I Finally got around to getting year of the comet, which has both inspired new questions and renewed old ones.
Firstly, I remember Ages ago, probably somewhere on the old forums, reading a summary of the timeline of the SR universe, insofar as what happened in each age, specifically the 1st-3rd ages and, if it exists, info on 8th age onwards.
Also, What exactly are horrors? They seem to come up in discussion occasionally but I cant find anything about them in SR canon.
From what i can tell the scourge is a mass invasion of horrors, but is it said anywhere what causes this to happen, and why they left?
Oh and is it known where they come from?

Also, is it actually revealed what happened to dunkelzahn in regards to the assassination and where the astral rift leads, as well as what is involved in travelling through it? (I'm guessing from the sourcebooks that there's no way in hell a metahuman could do it, but im interested nonetheless).

Any information would be appreciated.

the horrors are beings from a far metaplane which can only exist in areas of high mana, like earth at the height of the 4th world (the setting of the earthdawn RPG). currently, the mana levels on earth are far too low to support them in large numbers; according to most estimates i've heard, they shouldn't appear for another couple centuries. you can't find info in SR canon on them because they aren't in SR canon, except for a few novels and adventures.

dunk killed himself, sacrificing his existence on earth in order to keep the scourge--a mass invasion of horrors--from occuring withing the forseeable future. before he died, it was possible for mages of less-than-charitable character to bring one or two horrors onto this plane through the application of some heavy-duty magic; check out the novel House of the Sun, by Nigel Findley, for a prime example of this. now, dunk's spirit is there to keep anyone from forming the 'bridges' necessary to accomplish this.

there is no information that i'm aware of on what will happen in the 8th world; not that it matters, as it's several thousand years in the future.

The 8th World should come somewhere between 8000 and 120000 BE So don't worry about it too much.

The Horrors are called The Enemy in Shadowrun generally, but they're the big bad guys from Earthdawn, which is the RPG about the 4th Age of magic. If you've ever read anything in the Cthulhu mythos by HP Lovecraft, then you already know what the Horrors are.

As for Dunkelzahn, check out the novel trilogy The Dragonheart Saga. It explains Big D's assassination and so much more about the Shadowrun universe.

The Abstruse One

Thanks,
I'm still wondering if anyone has information on the 1st to 3rd ages.
Also, what is going on with ghostwing? since he left the rift in his astral form, which, even if he entered at the end of the 4th age, would require an essence somewhere in the 10s of millions, unless there is some form of dragon power which allows them to project for an indefinate amount of time.

BTW what does that suff in your sig mean Abtruse?

your essence does not deteriorate if you're on a metaplane; therefore, it seems likely that ghostwalker was stuck on the metaplanes during the intervening age.

info on the 1st through 3rd ages can likely be found by perusing the Earthdawn books.

The Shadowrun Geek Code

...though not too much info. The 2nd Age was the Age of Dragons before the young races showed up. The 1st and 3rd ages don't matter much since they were both low points in the mana cycle and therefore didn't have much impact since it was A) before the IEs were running around and B) didn't have dragons because they either weren't here yet or were sleeping. The only way it would matter is if the 2nd Age was really the 4th or 6th age and there were more ages before that even the dragons don't know about.

The Abstruse One