that's pretty much the gist of what i'd picked up. but that's all it is, y'know? gists, rumors, half-truths. there's nothing even approaching rules for a situation like that, no way to compare it to other situations and logically extrapolate anything. so nobody can really say concretely what is or isn't possible for a great dragon in that position.

Well... There are no rules for "Dragon Magic" either, so I guess that fails, too. There are no rules for many things - doesn't mean it is not or can not be done and auto-fails.


I figured GW must be on an astral quest, as that is the only way to get to a metaplane. Also, it is the only way to really extend the time for astrally projecting. If he had just astrally projected, wouldn't he be limited to an even shorter time related to essence/hours?

that's the only way for a metahuman magic user to get to a metaplane. spirits, for instance, can simply exist on a given metaplane, though it's not clear what limitations apply as far as which planes they can get to and how long they can stay.

i was under the mistaken impression that a mage still lost essence during metaplanar quests, just at a slower rate; rereading, you're actually correct--no essence is lost during a quest. still, astral quests only take (rating)d6 hours to complete; GW's ordeal lasted several thousand years. any quest of high enough rating to take that long would have killed or disrupted him a long time ago.

mainly, my position is that a being with access to as much potential power as a great dragon, given tens of thousands of years to realize that potential, should be capable of doing what GW did. given that position, when i look at stuff the rules don't cover (such as being trapped for thousands of years on a metaplane), i use the wiggle room they grant to construct hypothetical explanations which support my base position. if i thought that GW should have eaten a rocket and died the first time he popped his head up, i'd be less forgiving with that wiggle room.

granted I haven't fully read all of the related parts, but I had always kind of assumed that GW was "trapped" there. It took the rift from the Big D's death opening up for him to escape through. As far as surviving from essence possibly lost, couldn't he have consumed the essence from spirits? Or maybe he had used bound spirits to feed him. Or possibly if he was being held there, who(m)ever was keeping him there may have provided sustenance. The shedim came back with him, correct?, maybe that had something to do with it. What about some kind of geas or pact, maybe that held him there?

mucho potential IMHO

Ghostwalker actually is a shedim!!! /lone gunman off

Thinking about it I like that idea.

Which is why he needs to die. But before he does, I want to know his motivation. Give me a reason to call off the Thor Shot; to not send Ares Firewatch or AZT death squads after him. Was he trying to get revenge for his brother's death? I could forgive him for that. If he was just showing off trying to impress us with his 2nd World crap, though, I want his severed head on a stick in front of Denver City Hall behind a sign saying, "Welcome to the 6th World."



Yes. Earth is our world, and they. Can't. Have it!

Ghostwalker can't be targeted by any of the various North American powers because his death would instigate a power-grab that would inevitably lead to a war which would kill off the majority of the continent's population. Right now, positioned where he is, he serves as a buffer between all the rival nations. It wasn't the intent of any party to the Treaty of Denver for Ghostwalker to become its administrator, but it has worked out well enough. Ghostwalker's presence in Denver has created a superior degree of stability between the nations compared to the former status quo. Unilaterally removing Ghostwalker would be a treaty violation and an act of war and the countries involved don't trust each other enough to get together and do it; they all know that all of the others would attempt to grab what advantage they could in such an arrangement.

wow
good point
hadn't thought of it that way

The interesting thing about that explanation is it means GW doesn't have to be all that much of a super-brilliant strategist and tactician. I mean, he's been out of touch for 10,000+ years, and his first instinct is to go home to his castle. But when he gets there he finds a bunch of human bugs infesting the place, so his first instinct is to squash a few and frighten the rest into being his servants. He's been entirely out of the loop, so he had no knowledge of advanced technology; all he saw was a few young, inexperienced mages, with barely a few dozen initiation grades between them, and a bunch of random junk that doesn't even register as magical. Nothing to write home about.

