I often see posters - in the chat transcript, for example - asking when SR will include the Horrors, the late manacycle extraplanar aberrations from Earthdawn.

It's rather early in the manacycle for Horrors, but if you want an early riser in your campaign, just do up a free spirit with evil intentions. No need to wait for Catalyst to do it.

Just make sure you pronounce that second syllable.

I actually got into a debate with one of the devs on these boards when SM first came out. I took the stance that Shadow Spirits = Minor Horrors but he clarified that they do not (through the still flimsy argument of Evanessance and "we don't call them Horrors").

Anyway the crux of the matter is, that if you take the RedBrick ED Timeline and scale it to the SR timeline assuming Shadow Spirits = Minor Horrors then you could have the Scourge as early as 2080 if you so desire.

I will also point out that except for the "Not called Horrors" and the Evanessance thing Shadow Spirits ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AS HORRORS. So Catalyst has already provided examples and stats of them for you.

If one was looking for Earthdawn books dealing directly with the horrors (stats and fluff) which ones would be the best?

I've been using a set of converted horrors somebody posted here ages ago, but I'd like to see what other options are available in Earthdawn's line.

There are (SR2) stats for some horrors in the Harlequin's Back module. In fact, the entire module deals with Horrors, so... no need to get into arguments with devs.

Horrors. The best Earthdawn Horror book is most certainly Horrors.

I'm not an Earthdawn player, but I do own a main book. From what I understand, "Horror" is a vague enough term that you can do basically anything you want with them. In Earthdawn, I think a "horror" was pretty much anything from astral space? Anyway, there's been maybe a trillion threads about putting Horrors in SR, and it almost always comes down to "just do whatever fits in your campaign." Most people would leave Horrors as a Lovecraftian sort of evil that runners can't defeat, but others have the view that it's too early in the mana cycle for unkillable monsters, but even minor horrors can be as much of a threat as the GM wants. Just don't get hung up on what stats you need to have; just come up with stats that will challenge your players (or be unkillable if that's what the situation calls for), and then just say that's what minor Horrors are like.

That's what I was thinking. Aren't things like shadow spirits and the like pretty darn Horrific?

It needs to be asked; if the horrors came back in 2060, could we beatt hem?


(As an interesting note, from what I understand, it took less magic for a horror to survive on Earth than it did for the horror to return - so as the scourge waned, death was basically just a one-way door back to the astral (or where-ever they're from). I don't know if there was anything written on what would happen if the magic got too low and if the horror wasn't killed or banished. Could horrors have gone into hibernation like the dragons did? Seems feasible. If so, they would just now be waking up and trying very, very hard to avoid arousing too much suspicion (since we can assume the dragons are on the watch out for them). No reason not to bring in wandering horrors now : ) )

In shadow run all extra planner beings are spirits. So shadow run players tend to think of horrors as spirits. Earthdawn horrors were wholly physical things. If you let go of that there is really no reason to call the monsters your are rolling up horrors. Also marking is a critical ability of horrors. It lets a horror find you and use certain powers on you at any range. I forget the exact rules as I haven't played in over a decade.

HAI GUYS WE COULD NOT BEATT HE ORRORS BECAUSE EVEN IF WE USED VIRAL FILTERS ON TEH DREAD IOTERS THEY WOULD CAST MANABOLT AND BREAK THEM.

What do you mean "we?" Dumpshock? No, we probably couldn't beat them. (Meta)Humanity as a whole? Moot point, because we happen to be broken up into more than a few factions. If an individual megacorp can't do it, Earth is probably screwed.

Not entirely true, many of them are dual natured or wholly astral beings.

If you're looking to use them just remember a few guidelines.

1) The most powerful horrors are on the same scale as dragons.

and

2) Many horrors are not dangerous because they are physically powerful but because they are intelligent and manipulative.

Horrors would be less trouble in 2070 than they were in dim prehistory, because assault cannons do more damage than swords.

Yeah, and you don't think Horrors aren't watching from their sidelines and planning for things like that?

Dragons certainly did! One woke up, bought a Megacorp. Another one got his own TV show. A third decided to demonstratate why it's a bad idea to declair Jihad against "All of the Awakened" (Although I'm sure that that Great Dragon was doing more of a "HEY! YOU HUMANS!!! GET OFF MY LAWN!").

