I relies some SR players do not like the idea of Horrors. No biggie as their inclusion is pretty much up to the individual story teller and his group. For those of us who do want them included how would you implement their existence and powers? Does anyone even have a list of the Horrors and their supposed affinities from ED? I know that some just required a repeat of their name to allow them to take people over or that others existed as music. I also know that many existed in parts, having physical and astral bodies that could spawn replacements if one side or the other was destroyed.

One thing that was mentioned on the other thread was that Horror Marks allowed the Horrors to use those bearing their marks to cast ritual spells through without penalties or worry about wards. That they also allowed the Horrors to take over those so marked and that they could then mark others. For SR this is truly a major power as the Horrors can manipulate, spy and attack without impediment.

There are two ways to do this:

The Fluffy way and the Crunchy way.

Fluffy-wise: Horrors are much easier to implement because you don't have to develop new rules for them. In this way I picture -just one way of doing it- lots of mooks serving in cults, Aztechnology serving as a facade and, just to make things even worse, make MCT or, better, the Draco foundation the next target for ineternal take over by them.

The players will probably never meet a full-fledged horror head-on, Sheddim sure, Wraiths sure, but not one of the named Horrors. They come in contact of them through magical artifacts, metaplanar quests, secret research facilities, etc.

The horrors become an impending doom /only/ the players are aware of in the world. Then make them feel slightly insane, even though they are certain of the unavoidable apocalypse. If anything horror cosntructs become very interesting here, because you can replicate para critters from the books and use them as antagonists foreshadowing what is yet to come. Mix in some descriptive things, (Player: "I send the bio sample form that weird, huge spider with a human face we killed last week in that AZT facility, that our mage swears is not a spirit to the Street Doc." GM: "A week later he says that the sample has no DNA whatsoever". Player: "What?!") or something like that, to make them freak out even more.

In this way, reading Earthdawn fluff and web pgaes, plus a couple of Lovecraft stories, is more than enough to set up the mood and even make tons of adventures, without tampering with new systems and statting new spirits.

Crunchy-wise: Horrors are a bitch. They are hard to stat using SR4 rules, because, you need to invent and customize each one. Using the RC free spirit rules can help, and using custom spells to replicate their powers, avoiding all drain, for example and negating every rule based assumption about magic there is in SR4, because they /are/ unique. They will become either Harlequin-like characters or the game will degenerate into an arms race ("I lazzorz' that Wormskull again!" ZZZZAAAPPP!).

Not that this gets in the way of a good story, or a fun time, but in my book its too time consuming for the effort to be worthwhile, I'd much rather spend all the time I'd use statting new spirits coherently... doing basically anything else.

Pick up the Horrors book. It's well worth the read.

I've done a run around a named Horror. Everything had to be statted by hand. I gave particular powers and such. As a general rule of thumb, the Horrors are not bound by any Shadowrun rules, so it can cast spells without LOS, with incredible powers, etc.

The run I wrote up was basically Rats in the Walls. With the drop of the magic level, it got several humans to build a magical bubble for it, to protect it. But the builders made it such that the bubble is tied to one location only, so the horror was trapped. Over the millenia, the geology changed, and gradually it sank under ground, but the Horror's powers extended beyond, so it could use its powers to help and lure humans wandering on the ground overhead. As it was basically a power site, it became an important cultural site for a tribe of horror-touched Indians, later for pioneers and so on.

With the Sixth Age, it's finally read to come out. So it assembles the corpse of one of its worshippers, gives it life, and sends it out with a purse full of ancient gold to pay the runners to break the barriers built around its bubble, under the guise of babysitting a smuggler's nest. Once the runners arrive, it begins playing tricks on them, to try and get them to discover, then open the doors, thereby breaking the wards. Of course, the runners comply. If we're lucky, it comes to a fun showdown. If not, the horror sneaks away to wreak havoc.

My favorite scene was when three PCs were under illusion spells. Adam looked like a ghoul to Bob, Bob looked like a ghoul to everyone else, and as the party was dealing with Bob, Charlie comes around the bend looking like a slime monster. VERY nearly had a TPK, except one character carried a narcojet gun.

