Someday, Montevideo will get the treatment it deserves. It might not be official, but still...

Wouldn't it be neat if fan material was equal or surpassed what the publisher produced?

That actually happens on some occassions...

Keep the Faith

I am hoping that the sudden shifts and open material lately will help put us on our way. I just have to make a template and master pages that I actually like.

Since when was Arleesh one of the rulers of Amazonia? I've never seen a thing about that in any previous source material. Granted, there's a lot I haven't read, but neither D6W or Running Wild mention a thing about her being an Amazonian ruler, and both specifically say that no one has ever been sure who the third great dragon who fought to establish the country was.

So, through the Moderator Secret Telephone, I heard that apparently someone is under the mistaken assumption that Ancient History and I are the same person. This is incorrect. Please don't blame me for anything that he's done, and don't blame him for my delicious good looks.

Heh. There's a story in that, and I won't spoil it all here. Check out the entry for M'Boi in Running Wild's Dragons chapter.

[/edit]Wait, what? How could anyone confuse me and White Canadian Jesus?

I knew about M'boi, which I think is awesome, but I was mostly confused about when Arleesh became an Amazonian ruler. I thought she was busy chasing down artifacts.

Well, there's been strong implications for a while that Arleesh might be the third dragon - there just aren't that many great feathered serpents out there that we know about, and if you read the SOLA Amazonia chapter, the substance of this argument is strongly implied by one of the posters. However, the second (and popular) theory is that the "third dragon" is actually M'Boi - I left the situation relatively ambiguous in the draft. Arleesh makes her layer in Amazonia, yes, but the only one that outright claims she's one of the leading triumvirate is a poster - the only time Arleesh is referred to by name in the principal text is her lair in Manaus and when she is carrying on her usual activities, this time against the Ingá Stone.

So on the one hand, you could read this as "OMG reveal! Arleesh is the third dragonne!" or you could see it as a very elaborate red herring on my part, to cover up M'boi as the third dragon.

Okay, yeah. Going back and looking at again, I think I misread a couple of bits and assumed they said more than they did. Thanks.

Thanks for posting AH!! Now I have to try to read all this before my residency starts...

On a side note: your "Unpublished Drafts" section of the Ancient Files seems to lack a lot of material that you've posted here over the past few years. Any plans to add all the other stuff?

Thanks for the postings AH. They're a good read.

I noted something... It seems like you're still a fan of the old shadowrun cursing & lingo. I missed it. It was cheesy but it helped drop me into the setting super-quick whenever I read it.

Is it just me, or do the history parts sound heavily whitewashed? The Azzies entered negotiations with Yucatan when Ghostwalker kicked them out of Denver, Japan sent a few marines aborad to protect Japancorps assets , and the treatment of everybody who is no shifter or free spirit in Siberia also sounds a lot nicer than in SoA. I'd at least expect a few shadowtalkers to scream bloody murder at those omissions.


Also, hooray for more Puck breadcrumbs

That reminds me. I need to release the Yucatan draft from SoLA too.

Hmm.... I need to clear some reading time in my schedule.

You know you're out there when even I don't know what you are talking about.

A lot of it is on different pages on the same site. here and here.


Deliberate. Function of both the source and the relatively small wordcount.

I'm guessing Snow_Fox's initial assumption was that 'Canton Confederation' was about Switzerland given that it was a confederacy of cantons and Julius Ceasar apparently fought a number of battles there. I couldn't dig up anything about a specific bridge with a couple minutes of googling though.

Yes, yes you do!

A few questions on the Gunsel.
How exactly does the Smartlink skill specialization come into play?

Holster on cyber arms-2
Holster on hips-2
Concealable holsters-6
Only two guns carried, are there weapons missing/recommended?

I won't find the time to read all before a few weeks. I remember telling AH as a critic, I was an asshole. Must be true : I took a quick look and the only things I noticed were the factual errors (like, the definition of a subsidiary relies on complete control, not complete ownership ; and Fort Alamo is no longer in San Antonio and was entirely moved to Austin Dallas according to NAGNA) and the things on which I would personally disagree (I always considered MCT description in Corporate Download implicitly assumed the regional to functional reorganization, and the Corporate Court composition have been way too much static since Corporate Shadowfiles).

But, okay, I admit, the content of The Megacorporate Shuffle is more in line with my ideas for Shadowrun than anything I've read before.

One part to give you more options on where to carry your gun, one part to make the numbers come out right.


Thanks NMath.

PACKS will sooooo come in handy. I'm sorry you won't get paid for this work, AH, that's a damn shame... But yay for usable free stuff! Thanks for this!

Thank you AH. Your work is awesome. I love your Mitsuhama file! PACKS will be of good help changing to SR 4 or 5 (Whatever will be around when we finally bury SR3).
I really hope your work won't be copied.

Mitsuhama was one of my babies. I did a lot with the Yaks, I begged to do the major Yakorp.

Pretty please?

ditto, the yucatan conflict is one my favorite plotlines, but it gets no love, aside from updates that are baffling in their cryptic brevity. Pobre is regional governor? wasn't he going toxic? Is he still crazy? A feathered serpent was ritually sacrificed on live TV?! whaaaat.

