As the title says, we all know that the magic level of the SR world is steadily rising on a pseudo-wave function and by all evidence can be expected to do so until a certain very unpleasant kind of trans-dimensional immigrant will show up in a couple of millennia. We already have seem the Awakening, Goblinization, the rise of Magicians and (Mystic) Adepts, Dragons, Changelings, Drakes, the Infected, Initiation, Invae, Shedim, opening of Metaplanes, Shapeshifters, and non-metahuman sentients. Since the magic level is going to keep rising in the next 2-3 decades, which so-far unseen effects do you expect by 2100 ? The appearance of the missing Earthdawn races (reptile-men and rock-men), bodily travel into the Astral, and teleportation or resurrection spells all seem likely possibilities.

I would not go so far as to say Resurrection spells would be possible, but Teleportation... yup. I would also say the reliable (as much as possible) precognition may be in the horizon.

As far as we know, resurrection and space/time altering spells are outright impossible. While it is true the magic is getting a little stronger over time(possibly just because initiation becomes more common) there are some very powerful magicians out there, including many spirits and great dragons who have lived since the fourth world. If teleportation and ressurection was at all possible, you think they would know about it.

Who's to say that they don't already know how to teleport and just don't want to give out THAT little bit of info?

Honestly, the only reason that Shadowrun doesn't allow Teleport is because a 'Run becomes SOOOOOOO much easier if when you get the paydata, you and your crew just teleport out.

Isn't that a good enough reason?

Besides, that restriction does make sense, true teleportation(as opposed to simply moving incredibly fast or turning into a gaseous substance or something) would require messing about in four dimensional space, which is fair to say magic can't do.

I just re-read "Into the Shadows", and in the 2050's milieu in that book there already are mages (well, one beautiful, scary one anyway) that demonstrate magical power way beyond the levels shown in the BBB. One would assume that as the mana level rises, it will be easier for others to attaain that kind of power.

Peter

I'm fine with not allowing "true" teleoportation, but remember that you get the same basic deal with entering the Astral physically or even better, the Metaplanar Shortcut.

However I think it is a moot point, the Horrors are coming sooner rather than later, remember that the Bug Spirits are one of the later signs pointing to the coming Scrouge.

For Teleportation, I know Harlequin and Ehran could pull that dirty trick of the LIghtbringers where they jump physically into astral space. Perhaps people will puzzle it out. Resurrection can't occur because Death got out of His little hole in the Death Sea where the passions trapped him in the 4th world.

As for Astral Space, the Lightbringers's ability to enter it bodily (and IIRC another high-end spell could duplicate it) is one strong reason why I expect such power to be eventually duplicated by SR mainstream Awakened as the mana level steadily rises. After all, the IE were consistently shown to be able and pull somewhat more impressive magical tricks than the current mana level would allow everyone else, thanks to their superior expertise.

As for Resurrection, I always was rather skeptic that Death's imprisonment under the Death Sea was literal factual truth rather than mythic metaphor for a rather more ineffable deal/compromise/standoff between the Powers That Be. Anyway, there is strong circumstantial evidence that the Fourth Cycle's Passions are largely gone and forgotten, likely diminished or exiled to the farthest corners of the Metaplanes, and only able to stage a once-in-a-blue-moon temporary comeback through the mediation of the few that remember them, the IE and the GD, as it happened in Harlequin's Back. Death, too, was a Passion. But in the Sixth World, other powers have risen to the fore (or the same primeval archetypal forces have dooned all-new masks) as the Mentor Spirits. So probably the game of life, death, and eventually resurrection plays by slightly different rules this Cycle. Not entirely different, as the lore necessary for creating Cyberzombies is told to have come from the previous Cycle. Anyway, the very fact that cyberzombiedom is already possible so early in this cycle indicates that probably true resurrection is not so far down the line, since major manipulation of the body-spirit lnk is already possible.

IIRC, the IE's (such as Harly and Ehran for example) actually cast magic differently than the mages now adays. As far as rules go, SR magic is totally different than ED magic. In ED they used a spell matrix to hide thier magic from the Horrors. This is all from memory, as I don't have the ED books(friend actually ran that), and from AH's wiki. So I could be wrong on this.

Perhaps current magic will, after the horrors, become more like ED magic.

Of course, given the way metahumanity is going they're all going to have Ysgraith screaming "OM NOM NOM" and eating them.

Resurrection is doable but not as a spell (limits of sorcery) but as an astral quest. Find a spirit with gateway power, reach the death metaplane, find the soul, free the soul and return. Than you need a new body: use a pimp(must be a clone of the person that you whant to resurrect), put the soul in it cast an heal spell on it's head, the presence of the soul combined whit healing magic binds the soul to the body and repaires the brain.

