Shadow's Dawn: Diving into the past, Pre recruitment: Feedback on idea appreciated Options

[Seth]

I guess this is becoming the recruitment thread!

My intention is to start the OOC and IC thread around the 7th March. I will try and ensure that I respond to posts 3 times a week: probably monday, wednesday and saturday as those fit in best with my schedule.

The first game I run in this style will be quite short (for a pbp), will be fairly structured and is telling a specific story: this allows me to find my feet GMing this sort of game, and should engender some pace into the game. If the first game goes well, we'll have another, but that will probably be a lot more sandboxed and political. Many of the PnP campaigns that I run, have lasted for years, so I hope this is the beginning of a long and enjoyable relationship.

In no particular order, the players that I note have registered an interest are. If I have missed you - let me know

• Blackhat
• Ol'scratch - troll alchemist
• Sabs
• Pbangarth
• Halinn
• Zadine

In addition I have 2 others that are planning on playing.

I will be happy to take up to 7 in total, which means that we are already over number. If you all go ahead: well 8 is only 1 more than 7!.

I am still open for receiving stand bys though.

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Back to the original post:

I am interested in running an Earthdawn / Shadowrun crossover game. In this game, the players will all be people who were alive during the Earthdawn period, and alive now. I'll be starting the game in about a month.

Before I start the game, I would appreciate some feedback on whether the character creation feels right.

A basic premise of the game is that for sentient beings memory fades with time: 100 years ago is a long time, 200 is a very long time, and 1000 years is so far back that mostly you remember once remembering things about it.

Another is that of "power level". Power level is the cap of the number of BPs that you can easily gain. After you meet this cap, in order to gain stuff you have to loose stuff. i.e. in the 15th centuary you were probably a dab hand bladed combat. Today you have forgotton those skills, but learn Electronics.

Tier 1 creatures: The great immortals (Harlequin, Ehran, Queen Alachia) have 800-1500 bps.
Tier 2 creatures: Their paladins, a few nobles from the elven courts, lesser dragons, greater drakes have 500-800
Tier 3 creatures: You. Have settled at around 450bp and have been at this very respectable level for around 10,000 years.

Fortunately there are two ways for you to recall long ago times: you can write things down (I suspect most of you will be avid diary keepers) or you relive the memories using a varient of astral questing. This varient means that you literally relive the experience: you (with companions) project into the past and reenact the events. You remember you are from the "future", but you also remember things from that time. Mostly the reenactments follow the same line as they did originally. You can get hurt there, and if you die in the past, it is very bad for you in the present.

When you go into the past, you can shuffle some of your BP that you spent on skills around, and modify your attributes a bit (+/-1 keep the same bps), and your skills (you can mostly respend all your skill bps, please do it in a sensible way and stay recognisably the same). In the past there will usually be a different base mana level. Cyberware will probably not be there (you almost certainly were not cybered when you were there).

You can be opposed in your search for memory. Other people reliving their memories may well be in the same astral quest as yourself, especially if they are trying to hide memories.

The rules for character creation have a few modifiers, given the nature of the game

[ Spoiler ]

You all start as 450 point characters.
You start with 20 karma which you can spend or keep
Knowledge skills: are equal to 10 times (logic + intuition)
Free contacts: are equal to 4 times charisma
Free wealth: willpower * 10,000
Initiation grade = 10 points for level 1, 30 for level 2, 60 for level 3, 100 for level 4

Knowledge skills:
History is a very broad and useful skill. All of you have your general history at a level equal to your logic. You can also buy specific histories. The following may be useful: Earthdawn history, Egyptian history, Roman history, The dark ages, The Reformation, Modern History. The Earthdawn time is so long ago, that you can remember little about it, so it is capped at 1.

Character races are restricted to:

• Drake
• Elf
• Free spirit
• Any thing else that you can persuade me is 10,000 years old. If I accept a different character race there may be a tax for being so unusual, or a bonus if you write a beautiful back story

Drake:
This will cost 30 build points, the armour (hardened and mystic) will be raised to 6 points. The drake stat bonus's increase maximum stats by 1.5*the bonus.

