Does anyone remember Hellraiser 3? Asside from being the ill-concieved first step in an ill-concieved descent into suckatude for the franchise, it also illustrates my point quite clearly.

At the End of Hellraiser 2 Pinhead's human aspect is freed from his demonic aspect and supposedly has some chance at redemption. However, this creates far more problems than it solved because, without his human aspect to keep him in check, the demon pinhead goes on a rampage and creates an orgy of death in his wake. Unencumbered by his former weakness he is fully unstopable untill his human aspect sacrifices itself to merge with him again.

This is the potential problem. They had Passions, as they are now, at least have some goodness and decency left in them. To deliver the world into the tender mercies of beings with even a fraction of their power but no sense of mercy or compassion would not be good.

Kalvan, Dwarves. It is always the Dwarves. They're fiesty.

Like Horrors?
Not he subtle ones, but the savage beasts that kill every living being they can.

With few excceptions, the savage horrors can be slaughtered by any half-decent adept. Their best advantage is their numbers. Creating one with the power of a Passion or even a fraction of that power is unwise, to say the least. How unwise is up to individual GMs, of course. For the restoration of the Mad Passions it might be a good trade off. Then again, it might not be.

The opening fiction in Harlequin's Back, as was mentioned, contains an encounter between Mr. lea'quinn and Vestrial (apparently).

Once Free, a spirit is always Free. The title is really an misnomer. Free Spirits can be enslaved, but they all possess the condition of having a True Name. More accuratly, they should be called Named spirits.

Passions, however, are unlike most Free Spirits. They have somehow tapped into metahuman ideals and gain strength from those ideals. They are more akin to Totems and Idols (and Mentor Spirits) than to Free Spirits.

suggests a worshiper/worshipee relationship between them in the past.

And

implies Vestrial, the Passion of Lies and Deciept.

and his own statement

confirms it.

Of course, it could have easily been a hallucination induced by bad liquer but hallucinations are rarely aware of things that the hallucinator cannot know.

Well, i thought an era of mundaneness would either banish the free spirits back into their metaplanes or kill them.

About the passions being mentors or totem, i would disagree. Totems and mentors do not have a name or an identity. It is often a vague concept strengthening one's magician with his traditions.

Passions have an identity and an agenda of their own. In that sense, passions would be free spirits who used the namegivers' ideal as a way to earn power, maybe like a special spirit pact. In exchange of devotion/karma, a passion gives his followers power. Mad Passions, in that sense, would be blood or toxic spirits version.

Yes, but Free Spirits can go back and forth between their home metaplane and Earth at will. Once the mana level rises enough to support them they can come back.

As for totems and idols and mentors not being personal beings with their own agendas, I suggest readinf Find Your Own Truth. This canon Shadowrun novel presents a totem that is very much a personal being with its own agenda.

We don't know exactly what totems are. They may just be amorphous concepts but they may be something more. Likewise, we don't know exactly what Passions are. They don't exactly follow the rules that other spirits do.

The thought I had is that the common dwarvish language that was the standard in Throal eventually broke into Germanic and Slavic and then into all the modern languages of those.

The geography fits reasonably well with the idea but I have no idea how close Slavic and Germanic languages are and whether they could have a common root in a much more complicated language.

As for the Passion/Spirit/Totem/Fruitcake discussions, I can't think of anything to add that hasn't already been brought up.

They most certainly do have a name and an Identity. Dog isn't just a dog, or even the dog, but Dog, with its own personal outlook on life.

I must admit what you say is reasonable...although i still believe the passions are more like free spirits than mentors. In earthdawn, passions were able to interact , talk and, in rare but documented cases, even fight with the namegivers. Mentors have more in common with traditions than with actual intervention with the real world...

If I'm reading the chart correctly, not that closely.

~J

You definitely should read the Secrets Of power trilogy, by Robert Charrette, including Never Deal With A Dragon, Choose Your Enemies Carefully, and Find Your Own Truth. If, for no other reason, to check out the interaction between Twist and his Mentor/Totem.

I'll try to get my hands on these books, thanks for the info.

By the way, excuse me if I sounded rash. I didn't want to. It just i'm trying to make a earthdawn/shadowrun crossover set into the future and the return of the passions was an important element, and the free spirits idea was the best one i had and the easiest to implement. (Endowment to give his ''followers'' divine powers)

Correct.