Ok, so its come up recently that one of my gamer friends dislikes the history of Shadowrun and how everything kinda just pops into existance, no particular reasons or anything. And while its never bothered me that the Awakening "just" happens, I can see how that could bother him. So my thought is to come up with an alternate timeline with less random events happening along the way, something nice and concise that explains where the magical sixth world stuff comes from.

Here are a few ideas Ive been tossing around:

• Long ago, magic existed, it was controlled by the dragons, at some point in time they were bound and locked away, but it had the side effect of taking all magic away. in more recent times something happens that sets loose the dragons and frees magic up again. (still kinda has that "poof it happened" explination though)
  
• Magic has always been around, but with the new ages, it has become public and accepted (doesnt handle the pc races well though..)

Thats about all I have for the moment, any help would be appreciated. It doesnt need to be really involved, just a good base for me to work from, or suggestions to tweak whats already there.

Actually it has already been established in SR Canon that magic is cyclic following a Sine wave pattern even number ages are in the up part and have magic, odd numbered ones like the current one we're in(theoretically) have too low a level for it to express. The official switch point between ages is based on the ability of great dragons to actually move around and appear. Try hunting down AHs stuff on the main DS site for more info.

The awakening isn't what bothers me, it's the NAN, CFS, and Calfree. That would just never happen. Quebec, maybe, but everyone hates Quebec anyway.
Magic is on a cycle, like sound waves.
Go here http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/ ,it should explain some things about the cycle of magic.

So which of those am I supposed to be reading? I cant find anything relevant there.


Does it ever give any kind of explination why magic ebbs and wanes with this sine wave pattern? I mean if they say "it just does" I'm basically back where I started. I'd still like to try coming up with some alternate and more simple ideas.

As Ophis said, the cycles of magic are established canon. All of this ties into a previously FASA-based product, Earthdawn, which also has elves, dwarves, orks, trolls, humans and a few others (who apparently have died off in the interim). According to canon, the magic levels will continue to rise, spells will become more powerful, more people will become awakened and more random crazy stuff will pop up until it eventually caps out and begins to drop again. An entire cycle is on the order of 3-8,000 years I believe (Ancient History would know better). So the simple answer for your friend is, there is an answer, he simply doesn't know it.

And yes, the fact that one of the oldest continuous constitutional democracies simply falls apart almost overnight (in the course of a single generation after surviving for 250 years against very serious threats) is probably a bigger problem for most people than the question of magic rising in the world.

Here is the basic backstory.

The Sixth World is not called such because it sound cool. It is called such because 5 recorded ages came before it seperated by the mana cycle. There was also an unrecorded time that could be described as World 0. Only the immortals know of the previous ages of magic but their lingering eccoes are obvious to anyone who looks.

Zeroth World: The Age of Darkness
Before recorded time the Earth was ruled by a race of spirit-beings that would come to be called Horrors. These vile creatures were extremely diverse. The weakest fed on flesh and blood. The more powerful fed on fear and suffering. They lived only to eat. They fought, subjigated, and consumed each-other and anything else unfortunate enough to cross their paths.

However, one Horror became with this brutal life and left his brethen. He flew and he flew untill he saw the sun rise. He came to know the concepts beauty, love, and other things that we would consider 'good'. This changed him and he became the first dragon. According to dragon myth their race sprang from his tears of joy, as did the other metahuman races. I'd take the latter with a grain of salt. Dragons are notorious for their supremacist idealogy.

Eventually, this former Horror was discovered by his brethern. When this hppened he and his children became the singular object of their hunger. He Named himself Nightslayer and led dragons and metahumans in a war with the Horrors. He eventually did drive them off but died in the process. It is never directly stated but I suspect he died performing an extreme act of blood magic which started the mana cycle.

First World: Downcycle
Nothing is know about the First World. We can presume that there were cave men and dinosaurs.

Second World: upcycle Age of Dragons
The Dragons ruled vast empires in this age. No one was powerful enough to stand against them. They freely mated with metahumans and used the resulting families of dragonkin of tend to their domains. Some went even farther, using powerful magics to gant certain (presumably dragonkin) elves Immunity to Ageing. These immortal elves were to be the their companions and their servants. One can assume that the immortals were to maintain the dragons' empires during the downcycle, as well.

Alas, these empires were shattered when the mana level reached its peak and the Horrors were able to claw their way into the world again. The dragons and their servents hid behind powerful magical barriers. It was the only thing that they could do. Even being as powerful as dragons would quickly fall before the unstopable deluge of Horrors.