Immortal Elf:
This costs 0 points. Same bonus's as for an elf + immunity to age

Free spirit:
This costs 30 points. You buy attributes exactly the same way that all other players buy attributes. You gain karma like regular characters. You cannot gain karma by selling spirit pacts. Your natural maximum for attributes is your force, which is capped to 6 + initiation level, and is also capped to 5 + minimum physical or mental attribute. Remember to raise an attribute to the natural maximum costs 25 points. Note that in many historical places there will be a background count that is negative, and this will affect your force, and hence your natural maximum.

Magical qualities:
Adept, Mystic Adept and Magician are available, and recommended
Technomancer is available if you really want it: you will be gimped in most memory sequences, so I will use some of the optional rules that make technomancers more impressive in the current day.
Cyberware and Bioware is also available. All cyberware and bioware that you have is deltaware, but costs the same price as standard.

Rule system:

• Mostly RAW
• Empathy software doesn't exist
• Resisting possession is willpower + highest mental stat.
• Possessing creatures add half their force (or for free spirits half their attribute) to the hosts, and the augmented max attribute of the hybrid creature is the lower of the host and the spirit.
• The attribute used with the Arcana skill is the same as your traditions drain resistance attribute
• Damage spells do your magic stat as damage

Relationships:
You have Charisma*2 points of relationship (you can spend 1 bp for 1 extra pt) for the following factions:

• Queen Alachia
• Harliquin
• Ehran the Scribe
• Prince Sean Laverty
• Prince Jenna Ni'Fairra
• High prince Lugh Surehand
• Dunkelzahn
• Hestaby

Rating 0: They don't like you, and will occasionally go out of their way to cause unpleasantness
Rating 1: Neutral-mild dislike
Rating 2: Neutral
Rating 3: Neutral-mild like
Rating 4: Mild friendship
Rating 5: Mild friendship + respect
Rating 6: You can knock on their door, and if they are in a good mood and not busy, they will invite you in for a chat.

A brief history

[ Spoiler ]

All of you were alive during the peak of the last mana surge. You need to decide how you survived the horrors:

• In a dwarven kaer
• In the elven wooden kaers, which became the blood woods. This means you lived around 500 years in agony
• In a secret dragon lair as a dragon servitor (need relationship 4+ with that dragon)
  Some other way that you think is credible

Just before magic left the world, you all took part in a ritual of hiding. You vaguely remember something went wrong with the ritual, but it was so long ago, you cannot quite remember what. Elves and drakes morph into human appearance (duration: until magic returns). The free spirits hide in jewels. While in the jewels they are protected from the worst effects of the mana loss.

Although magic mostly left the world during the 5th age, there were places in the world where magic did not totally leave. In game mechanic terms, the 5th age varied between -10 and -5 mana. Some places are +/- around 3 on this scale. Most of the remnants of the 4th age naturally gravitated to the most mana rich places (or more specifically the least mana poor places).

During the period -5000 to -2000, magic decayed from -5 to -10 average it was highest in some parts of Egypt, but even there it was was pretty low.

From -500 to 500 magic was strongest in Greece and Italy. There was a temporary 100 year blip in mana around -400 AD, taking magic levels to average -5, and in parts of the greek islands, -2.

From 500 to 1500 magic was strongest in south and central america. The average level was -10.

During 1500-2000, magic was highest in Germany and the UK. The magic level started climbing in 1900. By world war 2, it reached -6, and stabilised there until the dawn of the 6th age. World War II was a particularly disturbing time. The Nazi party came out of nowhere (to Elven eyes), and Hitler was a being of vast magical, charismatic and technological might. The Nazi search for occult treasures was real, and scary. Many of the greatest magical treasures were stolen by the Nazi's and have not been recovered. Many people feel that Hitler was a rogue elf or drake. A few claim it is Queen Alachia, but she refutes this, and no proof has ever been recovered.

