So if the Horror can JUST see me I'm Marked??

Bullshit. There has to be more to it than that. Othewise the Horrors are just uberbadguys that PCs have no chance of beating.

"Joy, the demon horde is here in all its coolness."

On the topic of nkes, how many nuclear weapons actually worked as designed since the Awakening?

horror mark was a test using the step number of the horror's horror mark power (usually around 20ish) against the character's spell defense step (usually around 10ish)

EDIT: so basically the horror had to beat a total of around 10 using his D20/D8/D6

as i stated previously with rolling dice, there are instances of talents that you can use to resist a horror mark thus allowing you to roll against the horror. /EDIT

basically not much of a chance. those are fairly average numbers from the horrors mentioned in published materials.

and i have no idea where the artificer nuking the 4th world came from.

@ northern lights:

So they can Mark us at will?

The Artificer/Cermack thing was about Joker missunderstandering some posts. Meh, that happens 'round these parts. We don't reall make it easy...

well, not exactly. they have to be able to see you, but so long as they can, they can attempt to mark you. after that it is up to the dice. if you are using a talent and roll well enough to resist, then you aren't marked. though i have never seen restictions on how many times they can use it on you.

also check the edit above as i screwed something up.

Hmmm... So its pretty easy for them. Can they control us or get a bonus to the roll for control?

not so. horrors have their own ways of moving around as well. i would say yes it isn't as effective if the person can stay that far ahead of them, but if the horror has the ability to travel through astral space, he could easily beat that person, or meet him there moments after.

Semi-ballistics and sub-orbitals have relative ground speeds of 12,000kph and 10,000kph, so the lower-power Horrors will be out. And following them into high athmosphere/out of athmosphere is impossible, too (Mana Warp and the actual speeds are far higher).

don't discount the horror's ability to convince someone to put it on the next flight somehow. and it will always know where the subject is, though the subject may not always know where the horror is. so he could be fleeing towards the horror at some point.

A Horror on a Semi-ballistic. That would save metahumanity the trouble for its part.

(The Horror would have to endure the space Mana Warp for a significant length of time...)

somehow being the imperitive word. it need't neccessarily be a semi. nor does it need to be immediate. the point being that the horror could follow the person through similar means. running isn't really a solution when it always knows where the target is.

Well, if we can get 1 billion Horrors just flying around the world trying to catch up with their marked targets, that's something.

i think you're onto something here. we won't run or hide, we'll play monkey in the middle with metahumanity instead of a ball.

Or maybe I was laughing or crying so hard that I paid no attention...

Interesting idea... Ritual Link through Marks. Could that work in theory? Nevermind the Horrors' magical defences and all that crap, would it theoretically be possible to attack a Horror with Ritual Magic through the Horror's Mark?

The best weapon the horros have is thier ability to manipulate metahumanity. The more powerful the weapons available to metahumnity are, the more of the threat the horors could be...

re: Independance Day

Yes, they tried to nuke one of the 'lander' ships. The nuke didn't penetrate its shields at all.

re: Cthulu

Yes, a nuke will destroy Cthulu. However, he'll reform elsewhere after a period of time, very very pissed off.

I think we can assume that the magic will no longer have to be raw by the time the Horrors hit.

~J

I still someday want to play an Elf with Chronic Osteocuspis, then go and bother the Tir Council of Princes.
This will be a session that I bring two charsheets to.

~J

If metahumanity is smart this time, and that will only happen if some of the immortals get off their asses and start telling people about it, instead of creating orichalcum pillars to help keep the ebbing of the mana curve from sinking near the end of the Fourth World, they'll use a similar technique to try and hold the mana level down below what the Horrors need to survive in the material plane.

When the third Scourge comes and the immortals have failed to tell metahumanity about it as soon as magic was reintroduced, they're going to be on a major shitlist.

IF people know that IEs are running around.

First. Horrors don't go out marking people willy nilly. Chantrel's horror is one of the most powerful out there. It marks 1 person, makes them immortal and feeds and feeds and feeds. Most horrors have an agenda or a method to their madness. They don't mark everyone they see because it would expose them (they are aware that metahumans can fight back) they only mark the ripest of the crop (however they determine this). Not all horrors can just mark you on sight, or just feed on free emotion. Most have a rule or restriction. For instance, Artificer (since we seem to like to use him as our default nasty) can only feed on those who are trapped in his dungeons. Nemisis can only mark those who accept his help. Taint can only mark those who practice his teachings. Fla Tra Lys can only mark those who play his pan pipes (and you get a cool undead butler out of the deal). Generally (there are a few exceptions as always) the more powerful horrors have restrictions on who, when, and how they mark people.

