I guess this is becoming the recruitment thread!

My intention is to start the OOC and IC thread around the 7th March. I will try and ensure that I respond to posts 3 times a week: probably monday, wednesday and saturday as those fit in best with my schedule.

The first game I run in this style will be quite short (for a pbp), will be fairly structured and is telling a specific story: this allows me to find my feet GMing this sort of game, and should engender some pace into the game. If the first game goes well, we'll have another, but that will probably be a lot more sandboxed and political. Many of the PnP campaigns that I run, have lasted for years, so I hope this is the beginning of a long and enjoyable relationship.

In no particular order, the players that I note have registered an interest are. If I have missed you - let me know

• Blackhat
• Ol'scratch - troll alchemist
• Sabs
• Pbangarth
• Halinn
• Zadine

In addition I have 2 others that are planning on playing.

I will be happy to take up to 7 in total, which means that we are already over number. If you all go ahead: well 8 is only 1 more than 7!.

I am still open for receiving stand bys though.

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Back to the original post:

I am interested in running an Earthdawn / Shadowrun crossover game. In this game, the players will all be people who were alive during the Earthdawn period, and alive now. I'll be starting the game in about a month.

Before I start the game, I would appreciate some feedback on whether the character creation feels right.

A basic premise of the game is that for sentient beings memory fades with time: 100 years ago is a long time, 200 is a very long time, and 1000 years is so far back that mostly you remember once remembering things about it.

Another is that of "power level". Power level is the cap of the number of BPs that you can easily gain. After you meet this cap, in order to gain stuff you have to loose stuff. i.e. in the 15th centuary you were probably a dab hand bladed combat. Today you have forgotton those skills, but learn Electronics.

Tier 1 creatures: The great immortals (Harlequin, Ehran, Queen Alachia) have 800-1500 bps.
Tier 2 creatures: Their paladins, a few nobles from the elven courts, lesser dragons, greater drakes have 500-800
Tier 3 creatures: You. Have settled at around 450bp and have been at this very respectable level for around 10,000 years.

Fortunately there are two ways for you to recall long ago times: you can write things down (I suspect most of you will be avid diary keepers) or you relive the memories using a varient of astral questing. This varient means that you literally relive the experience: you (with companions) project into the past and reenact the events. You remember you are from the "future", but you also remember things from that time. Mostly the reenactments follow the same line as they did originally. You can get hurt there, and if you die in the past, it is very bad for you in the present.

When you go into the past, you can shuffle some of your BP that you spent on skills around, and modify your attributes a bit (+/-1 keep the same bps), and your skills (you can mostly respend all your skill bps, please do it in a sensible way and stay recognisably the same). In the past there will usually be a different base mana level. Cyberware will probably not be there (you almost certainly were not cybered when you were there).

You can be opposed in your search for memory. Other people reliving their memories may well be in the same astral quest as yourself, especially if they are trying to hide memories.

The rules for character creation have a few modifiers, given the nature of the game

A brief history


Choices I would like you to make:
How did you survive the last horrors?
What roll did you take in the Egyption period?
What roll did you take in the Greek period?
What roll did you take in the Mayan/Aztec period?
What roll did you take during the reformation, and the growth of technology?
Where were you during world war II
What is your view on technology?
What is your view on Monarchy vs rule of the masses in a world where the monarch is immortal

An observation on xp
Mostly as immortals you have reached your peak power level. Occasionally you learn new skills (mostly knowledge skills), but mostly you forget them as well. Some individuals have a higher natural level of skills. You have been at about the same power level for centuries. The main message here is that the immortals are not gaining xp linearly at 100/year for the last 10,000 years. Don't worry though, there will be a reason that you start earning xp at approximately normal rates soon after the game begins.

How many remnants from the 4th age are there?
A few hundred. The skill 4th age remnant is useful if you want to identify some of them. The problem with memory again

Killing immortals
No one wants a blood bath. Kill one immortal (which is often harder than it looks), and they have friends who will take revenge. Anyway its much more satisfying to embaress and fool.

This sounds interesting. I can't play, both because of time constraints and because I know next to nothing about Earthdawn, but I wonder why Free Spirits couldn't hide in their own metaplanes during the time of the Horrors.

Yes I think that's a very good option for free spirits

Hey was interested in the game, about the drakes though, what meta-races work? All five since they exist back then, or is there a preference/requirement on race?

I see no reason why the dragons cannot have made any of their servants immortal. Any drake is fine.

The premise sounds pretty awesome. I'm definitely interested, but I don't know that much about Earthdawn, though, so I'm not sure I would make the best candidate. Sounsd like the characters don't remember that much from back then, though, so maybe it would work out.

A few other questions you may want to clarify:

As for other metatypes, would any of the infected (with immunity (age)) work, or would you prefer not to introduce infected?