So he lays about with old-style feudal tactics, breathing fire, conjuring up illusions and a few dozen spirits, that sort of thing. All the military might in the Sixth World watches on, knowing full well they could probably bum-rush the dragon with maybe a little trouble, but nothing to write home about. The one that did, though, would be fatally overextending himself, first off by deploying some major hardware in the treaty zone, second by revealing to all the other, more well-adjusted Greats on the planet that they have the tactics and firepower to take out one of the world's most powerful--if slightly out-of-date--Greats, who may well respond with extreme prejudice.

So the military hesitated. And as GW got settled in, the various rulers decided that things weren't so bad after all. The UCAS in particular probably loved him: they've supported dictators as stabilizing forces before, and hey, it turns out the guy's Uncle Dunkie's brother too! Hell, if he'd been born there they might've made him a Senator! The rest of the nations appreciated that he hated the Azzies, and the Azzies didn't want to piss of the rest of North America as they'd probably get screwed from behind by Amazonia or whatever if everyone attacked them at once. Meanwhile GW has plenty of time to settle into his role of feudal lord of Denver, and maybe catch up with the rest of history and figure out how good of a break he got.

In other words, GW got real lucky. I think I can accept that; I mean, it's not as stupid as the Massive-Army-From-Nowhere that came out of Tir Tarngire, or how the Azzies steamrolled over the biggest military stronghold, naval shipyard, and concentration of military contractors in the Western Hemisphere (San Diego), but got stopped by the unbridled fury of Fresno... God I hated the Calfree book...

Oh for Fuch's sake!

Reread the supposed Retcon the IEs and GDs have no idea who taught Howling Coyote, so they assumed it was an IE or a GD

Actually, it was Aina's half-Horror son Thais that originally taught the Native Americans the Great Ghost Dance way back in the 1800s. Read Worlds Without End.

More like 5,000 (since the end of the 4th world), but the rest of your argumentation is good.

so the devil did it

Half devil...

I like Hyz/Eyeless explanation best. It sidesteps the retarded "But army versus dragon..." debate and provides a pretty solid workable reason why GW got his own little pocket kingdom and most people moved on with their lives. The scene's changed, some players have shuffled around, but the world keeps turning. In fact it seems to me that the military in the area, if they did have tactics to combat dragons, probably were taken off guard by the fact that GW came in and started pounding on people 4th world style. I don't think your above average T-bird unit is used to "Dragon leaping out of an abandoned building and ripping my wings off whilst biting my wingman in half and throwing a force 10 fireball into my drone formation". But I digress. Any sort of anti-dragon doctrine is probably something they want to keep secret until it'll do the most harm and taking out GW is probably not what they had in mind. Tipping their hat early would have certainly pissed off the other GD who would have promptly started making very pointed inquires with their broad power base. I'm sure these inquiries would have involved certain deniable assets with panther assault cannons and backpacks full of HE. Hey! Plot hook! I like this GW thing more and more!

I'm also in agreement with Eyeless that in the broader spectrum of questionable happenings the TT super duper instant army always rankled me (I had, and still, blame it on my rabid anti-elf racism). And Aztlan storming 32nd street? It's not the most secure facility in the world but jesus h, how the christ did that happen and why didn't some smart commander scuttle all the infrastructure? Not every ship would have been in port at the same time, there's no less than 2 aircraft carriers (and their supporting wings) on another island, and the Marine Corps has an airbase a mere 30 minute drive away, and an entire Marine Division 45 minutes away. But I guess this is the future and the current plans for a "1000 Ship Navy" has probably gone right out the window. Still, that would have been a helluva a fight.
Maybe they just increased the percentage of VITAS cases in Tijuana hookers, that certainly would have negatively effected mission readiness...

And yes, I'm aware that the 1000 ship navy is a proposal to strongly incorporate allies into our mission planning, not actually build 1000 ships (Good lord that'd be expensively retarded). But I maintain that it's an excellent philosophy and one that will only grow in value when the eventual military cutbacks will commence. I still want my DDX though, and I'm holding out for it to be called the Robert A Heinlein Class.

