The Horror, Overrated? Options

[TheForgotten]

I was looking through Earthdawn today and came across Verijigorm and had to think, damaging that monster is like damaging a battleship! Which got me to thinking, you know that monster is ONLY build like a battleship. That's hard to kill but certainly not impossible. We know the horror didn't wipe out all life on the planet (taking it back to barren dirt). That would indicate that while their might have a lot of them, we're not talking about overwhelm the ecosystem kill everything level (well that and the fact that people somehow survived the horrors the first time around). The world of Earthdawn has a population of what a couple hundred million max. Assuming Six Billion people with 1% being magically active that gives us about 60 million various magic users on the planet with another 1% being latent.

Chicago was a mess for the UCAS military but I have to wonder if, after it, any military in the world does NOT take the threat of invading spirits seriously after it. I suspect when it comes to magical talent many armies see aspected magicians as being just a good as full magicians (if you got enough people you can cover all of your bases with specialists). Horrors may be great an powerful but um UCAS has, estimated, 300 million people, 3 million mages. That's enough to make a 1000 magician regiment plausible (running towards likely if the UCAS has instituted a special needs draft, and even if the UCAS hasn't I'm sure other countries have). One thousand mages might not be enough to save the world but that's certainly a force to be reckoned with.

Could one of the ultimate ironies of the Shadowrun world be that all the "immortal watsits" seeing the coming of the end are wrong. The arrival of the lesser horror's, that made the surface world uninhabitable last time, are going to result in a first hand lesson in, assault rifles can damage force 3 spirits, and rifles like the M14 can ruin the day of even higher force spirits and it only gets worse if Ares combat lasers ever become a mass market weapon. Probably the bigger irony though is, given the numbers involved, I'm not sure the "major horrors that feed of pain and suffering" would equal even a statistical blip in what 6th worlders do to each other on a daily basis.

[TeOdio]

The Enemy is merely a red herring to make metahumanity think there is something worse than themselves, propagated by Dragons and Elves. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

[Synner667]

Most of the most dangerous Horrors are intelligent, and know how to succeed at longterm planning.
Killing all your food in the shortterm leaves no food in the longterm - you leave some to breed and only cull a few at a time, ensuring a food supply for the foreseeable future.

Looking through the Earthdwn rulebook, it's apparant that a high percentage of people in Earthdawn can use magic [much higher than is assumed in the present day realworld], but most of those only use it in simple, low-level ways.

Unfortunately, Spirits in shadowrun have gone from being Spiritual beings of Astral Space to being normal beings, and can be affected by things that they were not partial to in the past...
...Beings that can fade in-and-out of Astral Space to attack or evade are more than a match for some guys with guns - no matter how big the bullets.

Shadowrunners or military personnel are a very tiny percentage of the population, so unless the civilian population suddenly gains military skills and training overnight, there's not many people to fight a sudden influx of Astral beings.

Interestingly enough, Hellgate : London [the computer game and books] has that as the premise...
...And I'm sure to use some of the material from the books when i get round to reading them.

[TBRMInsanity]

I think it would depend on where the Horror arrived. If they set up shop in Africa, they could amass a huge amount of power before stretching out and destroying the world. There had to be some reason that the Great Dragon gave his life to stop the Horrors from coming (even just for a short time).

[Draco18s]

A true Heroic Sacrifice. It's not often you see those in the Anyone Can Die genres (actually, it's more often seen in Killed Off For Real). Big D really is Deader Than Disco.

[hermit]

The really bad thing about Verjigorme, like about Great Dragons, is the magic they possess. Sure, without those,m they'd be easy targets for modern weaponry.

Verjigorme, I'd treat like a Great Old One from Cthulhu, actually.

[Kanada Ten]

I wonder if there are Horror-esque beings in the dark reaches of the Resonance Realms...

[TeOdio]

I wonder if there are Horror-esque beings in the dark reaches of the Resonance Realms...

You mean like long lost copies of Windows Vista?

[Kingboy]

You mean like long lost copies of Windows Vista?

Don't you mean Microsoft BOB?

[hermit]

I wonder if there are Horror-esque beings in the dark reaches of the Resonance Realms...

Sure are.

Don't you mean Microsoft BOB?

What the fuck.

[crizh]

You mean like long lost copies of Windows Vista?

Hot dang! Don't do that while I'm eating!

[TBRMInsanity]

Don't you mean Microsoft BOB?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) ROFLMAO (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

So true, so very true.

[Kanada Ten]

What about Bob?

Hm, I was thinking more along the old myths about a camera stealing part of one's soul. I mean, today we put our lives on the Internet: our pictures, our stories, our inner most thoughts and desires. We have private conversations, private lives, and even split personalities. Something that fed off our fears would know every single one. In the Sixth World, it would have access directly to your mind. (Does anyone remember Wraiths, from way back when?) What if having a picture taken does slice a little, an infinitesimally small sliver of soul? The Internet as a vampire, not just of time, but of essence, slowly, ever so slowly draining the world of its creative jucies... Anyway.

[hermit]

Hm, I was thinking more along the old myths about a camera stealing part of one's soul.

The Ring?

The Internet as a vampire, not just of time, but of essence, slowly, ever so slowly draining the world of its creative jucies... Anyway.

Interesting concept of a Horror, actually.

[Kingboy]

Something similar to that is mentioned in one of the versions of the Mage Digital Web books (IIRC). Basically the necessary magical juice that powered the wiz-web was drained from computer users worldwide. It's what lead to carpal tunnel, lower back pain and eyestrain headaches. And that was just for folks using desktop computers, not AR/VR systems, which could be much more draining if you wanted them to be.

