*Shrug* We've had new rules and creatures with unique powers before. Short of a major or total rules rewrite, most of the critiques seem pretty solid, and if we are looking at a major rules change, it would seem pretty messed up to write rules for all the crazy stuff hollows can do but not for all the crazy tech stuff which already exists but never comes up in Shadowrun games.

I'm gonna throw a cheap shot at how to annoy the Horrors.

We clone Good Charlotte and Simple Plan. Alot. Like, millions of them.

We then do a worldwide concert once the Horrors arrive. We win as the Horrors die horribly clawing out their eyes and ears. Okay, so we lose as well, as we die horribly clawing out our own eyes and ears as well. That's why we clone Helen Kellers to repopulate after this approach.

Either that are we make all the Horrors get valid IDs and Driver's Licenses before they can kill and pillage. "You boys like needless suffering and agony? Welcome to the DMV!"

No, I'm referring to a quote attributed to Larry Niven, although Terry Pratchett used it referring to Hex, about Clarke's Third Law. "Corollary" was probably the wrong word, but I was unable to locate the correct word.

(Another good one is Gehm's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.)

Mm. Well, I guess it makes sense that such a famous and pithy quote would have multiple people making corollaries, but I would argue that the "sufficiently explained magic is indistinguishable from technology" version is privileged due to it making sense, which "any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology" does not (impressive pedigree notwithstanding!).

Edit: I'm finding Niven's version as "any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology", a more careful phrasing of the first version. I'm guessing that Pratchett's modification was intended to be nonsensical.

~J

The arguments being aired here assume one thing. That the earth knows the Horrors are coming. I believe cannon has only the Dragons and the Immortal Elves knowing that they are out there. Even if you decide that humanity does find out that the Horrors are coming assuming humanity would work together to defeat them is rather a stretch. I submit the current real life argument over "global warming", lol.

All of that aside when the horrors show up it may be more akin to the description of the downfall of humanity in the "Rift" game. Tech existed to defeat many of the creatures but they emerged from so many places in such numbers that organized defense failed.

An aside, what are Horror marks and how do they work?

Isn't that basically always the story of how 'evil' wins? "Yes, we can kill an Orc/Tyranid/demon/spawn of darkness/horror, and we are totally ready for them, unless of course there are more than 5 of them. Then we're screwed. But there won't be more than 5, we've based all our plans around there being more like 2 or 3, but we ramped it up to 5 just to be safe."

A Horror Mark is basically a semi permanent Mystical Link that a Horror places on a Target.

With said Mystic Link the Horror can do many things.
It can cast spells on target irregardless of LOS and possibly distance.
It can use abilities on said target without having to roll resistance dice. A popular one being Damage shift. (Horrors are like Kindergarden kids.. except they really are made of rubber)
Some Horrors can use the Horror Mark to 'borrow' your senses, or dominate your mind.

They often use it to whisper in your ear and drive you crazy. Before doing all the said things above.

Horror Marks are serious bad news.

Ahh, this old discussion, how nostalgic.
“What we know about the Horrors can fit in a thimble, tossed on a vast ocean of ignorance.” –Ajmar the Admirable, Court Wizard to the King of Throal.
This quote summs up the unknowable truth of the horrors, to simply shoehorn them into a category with simple things like the Invae (bug spirits) or other spirit types isnt doing these nasties any justice. If the GM needs a horror that travels the matrix, corrupting all in its wake then *blammo* its there.
Merely thinking too long about certain horrors is said to attract their attention, may gods forgive you if you should speak its name.

If you need something more familiar in lore to draw upon to show just how powerless humanity really is against the horrors, just read alot of the Lovecraft mythos. You will eventually get the idea. If not, Im sure some hungry horror will find you very tastey.

Makes me want to play Arkham Horror again.

Except that its kinda crap now.

