You and your anti-horror squad are bunked up in your fortress with enough firepower to wipe out a small african nation. You are prepared and waiting for them to come. That's when the rigger kills your hacker. In horror, you shoot the rigger and burn the body. That's when people stop talking to each other and eyeing each other warily. A couple of days later a radio message comes through and when your operator tries to respond all that comes out are screams and wailing. The rest of you open your mouths to say "he's infected shoot him!" Then you realize that you are all affected as all your voices join together in a horrible chorus. That's when you hear a voice in your head saying "Tell the others that you need help and they should send more soldiers." You try to resist and are wracked by horrible, mind-numbing pain. All you can do is open your mouth and let the terrible wailing resume. That's when you faintly realize that your mage has hopped on the radio and said: "We're surrounded please send help."

Lucky for you when the strike team arrives an hour later they shoot you on sight. Unlucky for the strike team all it took for the Despairthought was one moment of LOS on them for it to Horror Mark the next set of victims.

This is a situation with a relatively minor horror that came across in the hundreds if not the thousands.

Oh no, that's not the situation. You are prepared and waiting for them to come. Then the horror tries to get your rigger to kill your hacker. But the horror FAILS because the rigger cannot be taken over by the horror. The horror mark backfires because the rigger is now rigging the horror and the minor horror is now under the control of the rigger. That is the case when a relatively minor antihorror squad is prepared and waiting for them to come, and they are ready in the hundreds if not the thousands.

And then the dozen Thor Shots come raining in followed by a tactical nuke.




-k

And when the dust settles, they just stand, look at you, and say "Not enough gun."

Bigger Guns
We need Bigger Guns.

For someone not steeped in the lore of Earthdawn, could you explain why the rigger cannot be taken over by the horror?

I am curious about this too..
There's nothing that says the rigger cannot be taken over by the horror.

Of course, my squad of anti-horror guys is actually all sitting inside a Kaer warded out the ying yang and they're all using a stirrup interface ridding bioed out clones.

And if the Horrors arent' showing up for 2000 more years. We'll have figured out a way to have merged magic and technology better.

I mean.. think about it.
Pattern Threaded weapons?
Armorer Adepts (like the weaponsmith, but with guns)

At that point you might as well just say "Horrors are the Apocalypse" instead of a beatable threat.

Seeing as there were at least a couple of Great Dragons that were of the opinion that the Namegivers might be able to win this time around, I'm not so sure this is the case.

Quite simply, the Namegivers are geometrically more powerful than they ever have been before in the fights against the Horrors. We're supposed to be an actual credible threat this time around, not just playthings for them.

I don't think things are intended to be THAT one-sided that the Horrors can just shrug off stuff that can atomize entire cities. At the very LEAST they'll lose hordes of lower powered minions on a scale they've never seen before.



-k

It's been covered elsewhere in the thread, but Bone Crown gains power based on how many followers it has. The power increase is linear per five followers. Now add a population of billions and mass media, stir well, and serve chilled.

~J

I believe the consensus is that if a Horror doesn't have line of sight, he cannot mark his target. A rigger piloting a drone is not within line of sight of the Horror, thereby the rigger has no reason to pop a cap in the hacker.

Well, unless the rigger really doesn't like the hacker.

Or if the Horror infiltrated the modern techno Kaer in the same manner that it infiltrated the magical Kaer back in the 4th age: mark them before they get inside or else worm your way in.

Seriously guys, they were able to astrally burrow their way into kaers that were warded with rituals that required so much orichalcum that there were wars over the resource. We are talking about warding on a scale never before seen in SR. Modern construction materials don't stop mages from astrall projecting through them any better than the Earth or worked stone did for Kaers.

Also, all it takes is 1 person to be marked and they go around spreading it. A Horror can use it's powers to affect others around the marked individual as long as the Horror is within 10 miles of the marked individual. So good luck getting LOS on the Horror to kill it with your guns. Also, Background Count makes them stronger and makes them congregate nearby so modern society is apparently even MORE attractive to them. This is without getting into stuff like Horror constructs (nothing worse than seeing your buddy's face on the body of hideous, Horror corrupted spider).