Teleportation no (limits of sorcery) but a metamagic that allowes to dematerialize your body and travel trough the astral plane is not too improbable.

Precognition is already in in the form of combat sense and divining metamagic; in what consist your precognition?

The Corps control Death too?

Sorry I couldn't resist.

what do you think cybermancy is?
your spirit decides to let your body die, and the cybermancers tell it to stay put so you do not die O.o
granted, not really ressurection, but close enough to ethernal unlife . .

He was fired by every one of the big ten. They all hired him, one after another, and ordered him to kill the CEO of other megacorps. He refused and is now lying in a gutter in the barrens slotting BTLs and touching himself with rats over pictures of Nadja Daviar.

one can speculate that spirits of man is basically ghosts...

get that old body, have a summoned spirit of man inhabit it, presto, resurrection

and lets not forget about those pesky shedim...

hmm . . possession is 90% of the law . . does that make shedim lawyers? O.o

I'm pretty sure the focal point of the entire cybermancy section in arsenal is that cyberzombies don't have a very high life expectancy if you can even call it living in the first place.

they don't keep you ALIVE per say . . they forbid you to die from too much cyber, is all O.o
you still die if someone decides that the bit of gray matter would compliment this bullet just nice

Heck even in the geneware section of augmentation they pretty much say that despite all the age prevention advances that have been made, when the brain wants to die, it dies and there isn't anything you can do about it.

I consider precognition the ability to look in the future. Combat Sense is not precog. Heck look at the power description:



Nothing in that statement leads me to say "looking in the future"

Even diving is just looking at the present and using it to make a magically aided guess as to what the future holds.

What about slotting phantom of the opera + rat love'n?
Jump to 2:22

Magic in Earthdawn and magic in Shadowrun are not really all that different. (I've spent a good deal of time with both systems... well just getting into fourth edition sr but i digress)...
In Earthdawn magicians Usually cast spells by memory yes, but in a specific way that was intended to keep from alerting Horrors and from suffering from the ill effects of casting RAW spells. RAW casting is basically eactlly like Shadowrun magic. Magician casts a spell from he knows, channeling mana directly from the astral plain into himself and as a result of the unfiltered mana flow takes damage, stun in some cases physical in others. Just depended upon the Circle (or power) of the spell cast. However that line of casting wasn't recomended, astral space was muddied even then more than now (relatively speaking) the horrors did a number on the background count and subsequently RAW casting was draining as hell and could allert a nearby (any Horror that's looking in that direction really). To combat that mages used matrixes, they stored spell formul and "threaded" the active parts of the spells into them peice by peice to bypass the drain and the surge that casting caused on the astral. Anyways Shadowrun style casting was possible with the ED rules. In SR however the pressence of the horrors and although it's rapidly becomeing toxic everwhere the native state of the astral plain hasn't nessesitated the shift in casting ritual. That I see happening as soon as the vile evils start ariving. In fact there are hints to ED spellcasting in cannon lit... i'll look it up but it's recent enough...

I expect at some point there will be a (high drain) spell that can rip a hole into the Astral. Hop through, and repeat process at the other end. A little like Porte magic, but hopefully without the Universe bleeding (and screaming) so much.

You are a deeply disturbed individual. No wonder I'm laughing. Those brown nipples must have hypnotized him too.





How come movies aren't that good where I live?

The head of the Black Lodge could teleport, back in '57.

Isn't the head of the black lodge a free spirit?

Touching itself with rats......... over pictures of Nadja Daviar?
SACRILEGE!!!!!!!!

What life-draining evil spirits with the habit of inhabiting dead bodies have to do with resurrection?

You rule chummer!

wouldn't be surprised to see the T'Skrang become a meta-varianat along with Jeckalmen from the previous age of magic, seeing as they have been somewhat touch upon with Class II and III surge qualities, as far as the heavy weight contenders of Barasive returning I just can't see it. The old litterature made illusions that in the 2nd world there were variants that didn't make it over to the fourth age and I see the same thing happening in the sixth. To be completely honest I was rather shocked that the Windlings made a resurgence... I dunno just never thought they would work well into the world. As for the passions I just don't think that they are going by the same names... well at least outside of certain circles in the Tiers and outside of the core setting of Brasaive there were other "passions" that people warshiped, I really don't think they were mutch different than Totems or rather powerful Mentor Spirits to begin with.

