Can anyone name all of the Tir Princes. As well as when they took "office," or best approximate date.

Oh and what date so to speak is the latest canon at, I believe all we have to go on is sourcebooks, though I don't know.
(Don't know if Shadows of Europe is really out yet, however I THINK that is the latest in canon.)

Well, in TT it lists five of the Princes, but no entering offices in that list that I can see.

I do know for sure that it says somewhere in the book when each of them came in. I just don't feel like hunting through the whole thing. If I have the time while I'm out of town and I remember to, I'll try to hunt it down. (In other words, I'll be doing something else and it will never cross my mind. )

SoNA lists all of them, as far as i know. i don't remember it listing any dates.

oh, here's one, though: Hestaby, 2062.

Hm, right, forgot, silly SR2 stuff only being current up to '57. I can grab them anyway, then people can post who's in and who's out.

The original Princes have been in power pretty much since Tir Tairngire was formed (the information is in the original TT and SoNA, failing that resort to SR3 History section). The Council of Princes has 13 Princes (including one Hidden Prince) and a High Prince. Of these 5 represent the Inner Circle (all of which IEs).

Inner Circle
Lugh Surehand - High Prince
Ehran the Scribe
Sean Laverty
Jenna Ni'Fairra
Sósan Naerain

Other Princes
Jonathan Reed (elf)
Dar Varien (elf)
Maria Cinebal (elf)
Blake Ladner (dwarf)
Garth Stone (dwarf)
Larry Zincan (ork)
Rex (sasquatch)
Hestaby (great dragon)

SoNA is dated 2062 and introduced a number of changes to the politics of the nation including Lofwyr and Aithne dropping off the Council, Ehran announcing he will leave soon and Hestaby taking over Lofwyr's seat. The situation involving Lofwyr's and Aithne's resignations is later developed in DotSW.

There is a very minor update on the evolution of the Tir situation in SSG too.

The date of the last SR e-download released, "Sprawl Survival Guide", is April 2063.

what's the dilly with sosan naerain?

Dumpshock.com Timeline Explorer: enter "Tir Tairngire" as country and "prince" as query, presto!

Sósan Naerain as a Council prince is debatable: the TT reference consists only of Aegus' shadowtalk comments wrt a woman so introduced to him by Lugh Surehand, with a remarkable physical resemblance (but none of personality) to Alachia.

On the other hand SoNA clearly lists Sósan among the Princes.

(Curses, foiled again ...)

Thanks, Synner. Have to get me that book.

[grumble] Way to wreck a potentially elegant plot hoot [/mutter]

IIRC, it's Lugh Surehand, not Hugh.

Lofwyr and Oakforest left the counsel for "undisclosed reasons" about the same time.



The Abstruse One

he's out. gave it up to Hestaby, who should be on that list. with her inclusion, it's thirteen.

Hestaby is already on the list, at the bottom.

not on my screen. all i see is a blotch of white-out. that's not on yours?

regardless, there is no secret thirteenth council member that i'm aware of. SoNA says it's unclaimed. i suppose there could be a secret member, but what would the point be? the whole idea of public office is that everyone knows who's in charge; if nobody knows who the thirteenth member is, that member doesn't have any power.

Or a Republic, like the United States.

yes, synner, but in that case, the thirteenth member is basically relegated to the role of a souped-up advisor. voting in council decisions is the only thing this supposed mystery member can do; and most of the movers and shakers on the council can easily trump that by using their other powers as a council member.

Unless the 13th member is the most powerful IE of all. And she is. Don't think she doesn't have power behind the curtain.

Powers seen by all are easy to counter, powers known to few less so.

given the current state of the tir, this supposed thirteenth member must be a drooling idiot, if he/she really is in charge.

Or the writer was. But what does it matter?

By canon the IE's are either morons or have some secret plan we can't see. I prefer the latter, but the writer of SoNA's Tir chapter...

i wasn't going to say anything about that, but now that you mention it, the tir does bear a certain resemblance to france in the late 1700s. a period which all of the current 'real' leadership lived through, and probably took part in.