Bad choice of example, since DotSW gives rules for basic level dragon magic and their overpowered tricks fall into a similar category as unique enchantments. A better choice would be that there are no rules for eating, but since the case of karma transfer has exactly three options stated, and none of them are spirit to spirit, assuming that spirits get the best transfer rate for your PunPun-esque plan still leaves your plan up to the same kind of GM fiat that would also let you take down a great dragon with a well aimed Slivergun burst.
Or in simpler terms, if your plan can work, any plan would work.

You can always write up a justification for anything.

The Corporate Court could easily decide to kill GW, and make the nations keep the peace by bribes and threats.

GW could have been the surprised one.

Aztlan could have had another gestalt ready.

The NAN could have had something major magical up their sleeve - could be easily justified as a reason they were not gobbled up by stronger militaries in the time since the civil war.

But since the devs want dragons since they think they are cool, dragons (and elves at some time) get the writer's protection, everyone else is written off as stupid, inept, inferiour, timid, surprised, and lethargic.

tell that to Dunklezan

I can only assume you don't know how Dunkie really died, because it seems as though the point behind your statement is "see, look, they CAN get murdered!" or something.

Has anyone claimed that the Devs could not declare a dragon dead? I thought they had done that a few times, at least twice in the case of great dragons I liked. The Big D, Nachtmeister, Kyle Morgans Dragon, Haesslich, The Feathered Serpent - runner companion, the executed dragon.


One needed (IMO) comment: Another gestalt? I would be surprised, but you should hope they don´t do that. This bit of "paternal knowledge" is not draconic in nature. And while we are talking IEs and dragons behind everything: The few dragons who care seem to be pretty impressed with metahumanities learning speed.

what, like maybe Tir Tairngire being run by an ork?

NEVER TALK ABOUT THAT AGAIN! YOU SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH AND...*ahem* I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm okay.

my point is, he is dead
it happens, that doesn't mean it should happen constantly.'

"Don't tell me I run a superhero game just because my runners can outshoot all the cops and security in their town - and do so. I had a PC death just four years ago!"

"Dude, that was a PC that shot himself because the player wanted it."

"So? It's still proof that my runners are not overpowered, just because nothing but they themselves can kill them."

Don´t tell me that is your argument against my list of dead dragons, two of which great.

I'm fairly sure that Fuchs' post was aimed at swirler's claim that Big D's death somehow means that Great Dragons aren't protected by the tender loving care that Dev pets tend to get.

Yes, but I'm (more and more) getting a feeling you don't really know how (or why) he died, or you wouldn't be bringing it up. It's kind of funny, though. Thanks for the chuckle. I don't really have a dog in the "dragons are stupid" versus "dragons are uber" fight, but I can't help but grin a little at the "They aren't too powerful, Dunkie's dead!" stuff.

im just saying the hate here seems a bit excessive IMHO

Right, and I'm just saying "mentioning a suicide as a casualty is kind of a silly way to try and argue something."

suicide? I don't remember it being that way. maybe I missed part of the info or it's just been that long.
My point still stand though, they can still die and as a general rule GD's are more plot points to use than anything.

i think part of the issue is that people like Fuchs think that everyone except for GDs and IEs, in SR, have to be stupid in order for GDs and IEs to do what they do. i don't think that's true. i think that anybody who survives for tens of thousands of years is simply going to be better than almost anyone who doesn't have that much experience. they're going to be smarter, they're going to be hardier, they're going to have backup plans for every occasion, they're going to have incredible resources. and that's not even counting magic.

i mean, just look at the numbers. let's say that, despite all the fighting, manipulating, surviving--despite all the crap that dragons do, let's say they only earn 1 karma per year. let's assume that during magical downcycles, they earn no karma. even given that extremely low rate of karma accrual, most great dragons will have racked up tens of thousands of karma.

if some GM came on here, complaining about how one of his powergamer players was using a dragon character with tens of thousands of karma to tear shit up in Denver, nobody'd bat an eye. they'd say "well, dumbass, if you didn't want a dragon tearing up Denver, you shouldn't have given your player a dragon with tens of thousands of karma."

humans aren't stupid, in SR. GDs and IEs don't have some special dev protection that allows them to win when logic says they should lose. logic says that GDs and IEs should win pretty much all the time, because that's what they've been doing since before recorded human history.