EDIT: Trying to think of other PC options in SR4 that grant Immunity (age) but other than infected and free spirits, I am not coming up with any.

I'm also not sure what you meant by "Damage spells do your magic stat as damage". Does that mean it doesn't matter what force you cast the spell at, its base DV is equal to your magic instead of the force?

EDIT: Had a question about drake's metahuman type, but realized it was basically the same question Drace already asked, so I removed it.

Brainstorming:



Another interesting idea wrt the flashbacks would be if the modified stats we used for one of these time periods ended up being used again, as is, during any subsequent trips back to that same time period. The idea being that when you're projecting into the past, you take on the stats of that version of yourself, which might be noticeably different from the future self, but should be consistent should you later project back to that same time period (thereabouts).

It would be too much work to ask players who are interested in submitting a PC to come up with 5+ versions of that same character, but it might work out well if it was done over time as those time periods were introduced through flashbacks. Then again, if the intent is to be flexible with stats, it wouldn't break anything if a given character had different stats on two different jaunts back to the Egyptian period, for example, either.

I'm a little confused by this bit as well. When you say that they buy attributes the same as other characters, does that mean they all start at 1 and have to be purchased up normally , or does everything still start at 2?

EDIT: Removed content because it wasn't accurate to begin with.

I suspect that people will go back to each period once to find specific things. Of course players can do anything I'd like to keep the character creation to a minimum, so I hope that tweaked versions of the characters will be adequate (i.e. basically respend skill points spent on skills that will be useless in the past)



You buy attributes for free spirits the same as for normal. So you start at 1. You can have body 3, str 1, reflexes 4 if you want. This would cost the same as a normal getting the stats 3, 1 and 4 i.e. 50bp, or 65bp. (50 if your forces is 5 or higher, 64 if your force is 4). The natural maximum is your force. So for the previous example you would have to have force 4 at least.

However to get any physical/mental/edge stat to 7, all the physical and mental stats need to be at least 2, and to get a physical/mental/edge stat to 8, all the physical and mental stats need to be at least 3. If this is too complex an extra rule I can always drop it. I was just doing this is reduce the chance of the 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 10 character

I have played a free spirit for some time now and found them to be a lot of fun. They are weaker than magicians at spell casting, but have tremendous movement powers. I have reduce the cost of the race as I think they were over priced, and the price of buying attributes is now the same as for any other character: with the added benefit that as they progress they can fairly easily get stats over 6. I think they are a lot of fun to play

I really struggle with the infected, so I would rather not have one in the group. I think you have to have a very dark game to support them, and this is hopefully going to be an epic and heroic tale, admittedly set in a dystopian world.

Other ideas I did consider were:

• A character who constantly reincarnates, and is aware of their previous lives. This would I think be easily modelled by a quality, or a metamagic.
• The eternal champion: constantly born at times of crisis...yada yada yada...see Michael Moorcock
• A normal character that made a spirit pact with a free spirit and gained immunity to age: I wouldn't have this costing 5bp/spirits edge though. This makes the character very keen to keep the free spirit alive and is almost a disadvantage worth 10ish bps
• A normal character that found and drank from the fountain of youth. Each time they visit the fountain their age is reset to 15. This too is a disadvantage worth 10ish bps (it would be bad if the fountain were broken
• An alchemist that discovered the recipe for the elixir of immortality: better hope that word of your elixir doesn't get out or some people may come hunting for you.
• A character cursed by a horror they banished. The curse means that the horror wants to meet them again, and has very special plans for them.

Any other ideas like this gratefully received. Some are a bit (a lot) cheesy, but when fleshed out can make for a memorable and interesting character.

Sounds like you have more experience with free spirits than I have, so if you're happy with it, its probably fine. I like that the costs are more equal to metahuman costs.

Fair enough. I was mostly just checking to make sure they didn't fall off of your radar, since I'm sure someone would ask.



Ah, these are the sort of "other ideas" you were thinking off. I'll see if I can think up any other fantasy tropes for immortality - maybe something like Dorian Grey, where there is some physical object that grants the character immortality. Would probably be similar to the spirit pact/elixir idea, except that the character might be able to hide/protect the object.

450 BP is probably a nice manageable level for a higher powered game, but it does strike me as 'unintuitive' that you would consider 50 BP worth of advancement as the upper limit of what a metahuman can learn before they have to unlearn things. According to your rules for initiation, that's basically a starting character who has initiated twice (and raised magic once). In the core book, that puts this characters at about the level of a "superior" prime runner, but well below the "superhuman" level.

From the standpoint of a managable (not-overpowered) game, I agree 450 is a better number, but from the standpoint of a 10,000 year old immortal elf, I would expect a bit more than your basic runner.