Tir prior to this looked like a *more fascist* Israel...

One of the IE's was Hilter's mistress going by speculation here (can you imagine the blood magic from that?).

I personally have tried to make this current plight into part of an inner war between four sides inside the council partially tearing Tir apart, but following part of some design... When you live forever, why would you use short-term solutions? Once the council stabilizes we'll see about getting Tir out of Third World status.

Sean Laverty, Rex, and Dar Varien are popular to the public at large, IMO.

Jenna Ni'Farra is popular with the racists (with the Human Nation's spokesperson banging around in CalFree I see plenty of these types).

Hestaby is hated, and I imagine Lugh is in bad shape right now.

Lugh Surehand is just a puppet, IMO. They put this guy in place to take the heat, IMO, and he'll get replaced (though who wants that seat?) and thrown to the public (or his effigy will).

Actually, the big surprise is that Lgh SUrehand isn't a puppet.

I blame the Tir's problems on Blood Wood-Esque isolationist policies.

Weren't some of the other Princes Lugh's puppets?

Okay, for one, Lugh got Lofwyr onto the Council, and he was up against all the other IEs to do so.

Hey, real quick, anybody know what the Background Count on Crater Lake is? I'd assume there is one considering the history. Dunno if one is mentioned at all or if I should just make one up.

Crater Lake is a Mana Ebb (Rating 3 and growing, as I recall), and it was Alachia that was the Nazi's Misstress.

Ahh. Well that makes a bit more sense, then - I never thought Aina was the type.

IIRC that simple majority, based on Tir council rules, gives a rather heavily weighted vote to Lugh. I can't remember the details and don't have the book with me, but it was something like requiring only four council members to vote with him to overturn any dissenting motion.

Re plot hooks:

True, Synner (and thanks for picking up on and immortalising that typo too ) - but do you or anyone else have the feeling that (generally) the third edition of SR seems to go out of its way to answer the questions ("just the facts, ma'am"), while the first and second preferred to tease with possibilities and personality? You could really pick up on the personalities - sometimes even the backstories and lives - of shadowtalkers in earlier editions. In SR3 and supplements, it's more like an odd fragment here and there, useful "fact" insight, but empty of the shadow commentator's personality. (About the only exception I've found yet was the brief exchange between Sam and Dodger.) Comparing the treatment of voudoun in Awakenings with MitS - well, it felt to me as though all the life had been sucked out of it.

While I might agree to a certain extent, there are several factors that should be taken into account. To name just a few:
a) Closure - some stories and characters have been going on for ages and needed it. One of several reasons why Mina Graff-Beloit and Rikki Ratboy bought the farm.
b) Filling in the blanks - a lot of 3rd Edition players simply don't have access to the backstories and plots involving numerous characters and events us old timers know and love.
c) The burden of continuity - some exposition is inevitable, very few people have all the books and may be need missing information and/or need recaps. I mean who among the newbies knows why Glasgian Oakforest hasn't been seen in a while(which explains the exposition in the Lofwyr chapter of DotSW)? Who among the new guys knows who the Twist that's being interviewed in SSG is? Which old timer even remembers Johnny Spinrad?
d) Time waits for no one - "contemporary" SR is in 2063, this means Damien Knight, Villiers, Fastjack, Argent, Ghost, Neon Samurai and co are now 10+ years older than they were when they were originally introduced. While for some of those guys, age is not a problem in the fast attrition world of the Shadows old faces fading and new coming up is only to be expected.

on the other hand...

New characters - It's a pet peeve of mine that a lot of people are missing the character development that is going on in the last few books. Many newer shadowtalkers are being fleshed and older players are coming into their own. While there's still a place for veterans like Argent, Talon and Fastjack, guys like Reality Czech and Picador are slowly coming into their own.