Ok, we've read different Lovecraft then. Off the top of my head, the Elder Things of Antarctica were destroyed by their own creations, the Great Race are essentially inter-temporal refuges moving from one doomed period to another, that giant thing in "The Shunned House" was actually killed by the humans, and Cthulu himself got his head smashed in by a steamboat, allowing the humans to trap him awhile longer. I can't think of any creature from the mythos (although I intentionally haven't touched the extended mythos) which was truly invulnerable, in fact, a lot of the creepiness involves exploring the ruins of ancient alien civilizations. After all, if they were wiped out by a cruel and capricious universe, what chance do we have? All-powerful planet consuming Horrors aren't Lovecraft, they're the bastard offspring of Revelations and "Rocks fall, everyone dies".

One way to annoy the horrors? Blow up the planet so they don't get the satisfaction of destroying it themselves.

The Earthdawn world had plenty of time and warning but they still got into a major World War in their rush to gain resources to build kaers. Basically the hegemon which created the Rites of Protection and Passage was pimping it out for slaves and goods. The Rites themselves took a lot of True Elements and Orichalcum so there was a Resource Rush for said items. The Wars were a direct result of this resource crunch and the price the hegemon was exacting. Oil is another good RL example of what humanity will do to itself for scarce resources.

The Shadow Spirits already do a pretty good job of simulating the Horrors. Take them as your starting point.

A little late, but whatever.

I have not read everything beyond this post, so may have missed if someone already said this, but Marking is stupidly easy to implement with the Shadowrun 4 rules (although it is not an exact copy).

Ritual Spellcasting, with the "Mark" functioning as a Symbolic Link.

Their own even more hideous creations. The Elder Things certainly lost, but anyone in the vicinity did so even more.


Overlooking the fact that they're effectively immortal and supplant anything convenient—they can't win against entropy, which is a pretty unforgiving nemesis.


They were wimps, the popularity Cthulhu has gained notwithstanding.


Azathoth? Yog-Sothoth at least gets foiled now and then, but it's mostly portrayed as only being able to be briefly inconvenienced. Likewise Nyarlathotep, though he at least is more humanized. None of these are extended mythos, incidentally.


It's certainly true that Horrors are nothing like Lovecraft's works, in general—the denizens of his mythos beyond the power of the cruel and capricious universe tend to be so powerful, alien, and disinterested in humanity that they're really better classified as part of the cruel and capricious universe rather than as distinct actors (especially Azathoth who is heavily implied if not outright stated to be nonsentient). This is entirely different from the Horrors, who are in general not indifferent to the Name-Givers on account of the latter being a primary source of nutrition.

(Besides, many of Lovecraft's works—and I would argue most of his better ones—dealt mostly with humans or the direct works of humans, usually only wielding slight power gained from association or research into eldritch horrors, or sometimes not even that. Consider The Picture in the House, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Rats in the Walls, etc.)

Really, I think the most important (maybe even the only important) point of similarity is the motif of harmful sensation. All else is just learning to set mood better.

~J, who apparently simply can't help himself

Extremely fast unpenalized ritual spellcasting.

Make a Night One elf physical adept, whose silver hair and purple eyes come from a SURGE, he weilds two katanas and comes from a corporate background, now he runs the sahdows as an independent free soul along with a dwarf samurai and a female human face, adopted by said dwarf, while he tries to bury his past having swore never to hurt a wage slave...

The Night One's street name is "Drizzle".

My Eyes!
They Bleed!

A Vampire, with delta grade nanoskin implants that 'sparkle'

He goes by Edward.
Take the
Addicted (Blood of Girlfriend)
Strict Vegetarian

Negative Qualities

As you lawyer I'd recommend you to avoid blatant copyright violations.

The vampire runs the shadows by "Eddie".
Trust me, save some

So she is a vegetable! I knew it!