Personally I've always been rather skeptical of such claims as RPG vaporware, as no definite examples or indications of such hypothetical vanished 2nd world races have ever surfaced in published ED material that I'm aware of. Much as the Windling case, which was widely supposed to be such a "lost" race before RC, it seems to me like wishful thinking of people reading what they want to read in vague remarks, who don't want exotic races make their precious cyberpunk street campaign look too fantasy bizarre.

Of course, I freely admit to having a contrary bias myself, since I would not really bother at all with SR without the strong urban fantasy element, and personally I would be much eager to see the obsidimen surafce into the Sixth World eventually.

OF course if the souls of the dead vaporize into so much Astral "static" as opposed to being wisked off to some metaplanar afterlife at best all an Astral Quest is going to get you is an echo of the person you knew based off your own memories, remember Spirits of Man have never been proven to be "Ghosts", hells for that matter there is no proof that Spirits are not created by the very act of summoning in the first place.

Im really happy about the pixies/windlings in RC which are my favorite ED race. I hope with rising magic the obsidians will come back, too. But the most important change Id like to see would be more cybermantic magic. That is definitively missing. (Resonance may become some special kind of cybermancy to simplify the rules.)

heh, thanks, i have my moments ^^

First Meet-Up with a new Crew, my character nods at the elf-chracter of one of the other players . . you know the type, arrogant junky high charisma elfen bitch that is good for nothing, only for getting herself and everybody else around her into trouble . . and asked:"Who's she?" when the Mr.Johnson, aka the GM wanted to answer, the Character/player in a most rude manner introduced him/herself as and i quote: "A PROFESSIONAL!" . . there was no time wasted with thinking between brain and mouth and mouth just threw out:"i thought the hookers came AFTER the run?"

try page 112 of RC, dermal alteration metagenic quality.

specifically the granite shell.

Good suggestion but Im still missing the mountain meld. Im afraid theres no such thing in SR yet.

If you're not careful you'll end up hanging upside down in Tarislar with electrodes attached to your testicles.

^^There's a joke there, I can see it, but I think I'll leave it for someone else.

what elf would waste a good set of testicles?
and i'm mostly playing trolls and combat heavy characters too ^^

A character of mine is a chageling elven spellslinger that started with glamour, a charisma of 7, Amnesia, Fashback and a Big Regret qualites, a magic attribute of 6, sorcery group at 4, agility at 6 and firearms group at 3. The very first thing she remebers is the Yakashima lab in which she was used as guinea pig, than she woke in an hospital and tooke the first occasion to escape, just to end up being force to sell hers body by a pimp. When everything turned too much she had a massive psychological break which shattered some mental conditioning that prevented her to use her magic (and returned her some skills she didn't know shw had), resulting in the death of hers pimp, several dead clientes (some immidiatly, other hunted down later) and the start of a life as shadowrunner. If asked the same question she would have responded "Myself" (and thought "I don't know"), but if called a hooker hers reaction could be anything from an angry glare to killing the offender (not immidiatly of course, revenge is better served cold).
All in all it's not the best way to begin a run insulting your own teammates, your life is on the line and teamwork is essential.

You mean the Buzz Kill mini-novel in the BBB?

Also that torture thing is realy opening a very big can of worms, just think about reputation hit and angry enemy just made.

the similarities are quite frightening . . apart from having to REALLY sell her body it's more or less the same story . . including the magic bit later on . .
as for not doing something like that? i'm an assholish character with a certain sense of humor, i play assholish characters with a certain sense of humor.
stay with what you know and all that . . and that character is still about as dangerous as a feather . . specializing in thrown weapons with a strength of 1.
later on learned SMG's on skill 1 and thus even using all kinds of gadgets missed 99% of the time . . and the one time she actually hit anything, the damage
was scaled down to nothing by a simple body roll, without combat pool, due to some armor on the target . . the most dangerous thing about her is the fact
that she thinke she is all that and so much more, tries to flirt her way into freebies in all kinds of bars(yes, even in troll/ork bars) and then tries to get away
when the guy she flirted with for the drink thinks there might be more where that came from . . seriously, you leave her alone in a bar, you as a player go
to the loo, you come back and hear the GM either calling for ini or body roll . .

Actually I was referring to some people considering that type of thing foreplay. I don't remember 'Buzz Kill".


Oh come on, I can't piss off people that easily can I? I'm sure my rep is bad enough already that no one will notice. Which enemy? Should I be running?