The truly horrible Horrors aren't the ones that fight you straight up in a toe-to-toe battle. With mana levels at even the tail end of the 4th age metahumanity would have been able to beat off an attack by the mindless, eat everything in your path Horrors. The problem was the ones that infiltrated and took things over. No amount of Thor shots will ever help you if all the guys manning the trigger are now Horror Threaded thralls of Verijgorm (who is essentially the oldest living Great Dragon if you believe the Dragon's own history).

Come to think of it: did we get a definition anywhere in the thread what exactly the win conditions are?

I imagine that I probably have very different win conditions from some of the pure SR crowd.

"As long as I'm alive and they are dead" kind of victory?

Yeah, I'd expect even if the horrors DID get "beatt"en, the planet wold be in ruins, with massive sections blasted into glass or otherwise a wasteland. Billions will die. The survivors will be in for a hellish future, but at least one free of the Horrors.

Then we can have Shadowrun: Mad Max Edition.






-k

Except while yes, magic was more powerfull in Earthdawn's setting it was not an information age society like we have now, never mind in 2072 or a few centuries down the line and what that means is research takes place faster, ideas flow at a rate people in eve the 1940's could not understand, and when you apply that to magical research it means we are doing more with less by virtue of refinements to theoretical knowledge and practical technique. By the time the mana cyce is high enough for major horrors to get through SR mages will be more powerfull than the mages the horrors had to deal with last time around, meaing better, more efficient wards. Early arning and detection systems aren't entirey unreasonable items to posit because by the time the Named Horrors get through we'll have plenty of experience with their lesser hordes, they will in point of fact be a recognizale threat by virtue of their twisted nature. In a primitve society based entirely on magic a entirey magical threat makes a good boogeyman, but in a thoroughly advanced technological society that also has magic you can't be the same sort of threat if you are a one trick pony like the Horrors.

You know, it is not the sixth age that really needs to worry about the Horrors.


If "We" didn't kill ourselves off getting to where the horrors fully return assuming Azlan is dealt with, the horrors are really going to be in for an interesting time.

And with world wide communication and mass production Metahumanity is going to be changing the rules of the game practically daily.
The Horrors will never know what has hit them



It wouldn't surprise me to find they discover a way to harvest the horrors in some manner.
The hunters would be come the hunted. Same way Tigers, gators, and great whites went from top of the food chain to rugs, boots, and "Sport".



Metahumanity had better spread to the star in the Sixth and Seven Worlds.
Cause when the Eighth Age comes, the horrors that remain will be very very smart.
They may not be able to get on to the Matrix, but next time around they will make sure they can control those who can.
And while I doubt they will be forgotten during the Seventh World, they will be working from the inside from the get go.
They will be taking full advantage of any overconfidence.
The scary thing is that the stakes are so much higher. Every thing is interconnected.

Holy crap, Rick Astley is Bone Crown?

He's never gonna give you up.

What about people who underestimate how tough they are but end up doing well in the situations they find themselves in? Hey, not everyone is an egomaniac.

Indeed. Much can happen when ssssomeone is in the right placccce at the right...time.

Keep the Hazard Suit, Misssster Freeman. You've...earned it.

Has anything equivalent really been tested? A Horror can horror-mark someone through a horror-marked individual. Odds are you're right, but is it something you'd want to bet on?

(And of course, as soon as there's even one Horror who CAN infect people through matrix links... well now the game is really on.)

I guess it depends on what constitutes being a follower.

If "being a follower" demands any kind of belief or reverence, Bone Crown is going to be hard up in the bitter, jaded, post-ironic emotional desert of the future. Universal disillusionment and rampant atheism are meta-humankind's most brutal weapon against any would-be godling.

If "being a follower" only demands that you put a link to his site in your RSS feed aggregator, well, yeah. We're all screwed.

How could it? We're talking about an Ancient Enemy in a Modern Setting.

"The more Name-givers who follow its commands, the more mystical power it gains, whether the Name-givers in question obey it wittingly or unwittingly, directly or indirectly. If it wins the fealty of a scorcher chieftain, for example, it gains a magical benefit not only from ruling that chieftain, but from ruling all those loyal to him as well."