~J

Horrors don't "Go to sleep." They return here from somewhere. Maybe they're off being an extinction level event on some other metaplane. We don't really know, but we do know that the big ones at least like being here for reasons beyond the ambient mana rising high enough for them to make a bridge here from their metaplane. Further, I'm not so confident that FAB III would work that great on them. For one thing, you need to keep all that FAB alive somehow or it loses Force and dies, which, would be a problem on a space lab. FABIII can be defeated in Astral Combat, is wiped out by the Sterilize spell and it works best on dual-natured creatures. And since Horrors are not Spirits in the usual sense, that last bit is a problem. Many Horrors are, for lack of a better term, flexibly single-natured. They can choose to manifest either on the physical or the astral, but not both at the same time. The most powerful of them tend to be dual-natured, but not in the same way Spirits are-- their physical and astral forms are both separate manifestations of the same entity that can act independently from each other and both must be destroyed to prevent the Horror from manifesting again. If that sounds like a pain in the ass, well, that's why they're called "the Horrors" and not "the Rude and Uninvited."

So, Skynet>Horrors?

Shouldn't this all be in the beatt he thread anyway?

Probably, but that thread is older than dirt and fell off the front page anyway, so I don't really see the harm.

Anyway, the Skynet Satellite plan would annoy the Horrors, I'm sure. Whether it'd "Beat the Horrors," or not kinda depends on how you define success. Are we defining things like current US doctrine in which it's a PR disaster when we lose 100 soldiers in a month or are we thinking more like communist Russia trying to hold Stalingrad?

Explanation required.

Oh, sorry, I was just referring to the suggestions people have made over the years of using AIs, Agents/Pilots and the like to run a lot of the military stuff from space rather than leave everything up to humans in the field. It is after all harder to scare the pants off of a drone than it is to Horror Mark a guy and make him shoot his buddy.

Ah ha.

I don't think anyone who espouses that "the Horrors will lose" thinks that it would be an overwhelming victory.

Most of the folks that have bothered to address the cost of victory have assumed that it would be a pyrrhic one, with large portions of the Earth devastated and probably the bulk of humanity dead.

But the difference is, this time around, we've got a shot at winning, instead of just having to hide in holes again.



-k

So, as a experienced ED player and GM, and a SR-enthusiast wit some knowledge and experience, i'll try to translate ED Horrors to SR Horrors.

First, there are Horrors, and Named Horrors, where Named=Badass and mostly unique.
Second, Horrors come from the deepest, darkest Metaplanes, or from Beyond the Metaplanes, depending on the theory you want to believe in.
Third, Horrors can be Physical, Astral or Both. Most of the powerfull, and Named ones are Dual-Natured. If you kill one of their forms, the other one spawns it back in some time. One of the more insidious ED Horrors used his cult to take back his body from his killers, a part from each one.
Fourth, Horrors need high magic level to sustain their presence on Earth, be it Astral, or Physical. Places of Power can sustain Horrors that wouldn't be able to cross otherwise.
Fifth, Horrors corrupt more than just minds - their very presence pollutes the mana in astral space, and their lairs are utterly corrupted. Unprotected magic use is very risky in such spots, and only one metamagic technique provides protection from this (it's something akin to ED Marices, i don't remember it's name).
Sixth, They are Many, as Horrors come as many kinds. The simplest are just physical, and only need to destroy. Those more powerfull and inteligent (in their own, alien way) might for example exist as a corrupted music, that twists the mind and forces those twisted to go and spread it... There were Horrors in the Fourth World that fed on magic, or acted like microbes, and nothing says there will be no matrix-based Horrors. They might already be there, in the darkest nodes filled with corrupted, deadly IC (or they could be the IC themselves). They could feed on something as simple as pain, or as subtle, as the sorrow of one, that just killed his beloved, manipulated by the Horror...
Seventh, praise Big D and all those metaplotting Dragons and Immortals, who managed to stop the comming of certain powerfull Horrors (like Yrsgranthe, and Bone Crown the Usurper). Between gangs, the Shedim, Invae (insect spirits), toxic shamans, mad magicians, cyberzombies, corporations, organized crime, paracritters, and common criminals, there are enough enemies in SR. We really don't need more of them. And especially not ones, like the Horrors...