From the point of view of the remnants of the 4th age, the years up to 1500 were mostly the same. It was something of a surprise to them, that from 1500 onwards, change started and kept happening faster and faster. The two important themes during this time were the movement of power from monarchs to the masses, and the rise of technology. Some of the elves (led by the queen) generally opposed these trends. Although their magical powers were dramatically reduced, most of the remnants maintained a very small amount of magic which gave them an advantage over mortals. In addition they had a very high level of skill compared to most mortals. Technology basically reduces the advantage they have over normal mortals, and the movement of power from Monarchs (themselves) to the masses was not very palatable. Others (a minority) elves saw the rise of technology as a way to eventually destroy the horrors. Despite everything the Elves could do, tech kept getting more powerful. By the end of the victorian age even the Queen felt that it wasn't really possible to put the genie back in the bottle. With the atomic bomb and the promise of powerful augmentation for the masses, the dream of killing the horrors seems plausible. Other elves remember the dreams that the wooden kaers would hold out against the horrors, and think that this tech is just another crazyness like that.

You are all aware that the Horrors may be returning early. Harlequin has placed the voice of Theyla to stop the enemy, but Theyla has failed before, and may fail again. Dunkelzahn has done something clever to stop them, but even so the horror may be back soon. It is not clear that the kaers will work this time. Technology is good at finding things and at breaking through magical wards. Even the dragons may not survive, as technology is capable of finding their lairs

Choices I would like you to make:
How did you survive the last horrors?
What roll did you take in the Egyption period?
What roll did you take in the Greek period?
What roll did you take in the Mayan/Aztec period?
What roll did you take during the reformation, and the growth of technology?
Where were you during world war II
What is your view on technology?
What is your view on Monarchy vs rule of the masses in a world where the monarch is immortal

An observation on xp
Mostly as immortals you have reached your peak power level. Occasionally you learn new skills (mostly knowledge skills), but mostly you forget them as well. Some individuals have a higher natural level of skills. You have been at about the same power level for centuries. The main message here is that the immortals are not gaining xp linearly at 100/year for the last 10,000 years. Don't worry though, there will be a reason that you start earning xp at approximately normal rates soon after the game begins.

How many remnants from the 4th age are there?
A few hundred. The skill 4th age remnant is useful if you want to identify some of them. The problem with memory again (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Killing immortals
No one wants a blood bath. Kill one immortal (which is often harder than it looks), and they have friends who will take revenge. Anyway its much more satisfying to embaress and fool.

[pbangarth]

This sounds interesting. I can't play, both because of time constraints and because I know next to nothing about Earthdawn, but I wonder why Free Spirits couldn't hide in their own metaplanes during the time of the Horrors.

[Seth]

but I wonder why Free Spirits couldn't hide in their own metaplanes during the time of the Horrors

Yes I think that's a very good option for free spirits

[Drace]

Hey was interested in the game, about the drakes though, what meta-races work? All five since they exist back then, or is there a preference/requirement on race?

[Seth]

I see no reason why the dragons cannot have made any of their servants immortal. Any drake is fine.

[BlackHat]

The premise sounds pretty awesome. I'm definitely interested, but I don't know that much about Earthdawn, though, so I'm not sure I would make the best candidate. Sounsd like the characters don't remember that much from back then, though, so maybe it would work out.

A few other questions you may want to clarify:

As for other metatypes, would any of the infected (with immunity (age)) work, or would you prefer not to introduce infected?

EDIT: Trying to think of other PC options in SR4 that grant Immunity (age) but other than infected and free spirits, I am not coming up with any.

I'm also not sure what you meant by "Damage spells do your magic stat as damage". Does that mean it doesn't matter what force you cast the spell at, its base DV is equal to your magic instead of the force?

EDIT: Had a question about drake's metahuman type, but realized it was basically the same question Drace already asked, so I removed it.

[BlackHat]

Brainstorming:

What roll did you take in the Egyption period?
What roll did you take in the Greek period?
What roll did you take in the Mayan/Aztec period?
What roll did you take during the reformation, and the growth of technology?

