 Shadows of Africa, What should be in it? |
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  Oct 7 2004, 06:22 PM
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#1
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Moving Target  Group: Members Posts: 180 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 1,722  |
Hoi Chummers, it's great to see Shadows of Asia and Latin America are official. I eagerly await them, but what of the Dark Continent?
What would you like to see in it? Do we have any African experts, residents, etc... Who can contribute to such a project? Cheers QM P.S.: Shadows of the Sixth World could cover anything left out. |
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Oct 7 2004, 06:32 PM
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#2
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 |
Well, I'd like to see all of Africa covered, since it's so sparsely covered. But particularly, I'm curious to see how Azania works out. That place confuses the heck out of me; it seems to consist of states that are both human supremicist and ruled by elves.
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Oct 7 2004, 07:33 PM
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#3
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 6,748 Joined: 5-July 02 Member No.: 2,935 |
Well, we'd need updates on those parts of Africa already covered or mentioned: the Azanian Confederacy, the Gold and Ivory Coast, Egypt, the remains of Libya, the northern deserts, Mount Kilamanjaro, and Madagascar.
I'd especially like to see Central Africa (Such as Zambia) and Ethiopia in on the mix, perhaps a resurrection of the ancient empires along the North-West side of the continent. |
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Oct 7 2004, 07:46 PM
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#4
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Ain Soph Aur Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,477 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Montreal, Canada Member No.: 600 |
I'd love to see Morroco, a pretty interesting and developped country where runners could be doing good business.
Sudan would be nice cause I like how the place looks. Nice long grassy plains. Perfect for merc engagements (plus you have places like the illemi (sp?) triangle). The "jungle" parts of africa should be shrouded in mystery. Here Lies Danger on the maps. WTF is up with a Ghoul nation? How can it possibly exist for more than a week? I can picture all these ghouls sitting around on dusty plains, going "dude, we need more people to eat". On the whole, I don't think there are many shadowrunning opportunities in Africa, more like Merc opportunities. Should Franpro really sink some money into a book most people can't use as a setting? |
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Oct 7 2004, 07:49 PM
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#5
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
ghouls only need 1% of their body weight in metahuman flesh per week. it's not like they have a child for dinner every night. granted, that's still a buttload of metahuman flesh.
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Oct 7 2004, 07:59 PM
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#6
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Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033 |
Why did I just get an image of an all ghoul SR team making a run on a "fat farm" for food extraction?
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Oct 7 2004, 08:16 PM
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#7
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
hm. you know, some medical waste is metahuman flesh. "mm, fried ovarian tumor! d'you want benign or metastizing?"
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Oct 7 2004, 08:37 PM
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#8
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Ain Soph Aur Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,477 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Montreal, Canada Member No.: 600 |
Yes, but it's not like you can just "take off" 1% of another person, and he'll go on normally. I sure as shit wouldn't live in a "Ghoul Nation". So the Ghouls have to get their meat from neighbouring nations. So they either a) make capture raids, which would lead to war, which the ghouls cant win cause I don't think their condition makes them very apt at using tanks and modern weaponry (claws and blindness and all) or b) bribe neighbouring governements to sell some citizens, but the ghouls don't have a whole lof of money since they live in the poorest continent in the world. Hmm, unless there are diamond mines, or other such ressources. I think there was orichalchum there for a while. But that would just lead to neighbours invading so they can have said ressources, which now that I think about it is exactly what the Elves did. So Ghoul nation : have to import ALL their food needs + no modern weapons = no more nation. Edit: You know what, replace "Ghoul Nation" by "Vampire Nation" and it's actually more feasible. |
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Oct 7 2004, 08:52 PM
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#9
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King of the Hobos Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,117 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 127 |
What should it include? I'm not really sure whether it should cover areas like the Maghreb since ideally I'd love to see a Shadows of the Middle East book. Stick to sub-Saharan Africa IMO. Basically update everything really since most of the continent aside from Egypt/Libya, Sudan, Azania and the Gold Coast area are a blank. The Congo region though should be left suitably vague though, I mean how else are we going to have Darkest Africa? :) Oh and you have to include something about Zanzibar in it as well.
The short version is that Asamando is sitting on massive fuck off amounts of diamonds that they sell off and trade to other people for different things, some of them being people/foodstuffs. |
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Oct 7 2004, 09:38 PM
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#10
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 527 Joined: 30-January 04 Member No.: 6,043 |
A recent milk run pulled by the group I GM for involved the theft of medical waste. One of the runners remarked that he suspected they were being "caterers." |
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Oct 7 2004, 10:42 PM
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#11
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Immortal Elf Group: Members Posts: 11,410 Joined: 1-October 03 From: Pittsburgh Member No.: 5,670 |
backgammon, what about the sale of dead bodies? there are people cacking off all over the world; i'm sure some industrious soul has thought of selling some of 'em to Asamando. they might even give their group a funny-sounding name, like Tamanous. though i guess that's pretty distinctly north american.
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Oct 8 2004, 12:35 AM
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#12
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,756 Joined: 11-December 02 From: France Member No.: 3,723 |
According to Cyberpirates, best estimations says there 20-25,000 ghouls in Asamondo. They would require about 70,000 - 90,000 corpses per year (something like 3-6 millions ton of human flesh). With a death rate of 20‰ not uncommon in Africa nowadays, a population of 5 millions would produce enough. There are currently about 210 millions people in West Africa, cut to a quarter by VITAS, though it probably grew anew since. So in all of West Africa from Mauritania to Nigeria, there would be at least 1 million corpse a year. Thus Asamondo could get away with harveting one corpse out of ten. And this is post is nominated for the Most Cynic Post Award of the Year.