Evil does not mean stupid. Just look at Aztechnology!

Yes, I went there.

But don't you think the most entertaining scenario would be kind of like Alien Vs. Predator 2, the old video game? The Aliens have the advantage in the beginning until the Marines get their heavy weapons.

I suspect Verjigorm the Dragonhunter would disagree.

Also keep in mind, horrors on the whole are dangerous primarily in that they are so varied. We probably have technology to defeat most of the horrors we see in the Horrors book, however this simply generates an unnatural selection which means the horrors we encounter after the first few runs would be ones better suited to survive and thrive in our environment. You're probably not going to see a lot of the giant mouths on legs or six-armed baboons, because they blow up so nice and pretty. But that doesn't mean you won't see strange things in the matrix which don't respond to traditional attacks, or diseases that infect mundane objects and pass to people via the natural capitalistic exchange of goods.

Speak for yourself.

No man is an island, Ancient History. But at least the deck you had in your hands was still SOTA at the time of 2060.

My precious...

Just wait 'til Running Wild comes out. That should have all the beasties y'all will need.

*steeples fingers*

Excellent...

Good. One of my fleshed out NPCs is a Big Game Hunter whose hobby is being a Mr. Johnson.

Or, is he a Mr. Johnson whose hobby is Big Game Hunting. Not sure which. It's that Semi-Retired thing.

Anyhow, yeah, he hunts awakened animals for sport. And Snowmoose and New Bore are getting boring!

Sure am speaking for myself. If you've got a plan to single-handedly beat the Scourge, I'd love to hear it. Keep in mind that if step 1 of your plan is "Be Harlequin," I'll forever stop listening to anything you say.

This is, of course, because Ancient History is in fact a thousand monkeys with a thousand AKs.


Whether he beatts the horrors or not, it'll be an excellent show.

It simple, really, you link every metahuman alive together as part of a giant hive-mind with a single will. Then, you open an Astral Rift large enough for Ristul to pour through and consume the entire planet. It is well know that those who are taken by Ristul remain alive but have their souls ripped apart and rearranged almost constantly, losing their own individuality in the endless indivisible sea of indistinguishable tortured minds. But, if billions of people are already link together into a single indivisible indistinguishable mind then it just might be able to take over Ristul from the inside. Being Ristul pretty mich renders metahumanity immune to other Horrors, and everything else, except possibly low mana levels.

Okay, now I'm really mad I left the DunkiePop popcorn at home.

Is there a thematic conflict between cyberpunk (with all of its potentially anticapitalist or anti-global-economy baggage) and supernatural soul-ripping? Isn't the point of cyberpunk that there'd be no more soul to rip?

Maybe the Horrors show up, realize there's not enough souls for them, end up getting depressed, and get stuck working minimum wage jobs and living together in illegal flophouses.

The parallels are staggering

What, so an infinite number of monkeys firing an infinite number of AK-97s at an infinite number of plasteel walls will instantaneously generate the Complete Works of Shakespeare in Braille?

But then the disenfranchisement will transform them into a new lumpen proletariat, and they'll be forced to turn outside "legitimate" society in order to earn a living.They will be forced to eke out an existence in the cracks developing in corporate society by forming symbiotic relationships with existing power elites whereby they are given compensation in return for services "legitimate" assets can't perform.

Then my rates will have to go down, because the Johnson will always be like "Look, fellas, for that kind of scratch, I could go pick up a truckload of Horrors in front of Home Depot, and they'd be able to throw a wrench in my rival's magical R&D before dinner..." Horrors are jerks!

I'm sure you'll find that nezumi was making a veiled (or not so veiled ) reference to this thread.

The best method do "defeat the scourge" is to convert to D20. Anything can be beaten in D20!

Hey, that's a good idea! If we throw enough d20's at them, then they're bound to get cancer! And die!

So humanity, without even having defense against the Horrors as a conscious objective, just naturally blood-wooded itself?

I guess I could see that.

~J

Don't worry, I brought two.

Oh... Don't mind that they're prototypes. I'm pretty sure they figured out how to make the synth-butter non-carcenogenic.