Your elvent bitch is an idiot, how can she survive in the shadows? It's the kind of character that kills the teammates sooner than later. Why should anyone want her in the team?
And the similarities end with being elves.
My character run the shadows for survival and attempting to regain a certain degree of balance.
She tendes to be a loner, and in men she looks for comprension as a (meta)human, not carnal desire (she hates to be considered just an erotic toy). For her sexual intercurse should be sharing the bodies with persons (only males) that she respectes as a part of a relationship, she would never flirt hers way into anything unless absolutely necessary. And she would open with an hail of stunbolt to soften the target and a finish the job a Predator round (6 agility + 3 pistols + 2 smartlink = 11dp) in the braincase, or she could wait until the offender needes an heal spell and remind him that she's an hooker not an healer (if she doesn't need him alive, survival comes before revenge); aganst a samurai she would use poison instead of direct confrontation.
Don't mess with my bich!

I actually hope that they will reinstate the old ED races. We now have the Pixie/Windling as a playable race and I hope we get to se the T'Skrang and Obsidimen.

They would definitely be non-metahuman sentients and have the uneducated ability as they have not been integrated into societys and are either rare tribes or that a few have gained legitimacy as members of a nation (much like pixies).

A quick idea from Runners Companion (Have no idea what the points should be).

Obsidimen
Height: As Troll
Weight: As Giant (Heavy Mass)
Attributes: As Giant (Very Strong and massive)
Reach: +1
Dermal Alteration: Granite Shell
Thermographic Vision, Ogre Stomach, Magneto Sense, Extravagant Eyes (Looks like precious stones), Slow Healer (Stone mends slowly)

T'Skrang
Height: As Human
Weight: As Human
Attributes: As Human
Reach (Tail): +1
Gills, Beak, Prehensile Tail, Underwater Vision, Scales, Striking Skin Pigmentation.
Can use the exotic skill: Tailfighting or count as an extra arm with a hand weapon if holding something.

Just an idea.

I was refering to the mini-strory at the beginning of the BBB, the one in which the scarriest words are "It will be easy". I was thinking about the "booze and hookers" line.




You're still giving someone a good reason to geek you, You'd better just killing him off. Knowing that nobody will ever want to work with you again.

That's not just stupid, that's felony-stupid. You should try to get her arrested (the character not the player), then claim it was self-defense. Just kidding, that'd be to cruel of a punishment for a newb. If she was a veteran player on the other hand....

Still, this makes immortality something viable as long as the spirit/brain wants to live. With leonization and gene therapy you could live for a long time, and elves even more so.

People determined to live on could be rather frightening given teh current state of SR tech, add a few hundred years to that...

We have been playing 3rd edition for years and don't play 4th. Before 4th was released though, we had already intruduced Drakes, T'skrang, Windlings and Obsidimen into our campaign world. We have been key in preventing the attempts of a horror to enter the physical plane as well as all sorts of vague but Earthdawn related events.

I agree RAW casting in ED is exactly the way spells are cast in SR and that in ED the background count was so humungous it can easily have deadly reprocussions to the caster.

We have also experienced as player characters astral rips when our mages have been battling others with high force spells. One incident in particular occurred when two of our casters engaged Lonestar. One defended the other (with shielding and such) while he cast many offensive spells. This was against 6 Lonestar mages who were spamming the crap out of him (but not getting anywhere because of the high defences). Such as it was, through many high force (6- spells being cast on a single target, it created an astral rift and a magma elemental popped through. Lonestar thought this was under the control of our mage. We fled at this point and the magma elemental proceeded to rip apart the Lonestar mages in its rampage.

And this leads onto these extra things too... Ice, Magma, Storm and all sorts of other "types" of elementals. Perhaps not neccessarily related to ED, but as mana rises, these new appearences occur.

Also, don't forget about any unopened Kaerns. Perhaps they have been locked until a certain mana point where the inhabitants who have locked themselves away since the ebb of magic, they now come out to the world, perhaps in secret.

Many possibilities.


One thing our GM has never allowed, nor will he ever allow is Resurrection or Space/Time manipulation.
This is for good reason too. As mentioned before, Teleportation makes things too easy, simple as.... and resurrection takes the fear factor out of Shadowrun.

One of the greatest things about games without resurrection is that you know that if you are in trouble, you had better run because if you die, thats it. Game over, start a new character... all that effort gone.

When Im playing my 751 karma character, I know when to run. If I had resurrection at my beck-and-call, I think it would not be half as much fun.

A good example is DnD. There I am with my 12th lvl character. Oh no, look some hard ass badguys that can probably kill me and a few others in my party. But nevermind, we will charge, attack and kill because we know, that as long as one of us survives, we can all get raised.... aka no fear factor!