Another interesting idea wrt the flashbacks would be if the modified stats we used for one of these time periods ended up being used again, as is, during any subsequent trips back to that same time period. The idea being that when you're projecting into the past, you take on the stats of that version of yourself, which might be noticeably different from the future self, but should be consistent should you later project back to that same time period (thereabouts).

It would be too much work to ask players who are interested in submitting a PC to come up with 5+ versions of that same character, but it might work out well if it was done over time as those time periods were introduced through flashbacks. Then again, if the intent is to be flexible with stats, it wouldn't break anything if a given character had different stats on two different jaunts back to the Egyptian period, for example, either.

[BlackHat]

Free spirit:
This costs 30 points. You buy attributes exactly the same way that all other players buy attributes. You gain karma like regular characters. You cannot gain karma by selling spirit pacts. Your natural maximum for attributes is your force, which is capped to 6 + initiation level, and is also capped to 5 + minimum physical or mental attribute. Remember to raise an attribute to the natural maximum costs 25 points. Note that in many historical places there will be a background count that is negative, and this will affect your force, and hence your natural maximum.

I'm a little confused by this bit as well. When you say that they buy attributes the same as other characters, does that mean they all start at 1 and have to be purchased up normally , or does everything still start at 2?

EDIT: Removed content because it wasn't accurate to begin with.

[Seth]

It would be too much work to ask players who are interested in submitting a PC to come up with 5+ versions of that same character, but it might work out well if it was done over time as those time periods were introduced through flashbacks. Then again, if the intent is to be flexible with stats, it wouldn't break anything if a given character had different stats on two different jaunts back to the Egyptian period, for example, either.

I suspect that people will go back to each period once to find specific things. Of course players can do anything (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I'd like to keep the character creation to a minimum, so I hope that tweaked versions of the characters will be adequate (i.e. basically respend skill points spent on skills that will be useless in the past)

Free spirits
I'm a little confused by this bit as well. When you say that they buy attributes the same as other characters, does that mean they all start at 1 and have to be purchased up normally (instead of going up when you raise your force), or does everything still start at 2?

You buy attributes for free spirits the same as for normal. So you start at 1. You can have body 3, str 1, reflexes 4 if you want. This would cost the same as a normal getting the stats 3, 1 and 4 i.e. 50bp, or 65bp. (50 if your forces is 5 or higher, 64 if your force is 4). The natural maximum is your force. So for the previous example you would have to have force 4 at least.

However to get any physical/mental/edge stat to 7, all the physical and mental stats need to be at least 2, and to get a physical/mental/edge stat to 8, all the physical and mental stats need to be at least 3. If this is too complex an extra rule I can always drop it. I was just doing this is reduce the chance of the 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10 character

I have played a free spirit for some time now and found them to be a lot of fun. They are weaker than magicians at spell casting, but have tremendous movement powers. I have reduce the cost of the race as I think they were over priced, and the price of buying attributes is now the same as for any other character: with the added benefit that as they progress they can fairly easily get stats over 6. I think they are a lot of fun to play

[Seth]

As for other metatypes, would any of the infected (with immunity (age)) work, or would you prefer not to introduce infected?

I really struggle with the infected, so I would rather not have one in the group. I think you have to have a very dark game to support them, and this is hopefully going to be an epic and heroic tale, admittedly set in a dystopian world.

Other ideas I did consider were:

• A character who constantly reincarnates, and is aware of their previous lives. This would I think be easily modelled by a quality, or a metamagic.
• The eternal champion: constantly born at times of crisis...yada yada yada...see Michael Moorcock
• A normal character that made a spirit pact with a free spirit and gained immunity to age: I wouldn't have this costing 5bp/spirits edge though. This makes the character very keen to keep the free spirit alive (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) and is almost a disadvantage worth 10ish bps
• A normal character that found and drank from the fountain of youth. Each time they visit the fountain their age is reset to 15. This too is a disadvantage worth 10ish bps (it would be bad if the fountain were broken
• An alchemist that discovered the recipe for the elixir of immortality: better hope that word of your elixir doesn't get out or some people may come hunting for you.
• A character cursed by a horror they banished. The curse means that the horror wants to meet them again, and has very special plans for them.

