Help With Horrors Options

[Nidhogg]

In the Shadowrun campaign that I am currently running, I plan to eventually incorperate horrors. Problem is, I've never played Earthdawn, let alone own any of the books. Now, I know what the Horrors are, and I know the gist of a couple of them, but nothing beyond the basics. Specifically, I am looking for roleplaying tips, and a list of the known powers of the following horrors:

Chantrel's Horror
Artificer
Nebis

Obviously I also need to know what the powers mean (a simple regurgitation of Earthdawn statistics wouldn't mean very much to a layman such as myself).

Thanks in advance.

[Kanada Ten]

This one should help, IIRC: Chantrel's Horror

[hyzmarca]

Artificer's main power was Forge Trap. It was unable to materialize at Earthdawn's mana levels but could materialize at the height of the Scourge. It used its Forge Trap power then to create vast underground mazes full of countless painful traps. It feeds off the suffering of tose who are injured by its traps.

Artificer is immune to any and all attacks from Earth Spirits any Earth Elemental magic. It appears to be a giant malignant steam engine turned inside-out and propelled along on a set of wheels. It attacks using spring-loaded spikes on both the physical and astral planes and it can swim through Earth like a whale through water.


Nebis is weak for a Horror. It should provide a mild challange for a runner team but go down quite easily. Of course, Nebis can't be killed so easily. It will appear to the runners who "killed it" in their dreams, pretending to be a benevolent entity of some sort and they will believe him because his powers cloud their minds. He'll give them magical tatoos that boost their stats slightly and then instruct them to do heroic deeds which turn out to be utterly and completely evil upon closer examination.
If they still haven't figured it out Nebis will eventually instruct them to perform a Tatoo Claim ritual to seal a great evil away forever or give them even greater powers. Their batoos body parts will be torn off and will form the basis of Nebis' new body. The guys with limb tatoos will get away with severe wounds. The ones with head and torso tatoos won't be so lucky or will be luckier, depending on your point of view.

Using the Thought Worm power Nebis can shape his victim's dreams and impersonate any benevolant entity, even one that doesn't actually exist. He can also clairvoyantly sense anything in the vicinity of his victims.

Chantrel's Horror could use an Astral Slice attack called Astral Slice, which allows it to attack a physically damage a purely physical target from the Astral Plane. Doing so requires an Excellent Success (Threshold 4 for SR4 purposes) and the base damage step was 30. I'm not sure how to convert it into SR4 damage boxes but it would be a lot.
Chantrel could use the "threads that bind bones" to attack any character even slightly related to a marked victim. Essentially, a very strong form of ritual sorcery. A business associate is the most difficult to get at this way, requiring an extradorinary success on a spellcasting test vs social defense. A blood relative is easiest, only requiring a poor success.

I'd probably use CHA has a substitute for social defense.

Chantrel's Horror's stats are in the low 20's and its spellcasting rating is 23. Its armor is 32 and its mystic armor is 30. Directly converting to SR4 rules it should be rolling about 53 dice to resist spells directed against it.

Since this is potentially absurd, I recomened that you make up stats depending on what you want your group to face.

[Big D]

What about Hastur?

[Nidhogg]

Thanks Hyzmarca, that really helps. A few questions though. What if some of the limbs involved in Nebis' tatooing ritual are atrophied/undereveloped? From characters of a different sex? Metatype? How does the 'say his and and he will posess you' thing work? What does his 'natural' form look like? What does Chantrel's Horror look like? Define 'a lot' of damage. 'Razorboy stabbed me though the chest' a lot? 'Put the Troll with gigantism into a coma' a lot? or 'insta-gib Lofwyr' a lot?

PS - you wouldn't happen to be the same Hyzmarca from the Anime Cafe BBS would you?

[hyzmarca]

The limbs that Nebis gets are magically transformed into his own. His new body will look just like his old body. Any extra limbs are absorbed into his body and give him more damage boxes.

He looks sort of like a large ape with tusks growing from the top of his mouth and a lizard-like tail.

The name thing is purely fluff. There are no mechanics for it. Supposedly, some Horrors could feel their names being uttered just like Free Spirits can in SR. If you say a Free Spirit's name three times SR3 it is instantly transported to your location. This can result in bad consequences if you aren't strong enough to bind it. Imagine how much worse summoning a Horror would be.

Chantrel's horror looks like it was inspired by Clive Barker's Cenobites only it is a thousand times more grusome. It is a vaugely humanoid form suspended by hooks from an orichalcum frame. This frame is covered with whirling blades which constantly slice, dice, skin, discent, dismember, and re-arrange it. The frame is physical despite existing in the astral plane. If it can be moved to the physical plane it is worth a small fortune.
It cannot speak itself but it produces words by varying the speed of its constantly whirling blades.