I personally like the indirect approach. Meta humans are still the beings with most of the power in the Shadowrun Universe, and are capable of the most heinous of actions against their own without much prodding. The things that make lower powered horrors in Earthdawn a threat is that they are the embodiment of our basest instincts given form without bounds. They destroy, consume, and lay waste to everything, including each other. I never felt that they had a good enough "feel" for Shadowrun in my game, and to be honest, the insect spirits and shedim sufficiently fill that role for me. The influence of the horrors in Shadowrun seem to be best introduced through agents that serve their eventual return. For these people, they only know of them through myths and legends, the classic Devil Worshiper. They do this for a variety of reasons. Some do it because they are convinced it will bring them personal power. Some do it because of a rebellious nature that drives them to the fringe. For some, it may even be a religion, perverted through thousands of years since the last scourge (Lovecraftian cults and the like). A game master could easily introduce the concept through organizations that exist in SR already, such as Winternight, Alamos 20K, or corrupted regimes that put profit or power so far ahead of metahuman dignity that they seem to cause misery for the sake of causing misery (like Pentex from the old Werewolf game.) The subtle taint of a powerful horror may already be enough to cause quite a bit of harm yet still not arouse cries of HORRORS amongst those that may know of their existence. And to some of the points Inncubi makes, I agree. Throwing "monsters" like wormskulls at a group of runners is no more frightening than a cyberzombie. If years of experience has taught me anything, they will still shoot the crap out of it all the same. However, a group of 10 year olds attempting to hack them up children of the corn style while their crazy corrupted Corporate Arcology instructor gleefully cackles on in madness...

Indeed. Also, for something at least in SR, though dated, is the Harlequin's Back module. It has references to The Enemy, which basically is the Horrors. It even has stats for some of the Enemy, albeit those of a grunt/mook nature.

I wouldn't see a problem, if you are willing, to homebrewing up the powers. It's alot of work, obviously, but if it's how you want to roll, have fun. Get mean. Get nasty. The Horrors are. Don't go whole hog, though, as there are a lot of them out there. Pick one or two.

My personal favorite was the one that basically didn't make you do anything. It just gave you awesome bonuses when you wanted them. Most of the time. Of course once you were hooked, the Horror had you.

I am leaning towards the first method but have used the second by focusing on the Horror that could manipulate technology. No, it has not made its way to earth but it is operating through tainted (marked) awakened metahumans who produce marvelous cybertechnology and drones for consumers that integrate magic and technology. Something that has been the holy grail of magical research sense the start of the sixth world. Of course the drones are really under the control of the Horror and the cybertech pretty much acts as an unidentified Horror Mark. The initial attempt by the Horror to take over a heightened magical area was defeated but the blame fell on the corporation producing the tech rather than the tech itself. So the tech is still out there with its link to the Horror but the company producing it was destroyed.

A big question is "which Horrors?" Lesser Horrors and Horror Constructs, especially the predominantly physical ones like Baggi or Gnashers, are basically just an exercise in stat assignment—they're a bit tricky, on account of their attributes tend to blow out the top range of the SR spectrum (IIRC I ended up statting Qural'lotectica in SR3 with all stats in the high teens to low twenties), but they generally don't involve much creation of fundamentally new rules. Once you get into things like the ability to Horror Mark or other distinctly ED capabilities, you're into creating new rules wholesale.

~J

@Kagetenshi: Once you get into abilities like those of a Kreescra, or Mind Slug, all bets are off. There's a very thin line there, and plotting Horrors are always a lot more tricky than those, who just like to crush, kill and destroy.

I would not bother 'Stating' Artificer

Artificer is so freaky that any attempt to stat him would just pale in comparison to what he can really do.

Imagine a robotics lab. Filled with drones, robotic tools, biodrones, cyberzombies. All of which are actually 'part' of Artificer. The walls, the elevators are actually all physical manifestations of him. But you can't damage him that way. Astrally if a Mage goes astral in said lab.. start making him take 4-6P damage every round he's astral, just for being astral. If he's astrally perceiving, cool checks or risk going insane/being horror marked, oh and take 3P damage every round.

