Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Ghost Cartels: Royal Jelly?
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
BookWyrm
OK, so I'm reading into a couple of pages og Ghost Cartels on the train heading home @3am, and as I'm reading along the second page, them mention of "Royal Jelly coming out of Chicago" caught my attention.

Anyone have more info on this?
Morrigana
Think "bug spirits."
Malachi
Like Amber Gel from Queen Euphoria? Ewwwwww...
hobgoblin
QUOTE (Morrigana @ Dec 22 2008, 08:34 PM) *
Think "bee spirits."


corrected that for you wink.gif
Synner
More will be revealed when you pick up Feral Cities.
Prime Mover
6-7 Mentions of it in FC just looked at them all after a search. No real hard or fast rules on its mechanics though?
Just a flat protection against the effects mentioned?
Ancient History
It has become the new standard that location books not have mechanics in them. Saves people from having to dig through thirteen books to find mechanics. With any luck, we'll stat it out at some point. At least, I fully intend to.
Hagga
QUOTE (Synner @ Dec 22 2008, 07:38 PM) *
More will be revealed when you pick up Feral Cities.

How is it you manage to sound like a drug dealer, wearing nothing but a trench coat and funny hat outside a preschool?
hobgoblin
QUOTE (Hagga @ Dec 23 2008, 12:31 AM) *
How is it you manage to sound like a drug dealer, wearing nothing but a trench coat and funny hat outside a preschool?

because this forum sometimes gives people the feeling of being back at preschool?
Hagga
Goo-goo, then.
BookWyrm
I swear to Prime, if some drooling rugrat comes at me......I'll be setting a new field-goal world-record.
TeOdio
My main boogieman in my 3rd Edition campaign was an Ant Shaman heading up a Seoulpa Ring out of Detroit. He and the ant queen spirit dosed eight balls with her pheromones which "compelled" users to become even more addicted. If they were important folks that happened to pick up a nasty drug habit it would compel then to do activities that would benefit the Hive or the Seoulpa Ring. I called the new combo Suga, but I kept it local to Detroit and sprawls where he had connections. He used the money to finance terrorist activities against the Japanese in San Francisco and aid the Queen in undermining Ares on their home turf. I ran that story for YEARS. I got a lot of mileage out of that plot. I really like Ghost Cartels, but to half of my 4th Ed players, it might seem like old hat since I essentially did the Spirit/Drug combo game already.
nuyen.gif nuyen.gif nuyen.gif
pbangarth
But there is "The Secret" yet to be told, as to why tempo was being spread.

Peter
BishopMcQ
I thought "The Secret" was a giant money grab via trite self-enlightenment mantras and pattern recognition? Now I know the Ghost Cartels wanted the money, but drugs are, in general, more a form of social control (like selling crack in Harlem) than self-enlightenment.
Matsci
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Dec 25 2008, 01:02 AM) *
But there is "The Secret" yet to be told, as to why tempo was being spread.

Peter


I though it was to make key people vulnerable to possession.
Ancient History
QUOTE (Matsci @ Dec 26 2008, 11:02 PM) *
I though it was to make key people vulnerable to possession.

Uh-huh. And all the street people being addicted to tempo? How do they factor in?
GreyBrother
Collateral Damage?
BishopMcQ
I tend to think getting the non-street level people was just an added perk. If 99.9% of your audience is collateral damage, you are doing something wrong.
hobgoblin
or maybe it was just one really nasty side effect?
Ancient History
Or maybe we have something else in mind.
hobgoblin
heh, fool us ones, shame on you, fool us twice, shame on us wink.gif
BishopMcQ
In the November chat, Peter said "sourcebooks would always cater to the metaplots being developed". He wants to link the campaign books to sourcebooks. Now we just had Ghost Cartels released and Vice is on approach. (After the First DotA release according to the Nov. Chat)

Campaign book to launch a mob war, sourcebook to explore the organized crime syndicates? Seems to be a connection...
Stahlseele
wasn't Royal Jelly the Drug from the Alien Queen in the Ellen Ripley Universe?
GreyBrother
Exactly. It heals cancer and stuff. But only in the "Expanded Universe" of the novels.
BookWyrm
Let's not forget Xeno-Zip, which was derived from the Alien Queen's Royal Jelly. Reading the mention of the Royal Jelly in GC sparked my memory about Xeno-Zip.
Hagga
I can see Ares putting together a Norbert robot to gather jelly.

Or trying to, anyway.
Tachi
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Dec 26 2008, 04:39 PM) *
Uh-huh. And all the street people being addicted to tempo? How do they factor in?


Every army needs cannon fodder.
The Jake
QUOTE (TeOdio @ Dec 23 2008, 01:50 AM) *
My main boogieman in my 3rd Edition campaign was an Ant Shaman heading up a Seoulpa Ring out of Detroit. He and the ant queen spirit dosed eight balls with her pheromones which "compelled" users to become even more addicted. If they were important folks that happened to pick up a nasty drug habit it would compel then to do activities that would benefit the Hive or the Seoulpa Ring. I called the new combo Suga, but I kept it local to Detroit and sprawls where he had connections. He used the money to finance terrorist activities against the Japanese in San Francisco and aid the Queen in undermining Ares on their home turf. I ran that story for YEARS. I got a lot of mileage out of that plot. I really like Ghost Cartels, but to half of my 4th Ed players, it might seem like old hat since I essentially did the Spirit/Drug combo game already.
nuyen.gif nuyen.gif nuyen.gif


That sounds very interesting.

