I know for some of the prior incarnations of SR certain "characters" were usually retained by certain authors. Is that true now? If so, who is who? Sorry if this has been asked repeatedly.

the jackpoint folks are communal. any author can write from any character's viewpoint. in point of fact, the vast majority of the people on jackpoint are chosen from a very limited pool of people these days.

mind you, iirc one or two of the folks on jackpoint are named for people on the dumpshock forums also i think =P (in particular, Winterhawk is one of the freelancers i think, and posts on these forums occasionally as Winterhawk)

(more on the shadowtalkers here. )

a lot of those shadowtalkers never or at least seldom get used, though (can't believe they didn't keep the chromed accountant, for example... i mean, who the heck is aufheben? some of these people seem like good choices for the person to write one of the articles, but to become one of the core shadowtalkers is a little iffy, imo... )

nevertheless, i don't get to choose them... if i had, i would've grabbed more of the people i remember more.

Is that some kind of official list meant to be circulated to the freelancers so that they all speak from the same voice when using a particular shadowtalker?

The thing about life in the shadows, is that it goes on...until it doesn't. Not all of our old friends are with us. The idea behind having a limited shadowtalker list is to further develop their individual characters, tones, and relationships in depth, something that wasn't possible when every author was adding twenty-five to fifty new posters per book, many of whom were throw-away one-note-jokes.

You'll note the shadowtalker list isn't completely static, we have a lot of "guest" shadowtalkers that are invited in when the topic turns to a subject that the Jackpoint crew don't have a native specialist on, and some of those tend to get re-used as well.

I certainly hope the list given to the writers is a bit more indepth... I can see a half dozen easy contradictions that could come from any two writers working from the bare bones descriptions there. Lots of non-comments about race, gender and the like. That's a problem when in one book a shadowtalker reveals themselves to be a troll with an engineering degree, say...

Of course, since I just skimmed the list, watch, the write up for that character SAYS 'Troll with engineering degree'.

We do indeed have a more detailed listing for each character, including their most prominent posts and quotes.

OOh, can we see it?

Note that while you can't throw in new shadowtalkers, a writer can still do shout outs. Both Dr. Swayne and Probably Gavin were characters from games I ran (run by my friends Samuel and Krishna respectively). Once off characters go into once-off situations: writing up the stories being commented on.

Heck, you can even do obscure references and jokes: Dr. Jacqueline Diamonds is a Bear. A grizzaly, grizzaly bear. And if you get that reference, you know your African American Folk Music.

-Frank

To say nothing of Bull, either.

That does ring familiar but not enough to remember exactly why.

"Jack of Diamonds," a famous Blues song (Frank doesn't know Blues from Folk), and "Grizzly Bear" which is more of a kids song these days.

Actually Jack O'Diamonds is a folk character who appears in many songs. The song "Grizzly Bear" is indeed a folk song and features Jack O'Diamonds as a metaphorical bear.

-Frank

We must be thinking about different songs, then.

On a related but kind of off-topic note, the Nick Cave song "Rye Whiskey" is probably the best version of Jack o' Diamonds that I've heard. Or at least my personal favorite.

newbie time again



So um... for those of us who don't know Fastjack, who is Fastjack?

DS

The most (in)famous decker (hacker) in the Sixth World. Still active even though he was born in 1999, but despite his age he was not one of the members of Echo Mirage.

But famous for what? (Obviously he's famous if we're all supposed to know who he is ) Just for being ancient?

Famous for being a Decker/Hacker/Shadowrunner of extraordinary talent. The Skill ranking of 7 in Hacking belongs to FastJack.

I believe Fastjack is actually a clone of Lemmy Kilmister . unfortunately, the only evidence I have is that they both rank a solid 11 on the KOOL-O-METER.

and one that have manged to make himself officially not exist...

fastjack, smiling bandit (is he still living out in the wilderness?), and slamm-o! is the big names of the old guard iirc.

iirc, fastjack is one of the few thats probably cracked the big vault in the sky.

I assume he went through Leonization. I mean, if I had the money I would most certainly make myself 25 again.

well if he ever did, there is no talk about it that i have ever heard of. but then, unlike some others here, i have not read every book ever printed...

can you reference that last bit? I thought they left that up in the air on purpose.

Thats strange, I always had him at a skill rating 9000!

I thought he wrote the intro history stuff in the SR4 core

he did. and if you're meaning that the way i think you mean that, i think hobgoblin meant he has hacked into the zurich-orbital satellite which houses all the important banking stuff for the megas and also the corporate court... not that he has died and gone to heaven

however if he has died and gone to heaven, he is sitting at the right hand of Lemmy...

I think it's also mentioned in Night's Pawn.

Jeez... that book's been sitting on my shelf for years, and I've never managed to bring myself to read it. Now I might have to...

That's one of my favorite Shadowrun novels.

Is this shadowtalker intended to be the same Winterhawk as in Rat's fanfic with Winterhawk, Kestrel, Ocelot et al?

On a similar note, is Sticks meant to be the same Sticks as from Shapcano's stories?

(Awesome stuff on both counts, BTW.)

No, though you're not the first one to mention that. The fact is I haven't read any of Shapcano's stories and did not base the character on them in any way.

Here's a question, why isn't "Ancient History" on the JackPoint yet?

*shrugs* an omnipotent poster would be boring?

Its why they killed Dunk, do you really want someone to have to kill AH?

Ah, OK.

And here I thought the JackPoint wasn't compatable with Cyberdecks.

Someday those Ancient History Cold Dead Hands jokes will no longer be funny for me. Until then, I'm going to get a severe beating every time I say one...

Truly, my finest moment.

Information:

• JackPoint List
• Shadowland List

Questions:

• Are there any other good lists of NPCs?
• Is anyone important (other than AH ) missing from the above lists?
• Is it just me, or do I remember a rumor/supposition that The Smiling Bandit was also Harlequin

harlequin was the laughing man (HA! Fraggin' HA!) as i recall.

He's listed in there.

Harlequin was definitely The Laughing Man, I was asking if he was also The Smiling Bandit. Having two personas is right up his alley.

Now there's one for the Conspiracy Nuts!

...

Oh, right, FastJack got rid of most of those. The ones that Crash 2.0 didn't kill, that is.

Winterhawk is a British professor of thaumaturgy in both the fanfic and the shadowtalker list. He is an active 'runner in the late '50s in the stories, and a retired 'runner in the early '70s.

They definitely _could_ be the same character, and in truth, likely are. I was just seeing if anyone knew for certain.

The Smiling Bandit... does it again.

Is Snopes based on Snopes.com a site based on urban legends and such?

Given his description "Specializes in Matrix rumors, urban legends. Cynical, skeptical.", definitely.

I believe that Winterhawk is based on, but not exactly the same as, the fanfiction character.

As for The Smiling Bandit, there was an excellent write up on him in some SR book. Target: Matrix? Slamm-0! made that book too, from what I recall.

I've had the honor of pretending to be both 2XL and Man-of-Many-Names in an online chat, and in preparing for that I have studied up on those two. I've also written about newcomer that has only sort of appeared as yet, but another writer writes that character way better than me, so I might leave said character to her if I'm offered more word counts in the future.