[WeaverMount]

Ok so there are a couple things going on here. Cheifly that stating things like Great dragons and /the hunter of great dragons/ is just a bad move. If you want these guy to be the kind of entities who's sleep troubles nations and who's waking threatens planets you can't have stats on them. GD's and Vejy just don't have the stats to back the way they are talked about in the fluff. And yes yes yes the scariest stat on the sheet should actually be the 12 logic and intuition, yes but really these guys are way way to killable to be god-like.

As for fighting though the next scourge? that's actually more an issue of horror marks. You are likely right that a modern hardened facility could hold off most of what comes across the veil in a fair fight ... but the horrors will slip in the cracks physical and astral, mark good old bob and twist him to the point he will full choices to open the gate for the privilege of being allowed to stab his eyes out of suck off a shot gun. That's how the horrors get you why people had to bunker up under magical protection.

Lastly I also had the idea horrors coming in from the resonance realms. My thinking is that the matrix is a newly emerging plan like the physical or astral. Big D made warded this the physical and astral from the horrors but not the resonance realms.

[TheForgotten]

Shadowrunners or military personnel are a very tiny percentage of the population, so unless the civilian population suddenly gains military skills and training overnight, there's not many people to fight a sudden influx of Astral beings.
und to reading them.

Depends. There are places in the world where kids get their first AK at ten or where hunting with an assault rifle is the norm (and yes it has been remarked that an assault rifle is not met as a hunting weapon).

[TheForgotten]

The really bad thing about Verjigorme, like about Great Dragons, is the magic they possess. Sure, without those,m they'd be easy targets for modern weaponry.

Verjigorme, I'd treat like a Great Old One from Cthulhu, actually.

Which as I believe was pointed out in Delta Green, are likely to go splat if hit with modern weaponry with an Elder Sign on it. The problem is getting the modern weaponry and getting the people who own it to let you put an elder sign on it.

You know starting about 30,000 years ago, all the predators that hunted humans started to go extinct (as did most of the megafauna). The general consensus among archaeologists is that this was as a result of human action. Humans are an apex predator, anything above the microbial level that hunts humans or actually in some way threatens them, tends to go either extinct or near extinct. Magic is great, but in the SR universe it has problems dealing with missiles moving several times the speed of sound fired from over the horizon. This is after all the species that coined the term "take off and nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" then (in the SR universe) built orbital bombardment platforms to do just that.

So yes I am having visions of the Horror's emerging in Africa and finding that "demonic horror of a low tech world" equals "not able to do anything worse then they're already doing to themselves".

[ICPiK]

The scariest thing about the horrors is their manipulation. What good would it do to have an army of civilians or even military personnel. The horrors feed on jealousy, vengeance, lies, selfishness etc. to take over... say generals or warlords with careful plotting. Now think how many people of power would be bent because of the fore mentioned traits. Almost everyone at a level of power is tainted with these and easily manipulated. This is why conventional weaponry or anything you could throw @ them would be in there control. They will patiently acquire these targets without us knowing and play out their sadistic game of chess before they strike.

[Wounded Ronin]

Shadowrunners or military personnel are a very tiny percentage of the population, so unless the civilian population suddenly gains military skills and training overnight, there's not many people to fight a sudden influx of Astral beings.

Don't mess with Texas?



Besides for that, I don't think the OP really satisfactorily addressed the issues of beatt he in the context of horrors.

[Neraph]

By how you described Horrors, would the Shadow Spirits be Horrors? Maybe the same enemy under a different name? They siphon life energy (Energy Drain) from people through evoked emotions.

Maybe the 6th World's siege is already underway...

[the_real_elwood]

If the SR metaplot even gets to the horrors invading, I think they'll be beatable by some combo of technology and magic. Maybe cyberzombies, maybe some kind of cybered mages or adepts, or maybe something else that hasn't been created yet. But however it is, I don't think it'll be by direct application of firepower alone. There may be some of the horrors that can be beaten by big guns, but I imagine that others are going to require a more nuanced approach.

[ICPiK]

They are just the best manipulators ever written about ... even more than the sith or shadow entities. Just think of one goal and how smooth and prepared they usually are , sure there are lots of savage horror soldiers but think of how long and carefully they would plan before a serious attack. And how many powerful pawns they would acquire to line their pockets with. It's one of the reasons the big D did what he did and in his will why he put bounties on practitioners of blood magic. The azzies are just helping bring them over.

[Draco18s]

The scariest thing about the horrors is their manipulation.

Manipulate one man and you can wipe out whole regions with that orbital bombardment mentioned earlier.

"Take a taste of your own medicine" as it were.

[hyzmarca]

While the Horrors, collectively, are Eldridge abominations, individually, they are people with their own hopes, dreams, and goals. With the odd exception of Ristul, they aren't meant to be distant unknowable things, but rather larger-than-life villains. Verjigorm can kick ass, yes, but he isn't a god. If he were then he'd rule the Earth right now. He can defeat GDs one at a time, yeah, and sometimes in large groups with sufficient deception. But what really makes him dangerous is the fact that he is a leader. He has minions. Some are even corrupted dragons and great dragons. He's a general.

Who would you rather go to war against, Rambo or Ender Wiggins? One of them is an incredibly badass soldier who can take done entire battalions. The other is a 10 year old boy who annihilated an interstellar empire by using superior strategies and tactics.

Imagine if a T-1000 went back in time, killed Hitler, and impersonated him. Do you think that the liquid-metal guy pretending to be Hitler is dangerous because he is a super-strong terminator from the future who can survive anything short of being melted in a pool of liquid iron and who can turn his arms into swords, or that he's dangerous because he commands the entire German Army.

Compared to an entire army, a couple of sword-arms feel kind of weak.