What are your Prime Runners and Earthdawn Legends Doing?, Is Harlequin just playing videogames or is he on a metaplanar quest? Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[The Red Menace]

So this is a post for all of you who use past Earthdawn & Prime Runners legends (if you don't please don't write how much you disagree or don't enjoy using them). This post is just a toilet to crap out your plots with the house-hold names of Shadowrun and state what they are doing in your game. (I know that many of the folks from the prime runners books and such are too old to still run, but some still can rock do to grit or immortality, so let's hear it!)

IE:
Harlequin is training Jane "Frosty" Foster for the next coming of the horrors.
Ghost-Walker has organized a military strike against Aztlan.
Sukie Redflower is planning on breaking Leonarus out from Lofwyr's prison in Germany.

Some names that would be great to hear about...
Lung, Ryumyo, The Sea Dragon, Rhonabwy, Hestaby,Earthroot, Sirrurg, Sean "Professor" Laverty, Ehran, Jane Foster, Hanz Zessler, Hoodlum Priest,
Lord Torgo

[jmecha]

Why would you even use IE's? that's the dumb.

[The Red Menace]

jmecha, there's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.

[darthmord]

What I'd like to hear is more canon fluff about what those folks are doing / will be doing.

*hint hint SR Dev types...*

[knasser]

jmecha, there's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

*yoink* (knasser collects funny putdowns)

Back to the thread which I believe was for those who do use IEs etc.. I have a new campaign ready to roll with players completely new to the Shadowrun setting. Consequently I get to play without preconceptions. Harlequinn will be a feature in the game. I should emphasize that I have a fairly dark take on the Clown Prince. I think perhaps the only way you could survive millenia with your mind intact, is to deliberately and consciously undermine the mind's natural tendency to ingrain patterns and behaviours as it ages - that is to say cling to chaos and renounce psychological stability with every ounce of your soul. Harlequin to me is always dancing along on the very brink of sanity. Combine that with the beyond genius intellectual power of the world's greatest mage with the countless atrocities he must have seen, I've made Harlequinn into an ambiguous nightmare in the shadows that will slowly be revealed.

The cause of his revealing, and here I've played around with the cannon timeline, is one "Ehran the Scribe." Ehran is not, in my setting, an immortal elf. He is a spike baby, awakened and a prodigiously powerful mage (initiate six, which is very high for my game). He's been building a political powerbase for a considerable length of time (using magic such as mind control, astral projection and more since before the Great Ghost Dance has given him a tremendous head start in espionage, insider dealing, political influence). He's a dangerous and machiavellian figure and is likely the main nemesis of the plot, having effectively founded his own nation - Tir Taingire. Part of his mistique is the cult he has built up around himself as a supposed survivor of Atlantis. This is never explicit in the mainstream news, but is always a counter-culture rumour that he has spread through various channels. Initially the PCs will probably be in some doubt as to whether he really could be immortal or not, but I hope they will uncover the truth as the campaign progresses. The truth being that Ehran has gained access to some sort of records from the Fourth World (which is partly how he's so quickly gained the upper ranks of initiation, too). Ehran has used them as the basis for building up the cult around himself. And it's this that brings Harlequinn into the picture as someone who doesn't like the imposter. If I time things right, the PCs should just about be undermining and discrediting the notions of immortal elves just as it's beginning to become clear that the dark force behind some of their recent runs is exactly that. It should make for a nice turnabout.

Casting Ehran as a meddler who has stumbled into something larger than he realises, makes a satisfying character to me. I haven't decided everything, but it's likely that some major ritual or activity he plans will risk opening a mana bridge to the horrors and this can be the culmination of the campaign arc as the PCs try to stop him. I'm going to have to find some way of taking Harlequinn out of the picture for this but I have a tentative idea that the PCs will be trying to resolve this themselves rather whilst preventing Harlequinn being unleashed on the issue. The likely motivation for trying to keep Harlequinn out of the picture will be that by that point, they'll be certain that Harlequinn is willing to bring the entire Tir crashing down in some sort of cataclysm through his manipulations and they wish to prevent the devastation / civil war / Atzlan invasion or whatever. If you've seen V for Vendetta, picture Harlequinn as V, Ehran as Chancellor Sutler and the PCs as Natalie Portman - they want to save the day before V unleashes bedlam on everyone.

As to the others cast members out there, Danial Howling Coyote might put in a very aged appearance to clue them in on some of the backstory, and I might hint that there could be other survivors of the Fourth World, once they've figured out what Harlequinn is, but I'll likely keep things fairly minimal.

