QUOTE (Doc Chase @ Oct 5 2010, 05:23 PM)
The question is moot - 4th edition reduced the birthrate to around or just above human norm.
Not to be argumentative, but... It didn't. Runner's companion might have said something along those lines, but my 20th edition copy still has the litters of 4 comment.
My deal is, this is the first time actually *playing* shadowrun. I've read glances here and there, but never played, never read any of the novels, etc. So I can only go on what new stuff I've read, and do my best from there.
Here's my character's family history, in case anyone gives a damn. His name's Starchaser. I'm sure there's going to be a canon error in there or two, and I apologize for that. Like I said, first SR character.
In 2021 Neil Fallon and his young wife Freya were in Seattle, and madly in love. Then she turned into an orc. Neil didn't let her racial handicap effect his love for her, and they decided to have a child. 6 months later, 4 orc children pop out of Freya, much to Neil's dismay. The two go on to love their children just the same, and watch in modest shock as the children develop twice as fast as a normal human would. Having no knowledge of just how to raise an orc child, much less 4, the pair find other orcs with orcish children, and the children grow up in the confines of a small but loving group. Outside the small group however, Neil realizes just how hated and feared his wife, children, and friends are by the population at large.
Soon, he finds himself, his family, and his small community of Orcs rounded up and put into a detention camp, orders of Governor Lindstrom. It is here that Neil makes many contacts with others of his wife's kind, and realizes how similar his story is to others forced here. Few understand why they or their loved ones suddenly changed, and nearly all are angry at the apparent animosity and fear expressed towards them. Neil decides that intelligence, compassion, and understanding would benefit all, and begins holding meetings within the Detention camps.
At first they resemble glorified AA meetings, with residents of the camp retelling their stories, with an occasional gem of wisdom about Orcish biology appearing, but as time went on, they became more akin to town meetings, with complaints of Seattle PD abuse, sanitary and food conditions and the scientific studies done on them being the norm. Here, Neil always advocated a policy of peace, doing his best to quash any of the Camp Elder's plans of violence against the guards, and was almost always successful.
However, one particular evening, Neil was holding another Camp meeting while his wife Freya looked over looked over the children of those attending. During the meeting, Seattle PD had stormed the camp, arresting Freya on charges of conspiring against the people of Seattle. Neil never saw her again. His feelings that all could be cured by enough love and understanding were changed forever. From then on, the meetings took on a very different attitude. He instituted a new form of speech, using codewords and gestures, things that couldn't be easily understood or detected. Neil's presence was originally all that held the camp back from violence, and now it served to focus the collective anger and indignation into a potent force.
Months were spent planning the perfect riot. Guard routes observed, data on personnel compiled, perimeters mapped. Weeks before the plan was set to go in motion however, Lindstrom released all prisoners of the camps, and spoke of a united people living in peace. No one bought it. No reparations were made. Freya wasn't returned, and the hatred burning in all the people held there was burning brighter then ever.
Neil began tracking down the Police who ran the camp, murdering them, and leaving the mutilated corpses in the Detention Camp which once held him. The race riots erupting across the metroplex soon later only made it easier for him to carry out his plans. By January of 2022, Neil and his orc friends had killed every camp guard working at his camp, and nearly all of their immediate families. One month later, the riots died down, as did Neil's rage. Lone Star had taken over, and began heavily investigating the murders. Neil, and the remaining members of the detention camp and their families decided they needed to get away.
They fled to the Downtown Underground of Seattle. At first, the Dwarves there already renovating the location had given them a bit of grief about the sudden arrival of nearly two thousand Orcs and other Metas, but after a small series of squabbles and skirmishes, the orcs had carved out a sizable chunk of the underground and dwelled there in relative peace. Fearing that their group would be found and persecuted, Neil began to organize his small group. He selected those with security, police, or military backrounds and created the Underground Police Network, which served to keep intruders out, and maintain order. He recruited what humans he could from the group and used them to secure supplies and information from the surface. Those remaining were put to work as teachers, miners, craftsmen and artists.
