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deeweef
post Aug 11 2004, 09:38 AM
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Looks like a good way to get ppl to give comments about a chapter is to start a thread for it. :P
Anyways, I can't really answer for the Denmark part, but hopefully adhoc or dutch-dk will see this and be active on this thread.
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audun
post Aug 11 2004, 10:29 AM
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It really stinks... :silly:
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Skeptical Clown
post Aug 11 2004, 02:54 PM
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No offense, but easily the most boring chapter of the book. With one exception, every nation therein is basically filled with nice happy friendly people with nice jobs and nice benefits and nice nice nice...

Denmark: Ship City is cool, but the rest of the country is pretty uninteresting.
Finland: I guess if you really want to run a backwater European setting, this is it.
Norway: It's dark, depressing, ruled by corps, has lots of Shadowrunners and crime syndicates, and some very good cyberclinics. Sounds great! But that's all the information there is, period.
Sweden: Perfectly boring. Good environment, good police, good government, bad for shadowrunning (basically).
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Austere Emancipa...
post Aug 11 2004, 04:33 PM
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QUOTE (Skeptical Clown)
Finland: [...] a backwater

While I must object on principle as well, I do wonder how Finland can be considered "a backwater". With no mention of agriculture or the paper industry, but with a lot of focus on Erika, it seems Finland has continued on the path towards a more tech-based economy and the majority of population in the densely populated (by Scandinavian standards, at least) southern urban areas. A quick glance at some World Economy Forum world rankings alone should make it clear Finland's not a backwater in the "retarded in development" sense.

Nor is it a backwater in the sense of being isolated. We currently export as much as Poland, at 1/7th the population. The traffic in R&D workers between Erika and foreign megacorps alone should be a significant source of employment of shadowrunners, and with the chaos in Eastern Europe, Finland is still one of the easiest/cheapest gateways between Central Europe and Russia.

And if you define "backwater" by the fact that Finland happens to be located in one corner of Europe, well, I guess you're really happy SoE doesn't cover Greece.

I do agree, however, that they made Scandinavian Union somewhat too perfect, slightly boring. The coming of megacorps and the ways it changes the society would have caused major unrest and a surge in crime even here, and while it's obvious to a native that this sort of the case, the entries could well seem to describe peaceful, prosperous and dull countries to people who are already used to significant levels of crime, poverty, oppression, etc. More stuff like in Norway, powerful and rather open conflict between the economic gains of succumbing to foreign megacorps (and other influence) and a nationalistic desire to maintain self-reliance, would have been welcome.

Still, I think the section did a good job of describing the feel of the scandinavian setting, considering the very limited space. With the amount of interest there is in Scandinavia (ie almost none outside of the few Scandinavian SR players), I think the entries strike a good balance, giving enough information for running the Scandinavian shadows without stealing too many pages away from the more interesting (for some people, anyway) areas.
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Skeptical Clown
post Aug 11 2004, 04:42 PM
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How did I know I'd touch a nerve somewhere? :)

Backwater is the impression I get from the book, not from Finland in general. But all I get out of the Finland chapter is: It's nice, Erika is based there, other corps don't have much of a foothold, they're working on wireless networks, and there's a wilderness area. Finland is pretty far removed from all the other concerns and plots of Europe. So yes, it seems a bit backwater compared to the rest of the nations described. More usable than Sweden, though.
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arkadi
post Aug 11 2004, 05:06 PM
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QUOTE (Austere Emancipator @ Aug 11 2004, 11:33 AM)
I do agree, however, that they made Scandinavian Union somewhat too perfect, slightly boring. The coming of megacorps and the ways it changes the society would have caused major unrest and a surge in crime even here, and while it's obvious to a native that this sort of the case, the entries could well seem to describe peaceful, prosperous and dull countries to people who are already used to significant levels of crime, poverty, oppression, etc. More stuff like in Norway, powerful and rather open conflict between the economic gains of succumbing to foreign megacorps (and other influence) and a nationalistic desire to maintain self-reliance, would have been welcome.

Yup, I agree with you there.

One thing that struck as somewhat odd was the fact that there was no Kalevala-based magic. The Norwegians, Swedens and Norwegians have their Viking mythos, and even the Sami were covered, but no mention of Kalevala/Finnish folk lore. Where are the Väinämöinen and Perkele totems?! :P

Also, why is the Union the Scandinavian Union when Finland isn't geographically a part of Scandinavia? The Nordic Union would've been a more appropriate term in my opinion.
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Austere Emancipa...
post Aug 11 2004, 05:14 PM
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With a little more space, some of the tidbits mentioned could have been expanded into something truly interesting. The whole wireless matrix thing, for starters. And the fact that Finland is a stable NEEC-member country which has a loosely guarded border with Russia. And the whole Erika vs Corporate Court thing.