And if you really, really want to piss one off, send him some slaves. But Blood Elf slaves. ;P

I'm curious, how effective would a cyber zombie with those rigging implants so someone else controls him be?

Hard to say
There's still meat, there's still a brain (albeit barely)
It's also controlled by a Spirit, which is easily corruptible by a Horror.

I think you would have a better shot with drones.

JarHeads would even be questionable. Though I could see an argument for them being less likely to get corrupted.

In ED, did Horror Marks work through wards?

If Horrors can be daunted by puzzles, you don't even need fancy footwork involving the Matrix or orichalcum or whatnot, just put some really good pure mathematicians in a room together and get them to put together a problem that combines some of the nastier issues of the field. The sort of stuff that, while technically solvable, tends to take about one to three generations and one to a dozen geniuses each to work out.

The puzzles would deter some Horrors. As the quote of Ajamar earlier in the thread points out the Horrors are too varied and limitless to really be able to have 1 strategy that stops all of them. You'd need to layer the puzzles on top of other stuff. And you'd need to do it long before the horrors are even close to coming.

In regards to the SkyNet solutions people always trot out in these discussions: Do you really want to leave your fate in the hands of the Pegasus Replicators? "Hmmm...our enemy feeds on metahumans, so if we cut off their food supply..."

Heh, nice.

It was a joke, the matrix seems complex enough, and the orichalcum part is important, the simple reason is that it has a relevant pattern that horrors are attracted to.

And in the example that you give you assume that horrors are able to solve a mathematical problem (assumes a lot of previous knowledge) that, as smart as a horror can be, he may lack.

The idea about the mathematicians is, in essence, the same as mine: Both are propositions stating that a complex situation demanding a lot of attention from the horror will make an efficient defense. You want the most efficient defense, so implement the one that you think is more complex or better. We both agree on the premises, maybe not on the procedure to do it right.

Yes and no. Many failed kaers are the result of a horror slipping through and marking someone, after which it becomes a long slow descent into the mouth of madness. The beauty of it being also that the horror can use you as the point of origin for LOS for its abilities, spells, etc. Once you are marked most horrors will wait until the perfect time to reap the maximum misery. Did you make the mistake of going home? Enjoy waking up the next morning to a village full of corpses, or a brother who is also marked, but the horror enjoys tormenting him in a more direct fashion so you suffer more. It goes on and on. Horror Mark is the single most vicious ability they have.

Yes Yes they did

This gave me the mental image of a Doppler killing the 6th world version of Jaime Escalante and subsequently giving math classes to Verjigorm and Ysrthgrathe.

I don't think Skynet>Horrors, it's just a temporary fix, like the puzzle. It'll destroy or distract some but it's limited, something to buy time and organize. Realistically, I only see 3 long term solutions.
1) Run into Kaers (possibly nuking and virus bombing the surface into a hellhole out of spite)
2) Some symbiotic or nanoware version of FABIII that we can install in people, along with mandatory datajacks, biomonitors and personachips.
3) Nuke the Metaplanes. Not the most feasible thing ever but hey, worth a shot.

Also, my main problem with Matrix Horrors is that the Matrix simply isn't old enough to support that kind of development, especially Matrix 2.0. I have trouble believing they'd even KNOW it existed, it's all invisible unless you're already a user. If there are Matrix horrors:
1) What, did they just sit around the last few invasions bitching about having nothing to do AGAIN?
2) In, say, the 1980s did a bunch of Horror's just look up and think "Man, I should really get into electronic data transfer. Especially wireless data transfer. That gonna be big."
3) It's very hard to make Horror's a realistic threat on the Matrix. There's no way for their magic to function online so they're essentially just another user, another user ignorant of the past 70 years of Matrix history with no experience using the system.
4)This is one of the few areas of Shadowrun where there is a powerful central authority, GOD, which could legitimately take direct action to control the threat.