Erm. Artificer is a Horror/Great Form Elemental hybrid. And as much scary as he is, he's not really a plotting one. He just makes classic gygaxian dungeon crawls to feed from the pain and agony.

I'd also recommend not statting him, but more because as Kot notes unless the party decides that they really really really want to hunt him down personally the important things to stat will be his traps.

~J

That is the guy, err Horror. Could not remember his name. He is the one I had in mind though for creating tainted cyberware and other tech. Have been working from the angle that anyone using said tech comes under the influence of the Horror and slowly goes mad in a "Dexter" kinda way.

Kauthrunne is more likely there, Artificer would probably just build a fancier death-trap.

~J

Erm, who? Don't remember that one from Horrors.

This does sound like a bucket of awesome. There was another one, Gift Bringer? Something like that, who did something with items, too. Don't know if it was a means of tracking you down to ruin your day, or if the items themselves were tainted to ruin said day.

That's because she isn't there. She got added in Scourge Undending; broadly similar to Tempter, but less personal, likes to find Adepts and give them weapons and armor (along with a Mark). She's the only one I can think of offhand who hands out tainted stuff and doesn't focus on one victim at a time.


Neither, really—the items were mostly trinkets. What ruined people's days was his ability to come up with exactly what you want (within certain size and weight restrictions), then sell it to someone else. Once he's done this with enough people he starts using his powers to amplify feelings of avarice or jealousy, and the locals take care of the rest themselves. As far as I can tell the items themselves aren't Horror-tainted at all.

~J

Hmmm...off the top of my head:

Horror Mark: Magic + Spellcasting versus Willpower (+Counterspelling), gives the Horror LoS to everyone you can see when within 10 miles of you, LoS to you when within 1000 miles, and allows communication out to 5000 miles

Thought Worm: Magic + Spellcasting versus Willpower (+Counterspelling), add a number of dice to the Horror's dice pool equal to the Force of its Horror Mark, allows the Horror to spend an Edge to give you a suggestion, if you act on it you may roll the dice granted by the spent Edge, if you resist you take Drain Damage equal to the Force of the Thought Worm power (resisted by your tradition's drain stats or by willpower only if mundane), each time you resist the drain damage goes up by 1 and the spent Edge is added to the pool (so if you comply on the 4th order you get 4 edge to spend on the test)

Karma Drain: allows the Horror to drain 1 edge per day from each of it's Horror marked victims

Oh, he was just a wicked Satan Claus too. Not one of the 'good' ones.


Geez, not that load'o'drek 2nd edition storyline. They crossed the lina after Prelude to War...


Wrong - they'd be nigh-unstoppable. Look up again. No damaging abilities beyond 10 miles.


I'd go for 'use Horror's Egde and get Marked if you do what he suggests'. The drain part is okay.


Erm - Edge. ED Karma is like SR Edge, more-or-less.
SR Karma ~= ED Legend Points.

I admit I don't know much about it, but yeah, Scourge Unending is obviously of lower quality. That said, it still does contain the only Horror that I've yet read about who goes around making tainted gear and handing it out—wait! Hey, I forgot Nemesis. Nemesis hands out corrupted goodies and isn't single-target. There's also no need for creative interpretation, because unlike Cauthrunne who only gives out weapons and armor Nemesis just usually gives weapons, and an implanted gift is highly likely to stay in the receiver's possession, so it even makes sense to branch into corrupted 'ware.

(One thing I ponder sometimes is whether low Essence makes one less susceptible to Horrors or more.)

~J

That's an interesting idea. If we are wanting to bring in the ED idea of Pattern and what not, one has to wonder about the effects of ware on that as well.

I could see arguments for both, though on the Horror Mark. On one hand, as there is already "damage" of sorts to one's Essence then the rest would be less like to fend off a Mark. On the other hand, as there is less of one's true self, or whatever, then it's harder for the Horror to target it, yeah?

This would also bring in the concept of either applying a modifier to the Horror's Marking pool of the target's Essence, either positive or negative depending on which way you ran with it.

