Am running a game where the players will be running into Horrors (Ala HP Lovecraft). Am working on an idea for Horror Shamans. Currently, they are very reminicent of Insect Shamans but am trying to avoid a blanket copy. Any suggestions on how to make them unique?

Turn them Toxic?

Shadow spirits fit in with Horrors very nicely.

Mmm, tasty.

I would suggest basing it loosely off of the Insect spirits as you have done, Inhabitation and alien monster/spirits can make most of the "things" from Lovecrafts works. I might not tie it down to one tradion though - perhaps potent free spirits offering various pacts and teaching a meta-magic that leads down this road, granting inhabitation etc al. Slowly twisting the mage in question from their origional path to the proper way. To revel in the glory of the great master.... you get the idea.

Also: Necronomicon - inhabited book full of this lore powerful free spirit/ flesh form merge - influence (to read the book and try "things") and astral gate... cause ya

1) Shaman should be absolutely, batshit insane. Like really, really, super crazy. Then make him MORE crazy.
2) High-level shamans should be such that they make the PCs wonder if they too are crazy. Shaman has plucked out her eyes and crawls, spider-like and naked, sometimes passing through walls.
3) Her motivation is either a) suffering or b) crazy
4) For the love of everything that is holy, don't ever, ever, let her complete a summoning.

A good thematic visual description using HR Giger like imagery. Focus how things around the shaman just seem wrong or out of place. Shadow facing towards the light source, water dripping upwards out of a pipe, nearby plants withering, visual hallucnations, maybe a cat and a dog laying peacfully next to each other (Sorry Ghostbusters popped in my head). When the shaman finally talks in their presence give the Shaman the voice of cold rational and inevitablity; think pinhead from Hellraiser. Play the voice cold and calm, but make everyword as an early poster put it crazy, super batshit crazy, with a side of crazy over easy. Make the PCs question their sanity. Use the Shaman to inform characters of the half truths and outright lies of their lives by showing it to them from a different perspective. Shake them up as much as you can before they even try to shoot. Make their bullets curve away if they shoot before your done with your monologue.

Watch the movie Cthulhu. It's enjoyable, and may inspire you. Closer to shadowrun than most of the classic Cthulhu mythos, in my opinion.

The shaman doesn't have to APPEAR batshit insane, but his motivations are clearly inhuman.
That's what refines the element of horror in the story. The shaman can appear to be a respectable suit, a regular Mr. Johnson. Sometimes he says weird things, though.
Sometimes the more perceptive characters notice something off about him, or about the runs he requests.
At some point it should turn into a massive crazy-fest, all subtlety forgotten.

And remember, 1d6 explorers per round.

Come to my gaming-group. Watch me play. Then you see a horror-shaman.^^

Toxic Voodoo-Shaman?

I like the idea of some form of free spirit with pact abilities as this allows the "horror" to grant casting abilities to a mundane. Mr. Johnson accidently reads the wrong book and with whispers and dreams the evil spirit changes him into a horror shaman or maybe a better description would be a Horror agent. As I am basing the Horrors off of Lovecrafts stuff, any successful summoning of the guide spirit (Cathulu or other Old One) would pretty much leave the summoner dead or mind blasted. An actual summoning would be the very last thing a Horror shaman did.

Question though, can a mundane granted magical casting through a pact do summoning?

Well, there IS the Precedent of that one Sect . . i forgot the name, and i think the mundane had to be a burnout mage for it to work, but my memory is leaking horribly.
*dribbles knowledge*
Aleph Society.

Right,
I remembered the Aleph Society and I believe your right in that it had to be a burnt out mage not a mundane. The pact that made it possible should be in Street Magic, will have to look for it tonight. Still can't remember though if the pact allowed a burnt out mage to summon spirits as that is right out for spirits.

If you're playing with horrors, you can do whatever you please.

I did something akin to that. The major difference being, the horror in question waited until the Johnson was dead before using him. That made him complain much less.

As long as you have the skill and the attribute to use it, there's nothing in the rules stopping you.

If the rules say you need Skill A, Attribute B, and X nuyen to perform Action C and you have them from some means or method, then I'd say yes you can do that action.

Hmm, I need to review my Street magic book to see if it's allowed to use the Increase Attribute spell to pump Magic up. I don't remember (I don't believe it's allowed) but don't have my book handy to check.

No, Magic can not be increased using magic.
Only with initiation and raising through karma.
Or in special cases due to draining a victim.

I don't know, I do seem to vaguely remember something about a corrurpted Free Spirit that did virtually increase a Mage's Magic score, albeit only to later take his "gift" back and kill the Mage, and I think I'd allow a Horror to give the gift of Magical Abilities, provided that there was always a cost too horrible to bare.

the big thing with a horror based run is confusion. small hints and threats is far better for the game to kepe the players off balance. once they know it's "X" it just becomes a bug hunt, keep them off balance 'what is that thing?" and they are going to enjoyit more.

You are perhaps thinking of the Aleph Society which is detailed in Digital Grimoire. It involves a shadow spirit with the ability to make a group spirit pact. Nasty.

K.

No, I'm thinking of something that was in one of the Threat books.

Maybe Mr. Darke? (Threats 1)

*chuckles* I had to look it up, it was Tutor from Threats 1

Never got Threat 1, but may have to track down a copy now.

The group should encounter its first "what the #%$!" moment this weekend as they uncover an old hideout of the Mark (turned Horror Shaman) they have been chasing. Am thinking the Mark left a couple of his more grotesquely mutated followers behind as he is still focused on working from the shadows and they are very hungry.

don't bother with Threats 1. but yeah, keep them in the 'what the flock?" phase.

Something to maybe throw in from Earthdawn's horrors is the ever present corruption around the shaman, so pretty much everything the shaman comes in contact with, start with things touched by his magic but as the horror's power/influence grows anything the shaman touches may be horror marked. This is not the shaman though it is the horror's doing, the shaman may not even know its going on. And yeah I have to totally agree with some of the previous posters, this man should be crazy to a point of being a complete blasphemy to the very nature of a sane world...like the type of crazy people go after reading robert anton wilson.

Horror mark would be cool. I would stat it like a disease- give his astral signature a Power rating make the mage resist nausea effects when assensing the Horror Shaman or anything he has tainted.

No, Horror Marks are much, much worse than that.

Once your Horror Marked, you are his personal beotch boy. The Horror can reach out and watch every thing you do, every thing around you, and make you do things (which you will think is your own idea). Not something you really want to do to your PCs, since you pretty much make them into part time leading up to full time NPCs.

So then, Horror Marked is the condition by which any of the normal NPCs in the game become PCs...

Well yea, if your PCs are Horrors then I guess that is how you would do it... are your PCs horrors? Hummm, that would be cool... got any open spots at your table?

No, I think HappyDaze was calling the players Horrors.

I know, was just making a smart remark...

Quite so.

Sounds like an original pc make, but would most likely be short lived. If you actually tried to summon i believe one of the true immortals, harlequin etc. or a great dragon would show up and eat your soul. Or what was left of it anyhow. LMAO it would be an awesome play while it lasted anyhow.

This is just awesome. I may have to throw something like this into that game I'll run myself, er... eventually. And to think that I once thought a toxic shaman who'd made a lair in a Titan II missile base (http://www.chromehooves.net/) was pretty scary.

If I have anything to add, Shedim can be kind of fun. They're a little scary, but not quite up to a full horror rating and only really useful in this case as a misdirection campaign. It could be amusing if you had your players thinking that lumbering corpses inhabited by free spirits was as bad as things got, until the real threat revealed itself.

Once again, awesome. Thanks, everyone.