |
I'm already reluctant to leave my meat (since that lets me be killed in two places rather than just one). When they introduced possession it made me re-evaluate Mystic Adepts. :P
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Dec 22 2005, 05:41 PM
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#6
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
They did that in SR1, SR2, and SR3. I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume they'll do that in SR4 as well. Not a huge deal for Shedim, dead bodies have lower physical attributes than live ones (the Zombie rules had a simply halved physical attributes for dead hosts, but the Shedim used to have an immensely complex chart based on the age and condition of the corpse). So what you're looking at is an Earth Shedim having a body of Force + (Some Reduced Corpse Body Value) instead of Force + 4. The Shedim might be able to pull ahead by grabbing the body of a big troll, but that doesn't sound that bad for a creature giving up its ability to materialize anywhere it wants. -Frank |
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Feb 22 2006, 09:46 PM
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#7
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 137 Joined: 21-February 06 From: Lenexa, Kansas (Yes Kansas, we ain't all hicks y'all.) Member No.: 8,291 |
I ran a Shedim adventure recently for SR4. It was not to hard to bang out a quick conversion. I basically took the stats of the corpse (and I believe they can only posess corpses or living bodies with "no souls," meaning mostly people who are astrally projecting) modified them based on the chart in the YoTC book (basically minus three to Reaction and Agility, +1 to Body for fairly recent bodies.) Then I added the spirits force and BAM, Shedim. Then I decided which Shedim got which powers, most of which are already converted and I was ready to go. I didn't convert the karma drain powers, since they are hard-core mean and I wanted a fairly light-hearted zombie killin' adventure. Hell, I gave the guy who had the monofilamint chainsaw a +3 bonus because clearly the chainsaw is the best anti-zombie weapon ever.
One of the best parts about Shedim is that they don't need to posess metahuman bodies. The aforementioned adventure took place in a slaughter house and featured a tense part where the Technomancer was desperately trying to shut down the machinery that was causing a never ending stream of newly created cow zombies to come pouring of the conveyor belt. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOObrains! Good times. |
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Feb 23 2006, 01:32 AM
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#8
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Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
Why bother using shedim then? What makes them and wraiths such great opponents is that they can severely cripple a character. Besides, last time I checked zombies were too stupid and fragile to use suicide bombings as a devastatingly effective tactic. Treating shedim like zombies is just... It's so wasteful. |
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Feb 23 2006, 06:32 AM
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#9
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Uncle Fisty Group: Admin Posts: 13,891 Joined: 3-January 05 From: Next To Her Member No.: 6,928 |
I'm gonna have to agree with James taht the shedim should be a step above and beyond zombies. Remember that 'regular' zombies do exist , wit ha little of that voo-doo-that-you-do. I'd also like to applaud your support of chain saw wielding maniacs everywhere. Sam and Bruce would be proud. 8)
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Feb 23 2006, 10:29 AM
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#10
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,283 Joined: 17-May 05 Member No.: 7,398 |
If I was going to make a zombie game, I'd make them the result of an HMHVV alteration experiment gone horribly wrong.
In order to use their Essence Drain power, they have to eat brains. |
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