In terms of plots I'm even more amazed that people miss a lot of the ground work that was laid in Target: Wastelands, DotSW and SOTA63. In fact many seemed to overlook or disregard the subtler Dragons writeups like Aden and Masaru (I'm pretty sure people will be smacking their foreheads when Ancient History puts up his notes from DotSW), which to me says a lot of those cool ideas might not be further developed because the SR public didn't pay them much attention.

I was pleased with Target: Wastelands, SoNA, DotSW and SSG in terms of fleshing out the world and the characters of the Shadowrun Sixties. Hopefully you will find SoE sheds some more light on both too.

Comparing Awakenings with MitS is a complicated matter. In the former Steve Kenson had a lot of space to spread his wings. In the latter he had to compress 3 editions worth of magic rules into one volume, and like all the core rulebooks it is a rulebook rather than a sourcebook (same for comparing Man&Machine to Shadowtech and Cybertechnology or Canon Companion to Street Sam Catalog and Fields of Fire).

And finally to wrap things up... after having said all that as a writer I am guilty of introducing my own creations and digging into Shadowrun's murky past to produce what I felt were interesting characters (Spinrad), rather than revisiting someone elses' creations (not that I shied away from that as DotSW will attest).

I'll agree provisionally with some of what you've said, Synner, especially re closure and continuity. (However, both of those return to the search for Fact over Possibility.) I will say that I'm surprised that you would consider Reality Czech and Picador as "new" characters. I seem to remember Reality Czech in at least one of the pre-3rd sourcebooks? (I could be wrong.)

I don't have a basis for comparison with several of the sourcebooks you mention - but I'll firmly disagree about character development in the SSG. There's still shadowtalk, yes - but its tone has definitely changed: less personality, more informative. That's where I really started to actively miss the older format.

Curiously enough, I'd be one of those newbies in terms of knowing who Twist is - I didn't get a copy of the Secrets of Power trilogy until just this year.

Just to be safe....

The IE who was Hitler's mistress was

Who is Picador? I know of Matador who's first apperence is in Fields of Fire, but not Picador. Is this perhaps a translation issue to Portugese?

Picador was Matador's second in command and took over his Shadowland spot and mercenary group after Matador's death.

She's a poet but not so much into the "honor" side.

I agree with Talia Invierno about SSG's posters, but then, I've already said that.

Ah that explains it, plus it sticks with the whole bull fighting theme.

Picador is Spanish for Chopper. Picar = To chop.

(mental image of Spanish poet with a chainsaw...)

What do we know about the physical appearance of the Princes? The Elven ones in particular.

The elven ones are described in the TT book. This is from memory, but I'll take a shot at it-

Lugh Surehand- Red hair, green eyes, celtic knot tattoo on his right (?) temple, vandyke. Average height?
Aithne Oakforest- Black hair, below average height, vandyke.
Sean Laverty- Red hair, celtic knot tattoo on his left temple, tall.
Jenna Ni'Fairra- platinum blonde hair, below average height.
Ehran the Scribe- Blonde hair, cleanshaven, looks somewhat older.

That probably wasn't all that useful but it's a start.

Actually that was great! Thank you

Whoa! Flashback! That's the same information on my site! On the Immortals page!

there's a picture of the Council in the SoNA book. how accurate it is is anyone's guess, since it apparently includes Sosan, who's never appeared at a recorded Council meeting.

i'll ask again, what's her deal? i'm assuming she's got history in ED; why so secretive in the sixth world?

heh. I'm a bit relieved people get some use out the Council material in SONA. There was some debate over if that would be useful at all or not, and I went out of my way to at least give a name and personality to the "mystery" council members.


Rock on.

There's also supposed to be a holographic picture of the Council on Tir "paper" money (The Forever Drug).

Synner, I've got some serious differences of opinion wrt to your last post - not least over the desirability of such a sharp differentiation between sourcebook and rulebook - but I've already taken this thread enough off-tangent as it is.