The word 'tamanous' comes precisely from tribal cultures in the area spreading roughly from Tir Tairngire to Tsimshian. Actually, the word is common to several languages and always designate a spirit, but the nature of the spirit called by this name differs from one tribe to another. For the Klamath, Tamanous is one single major spirit who created Crater Lake (yeah, that Crater Lake). Around the Columbia River, can't remember the tribes name, Tamanous are personal guardian spirits. And it's specifically among the Clallam tribe that the Black Tamanous was the central figure of a secret cannibal society. What's funny is that according to a blurb in Man & Machine, the origins of the organization known as Tamanous are a mystery. There wouldn't be a lot of room for doubt if Tamanous name was thought to be traditional in any way, and a quite small population to investigate (note that the Salish-shidhe Council counts a really big number of biotechonology and medical companies). Oh, somebody for pretty muc anywhere else in North america could have picked this name and think it was a great one for the organization he was creating. On the other hand, nobody said that's a name the organization chose. Much like everybody, media first, call "Al-Qaeda" what its own founders are calling the "International Front Against Zionists and Crusaders". In my game setting, Tamanous was dubbed "the Tamanous gang" by the media after several corpses missing organs were found on the hitchhicking trail #27 in the Salish-Shidhe Council, also called Tamanous Trail IRL, in an affair who uncovered for the first time the organleggers' organization. So, they just got caught for the first time in North America, it wouldn't mean they started there. |
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
Oct 8 2004, 12:36 AM
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#13
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Guests |
You forgot: c) They could be breeding livestock. |
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Oct 8 2004, 12:48 AM
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#14
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 241 Joined: 20-September 04 Member No.: 6,682 |
Like said, Azania or bust.
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Oct 8 2004, 01:01 AM
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#15
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King of the Hobos Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 2,117 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 127 |
When they get round to doing the Congo I want awakened gorillas. 'Lion Killer' gorillas to be exact. Seems Haggard and Crichton might have been on to something. :)
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Oct 8 2004, 01:48 AM
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#16
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
You mean besides crack? :wobble: |
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Oct 8 2004, 01:56 AM
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#17
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Ain Soph Aur Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,477 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Montreal, Canada Member No.: 600 |
Hmm importing dead africans, or breeding "livestock".
Unsavoury types, these ghouls. I say we kill em all. Although, with Halloween just around the corner, a run into the Ghoul Nation could be just what the street doc ordered... Reminds me of the island with the Mosquito people in China Miéville's Armada |
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| Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_* |
Oct 8 2004, 02:00 AM
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#18
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Guests |
Why did you put quotation marks around livestock?
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Oct 8 2004, 02:20 AM
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#19
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Why wouldn't some rich movie buff have invented Soylent Green by now? He'd make a killing exporting it to Asamando.
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Oct 8 2004, 01:04 PM
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#20
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Ain Soph Aur Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 3,477 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Montreal, Canada Member No.: 600 |
Thinking about it some more:
Ok, ghouls can't use modern weapons very well. They're sitting on loads of cash neighbours want. What do the ghouls do? They hire mercenaries! Of course they'd need to inforce a strict "don't eat our mercs" policy amongst themselves, but with so much money from diamonds and orichalcum they could afford even MET2000. Also, it came into my mind that fighting against the ghouls (and their mercs) would be a pretty terrible thing. All females captured would become breeding stock, while men would either become meals or also breeding stock (far fewer men needed). I guess they'd use the more cybered ones as breeding stock, since there's less meat. I'd certainly see merc outfits operating against the ghouls handing out cyanide pills to female soldiers in case of capture. Fortune: Isn't there a Dunk's Will award for the first person to create sythethic metahuman flesh for ghouls to eat? I don't think anyone's won it yet, though. Crimson: Humans shouldn't be livestock... |
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Oct 8 2004, 01:18 PM
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#21
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
I could see them letting the Mercs have the privilege of performing that task. I'm sure they'd have more than enough takers. There is no doubt that the nation uses Mercs...probably in large numbers.
Why do synthetic when it would be so easy to use the real thing. Set up in some of the more Third World countries and clean up. I could even see it being an efficient way to dispose of deceased SINless in more developed countries. In the eyes of the government it would beat having to pay for disposal. |
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Oct 8 2004, 01:41 PM
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#22
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,078 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 67 |
Lots of evil Asamando ideas. The idea that people are traded for diamonds is particularly evil; puts a whole new meaning to the infamous "blood diamonds." Especially interesting since DeBeers, who has the diamond trading deal with Asamando, is connected to both Universal Omnitech (maybe they use biological waste material from their bioware development) and Aztechnology (then again, maybe they use people ;) ).
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Oct 8 2004, 01:54 PM
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#23
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
Well, the metahuman fetus should qualify as metahuman flesh. And given the fertility of orks, .... :vegm:
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Oct 8 2004, 02:33 PM
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#24
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Manus Celer Dei Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 17,006 Joined: 30-December 02 From: Boston Member No.: 3,802 |
Er… we can try, but I'm not sure we have that kind of time on our hands :) ~J |
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Oct 8 2004, 02:53 PM
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#25
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,353 Joined: 5-June 02 Member No.: 2,840 |
Yeah, like a whole nation full of targets for my Infected-hunting character :evil: |
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