Any other ideas like this gratefully received. Some are a bit (a lot) cheesy, but when fleshed out can make for a memorable and interesting character.

[BlackHat]

I have played a free spirit for some time now and found them to be a lot of fun. They are weaker than magicians at spell casting, but have tremendous movement powers. I have reduce the cost of the race as I think they were over priced, and the price of buying attributes is now the same as for any other character: with the added benefit that as they progress they can fairly easily get stats over 6. I think they are a lot of fun to play

Sounds like you have more experience with free spirits than I have, so if you're happy with it, its probably fine. I like that the costs are more equal to metahuman costs.

[BlackHat]

I really struggle with the infected, so I would rather not have one in the group. I think you have to have a very dark game to support them, and this is hopefully going to be an epic and heroic tale, admittedly set in a dystopian world.

Fair enough. I was mostly just checking to make sure they didn't fall off of your radar, since I'm sure someone would ask.

Other ideas I did consider were:

• A character who constantly reincarnates, and is aware of their previous lives. This would I think be easily modelled by a quality, or a metamagic.
• The eternal champion: constantly born at times of crisis...yada yada yada...see Michael Moorcock
• A normal character that made a spirit pact with a free spirit and gained immunity to age: I wouldn't have this costing 5bp/spirits edge though. This makes the character very keen to keep the free spirit alive (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) and is almost a disadvantage worth 10ish bps
• A normal character that found and drank from the fountain of youth. Each time they visit the fountain their age is reset to 15. This too is a disadvantage worth 10ish bps (it would be bad if the fountain were broken
• An alchemist that discovered the recipe for the elixir of immortality: better hope that word of your elixir doesn't get out or some people may come hunting for you.
• A character cursed by a horror they banished. The curse means that the horror wants to meet them again, and has very special plans for them.

Any other ideas like this gratefully received. Some are a bit (a lot) cheesy, but when fleshed out can make for a memorable and interesting character.

Ah, these are the sort of "other ideas" you were thinking off. I'll see if I can think up any other fantasy tropes for immortality - maybe something like Dorian Grey, where there is some physical object that grants the character immortality. Would probably be similar to the spirit pact/elixir idea, except that the character might be able to hide/protect the object.

[BlackHat]

450 BP is probably a nice manageable level for a higher powered game, but it does strike me as 'unintuitive' that you would consider 50 BP worth of advancement as the upper limit of what a metahuman can learn before they have to unlearn things. According to your rules for initiation, that's basically a starting character who has initiated twice (and raised magic once). In the core book, that puts this characters at about the level of a "superior" prime runner, but well below the "superhuman" level.

From the standpoint of a managable (not-overpowered) game, I agree 450 is a better number, but from the standpoint of a 10,000 year old immortal elf, I would expect a bit more than your basic runner. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

One more thing you might consider if you haven't already ruled it out for another reason is that the extra advancement might be better represented through bonus (post character creation) karma, rather than bonus BP? The Karmagen rules generally produce more powerful characters, so that might also be another way to consider going... but both would mean more bookkeeping, especially when adjusting skills through the ages - so maybe its not what you're looking for. The fact that karma costs go up as skills/attributes/initiation/whatever gets higher builds in some limitations on how good someone (even an immortal) can become at something, and encourages people to broaden out over time, instead.

Both of these suggestions probably make playing and running the game more work, but I figured I'd throw the ideas out there in case you didn't already think of them.

[BlackHat]

Curious what your expectation would be for the average mana level you would expect the PCs to encounter in their jaunts backwards. It seems from the history writeup that its mostly -5 to -10 (except for the years -500 to 500), but maybe you expect that the PCs would have spent that time in a part of the world with a slightly better mana level.