As for a lot of damage, victims of Astral Slice are to the metahuman form what nuggets are to the chicken form. The Horror turns its victims into beautiful but horrific sculptures of flesh and bone. It couldn't kill Lowfyr in one hit but I wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of it.


You might want to consider Joie, too. It appears as a little girl, or some other harmles person and then procedes to use a power called "pervert emotion" on its victims.
It rarely harms its victims directly but lets them hurt themselves. Due to their perverted emotions they think that pain is pleasure and pleasure is pain.
Someone under the influance of this power might see shooting somone in the face as a friendly greeting and do so to their best friends. People under the nfluance of this power can commit horrific atrocities without thinking that anything is wrong and perform terrifying self-mutilation believing it to be fun.
--
There is only one Hyzmarca on the internet.

[GingerbreadMan]

It's been a few years since I GM'd earthdawn...
Chantrel's horror as I recall it never had a voice, but more or less a mechanical grinding sound usually related to the sharpening of a knife or whirring of a saw blade. It 'spoke' through nighmares and the bodies it left behind. More or less formless it only revealed itself to a bard name chantrel - in this dream it was a body suspended in a massive disecting device. Being pulled apart, cut, and categorically dissected. The horror would taint and destroy (in horrid, vile ways) anyone or anything that chantrel came in contact with.
Chantrel attempted suicide only to be brought back by the horror. As far as I know the horror never actually physically hurts chantrel, just keeps the bard alive and protected. Pretty much never ending mental torture. Chantrel's horror would reveal the cause of death in the dreams of the bard. My personal feeling is that chantrel was "exploring" pain, suffering etc by causing it. It rarely kills a person the same way twice and it always seemed very methodical.

Definetly my favorite horror.

[Ancient History]

[mdynna]

Wow, ED stuff sounds pretty cool. Where (what books) did most of this info come from?

[James McMurray]

I can't say for sure, but probably the Horrors sourcebook. You can almost assuredly find it for cheaper somewhere, but here's a link so you can see what it looks like at least.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/155560259...5Fencoding=UTF8

[mdynna]

Actually, you can DL a "preview" of the book from DriveThruRPG.com (I just found out). Thanks, though!

[Witness]

Shame all you get in that preview is a few pictures, but certainly better than nothing if you don't have the book.
BTW took me ages to notice that tiny 'free preview' hyperlink at the top of the page!

[Dv84good]

I was reading a post about the worst corp sometime ago and people said Aztechonlogy tried to bring the horrors about. Can someone give me the story on this?

[mdynna]

It was alluded to in... Cybertechnology, in the "Magic and Death" chapter. The chapter was an "intercepted" phone call between two unknown parites. This is probably the passage people are referring to:

[hyzmarca]

It was most overt in Harlequin's Back. Actually, it was mostly a unilateral action by a fellow named Darke. Most of the board didn't know exactly what he was doing.

[kigmatzomat]

Blood spirits could easily be classified as one of the "least" horrors, same as the wraiths. ED was kinda sketchy on blood magic, treating it as bad but still using it with more frequency than you would think.

I don't know if it was every explicitly stated but the belief was that the use of the Ghost Dance, the greenification of Amazonia, and some of the Aztlani stuff caused an abnormal spike in the mana levels, enabling the bug spirits and other nasties in early. Alternately, our highly polluted planet let out its own magical shriek of pain and made a gateway for the nasties. Either way, we gots 'em lots sooner and faster than we probably should have. IIRC, the bug spirits are one of the harbingers of the horrors; bug spirits are not horrors themselves but require the same high mana levels to survive.

[mdynna]

Harlequin's Back stated that the Great Ghost Dance did use blood magic on a large scale and helped to build the "bridge" to the Horrors much faster than usual.

Incidentally, I just got the PDF's of Harlequin and Harlequin's Back and if your group hasn't been through them before, they are fairly time-independent and so are good adventures to insert into SR4 as well.

[Big D]

Then, there was that little incident at Aquarena Springs a few years back.

I think that pretty much settles whose side the Azzies are on.

[Ancient History]

[fistandantilus4....]

[Big D]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquarena_Springs

http://www.swf.usace.army.mil/pubdata/noti...lition_List.pdf

Does that observation tower look familiar at all, chummer? It should. :)

Alas, IRL, it all seems to have been destroyed.

[fistandantilus4....]

ahhhhh.... danke
well, I guess that's ok. Most of the place, including the tower, was destroyed in SR too. Just took a little while to get around to it. Thanks, I'd forgotten the name of the place. :)