Or better yet, as the GM take the character sheet, write down some new bit of cyberware at 0 essence cost and hand it back to player with smile. You're character feels ...fine... and saw ...nothing unusual...

That or I'd say watch the Cube movies for inspiration as to what the astral would be like inside Artificer. "I like the blue room."

I actually has an idea about it.

Less essence makes a character easier to take over by the horrors but less, well for lack of a better word, appetizing. Higher essence makes it harder but more worth it, Magic use much more so. Thus burnout mages are particular delicacies to the horrors. They might even cultivate low-essence magic user, helping them regain and use powers.

My idea was to do a champaign around this tracking essence cost, from cyber as a single stat rather than subtracted from essence, and Magic as a separate stat for which having more spells and abilities increased the stat. Thus magic and cyber would not be mutually exclusive per-se they would just be dangerous.

IMHO -
The Horrors aren't here, exactly, or even close. But the aura (?) of them, like a shadow, could be felt. Just sort of hint to your players that the world's seeming a lot more off than you remember it, that the sun's not as warm, the food tasteless, the air thin, even when you're choking in down-town.

Nameless dread is a lot better if it's hinted at, if some guy they're guarding cuts his own throat while the players watch, his observed children die without a mark on them and their mother disappears from the next room mid-tirade leaving nothing but half a foot in her shoe...

Or, being a little more creative, if the program they're running glitches into turtle and the decker sees what could only be a "crack" in the grid, from which something grey and formless drifts and spreads over the networks...

...you know, good old creepy horror rather than "I shoot the tentacles with the minigun"

Have fun now.

Tir

The way I see the Horrors is as farmers. There are many worlds like the world of SR. They move from world to world harvesting fear leaving just enough seeds behind for the next crop to grow. Also like any farmer they watch over their crops; thus why the dragons/immortals don't talk about them.

That may also be why the dragons/immortals don't try to make the world a more peaceful place. Toughen people up for the coming Horrors. If they do it directly and openly the Horrors might show up sooner and decide that the whole field needs to be cleansed and rid of the infestation.

Well, Magic follows rules, and those say, that the ones that have essence-lowering body alterations are more difficult to target with magic. So probably yes, Horrors will have some problems with using their powers on cybered/biowared targets.
Essence is pretty much the same as Pattern - for example, extensive use of Blood Magic (not the azzie kind - that's Death Magic in ED) weakened one's Patttern, to the point of death, where the character did one of few interesting bye-bye effects, like imploding, melting, disintegrating, and such. I always thought that's flashy for a reason - to show what can happen. It could be a simple 'death by depatterning, sould dissolved, body dying'. But that's not illustrating enough for most players.


Good one. Logical, and fun-inducing.

You stole the words from my mouth.

I am a player who very much likes the inclusion of the Horrors in SR4. However, I feel very firmly that it has to be done right.

How to do it right?

* True threats are not seen nor heard, but their influence is felt. The PCs discovering (like in the sense of "evidence or proof") the existence of the horrors should arguably never happen; PCs discovering clues or hints to the existence of the Horrors should be the climax or culmination of a campaign. Keep them mysterious! "It must be Saturday, let's go fight Cthulhu" is not the right way to go here.

* No, you can't shoot that. In fact you can't see it. In fact you don't even know it exists. Horrors, except for the few that are combat-focused, should never be something the PCs can confront in direct physical combat. And those few should be able to reliably gib a powerful samurai in a stand-up fight.

* The worst thing you can think of. Horrors aren't just evil or a threat. They're terrifying because their evil is matched only by their dickery. Raw unapologetic sadism is the order of the day. Cruelly manipulate your PCs into doing things that will make your players want to survive.

* Don't be afraid to kill PCs. Especially if you're the type of GM who never does. If you're the kind of GM who has things like gangers and corporate security patrols and red samurai be a real threat under the right circumstances (like me) this won't work you, but if you're the kind of GM who has the players breezing through powerful opposition all the time, having a long-lived PC gruesomely murdered/mutilated/suicided taking their family with them coincide with the first "appearance" (see above) of the Horrors should really drive the point home that the correct response is FEAR not just buying bigger guns. Note I'm not saying "Assassinate a PC by GM Fiat" that would be super lame. But horrors should be capable of doing things like this by their stats.