It's hard for me to buy into the idea that the Matrix is really under control given that TMs kinda show that it isn't. It's grown beyond the ken of mundos and TMs clearly disagree on what is going on there. I'm guessing Celedyr isn't into Matrix development and research just because he's really into new and exciting BTL pron.

Who isn't into new and exciting BTL porn?

Interesting let me share some ideas I had floating around.
1) Pretty clearly what Proteus was up to, or at least it seemed that way to me.
2) In some ways this just reminds me of the Blood Elves, and their radical solution. While Tech and Magic don't mix yet, in my mind it is only a matter of time.
3) Strangely enough based on some stuff in the ED Dragons book, and scattered elsewhere, I think the mana cycle and the arrival of the horrors could very well be tied into Great Dragons trying to make things go back to the way they used to be before their pesky offspring threw off their yoke. There is extensive mention of them screwing up some sort of Great Draconic Ritual Magic, seems like it might be tied together.




1) I agree I don't think there are horrors on the matrix YET. They kind of have to get here first.
2) See above.
3) The idea that magic won't work online is at least based on what ED Magic is, and what SR Magic has ingrained all over the Street Magic sourcebook, is that it is only a matter of time. Once the matrix becomes a ubiquitous experience, once something truly momentous happens with the matrix... oh wait that has already happened, it is only a matter of time before it has a pattern of its own, and from there things will get even stranger. The concept that Technomancers are using anything but magic is pretty ludicrous especially after we have heard how many times over how many editions that traditions are simply tools for manipulating magic. Admittedly they are using it in a completely unique fashion, and a very restricted fashion, but yet ultimately they are. Sure you can argue about the whole Resonance cannot have Magic and vis versa, but at least based on the totality of the setting and how magic works I don't see how that holds any real water. TM's are a mystery, and at least IMSR they are a bridge on the road to new evolutions in the use of magic.

Things beyond our understanding, haha.

Hey, I'm not ruling it out. I'm just under the impression that Greats are supposed to be pretty good multi-taskers.


And whether we like it thematically or not, if Wild Technomancers prove anything it is that you don't really need to understand how the Matrix works in order to affect things that are connected to it.

Eh, I believe in saving older threads for posterity. Internet threads represent cherished memories and friendships from long ago. Like, I still reference Creepwoodrun whenever possible, just hoping that someone will find the original thread.

I'd agree here, the Dragons are kinda caught in the middle. They're stuck between mundane society, which is beyond their control, and the Horrors which want to wipe them out.


First, lets be honest, they just copied the rules for Awakened over to TMs. I don't think Catalyst is willing to say they're magical but it sure seems that way. Plus the emergence of the Resonance and Dissonance, sprites, etc sure seem like they're moving towards this kind of interpretation, especially since it's hard not to have the Matrix influencing minds, and through minds mana.
Second, there's a massive narrative wall to jump here, since usually technology and magic are seen as antithetical. Shadowrun explicitly trys to jump this wall by combining extreme examples of both but there are still massive disconnects.
Third, if the Matrix really does begin to affect ambient mana, that's literally probably the best thing that could happen to humanity vis Horrors. Yes, Horrors would get access to the Matrix but it also breaks the tech/magic barrier. The biggest problem humanity faces v the Horrors is that so much magic simply can't be affected by technology. Once you can directly attack Horrors through the Matrix they have no hiding place and most of their immunities go away. Plus, despite the Horror's powers, they'd literally be fighting in a reality designed by metahumans. Just a quick example: even a metaplanar nuke wouldn't wipe out the Horrors but a Magical/Matrix replicating worm literally could kill every single Horror.

Where did Bone Crown rear his ugly head? And I can't be the only one who thinks HMHVV *reeks* of the Horrors.