Let's keep this thread for Ancient's material and take the Yucatan issue over to the SoLA thread.

For anyone that likes obscure connections, the CAS draft ties in with one of my Grey Places.

Bob, just a little "errata" for amazonian draft. Speaking as a native: I don't know how the hermanos (argentinians) call it, but in Brazil we call it Iguaçu Falls (or even Iguassu Falls), not Iguaza. Altough I did check google and wikipedia and they use this name for it.

But hey, good work. Loved the shadowtalk on it.

Thanks!

Wow. The PACKS system is seriously awesome. I have been wanting something like this for NPCs as well as beginner players. Thank you!

Ancient, I don't know if you can answer this (either you or CGL may be still planning to use it), but, what happened to Geraint and why are Serrin and Kristen on the run? (from the end of Megacorp Shuffle)

Why did you never release large bits of excluded work prior to your ragequitting?

I know a lot of people are too busy patting their own backs about sticking it to CGL for what ever reason but it seems to me that this was done purely out of spite and in an attempt to spit at CGL rather than a kind service to the fans. If it were a kind service I wonder why Ancient never did it before save for random bits here and there. Venom pours out of every single initial post here and in the proof thread.

When Kenson did it he at least did it for the fans and only after the books had been published. This is simply petty if you ask me. Though I have no doubt therell be some excuse to the tune of "oh I hoped to use the material in the future even if its stuff that would never see the light of day."

Anyway with that said this PACKS thing is kind of boring except and pretty useless except to brand new players or really lazy GMs who havent already created a huge store of pregen NPCs. From the looks of it its just a BP tax for characters, making them take skills and gear theyd never take themselves because of the sheer uselessness of it. New players would be better served with pregenned archetypes anyway, and really lazy GMs will continue to be really lazy GMs with or without this. To be really honest it actually sounds a lot more complicated than the normal creation methods on top of that. But that is certainly a matter of opinion. At least give a dang discount if your going to force people to take subpar skills, gears, and forced BPs on knowledge skills.

what's with all the newbies coming in here and complaining as of late?
Is that not allowed on the CBT boards anymore or what?
Also, this is supposed to be for rounded characters, not for specialized ones.

Your SearchFu is weak.

Sorry I didnt realize only veterans were allowed to voice an opinin here.


They still wind up with a lot of useless stuff. Rounded doesnt mean useless.


Feel free to point to any time hes posted this much at one time. Especially before the books were published and while not acting as pissy as he has in these related threads.

I like free stuff as much as anyone else does. But not when its done out of spite and to the detriment of the game and the fans.

Someone obviously hasn't read everything to understand the whole story. The main reason this was released now rather than after publication (and for the record, NO ONE should ever question AH on releasing material free to the fans considering his site is probably the best repository for metaplot info outside of maybe the wiki) was because AH received info that CGL may have continued using his drafts of the material after he pulled copyright and terminated his contracts. If he waited until publication and they did use his material, then he wouldn't have much recourse other than hiring a lawyer. By releasing this way, he's FORCING them to extract his material from the drafts before they're published. Because everyone and their brother has the material now.

And for the record, there are TONS of free supplements out there on the web for every gaming system that were rejected freelancer works. Just usually isn't labeled as such because there isn't as much background drama going on. It's more typical "didn't fit" or "not up to quality" or "another submission on a similar subject was better" or whatever other editorial reason. There's also a lot more that isn't published because the freelancers were signed to NDAs, which AH was not.

Fail.

Yes, I can totally see how getting material that otherwise never would be published is to the detriment of the fans.

O you can't do it, OK. Thanks for trying anyway.

And Fail again – I already did.

Feel free to point out a time when he has had this much material that will definedly never see the light of day in a print.

Also i would highly disagree with the part about PACKs being useless.
I have made multiple characters and use the karmagen anyway so i really dont need it to make the character building easier, but it does provides one with multiple ideas for character-builds.
Thinks like the gunsel karsist, gave me all new ideas for making new characters.

Just wow. And not a good wow either.

Dynamo, your opinion of the PACKS system, and of the way it was released is fine. It's your opinion. You're entitled to it . The way you're presenting your arguement, in tone and attitude, is not. Ease off.


And yes, new and old Users are allowed to post everywhere. Stahlseele is referring to a disturbing trend we've seen lately of new Users coming in and starting their very first posts with nothing but negative comments that start arguements, adding nothing constructive. Typically, they continue in that tone and attitude. Voice your opinion, but please, add something constructive.

Guys, calm down.

Beat you to it.

Nah. I let you be the first.

That someone is saying Bobby doesn't put unpublished work out on the internet is crazy! His site is one of the deepest and most referenced unofficial resources for the game.

Yes, he just dumped a ton of it at once. That's because he suddenly has a ton of it that isn't going to be published. Once upon a time, this stuff would have been published, now it's suddenly material that he can't do anything with but release it for free. So he has. There's also the other factor of doing it as an insurance to make sure his material isn't used in the published book, which makes sense.

So kind.