* Even badasses are afraid of them. You can accomplish the same as above by having *favorite Shadowrun NPC you feel comfortable using* crap their pants at the mere insinuation that the horrors exist.

* Be aware that used properly, Horrors DO change the tone of the game if implemented right, injecting a bit of Lovecraftian horror and existential despair into a melange of action, adventure, and espionage. My reading of Dumpshock has told me that there are plenty of players who will object to that innjection,...and hard. Be cognizant of your own players wishes.

As for just "let's stat some horrors" hey, I'd be down for that if I have the time. I love statting shit.

Well, right, but the rules aren't always what you expect—a naive application of the rules leads to the idea that Background Count would hinder Horrors, too. I think the ultimate philosophical question here is whether Essence loss would be considered a kind of corruption, or simply a kind of disconnection.

~J

Depatterning doesn't slow ED magic down at all and it is more or less Essence Loss.

This is the core of it—I'm not convinced. Essence Loss doesn't bring with it the kind of amnesia that pattern damage does, not until full cyberzombification. Could you expand on what makes you think this?

~J

IIRC your body functions fine until your depatterning equals your Willpower step. So in ED your essence = willpower. Blood magic is involved in some way in making a Cyberzombie in SR. By definition ED characters are using blood magic to get their DR above their WP. Cyberzombies likewise suffer memory loss and as such are at the same level as someone who's DR > WP. However, the ED character can survive turning himself into a cyberzombie by successfully making Willpower checks. So ED is more forgiving in terms of WP being a soft cap compared to SR's hard cap of Ess. But the intentions are the same.

BTW our ED group doesn't use many blood charms (just some blood magic like groups, oaths, peace, etc). I think we have 5 charms between 2 characters. And 1 is a nethermancer. So my conclusions could be fuzzy.

I can't find any text on general depatterning (don't have much time to search and not deeply familiar with books), but the Nethermancer spell Shatter Pattern describes amnesia from any level of spell success and (depending on how thoroughly we want to disown 2nd Edition) Devourer's description backs that up.

~J

Check the "Theran Empire" Book. They discuss at large depatterning, since its in thet Empire where the most aggressive Blood Charms are being used... in an analogous way as cyberware and bioware are being used in Shadowrun 4.

I'm still a little iffy on equating them due to the spectacular nature of typical depatterning deaths and the entirely unexceptional nature of death from excessive cyberware, but at least the description there isn't missing a major intermediate symptom. I'm going to put that one down as a "maybe".

~J

The analogous use of magic Blood Charms and cyberware is simply because visually and mechanically they serve the same purpose (unnatural augmentation to the body, with an associated cost). I am not saying that depatterning=essence loss by RAW or by RAI.

However, they are close enough that should a plot need to bring this up, it can be done rather easily.

Have we actually ever been told exactly what happens to a metahuman body that has 0 essence? Does it just shut down? Also, the methods are a little different. What would happen if we took a metahuman with 6 essence and implanted 8 points of cyber into it then woke them up? Would the death be just as spectacular as it reacts violently to having that drastic an alteration?

SR works from the assumption of gradual augmentation whereas the assumption isn't so in ED.

Anyway, for the purposes of introducing Horrors into SR and getting this back on topic I'll concede that Magic must continue to work as it always has in SR and thus people with low Essence should have resistance to Horror Powers as if it was regular magic.

Essence 0 = Death. Not by explosion... simply you never wake up from the Street Doc's/Deltaware clinic anesthesia.

Check Sr4, Cybertechnology (from SR2, first book with cyberzombies and first appearance of MBW), SR2, SR1, SR3... Not it that order, but essentially yes, we know what happens when you get to essence 0.

I was under the assumption that low essence only affect effects done by health spells.

Also, "magic" doesn't have set rules in SR. Just look at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, or the Mists in France. The Darkwood in the Troll Kingdom also has a variety of effects, and there is the three kinds of Alchera, one of which completely replaces the landscape, sending the old to some unknown location until the alchera event is over.

