I can see your point, but having that 'Sword of Damocles' hanging there seems to give my games a bit of tension that I like. Even with it being pushed back by the events after Dunk's suicide, it makes me feel like the entire drama of the Sixth World is like a massive live-fire exercise/brutal proving ground for the real action to come... eventually. And I like it. But that's just in my game. As we all know YMMV.

Or even that all you do is in vain, because in the end we're all doomed anyway.

Or that your actions are actually hastening that doom, whether you know it or not.

It's like the biggest foreshadowing ever (and even though we know something's going to happen, we don't know what or when).

I wonder why the dragons decided not to warn meta-humanity this time.

They warned meta-humanity in the 4th World (Earthdawn) so why not now?
Did Thera leave such a bad taste in their mouth that they decided this time around they're not going to help. Perhaps that's Lung vs D's big argument.

I also like being able to let a little Lovecraftian nightmare slip through from time to time to harass my players.

Also, props for the Dresden reference.

From Corp Guide

Whoh....

Double Post

ah, butch is a street doc, figures.

Matski - haha. Thanks, man.

Aw, how adorable

All I know is, Slamm-O! shouldn't ask Bull to babysit. The fact that Bull's own kids (well, most of them, sort of) made it past their teen years is something of a miracle.

Bull

Because its not coming for a good thousand years or more.

And they have, in a way. "No Blood Magic" is basically a way of saying that blood magic is bad, blood magic being one of those things that hastens the arrival of the horrors.

Just ot be clear: You are perfectly allowed to cut out magic, the Horrors, or anything of SR in your private game (much like I do with several PC options). But if you want to take the core of the metaplot out and lobby for it to be done canonically? play something else.

And, as has been pointed out, the Horrors were around in adventures that came out before anyone ever wrote the header for the first proposal for EarthDawn (Other than Harlekin, too, like Bottled Demon). Tir Tairngire as a place where Immortal Elves run the show was around immediatly. Invae were the topic of the very first short in the very first fiction book published for SR.

ED was decided to be the 4th world during it's initial development, and it was written to include 4th world legacy stuff that already existed in SR at that point. If anything, SR forced the Horrors, Invae, Immortal Elves and Dragons of Awesome onto ED. NOT vice versa.

This is an integral part of the setting metaplot. Don'T like it? Ignore it, cut it from your own personal canon. As stated, many do, myself included. Just don't claim it is all somehow the fault of tying Shadowrun to Earthdawn in some hack job. Because that's just wrong.

I have about 95% of Shadowrun from 1e on, and this thread is both making me want to reread ALL of it as well as run a bunch of it again too. Dangit.

And as far as I'm concerned that excerpt from Untethered Life is exactly how things went down in my Shadowrun.

I can't decide if the black great eastern running Aztech is nuts or corrupted.

Let me know if you do 4e conversions of the early adventures. I'm starting on some of them, but it'd be nice to pool efforts.

Maybe a little of both.

We need a puke emoticon. What a waste of wordcount.

Opinions will vary.


I thought it was a funny comment and not a waste. In my mind it gives abit more personality to it.

I wondered why there is none a long time back. It's such a staple emote.

And I also agree. The whole netcat/Slamm-o LURVE story gets a tad too much coverage. This is novel stuff, so it might just want to get it's novel.

Yep, both characters have become an annoyance all too sudden.

I find them to be a happy little diversion and an element of humanity in a gritty setting.

On this we agree.

3500 or so. I remember seeing a figure stating 7000 years in an older book. Or was that 2500? And blood magic just helps to raise the general mana level, which closes the abyss that lets them through. Or possibly acts as a locator beacon for them to make a blind leap, I've read both. (In bad SR fiction. But I repeat myself.)

A longcount is about 5000 years, so 2500.

And my understanding is that blood magic builds a bridge from this side to the other. It doesn't raise the mana level in general or really sorta go "HEY GUYS!" but it does make it easier for the jump to happen.

This explains EarthDawn where blood magic was rampant. Everyone used it.

I dunno, I predict a tragic ending to the pregnancy thing. A bit disconcerting that she's projecting PAINLOSSRIPBRAIN and NOSAVEMYBABYNOSAVEMYBABY into the matrix without much control.

If you want pain, remember that elven pregnancies last something like 50 weeks - she's preggers for a year.

I agree whole-heartedly. Frankly, aside from Game, set match, the total word count of their recent hijinks totals less than half a page across all the current books. That's really not a lot of material, and as far as I'm concerned completely appropriate material at that.

Graywulfe

Personally, I hope its resolution is as follows (what follows is pure speculation): we get a dead letter document from Puck outlining what happened to Pax and her group. It might be too much to ask, but I'd like to see it in a Threats-type book, akin to the first Threats book. Something that takes the ideas of magical threats or the dissonance and puts a group and a face to a concept.

Don

heh, i wonder if the message will be that pax is very much alive, and living a queens life in geneva.

Yes, she must be. As a Techno, she is just too much made of win to be stoped in any way. I wonder why noone drops a shitload of scrambler RFID onto Geneva and goes in exterminating everyone with a headache with extreme prejudice.

Ohhh... Eldritch...