Second. Yup, the mark a vulnerable point. It's not so much a weak point in the armor as it is a laser sight. It can help you aim, but you still have to get through all his defenses. Adepts in the 4th world (a select group of pyschotics and masochists called Horror Stalkers) developed a type of magic that essentially caused the user to explode and send all the energy down the Horror Mark pipeline and cook the horror. It wasn't particularly effective, but it was something. I don't see why a group of mages couldn't use it to rain holy fire down on the head of a particular horror. Seriously, this sounds like a good idea. They don't talk about that as a possiblity at all in Earthdawn. *thinks a moment* Might not be easy, and you can expect retribution, but it should work.

Third. Well, I started writing the third and 3/4 of the way through noticed a fundamental flaw. So instead, a word from our sponors.

"Do you like making money? Sure we all do! Well now you can make money, make friends, and benchpress school buses ALL IN YOUR SPARE TIME!

With Tempter's Uber-Karma of Uberness

All you have to do is agree to use 1% of that money to buy drugs for little children, humilate 1 new friend a week, and lose your temper and cause copious amounts of property at least once a month.

Concent now, Supplies are limited! "
Contract not void do to any loss of soul, enmity of peers, or other emotional damage caused through use of product.

I think we need to quantify what is actually considered a win by humanity and what is a win for the Horrors. Reaver did a pretty good job in hir post, but let me see if I can clarify what was said further.

Sure, we could "beat", as in kill, horrors, with enough firepower, but does leaving an irradiated, crater scared planet where we cannot even venture into the astral because we will either be ripped to shreds by mana warp or have our essence consumed by FAT bacteria really constitute as a win for humanity?

So what are the options presented do far?

1) Retreat to space and bombard the planet with nukes or what ever other high tech weaponry we have available, leaving behind those who could not go, either because they could not afford it or were not picked in the survivor lottery, to have their souls and bodies consumed by the horrors.

Considering the only consistent thing that we can say about the horrors is they seem to want to corrupt and destroy the world and everything in it, I think we could say the win goes to the horrors here, since we would just being doing their work for them. Not only would we have made the world uninhabitable during their return, it would probably continue to be uninhabitable well till their next return. Good job Earth Force!

2) Retreat to Kaers and hold out till the mana levels drop below the level needed to sustain the horrors, leaving to be consumed those who could not get into a Kaer or those Kaes that were not strong enough to survive the onslaught. Pray that none of those marked by corrupts were in the lists of rich and affluent who managed to make up the majority of the population in the Kaer (as if anyone would ever dare to think rich and affluent people might somehow be tainted or corrupted).

The win, again, goes to the horrors. They again get to dominate the surface and tear things up. At least we know they will go away and the world will be inhabitable after… or we think anyway. The cycles has been messed with once before, and who is to say that Dunkie's efforts to create a delay might not unbalance things even further.

3) Build Kaer like places where we stage assaults against the Horrors with our clone armies, super high tech weaponry, and anti magic squads, again leaving hose who where not selected to be part of the surviving gene pool base to their own devices (forgetting, of course, the more complex the plan, the more ways there are to frag it up). This, of course, complicates things even further. Not only do we still have to safe guard ourselves form the corrupted that might have slipped in, but we also have to ensure those going out to fight the horrors do not being back a little something extra them selves, and we have to make sure the doorway or what ever, is strong enough to survive a focused assault (the weakest part of any fortification).

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. How long do you think it will take the horrors to start corrupting those left behind and using them? What was once just a war between man and the horrors will quickly becomes a war of metahumanity in the kaers vs. the horrors and their metahuman sympathizers/pawns/tools. And how long before it takes a soldier to crack under the pressure of having to slaughter "innocents" just to make sure he or she and his or her buddies are on the safe side? And does that cause corruption or one to be marked? Ever see the movie Screamers? How long do you think it will take before the horrors start sending the children collected from the barrens to the "front lines" or engage in human breeding projects of their own? And what about refugees? Let them in or turn them away? And who makes that choice? How do they make that choice? Could the people making the choice become horror marked themselves? And considering that would have to make the decision, perhaps on a daily basis, who lives and who dies a tortuous death, how could you really tell the difference?

And finally there is the matter of corrupted Kaers. How can you be sure that Kaer you are coordinating with has not been infiltrated and corrupted? Or maybe that signal you are receiving is from a real Kaer at all? How do you prove your Kaer is not corrupt as well? Considering the other Kaers have just as much firepower as yours, this could be a very dangerous situation. This does not even go into the fact that human alliances tend to be rather short lived. I think this is the real reason the Kaers were sealed up during the 3rd age. Not so much that they could not fight, but just the whole cane of worms you open yourself up to.