It's just that with as little space as there is for each country, you wouldn't be able to fit any meaningful amount of information on those things, and the only way to make them seem directly usable would be a short "Plot Hook" paragraph, ala Campaign Setting books for The Other Game.

[Edit]Oh hell yeah, we need a Perkele totem. Something like this:
[If you would ever consider using this, you won't need any fluff.]
Anywhere on land
+3 dice on Combat spells, +1 die on Manipulation spells
Lots of Willpower tests to get anything meaningful done[/Edit]

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Aug 11 2004, 05:19 PM
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Austere Emancipa...
post Aug 12 2004, 10:32 AM
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After reading KosherPickle's ScandUnion review and going over the chapter from the book as well, something really started sticking out:
QUOTE (SoE @ p. 141)
[Erika's] military forces form the backbone of Finnish defense.

The Finnish military will number between 250,000 and 350,000 for the foreseeable future. It's currently going down at a slow rate, but looking at how that's going it won't be lower than 250,000 when the Eurowars hit, and it's unlikely that it'll go down much between the Eurowars starting and 2063.

This would leave an army of at least ~200,000 men in 2063. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't most corporate militaries about the size of a regiment, or a division at best? Considering how the Finnish "area defense" strategy works, Erika probably has a military several times as large as the AAAs (except for Aztech) put together. So does Erika really put that much money into its own military force, or does it simply "sponsor" the Finnish Defense Forces?

This is a rather important detail considering the Fear of Russia athmosphere in the Finnish entry. Assuming a well-trained and equipped military of at least 200,000 men and the strategy of defending every square meter of land, Russia requires some real madmen in governmental and military top positions to make the general population and the whole military believe they can achieve anything signficant by attacking us.

Plus the CorpCourt PoV: If Russia continues harassing the ScandUnion, nationalistic views will only grow in popularity and there's no way megacorps will gain a firmer foothold here, so Russia's all out of allies, and it'll be hard pressed to even find neutrals in the area.
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Nath
post Aug 12 2004, 11:11 AM
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QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
The Finnish military will number between 250,000 and 350,000 for the foreseeable future.

The Finnish Armed Forces nowadays number about 35,000, most of them conscripts. 350,000 would be what they get if they call in nearly all the trained reservists. In the military I'd think the "backbone" would be career soldiers, and there are not a lot of them in the Finnish one (and for another meaning of the word backbone, I guess it also makes a lot of sense for the Finnish military communications center to be operated by Erika).
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Austere Emancipa...
post Aug 12 2004, 11:32 AM
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QUOTE (Nath)
The Finnish Armed Forces nowadays number about 35,000, most of them conscripts. [...] In the military I'd think the "backbone" would be career soldiers

Okay, that makes more sense. The actual peace-time number in 2003 was 32,000 to be exact. There are only 8,500 career soldiers, but any significant portion of that would still be a massive force by AA corp standards. Though it would fit the general image of Erika for them to employ perhaps around 1/3 - 1/2 the training NCOs/WOs and lieutenants. Especially the lieutenants play a very important role in training and could very well be called the "backbone" of the FDF, and there probably aren't more than maybe a thousand or two of them.

QUOTE (Nath)
350,000 would be what they get if they call in nearly all the trained reservists.

The current number (for war-time manpower) is 490,000, actually. And that's certainly not "nearly all trained reservists". At 27,000 new reservists a year and each staying in the reserve for an average of 30 years, the potential is much higher. It's just that there currently isn't enough equipment to arm and support all of them into a combat force.
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deeweef
post Aug 12 2004, 12:46 PM
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Sure, to us Finland ain't part of Scandinavia, although geographically Denmark ain't either (a small part of northern Finland is though). Politically Finland isn't considered as part of either, but is part of what we call the Nordic countries. But, to some other countries Scandinavia = Nordic countries, or at least that's the impression I get from talking to americans and checking english encyclopedias.
See also Wikipedia.

As EuroMagic was to be described in a seperate chapter, I've tried to stay clear of that in the country descriptions. EuroMagic will get lots of attention in SOTA:2064 IIRC, so maybe Audun has/will touch on Kalevala there.
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arkadi
post Aug 12 2004, 03:53 PM
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QUOTE (deeweef)
Sure, to us Finland ain't part of Scandinavia, although geographically Denmark ain't either (a small part of northern Finland is though). Politically Finland isn't considered as part of either, but is part of what we call the Nordic countries. But, to some other countries Scandinavia = Nordic countries, or at least that's the impression I get from talking to americans and checking english encyclopedias.
See also Wikipedia.


Yes, I'm aware of the fact that there seems to be some confusion as to what actually is Scandinavia. I guess it's just a matter of perspective.