One more thing you might consider if you haven't already ruled it out for another reason is that the extra advancement might be better represented through bonus (post character creation) karma, rather than bonus BP? The Karmagen rules generally produce more powerful characters, so that might also be another way to consider going... but both would mean more bookkeeping, especially when adjusting skills through the ages - so maybe its not what you're looking for. The fact that karma costs go up as skills/attributes/initiation/whatever gets higher builds in some limitations on how good someone (even an immortal) can become at something, and encourages people to broaden out over time, instead.

Both of these suggestions probably make playing and running the game more work, but I figured I'd throw the ideas out there in case you didn't already think of them.

Curious what your expectation would be for the average mana level you would expect the PCs to encounter in their jaunts backwards. It seems from the history writeup that its mostly -5 to -10 (except for the years -500 to 500), but maybe you expect that the PCs would have spent that time in a part of the world with a slightly better mana level.

As I mentioned in private, I really like the idea of an alchemist and am running wild with that. But I do have to admit, as I throw down some raw numbers to try to make sure my ideas are feasible, 450 BP does seem rather limiting for this scope of game even with the free abilities. I realize that the idea is that some of this is made up for by the fact that we can specialize our characters based on the individual era in which we're reliving, but it doesn't really feel right, if that makes any sense. Just look at Jane "Frosty" Foster. She's only been around for a few decades and she's well and truly powerful.

That said, I really don't have any other ideas to offer. It does seem strange that there won't be any ally spirits or other things you can purchase only with Karma aside from limited Initiation, though. (I mean, most references on the subject place immortals in the 10+ Initiation range. So in and of itself, that really strikes me as odd, especially since I've played plenty of normal characters who've surpassed Grade 4.)

Anyway, onto other subjects, does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for the shared history between the characters? Most notably where we were stashed away during the Horror invasion in the Fourth World? Personally I think being in a dwarven kaer is the best way to go since it opens up the most possibilities for everyone. The Blood Woods were painfully elven, and being a dragon's pet for so long isn't very appealing either.

Despite being overloaded, I'm toying with the idea of a Free Spirit built around a couple of concepts: limitless imitation/disguise (aura masking - mutable form - realistic form), and a day job in the entertainment industry in LA as a bit player and extra in trideos; and a Buddhist Tradition leading him to explore the many layers of Illusion over top of Ultimate Reality.

As far as a shared existence in a dwarven kaer, all the spirit would need is to have been in there once and he could zap back and forth between the kaer and his home plane whenever. Which, as near as I can tell, makes him a liability were he to ever be taken by the horrors.

Wouldn't that make him a liability in any of the hideouts from the Horrors, though?

Lol, I realized last night that most of what I was saying about the free spirit costs was inaccurate, so ignore my previous post on the topic.

That's what I think Seth needs to consider in regards to his earlier acknowledgment that Free Spirits could hide in their own plane. If the Free Spirit just zapped back and forth between metaplane and kaer, then there would be no problem, I think. Going anywhere else in the physical or astral could be deadly. If Seth allows hiding in the metaplane, then there would likely have to be a strict edict against going anywhere outside the two safe places during the time of the horrors.

Something else I'm curious about regarding the creation guidelines is why does it matter if mana levels raised up to a background count of -10 or even -5? Unless we specifically design our characters so that we're gimp in everything except our Magic attribute, none of that will really matter as we'll still be pretty much next to worthless? Just to get to a Magic of 10, that would cost, what, 175 BP (Grade 4 and raising Magic/Force from 5 to 10) alone. And even if you do so, there's really no incentive to move to those areas as a background count of -10 means you're still at Magic/Force 0. I mean, I haven't played in a while and don't remember all of the rules that well, but I don't think I'm too far off the mark.

That was why I asked what he expected the average background count to be. Free spirits basically can't go into a place with a BG count that would reduce their magic to 0, and everyone else would become mundanes who are probably also uncybered (because it is the past).

I'm somewhat acquainted with Earthdawn lore, but I've never played it, and I'm not familiar enough with the three princes you mentioned for contacts to do justice to describing any relationship between a PC and them. Nevertheless, I am keeping my eye on this thread, so I can ruminate on whether to join or not.

Also, Blackhat, a formula pact with a free spirit also can give a PC Immunity to Age.

I'd just like to remind people that the purpose for this thread is to get the feeling of the campaign correct One problem of the GM of the game, is that it is hard without help to get that feeling correct. I'd like to thank you all for the feedback: quite a lot of it is having an effect.

