QUOTE (Sephiroth @ Jun 10 2010, 04:59 PM)

I'm really sorry if any of these are dumb questions that I should know on my own. Non-4e fluff is not exactly my forte as a GM.
1. What exactly did Ibn Eisa do in the Middle East to become so notorious, both before and after his reanimation?
Charismatic priest who took over a small sect of Islam and built from there.
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2. Runner's Companion mentions that nosferatu have been behind some of the worst vampiric cabals in the Sixth World, and there's a couple lines in Running Wild about nosferatu being malicious and highly dangerous. But other than the events of the Nosferatu novel and maybe the Ordo Maximus, what exactly is it about nosferatu and the events they've instigated that has given them such a bad reputation? What exactly have they tried to do?
Have you heard of any other vampiric cabals than those? Really, vampires haven't been mentioned a whole lot outside of those two and the de Vries bit in Prime Runners and I believe Threats or Threats 2. One of those two has info on what the vampires are up to.
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3. What made Deus such a godly powerful AI compared to the AIs presented in Unwired and Runner's Companion?
Because the AIs in Unwired and RC are nerfed. There were 5 (?) AIs total in Shadowrun before Crash 2.0 and they were all basically gods on the Matrix (in at least two cases literally). Alice, Morgan/Megaera, Deus, Mirage/Psychotrope/Deep Resonance?, and maybe one other I can't remember right now.
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4. Harlequin's Back contains small glimpses of greater Powers That Be, such as Fate. Are there any other references to these Powers in the canon that anyone could tell me about?
The Passions from Earthdawn. Don't talk about it in the Shadowrun world, especially in Tir Tairngire. Good way to end up dead.
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5. If you follow the view of mentor spirits presented in whatever novel it was in which Spider escaped its magical prison, what exactly are mentor spirits? They seem greater and more powerful than mere free spirits to me, but that doesn't help me understand what they are.
That was the first trilogy of novels...Something Power Something Something Trilogy. If I'm not mistaken, Threats/Threats 2 has the info on him. Basically, a free spirit of Man who acts like the devil in a Twilight Zone episode or a djinn or old stories about the fae. He gives you great power or some ancient artifact, but the power ends up consuming you.
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6. On a related Earthdawn note, what does that make Death, and who or what exactly are the Passions?
Sorry, can't answer that one. If you can find a copy of any of the Earthdawn books, it'll explain. It's one of the core mechanics of the game.
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7. On the topic of draconic creation myth, what can you tell me about Verjigorm and Nightwing?
See, when a Verjigorm and a Nightwing love each other very much...
Go look online for the Dragons sourcebook from Earthdawn. It was going to be published by FASA but they closed before it printed, so it was released online for free.