I assume you're refering to the Dresden Files? I've never actually read those books, so, I'm not sure what reference you're refering to... But, I'll take the props anyway and just figure I was a genius while I wasn't looking.

I thought 'Sword of Damocles' was Doom of Damocles which is a final probation of a wizard in the Dresden universe. I was also drunk when I mixed it up

And if you're a Shadowrun fan, check out the Dresden novels. Book 1 is good, Book 2 is better, Book 3 will blow your mind. One of the cover quotes on the newest book describes them as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Phillip Marlowe"...best example ever.

Check out my Sig. After the fifth -or so- time I posted here for six hours straight completely shitfaced, I decided I'd beter start warning people. Now, when the regulars see the first word underlined, they usually tune me out... Which amuses me to no end and encourages me to be absurd. (Not drunk yet tonight, but working on it, 151 is my friend.)


I'm not a fan of Buffy, but I just may do that. Cheers.

The "Buffy" reference is more because it's contemporary fantasy. If you like Shadowrun, you'll like the Dresden books.

And honestly, I tend to be more coherent in writing when I'm on my second vodka...

I will also suggest the dresden stuff for additional reading material.


My mage once described himself to a NaN Shaman as being from the Dresden school of Boom




I'm easily influenced

-- Ugh that was a perfect example of Harlequin playing the "HUR HUR SEKRETZ" game.

Tir Tairngire, p. 69 (one of the rare references to Passions in Shadowrun)


-- My 4e rules-fu is shaky, but Passions would seem to be rather easy to create as a magical tradition (hmm, might have to break down and get the new Earthdawn edition ...)

For the uninformed can I have a explination on the passions please

Gods. Totems that can manifest (and do occasionally, and then they die). Ascended mortals, maybe. Weird shit.

Vernya may be one. Spider of the Secrets of Power was one. Harlequin may qualify eventually, too, having his own metaplane already. Same with Dunkelzahn.

I agree, they might make nice traditions. But they worked morelike a Paragon anyone can use in ED. Of course, all ED characters were awakened by default.

Interesting,

Could be a fun way of stopping the horrors for a few mins if we raise up Harlequin to godling and send him off to fight and give him that big battle to the death kind of ending

Yeah. A couple passions in a country called Vasgothia thought so once. Turns out they almost succeeded - but only almost. They're all dead now.

If anything would rise to passion level, though, it needs reverance. Dunkelzahn is perfectly set up to be a passion.

Oh, Thayla might have been a near-passion too (and is also dead). However, since her name is still known, unlike the vasgothian passions' names which turned to mystical clues and garblespeak that turns you mad when attempting to read, she might not have been a full blown passion yet.

Actually, since it came up once ... maybe Dunkelzahn, in time, will become a kind of Horror Ward passion.

-- They were a bit more abstract than that in Earthdawn. They are incarnations of basic emotions and ideas (Totems of Love, Vengeance, Skill, etc. I suppose) who supposedly granted the gift of magic to Name-givers (sapient races).
-- Mechanically they would operate (somewhat amusingly IMO) sort of like a massively powerful free spirit who can maintain a crapload of spirit packs with their quaestors (beings who follow their mandates). Each one has quirky little abilities they can bestow.

-- Passions were primordial things. I don't recall that there was any way to ascend to their level. They existed outside of the normal spirit organization, but were not immune to the warping influence of the Horrors (hence the three "Mad Passions").

-- The reason for their suppression in Shadowrun might have to do with A) Horror-taint, B) Hidden source of power (dubious is canon), or C) Metahuman emotions are so uncontrolled the Passions are dangerous to contact.

I disagree. Most totems also have an emotional core - vanity with Cat, stubborn loyalty with Dog, tough love with Bear, aloof arrogance with Eagle. Also, totems used to grant magic before SR4 screwed things up. Not as the only way there is to magic, but as one way. Furthermore, there are the more abstract Idols of Europe (which are basically states of mind/emotions the mind then builds an Avatar for). While agreeably not the same, Totems work quite along the same line as Passions did - enough to give someone an idea of what a Passion roughly is.


Huh. THAT meshes very well with SR4's Paragons.


Given that Passions seem like extra powerful spirits, there might be a way. Not strictly by canon, though, only by extrapolation (especially with dragons, who are half spirit in nature anyway).

A clever bit of evolution - the year-long pregnancy prepares the prospective father for having to deal with a decade-long puberty

Curiously, your post about the Sword of Damocles isn't underlined (I checked).

... and everything I loath about them. I don't play RPGs to be furniture and backdrop to GMPCs doing r33t shit.

If you have a GM that has Ghostwalker and Harlequin following the players around or calling then up to go to go on a beer run for them, you might want to have a talk with him.

Then don't?

While I do Like Harlequin, I would have prefered that all the "Immortal Elves" were not Immortal, they were only powerful enough to cas a spell on themselves and put themselves to sleep JUST like the Dragons did. And not like Highlanders who spent the next few millenia waiting for Magic come up again and learned (and taught?) all the cool tricks humanity developed during the low time.

Pretty much this, immortal characters that secretly run the world and were present at all major events is a silly plot to build a ten minutes into the future world with as it tends to blot over many other things.