Anything involving royal jelly - be it bug spirits or Aliens, scares the absolute shit out of me.

- J.
Cardul
QUOTE (Tachi @ Dec 29 2008, 06:08 AM) *
Every army needs cannon fodder.



My thoughts exactly, Tachi...of course, now that we have figured that out, it cannot be it..
Tachi
QUOTE (Cardul @ Dec 29 2008, 04:09 AM) *
My thoughts exactly, Tachi...of course, now that we have figured that out, it cannot be it..


Unless, of course, they do it any way because we thought of it and we now don't think that'll be it. Double bait-and-switch? eek.gif

It's kinda like when you know, but they know that you know, but you know that they know that you know they know, so, nobody really knows shit. You know what I mean? spin.gif


LOL I make me laugh. grinbig.gif
child of insanity
oh you gave me evil gm ideas... thanks!
QUOTE (Tachi @ Dec 29 2008, 10:31 PM) *
LOL I make me laugh. grinbig.gif

me too:p wink.gif
The Jake
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Dec 27 2008, 04:03 AM) *
Or maybe we have something else in mind.


Now that the secret of tempo is in the hands of the Azzies, I'm banking its to allow blood spirits or Horrors to possess scores of metahumans and pave the way for The Enemy.

That's just a hunch though.

- J.
BookWyrm
OK, thanks for the nightmares, folks. sarcastic.gif Like I need to lose more sleep now. Sheesh! wacko.gif
pbangarth
I hypothesize tempo is the first pass at making the creatures of Earth ready to repel the Enemy when next they come. The sacrifice of a few million possessed children of Gaia is nothing compared to the consumption of all that lives.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it... until They come to eat me.
AngelisStorm
QUOTE (pbangarth @ Jan 28 2009, 12:08 AM) *
I hypothesize tempo is the first pass at making the creatures of Earth ready to repel the Enemy when next they come. The sacrifice of a few million possessed children of Gaia is nothing compared to the consumption of all that lives.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it... until They come to eat me.


Bad Anthropologist. No more Cthulhu cookies for you.

Incidently, I also favor the cannon fodder theory. More accurately, every leader bent on conquering the world needs an army.
Tiger Eyes
QUOTE (The Jake @ Jan 2 2009, 09:25 PM) *
Now that the secret of tempo is in the hands of the Azzies, I'm banking its to allow blood spirits or Horrors to possess scores of metahumans and pave the way for The Enemy.

That's just a hunch though.

- J.



This might indicated something different... wink.gif
Dwight
Massive, distributed magical power source. Like unknowing batteries.

Or another surge, this time not just furry but also (or primarily) flora based. Treants in the Boardroom. If you want people to care about plant rights turn a bunch of them them into plants. I'm twigging on some old horrorish short story about metaphorphing into plantish things at the celluar level. But that was grade school, a LONG time ago, and the name escapes me.
InfinityzeN
I must have spent to much time playing Delta Green. The last page of this thread has been giving me the hebbie jebbies.

Gotta go update my drawing showing the connections between "Things Man was NMTK", "Micro$oft", the CIA, "Vampires", Kraft, "Werewolves", the Department of Horrendous Stupidity, the Azzie blood cults, Livingston Massacre, Coke'a'cola, the secret research facility in Antarctica, Kaiser Sosay, the secret Intel/AMD alliance, and canned cheese spread.
Prime Mover
[ Spoiler ]
pbangarth
QUOTE (Prime Mover @ Jan 28 2009, 08:34 AM) *
[ Spoiler ]


[ Spoiler ]
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (BookWyrm)
Anyone have more info on this?

Roald Dahl, perhaps?
Dwight
QUOTE (Kanada Ten @ Jan 28 2009, 11:04 AM) *
Roald Dahl, perhaps?


On the planet Wormulon?
tete
Thats funny because I have been rewriting Queen Euphoria for 2070 with bees rather than ants. Oh and my Queen is the rock star from my rewrite of Mecurial for 2070.
Browncoatone
I haven't read Ghost Cartels yet, but if Tempo is like most other drugs there will be side-effects and withdrawals. The greater the high, the worse the fall. Many addicts suffer physical pain if their supply is interrupted.

Using that as a given I'll throw my hat into the ring:

Somebody is getting ready for a grand magical ritual. The architects of the ritual have made the very addictive Tempo drug available across the globe. When they are ready, they will kill off the source of the Tempo drug supply (perhaps via magic or maybe by bio/nano weaponry) sending a large portion of the planet's population into devastating withdrawal. The casters will draw power from the suffering of a world full of addicts to fuel the major mojo they're cooking up. It'll be something big- world changing, or at the very least have a major impact on a large region.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012