[Ol' Scratch]

As I mentioned in private, I really like the idea of an alchemist and am running wild with that. But I do have to admit, as I throw down some raw numbers to try to make sure my ideas are feasible, 450 BP does seem rather limiting for this scope of game even with the free abilities. I realize that the idea is that some of this is made up for by the fact that we can specialize our characters based on the individual era in which we're reliving, but it doesn't really feel right, if that makes any sense. Just look at Jane "Frosty" Foster. She's only been around for a few decades and she's well and truly powerful.

That said, I really don't have any other ideas to offer. It does seem strange that there won't be any ally spirits or other things you can purchase only with Karma aside from limited Initiation, though. (I mean, most references on the subject place immortals in the 10+ Initiation range. So in and of itself, that really strikes me as odd, especially since I've played plenty of normal characters who've surpassed Grade 4.)

Anyway, onto other subjects, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for the shared history between the characters? Most notably where we were stashed away during the Horror invasion in the Fourth World? Personally I think being in a dwarven kaer is the best way to go since it opens up the most possibilities for everyone. The Blood Woods were painfully elven, and being a dragon's pet for so long isn't very appealing either.

[pbangarth]

Anyway, onto other subjects, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for the shared history between the characters? Most notably where we were stashed away during the Horror invasion in the Fourth World? Personally I think being in a dwarven kaer is the best way to go since it opens up the most possibilities for everyone. The Blood Woods were painfully elven, and being a dragon's pet for so long isn't very appealing either.

Despite being overloaded, I'm toying with the idea of a Free Spirit built around a couple of concepts: limitless imitation/disguise (aura masking - mutable form - realistic form), and a day job in the entertainment industry in LA as a bit player and extra in trideos; and a Buddhist Tradition leading him to explore the many layers of Illusion over top of Ultimate Reality.

As far as a shared existence in a dwarven kaer, all the spirit would need is to have been in there once and he could zap back and forth between the kaer and his home plane whenever. Which, as near as I can tell, makes him a liability were he to ever be taken by the horrors.

[Ol' Scratch]

Wouldn't that make him a liability in any of the hideouts from the Horrors, though?

[BlackHat]

Lol, I realized last night that most of what I was saying about the free spirit costs was inaccurate, so ignore my previous post on the topic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[pbangarth]

Wouldn't that make him a liability in any of the hideouts from the Horrors, though?

That's what I think Seth needs to consider in regards to his earlier acknowledgment that Free Spirits could hide in their own plane. If the Free Spirit just zapped back and forth between metaplane and kaer, then there would be no problem, I think. Going anywhere else in the physical or astral could be deadly. If Seth allows hiding in the metaplane, then there would likely have to be a strict edict against going anywhere outside the two safe places during the time of the horrors.

[Ol' Scratch]

Something else I'm curious about regarding the creation guidelines is why does it matter if mana levels raised up to a background count of -10 or even -5? Unless we specifically design our characters so that we're gimp in everything except our Magic attribute, none of that will really matter as we'll still be pretty much next to worthless? Just to get to a Magic of 10, that would cost, what, 175 BP (Grade 4 and raising Magic/Force from 5 to 10) alone. And even if you do so, there's really no incentive to move to those areas as a background count of -10 means you're still at Magic/Force 0. I mean, I haven't played in a while and don't remember all of the rules that well, but I don't think I'm too far off the mark.

[BlackHat]

That was why I asked what he expected the average background count to be. Free spirits basically can't go into a place with a BG count that would reduce their magic to 0, and everyone else would become mundanes who are probably also uncybered (because it is the past).

[Sephiroth]

I'm somewhat acquainted with Earthdawn lore, but I've never played it, and I'm not familiar enough with the three princes you mentioned for contacts to do justice to describing any relationship between a PC and them. Nevertheless, I am keeping my eye on this thread, so I can ruminate on whether to join or not.

Also, Blackhat, a formula pact with a free spirit also can give a PC Immunity to Age.

[Seth]

I'd just like to remind people that the purpose for this thread is to get the feeling of the campaign correct (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) One problem of the GM of the game, is that it is hard without help to get that feeling correct. I'd like to thank you all for the feedback: quite a lot of it is having an effect.