When the mana level lowered to the point that most horrors were forced to retreat back to the deepest depths of the metaplanes the survivng dragons and metahumans came out to rebuild. However, the dragonkin and the immortals would no longer be mere servants. They betrayed their parents and attempted to forge their own empires. Because of this, dragons are now forbidden on pain of death to have sexual relations with metahumans.

Third World: downcycle
Unrecorded. We can assume that the first IEs rules a few protocivilizations and engaged in downcycle dragon hunting.

Fourth World upcycle The Age of Legend Earthdawn
Most human legends and myths originate from this era although they have been twisted by time and much truth has been lost. It was a time when gods walked the Earth and interacted with their followers. Many of the surviving immortal elves were born during this age.

The first half of this age saw the rise of the Theran Empire (which would come to be known as Atlantis) and its fall into decadence through the overuse of slavery and blood magic. The Therans discovered the Books of Harrow, which spoke of the Horrors, and used them to create the Rites of Passage and Protection, powerful magical wards that could stave off most Horrors. It is these Rites that prevented the collapse of civilization when the Horrors came again.

Unfortunatly, the Therans knew that their political power would fail when their magic did and use powerful enchantments to freeze the mana cycle. At the point they chose most Horrors could not exist on Earth but many still remained. Still, metahumans and dragons left their kaers and lairs. Some Adepts dedicated themselves to fighting the Horrors and many of the monsters were slain during this time. Other, however, continued to thrive and even learned hw to use metahuman civilization to their own advantage. The Therans, however, were not able to maintain control of their colonies.

The Fifth World: downcycle Today
Eventually, the mana level did fall and Atlantis vanished. Civilization went on without magic while the immortals elves manipulated history from the shadows. The IEs were able to use a little magic and they did so to their best advantage. Alachia, for example, was both Queen Elezibeth the First and Eva Braun-Hitler, for example. World War II was mostly her idea.

The Sixth World: Upcycle Shadowrun
Well, you know about this. Magic came back. Dragons have prime time televsion shows. Immortal Elves are still pulling stings from the shadows. There are a few minor Horror's running around already.

I don't know why some people play RPGs if they aren't willing to suspend disbelief. Whether it is superheores flying in the skies while using laser beam eyes on villians, walking, talking turtles with ninja abilities, 40 foot tall walking tanks crushing my city, or even the sudden reappearance of magic, we just need to accept it or go play Monopoly.

For the cycles of magic, it would probable be good to read this short fiction piece by Tom Dowd, in which Ehran the Scribes gives a speech describing the cycles of magic. He explicitly states that the Fourth World ended on August 12, 3113 BC. He also says the average length of a World is 5,200 years.

Earthdawn also had a lot of the enemies, like the Horrors, and even some of the NPCs. From Second Edition but still fairly accurate on some of it. There are other lists out there as well, but this is the first one I thought of.

So what parts doesn't he like? Shadowrun history is pretty messed up with its magical hippie volcanos, super secret aircraft that missile Europe into pacifism, the Soviet Union ignoring a nuclear attack on it, every nuclear plant melting down in two years, Japan using Thor Shots on other navies without repercussions, dragons stopping a jihad by burning down cities, super growing forests that weren't turned into a lumberjack's dream, the super virus that infected everything and might have the power to destroy offline backups, a biological virus that kills a quarter of the population but is barely mentioned again, and people after living though two civilization collapsing crashes immediately going for an even more integrated wireless world.

The magic history is oddly one of the few things I think make sense. It came and it changed a bunch of people and plant and animal life. Sure it's way out of the ordinary, but doesn't contradict anything or requires people in non understandable ways. I also am not too crazy with the whole "sixth world" aspect as it throws geological history pretty out of whack (8000 years per cycle? Damn that's recent!). Then again unless you're messing around with immortal elves it really doesn't matter.

I have written up my own history for Shadowrun that did try to incorporate various aspects of the cannon story line. It's a complete rewrite and makes heavily use of the a global ghoul epidemic to explain things such as the NAN, corporate power, and the background on SINs. I'll post it up if anyone is interested.

As for the whole "why does the awakening occur?" There could be multiple reasons. The simplest was that the stars were right. Another could be that the Astral Earth actually orbits on a different plane and every once in a while the two Earths align and coexist for some period of time before separating again. Maybe there was a ritual that bought magic back. Could be that there's a moon like object that exists though the metaplanes that causes magical tides and the tide is now coming in.

Here's a bit more pseudoscientific reason. During high energy particle smashing, a particle or wave was able to break though the barrier between the physical world and the astral plane. Since there was a high amount of pressure on the barrier, it now burst filling the world with magical energy. Throw in some technobabble and you're good to go.