Forgot to throw this one out there:



As for HMHVV, it's unclear; Ghouls exist in Earthdawn and are Horror-created, but appear to share few traits with Shadowrun Ghouls (they're explicitly undead, and while they carry a deadly virus or toxin it appears to simply kill rather than ghoulifying). References to Vampires exist, but I can't find a stat block or proper description and the one reference I can find calls them "true undead" in contrast with the critter under discussion.

~J

I like the way the discussion is going now, although it might go in a different thread. i have toyed with horrors in Shadowrun for a long time, but not in an apocalypse sense, rather in a Lovecraftian "Something bad is going to happen and you are a tool in that" sense.

The thing about matrix TM/magic analogy is that the rules are so closesly analogous that from a fluff point of viw you can't ignore that. I agree that form a crunch or writers intention it may have been something totally different it largely irrelevant.
I think making the systems similar is a big, no HUGE plus, since it reduces the ruling and system learning -read, boring- part out of the equation once oyu get one and apply it to the analogous system, but from a fluff point of view the analogy is amazingly rich in exploitable resources, up to the GM and the kind of game he wants to run, as always.

As to the Matrix pattern complexity I think that its less relevant the time its been around, but rather think the amount of people using it reinforces it to no end. Nothing in ED interacted with so many Name givers in such a meaningful manner as the matrix does in SR. Its pattern is thus necessarily extremely complex, being analogous only to the most important myths -the Iliad, the Odissey- and religions -Islam, Paganism, before Christian dominance started, and other monotheistic religions- in the world. If Shamanism as a belief accomplished what the great ghost Dance did with some nostalgic Native Americans, think what the technological relief the matrix is for humanity can signify in astral resonance and pattern relevance...

Ok, I had one too many vodkas tonight. I'll go to sleep now... but...just...think...of...the...narrative...possibilities...

That seems a bit optimistic to me. Existing at different levels of reality isn't anything new for the Horrors. Damage shift and the ability to manifest new astral and physical forms after the destruction of one or the other are demonstrated abilities, for example. As such, we don't really know if killing the hypothetical Horror equivalent of a Living Persona would eradicate the entire beastie. The 'trix has tons of potential and we may very well be able to hit some level of parity with them or even hold an advantage there (if the Horrors can really even access it at all!). But with that said, defeating the Horrors entirely would almost surely require facing many of them down on the other layers of reality/planes as well.

I'm not thinking of anything that direct. For example, Psychotropic Attacks can be delivered by Agents (or freaking Data Bombs) and allows you to mindscrew a Horror. No, we don't understand how the Horror mind thinks but TMs and AIs are also affected by Psychotropic attacks and they don't have ASIST tech in them either. Besides, from a magical standpoint, it would probably work simply because everyone believes it works.

And that's assuming that they have the living persona's immunity to malware, whcih honestly makes a lot more sense if TMs are some strange techno-evolution instead of a new kind of magic. If they don't have immunities to malware then you can go absolutely nuts. For example, there's a simple virus which randomly forwards the user to spam sites. So not only could you spam the Horrors, with the proper BTL options you could literally addict them to spam.


This is also how I like to think of Horrors, especially if they appear in game, not as an unstoppable army but as an alien, corrupting force. The idea that there are metahumans who serve or worship Horrors, that they have tentacles in the underbelly of humanity, that Aztech is a foothold for them into this world and they're spreading. That's cool and that's something you can play against and win temporary victories against. Full war not only limits the game heavily, it also runs up against all sorts of realistic problems. For example, a lot of the things Lovecraft wrote about haven't aged well as we've gone from simple rifles to nukes to the internet. The Great Race used books to record their history for chris' sake. From a modern standpoint, some of those things simply wouldn't be as threatening in modern times. Horrors suffer from the same thing, there's just too much crazy tech in a sci-fi future for them to seem as threatening as they do in a fantasy setting, even a high magic one.