Under these conditions, the group prospered for years relatively uneventfully for years. In 2033 Neill became a grandfather, thanks to orc's quickened maturation process. A few months later, the remaining 3 of his children had become parents of their own. In late 2038, the Underground begins to receive a more steady influx of orc refugees, fearful of impending violence. Neil accepts them into his constructed society, but is concerned by their fears. Months later, the infamous Night of Rage occurs. Anti-metahumans terrorists, with the aid of Governor Alleson lock up, and then murder hundreds of metahumans. His people beg Neil for retaliation, and he grants it. For the duration of the riots, metahumans of all type seek shelter in the Underground, while those who would oppose them met violent ends at the hands of Neil's Underground Protection Network.
The riots however, convince Neil that his efforts to protect his people haven't been enough. He feel he needs to be more proactive in the prevention of attacks against orcs, and metahumanity in general. He also feels his people have come to rely on him too much, and need to go forth on their own. He enlists the help of the Underground Dwarves, and several Awakened residents and creates a sequestered underground fortress, inside a rocky island on the western shores of Downtown Seattle. Three caverns are created. An open air training facility, with light shining down from a hole above composes the largest room. The next smallest room is a square, darkened room, serving as a spartan barracks. The smallest room is pitch black, with several centimeters of water covering the ground. Only Neil and his closest associates are allowed there. After the fortress is constructed, he has the Dwarves memory wiped, and is never again seen in the Underground. Instead, he summons select few Awakened members of the underground into the fortress, and has them specially trained by a group of elite Adepts and Marksmen.
Fear is the order of the day there, as initiates are taught that the world is against them, and that it is their duty to eliminate enemies of metahumanity, and to leave no trace of their presence, less they attract attention to their loved ones back home. This group goes on to be known as the Vindicators, and each year, select initiates of the underground are chosen to join their ranks, receiving greater tutelage from Vindicators who've returned to teach at the fortress.
For decades this goes on, the teaching becoming more and more potent each generation. Neil's grandchildren have children, and they spawn children of their own, at first in larger numbers, fearful of becoming dominated or oppressed by a human majority, but later relaxing that fearful stance into more nominal birth rates. In 2053, Neil's Great Grandson Norn gives birth to Starchaser. At the age of 3, he's taken away to the fortress, to train under the Vindicators there. His training his strict and harsh, but he takes to it quickly, and by the age of 7 can fire a rifle as well as most of his instructors can. When he inquires of his family history, he's told stories of the ubiquitous "Old Man", locked away in the fortress sealed chamber. Starchaser is told that if he wants to know his history, he has to ask the Old Man himself, and the only way to do that is to walk across the surface of the water in the inner sanctum without making a single ripple.
He trains and trains, but continually fails. Finally one night, while sleeping in his bunk, he feels a drop of water splash on his forehead. He opens his eyes and sees a beautiful orcish woman, seemingly clothed in the foam of the ocean. She speaks to him, though her mouth does not move. She tells him that she will help him to cross the inner sanctum, and grant him untold power for the rest of his days in exchange for his obedience to her ways. He nods in agreement and she smiles with jubilation, then disappears into the night. The next morning when he awakes, he finds strange blue tattoos covering his entire body, and feels his powers greatly enhanced. As soon as he can, he head for the inner sanctum, and as he walks across the surface of the water, he finds the glass laying as still as glass. When he reaches out to open the large doors, they open, and Starchaser enters. There he hears the voice of the Old Man, Neil, who asks why he is being interrupted. Starchaser replies that he's seeking to learn about his past. In the darkness, Neil smiles, and goes on to teach Starchaser everything he knows, and the two converse for the entire day. For the next several months, The Old Man teaches Starchaser the secrets he's learned by living in the darkness, specifically the magical secrets of feeling the vibrations in the air that one makes when they move, and how to sense the energy flowing off of even a stationary object. After teaching Starchaser those secrets, he tells the boy that he won't become a Vindicator. Neil wishes Starchaser to go out and see the world for what it is today, and report back every 2 years, relaying his findings.
Since then, Starchaser has been out and about in Seattle, running in the shadows, observing, and doing his best not to be found, reporting back every 2 years loyally.