It should also be noted that GD's are also ninjas-

Oh god I'm sorry I'm just trying to defuse the onrushing tide of GD's versus Everyone else.

Hmmm. That sounds reasonable. I should be able to get to sleep at night without screaming for Ghostwalker's death, now. Thanks.

10'000 of years spent sleeping - or dealing with rather non-tech or low-tech socieities - does not mean one is ready for the information highway age. On the contrary, older people are usually less able to cope with new things.

I simply do not buy the claim that just because dragons (or elves) have had experience handling isolated, primitive communities wielding pointy sticks and swords means that they are unbeatable in a society like Shadowruns. A society that has picked up the pace, and goes through changes on all levels, from technology to sociology, faster than anything we ever saw before.

It's like taking a 90 year old former horse racer and expecting him to excel in an air race since he's got so much experience. It's a whole different ballgame.

Some of that experience can be applied, but not everything, and a lot of that experience will actually be a disadvantage. Just look at our history - what was "true" 200 years ago is not true anymore.

Of course, now will come the "but those are immortal elves and dragons, they are simply gods" line of reasoning.

"isolated, primitive communities wielding pointy sticks and swords"? dude, learn 2 earthdawn.

as far as IEs go, they've been here all along, watching and participating in the advance of technology.

comparing the adaptivity of someone who's been around for tens of thousands of years to the adaptivity of someone who's got one foot in the grave after less than a century is disingenuous. the simple fact is, nobody with the kind of longevity available to GDs and IEs can possibly have survived all the crazy changes that have come before without being extremely adaptable. the changes that the Internet wrought on the world are nothing compared to the changes that the Horror invasion wrought, after all.

There are no rules for dragons giving karma to free spirits in that list either, but I am willing to bet the majority of SR players would agree it can b done, probably at a ratio better than a full magician. It seems silly to me to think that every other being in the game can give/spend karma if they have it, but Free Spirits can only spend it.

Whatever, I knew the idea was going to be shot down, and hard, thus the reason to put it in the spoiler category. I like how the rest of the reasons in the post, those out in the open, were ignored.

I do like Eyeless's reasoning, especially in that it explains a silly event in likewise silly reasoning, leaving GW looking lucky and, hopefully when he applies his great intellect, feeling really lucky and stupid for rushing in without all that dragon-like planning.

I guess that is why the GW rampage irks me, and why his defenders seem to overlook, that GW came staight from the rift and attacked without preperation or much planning. It goes against all the things that they keep saying about not getting in a stand up fight and planning for every contingency with multiple backups. GW did not, and should have died for his mistake.

As far as GD deaths, have any been confirmed? Dunkelzahn suicided, but even then the door is still open for him to somehow miraculously reappear out of the rift that was created when he disappeared. I have not read about the female German that awakened in the SOX, but from what was posted here, her death sounds assumed but not definite.

Yes, primitive. Does Earthdawn has a matrix? Jet travel? Rapidly changing socieities? Media? High-Tech?

Earthdawn is a primitive fantasy world. Not anything modern, and it lacks any rapid change in its societies.

And the IEs have been there all along, sure. But that doesn't mean that they are on top of it - or even near the top, not with 10'000 years of slow changing, primitive history weighing down on 150 years of fast paced technological advancement.

I really think you underestimate the changes our world went through in the last 50 years, and will go through in the next 50 years in Shadowrun, to blissfully assume that anyone from ancient times will have an easy time copying.