Sorcery has "rules", which are the assumed limits of spellcasting. Even the spirits exceed the limits the rules impose once in a while, and new spirits are being introduced as we go.

Well, it does have set rules. Those things you mention are all bound to rules... Which metahumanity doesn't understand or hasn't discovered yet. Magic has rules they just started to understand and still uncover new ones. In Earthdawn it's pretty much the same, because of the Scourge - many magical ways and techniques were lost.

And i wrote:

So i dont imply that those are the same, just that they work the same way - measure the spiritual wholeness of one's body, mind and soul. I didn't see anything about amnesia associated with blood magic use in any rulebook, so that has to be a unique nasty horror-inspired spell from an evil nethermancer. So, all bets are off.
As for the Depatterning, when you pass the threshold (Willpower step), only sheer will holds your body, mind and soul together. When this fails, you die. I was thinking of it, and i got to a conclusion in this matter. That magic you derive from straining your soul with Blood Magic has to go somwhere. Maybe it stays with you, enclosed within your pattern, and when used, it is released, corrupting it. So when you overdo it, and your will fails, you die of magical overload to your pattern. That's why the effect is so flashy.

Anyways, cyberware is not blood magic, but the efect both have on one's pattern is still similar enough to draw a paralel.

It's not connected to blood magic, it's a spell that directly attacks the Pattern. Nothing suggests that it's unique, and though powerful it's still only seventh circle.

~J

Something that occurred to me after talking about Horror's and the Matrix: you know Horrors control Aztech and you know Aztech has a black crystal ice UV node that's rumored to have (or had) and old school super AI either insider or developing inside for decades.

Well Technically I suspect that Horror Corrupted Dragons control Aztechnology.
But the rest of that statement holds up pretty well

Not even the fact that it was implemented in Shattered Pattern - an high-level adventure with the creator of the spell as endboss?

Another though, somewhat random. We know many of the greats and at least a few regulars use the Matrix and we know they've chatted with Harlequin and others about the Horrors...and we know the Deep Resonance remembers all. A small Techno cult that's found that info and is slowly data mining it could be very fun.

Couple things that occured to me, though not in response to anything said here of late-

The arcologies are like kaers. One large, enclosed city, basically, where everything one needs is provided. True, they lack the mojo angle to keep out the Horrors.

Didn't earlier editions, and even in Augmentation there are Negative Qualities mentioned along these lines, that cyberware has a tendency to make one less emotional, detached? Not full on Cyberzombie, like how they were described in SR2's Cybertechnology, but still. The big Horrors like the emotions, particularly the bad types.

Aside from that, yeah. Also aside from the fact that I can't read and 7 is the number of threads, not the circle, and it's actually circle 11.

(I mean, again depending on how thoroughly you want to disown the Second Edition stuff Devourer uses the same spell, so it isn't really unique, but…)

~J

2nd Edition Earthdawn is very similar to Highland 2: the Sickening.
It /never/ happened.

Sort of like Astral Hazing? Which cyberzombies do create. So another parallel there.

I forgot that low Essence only affected Health spells. I was pretty sure that in past editions it affected all magic cast at you. So cyberware doesn't protect you.

Skin Shift: treat it like a version of Turn to Goo?

Most Horrors have access to Spellcasting too and are fairly powerful initiates if you take the Circle = Initiation approach.

Aha. Found a spot where low Essence might help you -- Horror Thread and the various turn to Horror Construct powers (Unnatural Life and Create Shadow spring to mind). Those could best be described as Health rather than Manipulation.

It may have changed in SR4, but while the only spells listed with an Essence modifier in MitS are Health Spells, most Health Spells aren't affected by Essence—Heal, Treat, Alleviate/Cause Allergy, and Decrease [Attr/Cybered Attr/Reaction/Cybered Reaction/Reflexes] are all 10-Essence TN, but plenty of other Health spells including some offensive ones like Cripple Limb and Intoxication aren't affected at all by it.

~J

I was refering to 4th ed, where health spells get a negetive only dice pool modifier of (essence-6). If you somehow have more then 6 essance, it wouldn`t be a dice pool bonus by RAW, though I can see that being an abusable idea for Vampires if the GM allows it...