So what do we have with option three? Several hundred years of death, destruction, carnage, warfare, mistrust, and betrayal. I think that counts as a win for the horrors as well. Even if they don’t wipe metahumanity off the planet, they definitely make a fair game of it and probably have a great time trying. And is this really a world where anyone honestly wants to live in?


These are pretty much the options I've seen presented so far. And they all unrealistically operate on the assumption that everyone will all work together and go the same way. I have a very hard time believing that will happen. What is more likely to happen is that some will go one route and others another. Many will sell their souls for the sake of survival or power, and everyone will make a big mess of it. The horrors will have plenty to chow down one and will be back for the next mana spike as well. Or, with all the talk of super chromed and cloned cyberzombies, shooting off nukes left and right, and the scorched earth warfare people are suggesting for the astral (never minding the military/police state that would be necessary to carry on such a protracted and comprehensive war), is what we are talking really much better then the world the horrors would bring about or would we simple become the next brand of horror ourselves?

Now do you all get it? The horrors have set up the playing field so that no matter what metahumainty does, the horrors win, to some degree or another. They do not think like us. They do not want or need what we want or need. No, it's not fair. Yes, it's rather fatalistic. Yes, it is pretty heavy handed. Tough. The universe is pretty heavy handed at times. If you don’t like it then go play some happy go lucky game like HoL or something.

I agree with you Sable. Frankly I think the only win situation for humaniti in the long run as a whole will be avoiding direct conflict. Considering how many horrors and constructs can be brought to bear, that's a bad numbers game to try and fight.

One thing to point out from Golden's post. Horror Stalkers could not cause direct damage to a horror through a horror mark. There is a horror itself that can do that, and he is listed in the Parlainth book I believe. The adepts can bear a horror mark and track horrors through the mark they carry so that they can physically engage it. There's no garantee that they will win the fight though. In the 4th world, horror stalkers were also very rare.

Their are a few things people miss.

What if we make smart FABs.

We may not need ammo,in 1000 years.Lasers could have their own power plant that could basically run for ever, or at least tens of years.This could be the size of a pistol now.

remember in less than 100 years we went from breach loading guns,to to man portable guns that fire more fire power than company of breach loaders.

In 30 years we made weapons that nearly made tanks worthless,and tanks that laugh at those weapons.

We made battle ships that shot 10-21 inch shells,and within 40 years made them fossils.

We made bombs that leveled parts of cities,and now use those bombs as trigers.In 10 years,I think.

First off, releasing a slew of FAB-III into the environment is just as potentially bad as setting of nukes. Who knows what kind of long term damage you could be looking at. Of course, what if the Horrors can corrupt FAB-III into Dread Iotas. Looks like you just gave them another weapon. Not to mention that FAB-III will kill your magically active and now you have one less usable weapon.

AV missiles and other mundane weapons, well, they only work on the physical plane... don't they. Meanwhile, the horror could potentially mark you percious rigger and the next thing you know the rigger is firing on his own people. Well, so much for that idea.

Yes, there will be quite the technological advancements by the time the horrors arrive. But for all our advancements, the horrors have had 100 times the time to prepare and plan. One could find all that technology not worth much if thier plans are insidious enough. And since the big players probably won't mention one drop of information about the horrors, the majority of the population won't know about it until its aleady too late.

Now, the only way there could be scarce resources is if you give up the idea of fighting them and retreat people to safe havens. If you decide to fight, resources aren't going to be scarce because you'll be throwing all kinds of tasty morsels at them.

With any luck, space may be humanitis only true safe haven. Of course, even Big D may not have known that for sure. Won't know for a few thousand years anyway, unless something interesting happens sooner. In the meantime, I've got a cult of Cthulhu looking to raise R'Leyh back from the depths that my PC's will have to stop.

Did he necessarily relay any information? I don't see that there had to be much communication at all...

~J

I'm not questioning the desire, but the ability to transfer much info.

~J

I've always gotten the impression that he was the sort that was playing with things out of his control, like the classic person who summons a greater demon thinking to control them or somesuch.
I am definitely playing Darke as the Darke from Cougar and Darke's travelling carnival out of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury.

~J

According to the Game Information in Threats there will always be someone to replace Mr.Darke. Therefore, we must assume that whoever was backing him (made him?) has more agents. Mr.Darke I think is more of a position than a person.