Unloess, of course, we use the copout "they are elves, elves are uber" "reason".

i would argue that we don't know how much planning GW did. it's entirely possible that he was in communication with free spirits the entire time he was imprisoned. there's no evidence either way; all we have to go on is past behavior. past behavior says that GDs don't do stuff like that without planning ahead; therefore, it's reasonable to assume GW planned ahead, even if that planning wasn't explicitly shown.

yes, if you assume GW just waltzed in and kicked ass, it seems kinda weird that he didn't get blowed up. if you assume he acted like a GD, though, then it makes more sense.

Fuchs, see my edited post above. IEs and GDs are, by necessity, extremely adaptable because if they weren't, they wouldn't have survived to see the sixth world.

I like Sinner's take (and given that he works on SR...) that GW's "godzilla rampage" was just what he wanted you to see. Some people seem to have glossed over this, and it is perfectly reasonable.

We're talking about probably the most magically powerful being on the face of the earth for crying out loud. Double digit initiate barely scratches the surface. He is by no means a god, but think of it as comparing an old flintlock pistol fired by a soldier to a modern day tank. Whilst it is true that the magical must adapt to the modern age in a lot of ways it is also equally true that sometimes, just sometimes, the world has to adapt to magic. Major examples would be the GGD and the UB, for example. Also perhaps toxic and blood magic, vampires...

First, there's a very big difference between surviving and dominating. I'd not have any trouble with accepting that GDs and IEs are able to survive in the 6th world. Lowfyr and Dunkelzahn are very good examples for that. And neither was known to use claw and spell to get his goals, conquerring SK and the UCAS by killing cities. They used money and media savy to get their goals.

I don't accept that Dragons and Immortal Elves can dominate the world it to the degree portrayed in the books, especially without adapting. Feudal and medieval tactics should not work in Shadowrun. It makes the whole world less internally consistent.

Or to sum it up - I have no trouble accepting GDs and IEs as manipulators, planning long term, and using money and intrigue. I have a lot of trouble accepting them as modern one-man armies, openly running amok and getting away with it. They should have to fear the military enough not to do that.

And, of course, the whole thread here we see a lot of "but, GW had to be planning all this, he's a GD". I don't buy it. I see a cheap, stupid plot, and a GM scrambling to cover his mistake with fake justification, instead of admitting "ok, folks, I screwed up, let's just forget this, ok?". Now we have GW planning through spirit communication? Without any shred of evidence? Just so we don't have to say "ok, it was a stupid plot"?

The list of constructed "reasons" to justify GW grows.

Actually what I was going to say is it doesn't matter whether GW was acting as a super tactician or was just bringing a REALLY big knife to a gunfight. What does matter is that the various militaries either want him there, or don't want to piss off the other militaries that do want him there.

Let's pull it back to an example many of us are becoming increasingly familiar with: Iraq circa 2000. Now, Saddam's regime was crammed between more than a few big powers, any of whom could have easily crushed him (as witnessed when Idiot Cowboy did it in a land war lasting a whole month.) But look what happened when he was deposed; Idiot Cowboy is still there cleaning up the mess, and will likely either tie our country up for another decade dealing with the ramifications, or watch the region slide into a civil war that will tear apart the whole region.

Okay, so imagine there are three guys in a Good, Bad and the Ugly-style mutual staredown. But, in the middle of this, some idiot drunken fratboy walks in and starts peeing on a nearby tombstone. Now, any one of the gunmen could draw his gun and shoot the guy, no problem, but doing so would mean the other guys--the real threats--would get the drop on them. So the best solution is to ignore the peeing drunk guy and focus on the people who can actually kill you.

In other words, the reason GW is still alive isn't because he was so smart; he was the idiot, acting on many-thousand-year-old tactics and strategies to win a war in the 21st century. The only reason he's not a thin smear on the Astral plane is because the various militaries were smarter, and realized they could use the idiot as a buffer between each of them.

hell, that's the easy part. GDs and IEs hone their combat and magical skills in expectation of fighting Horrors. tanks and t-birds, by comparison, should barely even be a warmup.

and if you'll notice, there are actually very few examples of GDs displaying that kind of power, and no examples of IEs doing so. at least, none i can think of. can anybody back me up?

