QUOTE (Wesley Street @ Aug 25 2008, 10:54 AM)
So are they like Cthulhu-style "Great Old Ones", are they like insect spirits, or more like the D&D/typical fantasy devils and demons? I was puttering around the links you provided and the wiki-stubs didn't provide much info. It did mention Harlequin and Dunkelzhan worked to prevent their return. Was this chronicled in any Shadowrun adventures? Or novels?
Yay, one that I can actually (kinda) give information on!
They're more like the Great Old Ones - multipurpose elder things that exist mainly to cause terror, havoc, and fear. Some are powerful and intelligent single entities, like Cthulhu or Nyalarthotep or the like. Others are more like big shambling monstrosities like Whatley in Horror in the Hills (or whichever that one was named). Then there are the kind that kind of like the shoggoths: intelligent, tougher than a human, but can, with some work, be brought down low by mortal hands.
And then you get the corrupted mortal types, like Pickman or the villagers in Innsmouth.
Harlequin and Dunk worked against the horrors in a couple of different books. The Harlequin's Back adventure is centered around destroying the "spike point" created when the Native Americans did the Great Ghost Dance. Harlequin is also seen destroying a spike point in the novel "House of the Sun" by Findley. Dunk's dissertation with a few of his friends from the 4th Age can be seen in the Aztlan supplement, where they discuss whether or not the blood magic practiced there will have an effect on helping the Horrors return - along with the discovery of a Locus, which was really never expounded upon. Also, Dunk killed himself on the night of his Presidential inaugaration to power an artifact called the
Dragon's Heart, which would help to level any of the remaining spike points lingering in the Sixth World. He now resides as a spirit named Lethe in the body of a cyberzombie guarding the astral space near an almost-completed bridge the Horrors were building.
On a smaller note, it's been insinuated that the Bugs are another sign of the Horrors - dunno if that one is true or not.