I just got my copy of the Red Brick ED books in the mail today. In their "How it Came to Pass" history section they have a handy-dandy timeline with dates.

The first signs of the Horrors were the Invae Burnings in 100 TH
The first "true" Horrors appeared in 700 TH
Throal seals its gates in 1050 TH (which is actually among the latest kaers to close)

Alright for this discussion Invae = Bug Spirit and Horror = Shadow spirit (which exhibit much of the same powers and mindsets)

Bugs showed up in 2050 I believe.
Lets say that Shadow spirits didn't show up until 2070.

700x = 20
x = 1/35

So for the jump from Horror's appearence to sealing of kaers we have:

(1050-700) x (1/35) = 10 years

So at the current pace of magic growth the Scourge starts in 2080. Discuss.

Well not entirely true. A few of the shadow spirits seem to be entities classified as horrors in the fourth age. Primarily Wraiths That of course does not mean ALL such entities are neccesarily of the same type of course. However what I think will be interesting is the reaction of horrors to certain toxics. Primarily sterilists who are described as being "cold, detached, and calculating" which seems counter to a horrors desire for suffering, and pain. Well at least coming from a sterilist.

horrors are from a certain metaplane and require a large amount of mana in order to be able to cross over, where as a shadow spirit is more a catch all for a malevolent spirir/free spirit. They're similar in the ways that they "feed" but they aren't necessarily the same thing, in that cows and horses are similar in the way they feed, but not the same thing.

That said, the invae showed up earlier because of high magic that was done early on such as the great ghost dance, where normally it would take them much longer to appear.

Far be it for me to dispute one of the Holy Writers but...

Shadow Spirit Energy Drain (SM, p 148)

Shadow spirits use the energy drain power (p 99) to draw Karma from their victims. Rather than draining their targets directly with an unarmed attack, these spirits must instead coerce the victim to commit an emotionally potent act (violence, a burst of creativity, an inspiring speech, panic, sex, etc.) within line of sight so they can tap in and feed off the victim's surging emotions....

Eathdawn GM Comp (p. 443)

Horrors can gain karma by feeding on the negative emotions of Name-givers or by drawing on the victim's life energy. In the first case fear, anger, hatred, and jealousy are all examples of the types of emotions that Horrors find pleasurable. Most often, the Horror feeding on these emotions has caused those emotions to boil up in its victims in the first place....

There is only a slight difference in the two descriptions (and the RBL version holds fluff-wise across all FASA/LRG versions as well). So some shadow spirits can feed off of what is perceived as more emotionally positive acts, but they are still very unbalanced acts if not done in moderation. Plus draining karma, even from emotionally "positive" acts still causes stun damage to the victim.

Shade Shadow Spirit

Powers: Compulsion (Sorrow), Silence, Influence, Energy Drain

Despairthought Horror

Powers: Commit Suicide (influence), Thoughts of Despair (compulsion (Sorrow), Tormenting Voice (Silence)

Basically whenever the victim tries to talk the despairthought takes control of the victim's voice and causes it to make horrible sounds and shrieks come out which torments the victim and those around (EDGC, p. 461).

The only difference between the Shade and the despairthought is that the shade doesn't have mindlink (must be initiated by a loved one of the victim) power. Mindlink can easily be added for a free spirit or for a Force 3+ shade. I can directly make other horrors into shadow spirits without having to convert any rules--just pick current spirit abilities and voila!

So again, how are these not Horrors?

First off magic fluctuations tend not to be predictable or constant. Part of the plot of earthdawn is that the magic level unexpectedly stabilitzed. No reason to think things are any more predictable now.

Secondly specific magic shenanigans in shadowrun have allowed certain things(usually horrors) to cross over to our world before they otherwise would, however only a limited number get through. So it's possible that these things came through breaches and the actual onset of even initial horrors is a long way off.

Ah ha! Victory over the massive library of books!

Threats 1 (pp. 70-75): The Blood Mage Gestalt

AFAIK this threat is still active and operating. Basically blood mages were going around Aztlan seeking out teocalli (areas of high background count) and using blood rituals to link these areas with the bigger temples "creating a vast astral lattice by linking the aura of each teocalli to the Great Temple in Tenochtitlan." At least that sentence wasn't cloaked in speculation so that can be taken at full value.

The speculative part was that they were preparing the way for the tzitzimime to return. And references in Aztlan and Harlequin's back specifically link the tzitzimime to the Horrors.

So you have a very dedicated and powerful group of blood mages running around specifically making things ready for the Horrors. If that doesn't accelerate the magic growth rate I don't know what will.

After the Dragonheart Trilogy, Aztechnology no longer funds attempts to bring about the destruction of metahuman civilization. They discovered that there isn't any profit in it. As such, the Blood Mage Gestalt is pretty much dead.

Harlequin refers to the Wraith as "Horrors" in Paranormal Animals of Europe, but other than that there is no evidence linking Shadow Spirits to Horrors and it is quite possible that the Wraith Shadow Spirits are different from the Wraith critters.

And in Harly 2 story arc, and in the Ryan Mercury trilogy, they go on to explain that the "bridge" being built by the spike in magic is destroyed by Harlequin, Big D's spirit and a few others. One immortal, the song bird, stays behind to sing to make sure that that spike bridge does not reform, and Big D's spirit goes on a quest to destroy any other spike bridges.

So, it will be a while before the horrors arrive.

As for similarities between certain entities and horrors, well, it is a big universe, with an even bigger astral / metamagic plane area. We have not seen all there is to see. There will be similarities between some of the planes, some good, some bad, some neutral.

edit: dang, Hyzmarca was faster off the mark.

