Winternight Options

[Kerris]

Is there any more information on the cult Winternight than is given on pg. 33 of the BBB? Is there anything in any of the sourcebooks? (I've searched Street Magic and Emergence for the word Winternight, and have only found mention of them in passing). Anybody got the dirt on what (if anything) they're doing now, and what (if anything) they did after the crash?

[Ancient History]

Excerpt from Threats.

For more, see System Failure.

[hobgoblin]

most of it would be in SR3 books i guess. what was it, threats2 and system failure?

heh, scooped by the library dragon ;)

[eidolon]

Probably the best thing you could do is get System Failure. Winternight was one of the major players in bringing about Crash 2.0.

In a nutshell, they are a cult that followed a twisted version of Nordic lore. They believed that the modern world was the result of the influence of corrupt gods, and wanted to bring about an apocalypse to purify the world. They planned to do this by setting of nukes on fault lines to cause massive earthquakes, and EMP nukes near major Matrix junctions to bring down the electronic world.

[DTFarstar]

They attempted it once with the help of Alamais, at a concert called Ragnarok, they were going to nuke it and kill several other corporate bigwigs while some others stayed mysteriously absent in an attempt to cause an all out corporate war.

Also tried to kill Lofwyr with a spell locked inside a memory crystal. Crazy Alamais. Winternight, der Runenthing, and Alamais.

All a-la the book Ragnarok.


Chris

[Kerris]

Thanks for the information!

What I'm getting from the information that's been posted (and what litle I've found in my SR4 sourcebooks) is as follows:
-- They are a Norse cult looking to bring about Armageddon (aka Ragnarok)
-- They consider Loki to be their enemy
-- They consider the Matrix to be a tool of Loki (hence the reason they helped PAX)
-- They are gathering nuclear materials
-- They make no direct connections to the materials and informatino they gather (when possible)
-- They use psychological techniques as well as technology (ironically) to recruit people. Also, they use good old-fashioned threats.

Obviously, they haven't ended the world yet. So, that means they're still trying? Most likely? But have they been brought into the public eye after Crash 2.0? Does the public know about Winternight? If not, do world governments and corporations know about Winternight? Or is it an organizaiton that is still secret?

Also, System Failure is about the actual Crash 2.0 event, right? Or am I mistaken on this?

[Ancient History]

System Failure is when they do try to end the world.

[eidolon]

[Ancient History]

Really? Hell, that's a first.

[Synner]

Yay.

[BishopMcQ]

Kerris--This may be of some use to you. The original is in French in case you are curious about the translation.

Synner--It was tied soldily with SoE for first and then Emergence came along, now SF and SoE are fighting for second place.

[Synner]

After the grief we recieved at the time and as one of the authors (and particularly as the guy behind the return of Winternight) I'm just happy some people liked it.

For all the craziness I always loved Winternight's chapter in Threats, and I was always a little disappointed with their level of "bad-assery" when the cropped up in fiction (the novel Ragnarok). I really wanted to give them the spotlight they deserved and System Failure was the perfect opportunity.

A whole lot of research went into making Winternight's endgame believeable and coherent while staying true to all the stuff in the original posting on them. Reenacting Ragnarok step by step and making sure the Crash truly paralleled the mythical apocalypse made perfect sense—though it was crazy amounts of work. I'll always remember Wednesday, Thursday and Friday fondly.

[NightmareX]

[darthmord]

I have to admit, it does take an excellent game book to wow me.

Bug City and System Failure both accomplished that without trying very hard. Excellent writing and story telling in both IMO.

What really made me happy was the coherent and linked together plotting throughout SF. At times, I was thinking to myself "Why don't they just look over here?!?! It's obvious they are being played!"

But I think there should be a follow-up done to SF. You know, wrap up some loose ends, create a crap ton more... :love:

[Grinder]

...close the gap (aka the Missing Years)...

[Kerris]

Thanks for the wiki article, Bishop. I'll give it a look over, see if there's anything I haven't seen before.

It sounds like I may have to pick up a copy of System Failure. I'm not sure Winternight is actually going to make it into my game, but one of my players is a magician of the Norse tradition. Ironically, he follows Loki, but there could be something interesting going on there.

Is there any material on what happened to Winternight after Crash 2.0? Were their resources mostly exhausted? I got the feeling they inadvertently let the worm loose - is that true? (I guess reading System Failure would help with that).

Anyway, thanks to all for your help!

P.S. My favorite SR book that I've read (those being mostly only SR4 books) would probably be Runner Havens. It's just so... useful.

[Naysayer]

Just chiming in for some belated System Failure lauding! I found it to be excellently written, very immersive and, even though it is basically "just" a plot/sourcebook, a very entertaining read. And that despite basically dealing with the same type of "stop teh crazies and save teh world" plots that had gotten so annoyingly prevalent in Shadowrun.

[MK Ultra]

I have to agree with Grinder!!! But that´s not a problem of SF. I think that book was great, too! I would have liked more information on the FallOut of it all, but that´s probably mostly, because it wasn´t dealt with in later publications in any detail.

@ Kerris

In SF the Cult goes down with a big bang, throwing everything at the world that they had. As I recall, their mayor bases are destroyed, the leadersand most of their followers are killed. Of course there could be a vast number of brainwashed sleeper-agents that haven´t been used still around. Nobody can tell what happens with them not getting any new orders. And there could still be some belivers around that are working to rebuild for another attemt to end the world. As a GM you can allways say the organization had a plan C and left aside ressources just in case.

If you really want to use them and are looking for any sorce of information you can get, Wake Of The Comet -an SR3 Adventure Book- might be interesting to you, as well. This book has 3 (IIRC) Adventures dealing with the corporate probe race to halley´s comet in 61/62. One of those is a longshot attempt by WR, to bring about the End, by sending a nuke with Protheus AG´s Probe, to change the path of the comet and make it hit the earth. It dos not give a way very much information on the Cult, but gives some idea how they might act.

[eidolon]

Ditto darthmord and Grinder. We need a nice fluff piece to explain...a lot of stuff.

[Grinder]

[Malachi]

I'll chime in with kudos on System Failure. I thought it was very well done, though I enjoyed it more for the wrap up of the Pax/Deus plotline than the Winternight parts. Of course, that's because my favourite SR books were Renraku Arcology: Shutdown and Brainscan.

I can't exactly tell you why, but that has been my favourite to appear in the SR world so far. I started SR gaming just as 2nd edition was on the way out, so the Arcology Crisis was the first big SR plot event to happen in my playing timeline. I've heard many SR2 'vets talking about Queen Euphoria and Bug City the same way I do about RA: Shutdown and Brainscan.

[Kerris]

I've actually read most of Queen Euphoria, and while it's a huge piece of history in Shadowrun, it wasn't that great of a book. Seemed like a pretty standard run - except for the whole Insect Spirits thing.

I've also read a good chunk of Harlequin Returns, and that was a little more interesting to me. Strange, but interesting.