~J

it didn't take dragons long to become very familiar with the modern world and basically take it over or become major players in it.

Some of the Horrors are smarter and more powerful then dragons, so I don't imagine the horrors will have much trouble adapting to our modern world very quickly. And if they have magic and special abilities that allow them to read peoples minds, etc... they could learn all they need to know about the modern world in a matter on minutes once they cross over.

But it is such a long way off, if humanity knew they were coming and could hold up in Kerns, well by that time, fully automated and armed AI robots could be roaming around fighting off the horrors while humanity hid. Not giving the Horrors any victims to control or mind read, etc...

I guess it really depends on what the Horror's intelligence network is like in the current era. If they have spies already informing them of what is going on and to keep informing them over the years then when they finally do arrive here, they will already know all they need to know and might already have agents in place across the globe.

Could you explain how the rigger can be taken over without being able to take (by anyone) any defensive measures using Shadowrun lore, since this is a Shadowrun forum and not an Earthdawn one?

Exactly.

Hell, how do you know that the Matrix is not ITSELF a horror.

Maybe that is what the Resonance/Dissonance is. Maybe that is what Technomancers REALLY are.

That is the scale they work on.

This is not Godzilla we are talking about. It is cthulhu, hastur, and nylathahotep. And you can't kill it with a gun.

(Note, that I voted yes. But I still am staggered by the amount of people who seem to think that it will be trivial, or easy, or anything less than extinction event level catastrophe for the metahuman race.)

hehe your talk to forum full of awesome gamers. An audience which isn't generally famous for the concept that monster unspeakable or otherwise can over come them. When you think about it, how many players here wouldn't love to put together their ultimate team and take a shot at a Great Dragon? This logical just goes further when you extend that to the Horrors, I'd be the first to sign up, for the Lets nuke the horror back to their home dimension club. Yes I know that not how the horrors would fight, and i know that it wouldn't be easy, but our genetics really won't let us pick the 2nd option, at least not as a whole.

Well, Shadowrun is a great universe because it is an 'anything can die' universe. Great Dragons are hard to kill not because of their immense personal power, but because of their intelligence and ability to avoid disadvantageous situations. But even Great Dragons can die with the right circumstances and enough firepower.

The Enemy/The Horrors are a great threat because they bypass this 'anyone can die' aspect beautifully.

Why would that be?

It should precisely because Shadowrun is an 'anything can die' universe' that should the Horrors come into the Shadowrun universe they can also die. If the Horrors in SR can bypass this aspect, then Shadowrun loses what makes it such a great universe.

Horrors can be killed. They are not immune to normal weapons, they are not immune to magic - both proven in Earthdawn/ the 4th World. It's unlikely that this will change in the 6th World.

Horrors can be killed, they're just insidious and tough to kill.

The physical horrors are actually much easier to kill. Those would be fairly easy to fight with drones.
But the Thoughworms, wormskulls, and all the other bad ass horrors. It would be really really bad.

In 2000 years.. we'll have made prodigious strides forward in marrying magic and technology. We might have dual natured bullets, and Alchemical Drones controlled by Riggers in special alchemical cocoons that allow them to control the Drone AND use it to cast spells. We have after all 2000 years.

But it's certainly going to be ugly and if 25% of the human population survives.. I'll be impressed.

I stick to my statement that metahumanity doesn't need puny Horrors to destroy itself.

Er, I haven't seen anyone say that it will be easy. Just that it might be possible.



-k

The rules haven't been written yet. You may as well sit in 1st edition and ask how a metahuman can metamorphisize into a giant insect, or how a spirit can possess a dead body.

I think the Neurosis's point may have been not that we can't kill a single horror, but that because there are so many, we can't kill ALL the horrors. So it's not a battle we can win by racking up the biggest body count, but by making ourselves inaccessible and biding our time.

I don't know the Horrors from a hole in the ground. Many posts in this thread, including the one which I was quoting above, appear to be using knowledge from that other game (which I have never played) to describe effects expected to happen in this game's future. I wasn't challenging the other poster. I was attempting to glean information.