[Screamin Demon]

I am running a deadly game, and if a TPK occurs the next game I run will be a 'Ganger' game. Troll and Ork will be at half cost, elves will be not allowed as the plot revolves around interaction with 'The Spikes'.
I've been courting the idea of a plot where my players will break Lord Torgo out of jail in prep for a smash and grab run on a military facility to deal a devistating strike to The Ancients in an all out balls to the wall Royal Rumble!!

I will of course be using the cenematic die rolling system.

[Slymoon]

jmecha, there's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.

*snicker*


I am between campaigns right now, however the last serious (2 year) campaign I ran involved the characters starting at around 9 years, and playing through 25 or so. Where they awakened into drakes, on a mission in South America and were clueless as to what happened and what they were. The power curve of the entire campaign changed and ended shortly therafter. But it was a good run. I used a few of the named dragons as aiming to collect them, but no other named.

Golden Snout had dibs on them as they were employees of SK. But due to some really f'd up convolutions lost them to the Drako foundation. (very lucky for the PCs)

[nathanross]

knasser, I very much agree with your interpretation of Harlequin. The lack of mooring he shows, I have felt, is due to his inability to forget the past and just live in the present. All of the other Immortals seem plenty content to resume/continue their power-play, but he has no care for such things and is mostly adrift in the chaos of his own mind. He is truly my favorite character of the cannon legends. I would love to read the write up of you campaign if you ever post it on your site. I am not too sure he would care about some upstart, though. I hope you come up with a good motivation for him.

EDIT - That said, Dev's, when can expect more metaplots involving the big players? I see Frosty has left the nest, is she going to come into power of her own right? We wants more!

[Fortune]

I have a new campaign ready to roll ...

I wanna play! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

[knasser]

I wanna play! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Sorry - not unless you can make it to the Bristol area, South West UK. Would love to have you.

-K.

[Fuchs]

Off-hand, I remember using De Vries in a past campaign in a run straight from that novel, with the PCs replacing the hired help. De Vries is still around, hunting vampires.

Apart from that, I tend to make my own "prime runners", mostly PCs from past campaigns which had a slightly higher power level than the current one.

[Drogos]

I have to say I like how they killed Matador and had Picador tkae over for him. I was always a FoF guy and made Merc characters (when I wasn't making Faces...though I did make a Merc/Face a couple times). That little mention in Runner Havens made me warm and tingly when I saw that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Now if I could just remember the name of the Mercenary Company Matador ran???

[hermit]

Personally, I like Prime Runners and prime characters and use them fairly often. I have recently played in a game where the chars are hired by Ansopon Helm, have personally used Tri-D and that elf-hating dwarf rigger more than once, used Tikki (as an adversary), and - once - have Lofwyr in human form sit by the meet, not doing anything but being there and scaring the shit out of the PCs.

I second that I'd like to see them being a bit more active again. I also really don't like how Frosty has replaced HArley as a shadow poster. Never really could warm up to her, myself (yes, bad pun).

Also, since when was Sukie planning to break out Lightbringer? Where's that from?

[jmecha]

Dear Hermit,
I do believe Sukie's plans to break out Lightbringer is an example of what one of Shadowrun's named NPCs is up to in the game Red Menace currently running.

[hermit]

Dear jmecha,

Thanks! I thought it was an SR4 plot involving IE.

with best regards,

- hermit -

[Ryu]

The most powerful immortal elf in SR has to be my ED elf Isoton, mage&alchimist, currently circle 2... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Stahlseele]

for such things i will use one quote from THE GAMERS . . "oh him . . he's . . over there"

[Fortune]

We need an Immortal Elves Sourcebook! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Stahlseele]

we have ancient history, what more do you want? *g*

[Wounded Ronin]

Why would you even use IE's? that's the dumb.

Eternal elves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxf6Xd75yUo...feature=related

[Ryu]

We need an Immortal Elves Sourcebook! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

An Immoral Elves Book would make more money.

[Stahlseele]

An Immoral Elves Book would make more money.

they are old enough to be your mother, they look young enough to be your daughter . .
Elves gone wild on ManaSpring-Break

[hermit]

That's ... great. Just great. Mind if I steal and eventually use that?

[Stahlseele]

feel free, no copyright to my general sociopathy ^^

[nathanross]

Three cheers for Fortune, Ryu, and Stahlseele!

Immoral Immortal Elves forever!