QUOTE (deeweef)
As EuroMagic was to be described in a seperate chapter, I've tried to stay clear of that in the country descriptions. EuroMagic will get lots of attention in SOTA:2064 IIRC, so  maybe Audun has/will touch on Kalevala there.


Well, I certainly hope so.


As for the Fear of Russia atmosphere mentioned by Austere Emancipator, it doesn't seem very likely that Russia would attack Finland/the Union, what with the war in Poland and the problems Russia has with Awakened Siberia. In fact, I think it's more likely that it would be Finland that attacked Russia, and not the other way around. Just think about it: Finland is militarily probably stronger than ever and Russia's weaker than in a long time, it seems. Combine that with an almost irrational paranoia and (at least for some people) hatred of Russia, and what do you get? "A pre-emptive strike" or "the liberation of Karelia", that's what.
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audun
post Aug 12 2004, 07:48 PM
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QUOTE (arkadi)

QUOTE (deeweef)
As EuroMagic was to be described in a seperate chapter, I've tried to stay clear of that in the country descriptions. EuroMagic will get lots of attention in SOTA:2064 IIRC, so  maybe Audun has/will touch on Kalevala there.


Well, I certainly hope so.
Sorry, no Kalevala magic AFAIK. I don't know enough about it to make something decent.
QUOTE


As for the Fear of Russia atmosphere mentioned by Austere Emancipator, it doesn't seem very likely that Russia would attack Finland/the Union, what with the war in Poland and the problems Russia has with Awakened Siberia. In fact, I think it's more likely that it would be Finland that attacked Russia, and not the other way around. Just think about it: Finland is militarily probably stronger than ever and Russia's weaker than in a long time, it seems. Combine that with an almost irrational paranoia and (at least for some people) hatred of Russia, and what do you get? "A pre-emptive strike" or "the liberation of Karelia", that's what.


The conflict over Karelia was one of the plots that got cut somewhere in the process. It might pop up some other time.
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Skeptical Clown
post Aug 12 2004, 08:49 PM
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Does Scandanavian folklore really have enough of a modern-day mystical tradition to justify Shadowrun-era magical traditions? I honestly don't know--it makes sense for Voudoun or Native American spiritual traditions to have individual magical methods, since they have surviving mystical traditions today. Even neo-paganism like Wicca and the modern 'druids' can credibly be extended into a Shadowrun magic tradition. But I don't picture anyone, say, worshipping Thor anymore.
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deeweef
post Aug 12 2004, 08:58 PM
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It's not really my area of interest or knowledge but I don't remember seeing that magical traditions adopted in SR had to have a modern day level of activity. Magin in the Shadows has a paragraph describing a Norse magical tradition but in the form of Idol-totems IIRC.
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Skeptical Clown
post Aug 12 2004, 09:02 PM
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Well right, but the Idol-worship always seemed more like an adoption of a archetypical force, than the worship of a specific god or goddess. It just stretches credibility that anyone is going to start worshipping Odin or Zeus again, Awakening or no.
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Dashifen
post Aug 12 2004, 09:07 PM
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QUOTE (Skeptical Clown)
Does Scandanavian folklore really have enough of a modern-day mystical tradition to justify Shadowrun-era magical traditions? I honestly don't know--it makes sense for Voudoun or Native American spiritual traditions to have individual magical methods, since they have surviving mystical traditions today. Even neo-paganism like Wicca and the modern 'druids' can credibly be extended into a Shadowrun magic tradition. But I don't picture anyone, say, worshipping Thor anymore.

There's a modern religion today called Asatru based on a Norse/Scandanavian background. Linkage. Therefore, I would have to say that there would be more than enough of a magical/mystical background for an SR Asatru based religio-magical tradition.
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Synner
post Aug 12 2004, 09:29 PM
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Skeptical - You're in for a surprise. Asartu was actually recognized by the Swedish and Norwegian governments as an official religion (for tax and other purposes) in 2001. To earn the government classification they have to number more than 10.000 followers. They hold several major festival get-togethers (blots) every year in Scandinavia and the next time you see a Nordic using a little Norse hammer necklace you could well be looking at a follower of the Aesir. Current day Norse neo-paganism is similar to Druidism (where people do worship the Old Gods as avatars of primal and elemental natural forces) rather than Wicca (which has a lot of other influences in the cauldron).

There will be more guidelines in roleplaying this and other European Pagan traditions in SOTA64. It's important to underline though, that as far as SR is concerned "Idol follower" is a game mechanics term rather than an in character/game world term (ie. in the Scandinavian Union there are "gode of Wotan" not "idol followers").

QUOTE
just stretches credibility that anyone is going to start worshipping Odin or Zeus again, Awakening or no.