About the 450 pts: its actually closer to 550 in that there are a load of free contacts, free wealth, free knowledge skills, and the racial cost is free too. Note also that all the bioware / cyberware you have is delta ware, but costs the same as normal. The idea of having lots of knowledge skills is that this captures the experience of the character, the active points control how dangerous. My observations with shadowrunners at this level is that they are insanely dangerous...just as remnants from the 4th age should be. Most security guards have 6 to 10 die in their active pools. Most security systems are rating 4..5, with only a few being 6. Most people in the world have one IP. I will try hard not to have power inflation creep in. I will mostly be playing adversaries as written in the source book for the ephemeral world (and they are really weedy in the source book).

My feeling on the power level in the present day, is that you are not the tier 1 immortals (yet). Frosty is sure a rare individual that Harlequin regards her as worth to train her personally. You lot are more the retainers of the tier 1's, or powerful independents. You are pretty tough (you have survived for many thousands of years) but are not at Erhan's level yet (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I will be removing the tier 1/tier2/tier 3 from the initial post, and just have 2 tiers. No one really knows how the tier 1's get so tough (but perhaps you will find out)

Thanks for the feedback on free spirits. I have decided to start their attributes at 2, but in all other ways the post is as before. This is a lot of bp bonus, but not a lot of power bonus, and free spirits need love.

My expectation on the magic level is that in the remnants of the 4th age move around to find the highest magic areas (which as I noted got to be about 3 pts higher). This means that in the deep dark ages the magic level was effectively -7, and boy was it tough. Most of the 4th age elves died because it was so miserable. However in world war II we are at -3 (in the places where the remnants hung out) and its a lot less bad. Much of the game will be spent in Earthdawn, world war II, early shadowrun. Some of it mightl be in the dark ages, but only after I have seen how the delving into the past works in practice.

The feedback about "having to gimp everything except magic" is valid, and I hadn't realised. For free spirits thats not a problem: force is their most important attribute anyway, and they need to have a very high force. (this is one reason I just improved free spirits above). With the creation rules as written you can start with magic 10 (4 levels of initiation), but the cost is very high. After quite a bit of thought, I think the best option is to make you all grade 4 initiates as free present from me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) You still have to pay for the magic attribute, but that should make you all feel a lot more potent. Magic 9 costs 80bps and Magic 10 costs 125bp. If you want to be a mundane, I will give 50 more bps to compensate. I am also adding a free spirit power that allows free spirits to ignore one point of background (this costs one edge).

I'll remind you that in the past you can respend all your bps that you spend on skills, this relevant as it means all the skill points you spend on spell casting, summoning, counterspell, assensing, astral combat, computing... can all be spend on survival skills getting you through the dark ages. I will also allow you to start with twice as many skills at 6 (2 at 6, 4 at 5 or 1 at 6&2 at 5)

Also remember that in the dark ages there were no assault rifles, machine pistols, tasers, heavy armour, tailored pheromones... For large periods / areas there was almost no armour. This means that the die pools for even good opponents are lower.

To summarise the changes (thanks again for the feedback)

• Free spirits start with all attributes at 2
• Everyone gets initiation to level 4 for free, mundanes get a bonus 50bp
• Only two tiers of immortals (the top named individuals) and yourselves
• You start with twice as many skills at 6 if you want.
• A new free spirit power costing 1 edge that allows free spirits to ignore one point of background (can only be taken once)
• One minor change for alchemists: recipes cost 1bp not 3bp

This was quite a big power inflation, but the opponents you face are quite challenging, and I think it more accurately reflects the remnants of the 4th age

[Seth]

I'm somewhat acquainted with Earthdawn lore, but I've never played it, and I'm not familiar enough with the three princes you mentioned for contacts to do justice to describing any relationship between a PC and them.

The less you know the less I have to worry about accidentally breaking canon and getting caught!

I am AFB at the moment, but I will do a post on the key players for this story, with a bit of background in the next couple of days.

[Halinn]

This sounds really interesting, and I would love a chance to play in it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)