I'm not going to dispute that some of the powers are similar. But shadow spirits are generally believed to be free spirits from the "native" metaplanes, those metaplanes that metahumanity can travel to without outside assistance. True Horrors, on the other hand, come from the Deep Metaplanes, like Invae, Shedim, and Imps. Shadow spirits don't suffer from Evenescence, so they don't require certain conditions to stay in our world like Horrors (and Invae, Shedim, and Imps) do.

During Street Magic's development there was a lot of talk about this. I even tossed out the idea of making the shadow spirits a new spirit type that came from the Deep Metaplanes, which would have made them very Horror-like. The devs didn't like that idea because they didn't want to start putting Horrors in a core rulebook, which does make a certain amount of sense to me.

What are the Invae and Imps? Are there equivalents in SR4?

Alright...fine. I bow down to all of your people's overwhelming pressure plus actual stated dev comments. This was largely just a thought exercise.

As to Dragonheart. Novels have never been considered canon and therefore have no bearing on an interpretation of the game. I refuse to accept the idea that the best character and best fan interaction idea in gaming was undone by something so...lame...as preventing a metaplot that is being abandoned from happening.

As to harley's back that happens before the Aztlan book because The Laughing Man specifically talks about the events in his comments to the others in the section about tzitzimime.

And a final comment for the Devs:

If you are going to come in and trample an ED/SR comparison thread like this with official comments then you should stop putting ED/SR connections in your published materials!

I'm not really trying to trample the idea. The comparison is understandable; like I said, I made the same comparison during Street Magic's development. But they didn't want to go that way and so it is technically an incorrect assumption. I'm just letting you know.

And I am absolutely not trampling ED/SR theories in general. I like the discussions, but I do also point out where people are on the right track and where I feel they might not be. There are still ED references in sections I've written that people haven't noticed!

Oh, and on novels. Technically, they are canon. At least, officially. Personally, I wish that weren't so.

On the Aztlan mages and similar things (and the novels have a fair number of cases where stuff like that starts letting horror like stuff though). As far as I can tell stuff like that tends to make localized effects. i.e. horrors can get through there easily but it makes it no easer for them to get though a couple miles away. And such areas can have certain things done to make them less accessable to horrors. It doesn't seem like you can up global magic levels (or can you?).

Anyway the bottom line is that stuff like that gives us as GMs plenty of excuses to toss in a few horrors if we feel like it, even fairly powerful ones, without having to destroy the world.

In fact if you really felt like it you could do a local scourge in one of your campaigns where a ton of the less powerfull/intelligent horrors and maybe a couple wormskullish ones pour through a temporary breach.

Really? The novels are canon? Ugh...you just broke my heart Demonseed.

Sorry if I was upitty earlier. Started getting defensive. I like your stuff (if I'm not mistaken you wrote most of Brainscan yah?--loved it). A lot of my group only plays SR because of the ED links.

The Evanessence thing seems pretty arbitrary. Comparing shadow spirits to horrors is like comparing horses to cows. Okay, but horses and cows started, at some point in time, as the same thing and eventually diverged from there. Nowadays we have horses and cows.

Now lets have the situation where there are only cows nowadays (horrors before shadow spirits were introduced). Suddenly we create a new breed of cow (the shadow spirits). It is the same in almost every aspect, just different enough that we have to call them Old Cows and New Cows. But we don't like the fact that we now have two similar but different animals named Cow. So we make up some arbitrary quality (called Evanessence) and apply it to the old cow so that the two are now different. We then rename new cow, horse, because it doesn't have the newly invented quality.

Do you see how the Evanessence v. No Evanessence distinction between the two seems really superficial? That's my main problem with not calling Shadow spirits Horrors.

But since the other devs didn't want to keep calling them cows I guess we are stuck now rendering my math irrelevant. That's so boring.

Whatever other arguments you may have, keep in mind that one reason ED and SR use different systems to prevent the systems from being stymied by needing to constantly reference each other.

That said...

For myself, as a player, Horrors are not Shadow Spirits. There are certain similarities, but ultimately a Shadow Spirit is just a darker version of something you already know: a specific type of spirit tied to nature or metahumanity. Whatever else they are, Horrors are not that. A Horror may look like a cow, but it is not a cow; something you'll find that out when Farmer Ted slowly loses the ability to sense pain, becoming unmindful of scratches and injuries that are matter-of-course for working the land, falling into mind-numbing despair as he dies a piece at a time...

As a writer: If you want Shadow Spirits to be Horrors, that's your business. It takes some work, and even then there are a lot of details to be worked out. Horrors come in infinite variety: some purely astral, others purely physical, and many a mixture of the two. There are entire breeds that are similar (though never identical) to one another, with the same appetites, powers, and behaviors. Others are unique, and possess one-of-a-kind abilities and desires.

Some of those books were actually pretty good, don't pick on all of them. Psychotrope for example was really well done, even if you don't like Otaku

Putting on my picky biologist hat I'll point out that Cows and Horses don't actually share a common root; they're two completely different classes (taxonomically speaking) that arose at different times.

/hijack

They do if you go back far enough.

Right! They're all horrors that we call mammals.

The Blood Mage Gestalt may be largely disassembled (at least until rebuilt), but that doesn't mean that the project linking teocallis has been abandoned.

I don't see the minions helping the horrors stopping just because of a major setback. Aztlan actually talks about it being a whole cult devoted to the tzitzimime, and the gestalt is just the shadowy people behind it.