Is it any different from believing they are being possessed by Baron Samedi and the other Loas? Or believing they can speak with Coyote the Trickster, Snake the Guide or any other NA Totem?
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hobgoblin
post Aug 12 2004, 10:01 PM
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there is allso a nice amount of spirits and other similar forces out there in the old tales. the original dwarfs where only loosely similar to what got into tolkiens works and later on showed up in dungeons & dragons and on...

then there is beings like huldra, the daugther of the troll king (going by memory here, been some years since i read up on the local storys :( *shame shame*) and a haunting beauty and active by night. so if you see a beautyful girl running around in the norwegian woods at night then keep a look out for a troll tail as that the mark ;)

there is allso two similar creatures, draugen and nøkken. both live under water but draugen live out in the ocean while nøkken hides in swampy lakes. neither is any fun haveing a encounter with.

the devil got a local treatment when he got imported along with christianity to. he would appear like a normal human but you could make him out by one of his feet being a hoof (i belive it was a horse hoof). and he would try to get musicans into duels of music with the soul at stake. his instrument of choice was the haring fele (fiddle) and allso the saying was that those that realy could play said instrument had sold his soul...

problem is that mutch of this is of more recent date then the vikings alltho i feel that mutch of its origins can be traced back in time very far, alltho how far i cant comment on.

so while protestantism is the official variant of cristhianity that governs norway when it comes to religion old storys are kept alive :)

how mutch of this is inheritance from sweden or denmark i can again not comment on. but i dont think its mutch (but thats just my personal belief)...
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Skeptical Clown
post Aug 12 2004, 10:06 PM
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QUOTE (Synner @ Aug 12 2004, 09:29 PM)
Is it any different from believing they are being possessed by Baron Samedi and the other Loas? Or believing they can speak with Coyote the Trickster, Snake the Guide or any other NA Totem?

Only if it was springing up from a place where that religion hadn't existed before. Since, apparently, people DO worship those ancient gods again in a neo-pagan fashion, I guess it's not any different. I mean, it's all the same to me anyway... Odin, Zeus, Jesus, Buddha, Discordia, Hendrix, whatever man.
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snowRaven
post Aug 12 2004, 11:38 PM
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QUOTE (Austere Emancipator)
[Edit]Oh hell yeah, we need a Perkele totem. Something like this:
[If you would ever consider using this, you won't need any fluff.]
Anywhere on land
+3 dice on Combat spells, +1 die on Manipulation spells
Lots of Willpower tests to get anything meaningful done[/Edit]

I love it! I wonder how many people on here will get it, though? :grinbig: I think I'm gonna introduce a Perkele shaman somewhere in my campaign... it'd be hilarious!

QUOTE
Also, why is the Union the Scandinavian Union when Finland isn't geographically a part of Scandinavia? The Nordic Union would've been a more appropriate term in my opinion.


Because, as has been pointed out, people in other parts of the world (that is, anywhere outside the Nordic countries and those closest to them on a map) think that Scandinavia = Nordic and includes Denmark, Finland and maybe even Iceland although it should just be Sweden and Norway. A bit sad to see the mixup in a sourcebook, though, but ah well.

From the sound of it, Sweden in SR seems like a fairly tame and useless place, which I'm a bit bummed to hear. But ah well - shame on me for not contributing, eh? :elims:
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Pistons
post Aug 13 2004, 02:37 PM
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QUOTE (hobgoblin)
then there is beings like huldra, the daugther of the troll king (going by memory here, been some years since i read up on the local storys :( *shame shame*) and a haunting beauty and active by night. so if you see a beautyful girl running around in the norwegian woods at night then keep a look out for a troll tail as that the mark ;)

Really? Cool; hadn't heard that one. (Just variations with similar-ish myths.)
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Ancient History
post Aug 13 2004, 02:51 PM
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Phil FOglio did a rendition of the Troll King's daughter once... :D
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PiXeL01
post Aug 13 2004, 02:54 PM
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Actually in Denmark the worship of Odin, Thor and others have been reconized as an official religion for the last few years, much like Sweden and Norway. They sacrifice cakes, flowers and stuff like that, not people or animals at least not that the public knows about.
As far as I can remember back in history Denmark (and for a lesser part) Finland have always been considered part of Scandinavia (I should know, I'm a Dane ;) )
I felt a bit disappointed when I read many of the entries covering the Scandinavian Union and other countries. Too little depth :(, though still with some kind of hooks, though I would like alot more.
It seems to me as if they have had priority on places which have been covered in source books before.
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JongWK
post Aug 13 2004, 03:06 PM
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So, when are the modern-day Aesir going to steal a Swedish battleship and start raiding coastal towns in Europe? ;)
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