No no Eyeless, he already selected your response for you, you can't clarify your answer.

I disagree. I expect most of the horrors to be wiped when they face what weapons humanity has in 200 years. If ED heroes can hurt horrors with swords, then lasers, gauss rifles, and whatever we come up with to kill stuff will work even better. We might even have magical bullets by the time the mana level rises enough for the horrors to come forth.

It's not the 4th world anymore. We have had technological advances of a level unparalleled before, and I find it rather sad that people don't think what this means, still stuck in the "horrors are bad, ED says so, so they will devastet the 6th world as well". It simply runs coutner to the tech curve.

ED heroes were all high-rated physical adepts. someone with more experience playing ED will have to back me up on this, but as i recall, even the lower-end Horrors were more than a match for most groups of ED heroes, unless those heroes had a lot of experience under their belt.

we have stats for Horrors, and we have stats for some of the creatures and weapons that ED and SR share. that means we can make fairly educated guestimates as to how bad the Horrors would/will be in SR, and all of the reasonable guestimates say that they're going to eat humanity's face.

fixed.

Also, when you stop comparing apples with microwaves based on your knowledge of hairgrowth, you might want to read a little biology to learn why old people have trouble adjusting to new times and technologies.

Ancient and old are very different things. Assuming IEs and GD are old because they are ancient is rather silly.

The whole argument boils down to two points of views, and from each point of view, conclusions are drawn and justified:

1. Dragons are gods. Anything that can hurt them is godly too. Human are not gods. So, humans can't touch dragons, so anything that can hurt a dragon can wipe humans. So Horrors will wipe humans. And magic bests technology since dragons have better magic and the military has better tech and dragons beat the military.

2. Dragons are living beings. Not gods. Big living beings, and magical beings but vulnerable to stuff that kills big stuff - like the army. So, magic is powerful, but military weapons top it. Anything dragons can beat, the military can beat as well, and then some.

I don't subscribe to the "dragons are gods" theory, so of course anything derived from this I don't accept either. Others don't subscribe to the "a tank company kills a dragon" theory, and so anything derived from that starting point is not acepted by them.

For me though, the main difference between Shadowrun and generic fantasy world is that in Shadowrun, a bullet (or shell) can kill anyone, no matter their race and power. There are no gods in Shadowrun, so everyone has to act in a way that doesn't get them shot.

Once this fundamental (for me) aspect is changed to "X is invulnerable", the game stops being Shadowrun for me, and becomes yet another fantasy world with guns added to it.

If we ignore any weapn progress we'll make. Also, most ED heroes would be simply cannon fodder in a war against modern military. The range of their spells and arrows is stupidly short compared to airplanes and cannons. And they got nothing to protect them against shells and bombs. And they could fight some horrors still.

Now add FAT X strains, magetech stuff, nanotech, and common sense, and I don't see horrors making it.

i don't subscribe to either of those theories. i subscribe to the theory that dragons are living beings who, in order to have thrived and survived in the situations they have encountered during their long lives, must be incredibly intelligent, tough, and powerful.

how intelligent, tough, and powerful? intelligent enough to not tip their hands too much as to how tough and powerful they actually are, for one. tough enough to survive pretty much anything long enough to escape. and pretty damn powerful, looking at the enemies they've had to deal with.

basically, i think they're as powerful as i could make them with the resources they have available.


good for you. this is an argument that has been held many times before, with solid logic on both sides. i really have to doubt it's going to finally be resolved here, so i don't see much point in trying.

I call that "Dragons are gods", since just about everyone in that camp basically says they can have what ressources they want. So - infinite ressources, aka Author's fiat, equals gods.

it's author's fiat that they've survived to the modern age. given that fiat, it's logical that they must possess the means to have done so. the only means that would allow them to do so would also allow them to thrive in much the way that they are currently thriving.