Can SR characters use SR means to protect themselves against individual Horrors? Yes.

Can the SR world survive without having to hide in Kaers for 400 years while the Scourge rages? No.

Will society stand a better chance of remaining intact after 400 years of being in a Kaer? Unknown, but the Matrix sure helps.

So again, to those that voted Yes: What is your victory condition? Avoiding the kaers? Society staying intact? What is the acceptable post-Scourge population level for you to call it a victory?

Why not? I see alot made of the psychological aspects of the Horrors but they scare me less than the pure physical ones. Wanna know why? I've see what peole can do to control mental illness firsthand. Psychology is a whole differant game than when the Horrors where around because now we know a vast amount more about how our minds work and some people actually use those tools to examine themselves, to make something more of their mind.

To be blunt the psychological Horrors really aren't the threat they where in the 4th world. They are Freddy, and like the girl sad inthe last movie "welcome to my world, bitch."

Humanity survives. Enough to begin again. Enough to rebuild.

The Horrors don't.




-k

We also have increasingly terrible weapons of war. What if a weapon were developed that could breach the metaplanes and impact on their home plane? There's already dual-natured biotoxins...what would it take to go that extra step?

The dragons seem to think we'll be taking the fight to them sooner or later - truly, what if you could send a nuke through the astral to glass their house? Hit 'um with DDT?

I don't know that much about Earthdawn. Specifically, I don't know anything about its crunch or how you would apply it to Shadowrun.

The general impression I've gotten from the FLUFF, however--which to me is quite important--is that the Horrors are bad enough dudes to have Dunkelzahn and Harlequin practically drekking themselves.

I'm not saying I get the impression that 'every individual Horror is unkillable'.

I do get the impression that the Horrors, as a whole, are unkillable. Perhaps we can survive, but I very much doubt we're going to kick their asses. More likely, we'll barely scrape by.

Like I said, in terms of the fluff they come off as more Cthulhu than Godzilla.

Cthulhu was a wimp, he got taken down with a single steamship. More like Nyarlathotep or Yog-Sothoth.

~J

Ugh. Horror corrupted biotoxins. That's a horrible thought. I could see Ristul or Taint having a field day with that. Although I will point out that Dread Iotas are pretty much already this.

The Horrors are like Michael Jordan in his prime. You can't stop them, you can only hope to contain them.

Before, or after he turned into a White Guy?

Got the wrong MJ there, I think.

~J

Y'all should make a Horrors vs. Civilization mod for Civ 5.

Mary Jane, Michael Jordan, Micheal Jackson, Magic Johnson... they're all the same.

Human reengineered Horror-specific Horror corrupted biotoxins. Works only on Horrors.

OK, The Horrors are like a team of Michael Jordans at the top of their game, referred to henceforth Team MJ, playing an all dwarf team.

OK, given just the advantages in reach, stride, and jumping a team of six foot 4 inch individuals would have over a team that was 4 foot max and all other thing being equal, the only question is how far is Team MJ is going to run up the score.


Even with Team MJ being a bunch of ball hogging prima donnas having zero team work (cause they are immortal horrors who never needed to have any team work), I doubt the dwarf team would even get on the score board.


Now image the same two teams meeting only the dwarf team comes roaring out of the locker room wearing 12' tall cybernetic-ally controlled exoskeleton suits with Smart ball technology, Play like Mike skillsofts, and full tacnet linkup plus a team of drones to assist.

The shoe is now on the other foot.

Victory is surviving the Horrors until the magic level falls to where they have to leave and being able to rebuild.



But Technology is a big enough game changer that meta-humanity could survive with an nearly intact civilization.

Even if it doesn't impact the horrors directly, it is going to limit their damage, allow much larger and more robust Kaers, and spread knowledge needed to survive. It will also help to keep meta humanity united in the struggle.

Before every Kaer was totally on it's own.

And when the horrors are gone, it is going to allow the rebuilding to happen in a fraction of the time.

That means all that magic and technology is likely to be available for the next go around.