About the 450 pts: its actually closer to 550 in that there are a load of free contacts, free wealth, free knowledge skills, and the racial cost is free too. Note also that all the bioware / cyberware you have is delta ware, but costs the same as normal. The idea of having lots of knowledge skills is that this captures the experience of the character, the active points control how dangerous. My observations with shadowrunners at this level is that they are insanely dangerous...just as remnants from the 4th age should be. Most security guards have 6 to 10 die in their active pools. Most security systems are rating 4..5, with only a few being 6. Most people in the world have one IP. I will try hard not to have power inflation creep in. I will mostly be playing adversaries as written in the source book for the ephemeral world (and they are really weedy in the source book).

My feeling on the power level in the present day, is that you are not the tier 1 immortals (yet). Frosty is sure a rare individual that Harlequin regards her as worth to train her personally. You lot are more the retainers of the tier 1's, or powerful independents. You are pretty tough (you have survived for many thousands of years) but are not at Erhan's level yet I will be removing the tier 1/tier2/tier 3 from the initial post, and just have 2 tiers. No one really knows how the tier 1's get so tough (but perhaps you will find out)

Thanks for the feedback on free spirits. I have decided to start their attributes at 2, but in all other ways the post is as before. This is a lot of bp bonus, but not a lot of power bonus, and free spirits need love.

My expectation on the magic level is that in the remnants of the 4th age move around to find the highest magic areas (which as I noted got to be about 3 pts higher). This means that in the deep dark ages the magic level was effectively -7, and boy was it tough. Most of the 4th age elves died because it was so miserable. However in world war II we are at -3 (in the places where the remnants hung out) and its a lot less bad. Much of the game will be spent in Earthdawn, world war II, early shadowrun. Some of it mightl be in the dark ages, but only after I have seen how the delving into the past works in practice.

The feedback about "having to gimp everything except magic" is valid, and I hadn't realised. For free spirits thats not a problem: force is their most important attribute anyway, and they need to have a very high force. (this is one reason I just improved free spirits above). With the creation rules as written you can start with magic 10 (4 levels of initiation), but the cost is very high. After quite a bit of thought, I think the best option is to make you all grade 4 initiates as free present from me You still have to pay for the magic attribute, but that should make you all feel a lot more potent. Magic 9 costs 80bps and Magic 10 costs 125bp. If you want to be a mundane, I will give 50 more bps to compensate. I am also adding a free spirit power that allows free spirits to ignore one point of background (this costs one edge).

I'll remind you that in the past you can respend all your bps that you spend on skills, this relevant as it means all the skill points you spend on spell casting, summoning, counterspell, assensing, astral combat, computing... can all be spend on survival skills getting you through the dark ages. I will also allow you to start with twice as many skills at 6 (2 at 6, 4 at 5 or 1 at 6&2 at 5)

Also remember that in the dark ages there were no assault rifles, machine pistols, tasers, heavy armour, tailored pheromones... For large periods / areas there was almost no armour. This means that the die pools for even good opponents are lower.

To summarise the changes (thanks again for the feedback)

• Free spirits start with all attributes at 2
• Everyone gets initiation to level 4 for free, mundanes get a bonus 50bp
• Only two tiers of immortals (the top named individuals) and yourselves
• You start with twice as many skills at 6 if you want.
• A new free spirit power costing 1 edge that allows free spirits to ignore one point of background (can only be taken once)
• One minor change for alchemists: recipes cost 1bp not 3bp

This was quite a big power inflation, but the opponents you face are quite challenging, and I think it more accurately reflects the remnants of the 4th age

The less you know the less I have to worry about accidentally breaking canon and getting caught!

I am AFB at the moment, but I will do a post on the key players for this story, with a bit of background in the next couple of days.

This sounds really interesting, and I would love a chance to play in it.

How about Availability ratings? Do we really need to spend points on Restricted Gear to have something we would have been able to put together ourselves (like an Enchanting Shop for alchemists)?

Also, are the factions you listed earlier in the thread the only ones available? There's one or two other immortals that I think my character would have had a closer relationship with. Should I just take them as regular contacts instead?

If I wanted to play a technomancer, how would the BP shuffle work? Would I in the present have a technomancy BP bonus for some resonance and CFs that vanished on going to the past, and would one be submerged for free as magic types do?

Thanks for the rethink on the costs. I have been having a lot of 'fun' trying to make a Free Spirit that looks tough and ancient.

That new Free Spirit power for background count, does it cost a point of Edge burned to get it, or a point of edge spent to use it?

If it helps, Peter, my character's secondary magical focus deals with summoning and spirits in general, not to mention being quite the Weaponsmith during the Fourth World. As an alchemist/enchanter, he likely could have helped your free spirit find a way to survive the Fifth World and/or hide it away during the Horror invasion, perhaps as a "magic sword" or golem or some such. So if you wanna consider that, maybe we can work on an idea or two to facilitate it. The rules for unique enchantments in Street Magic open up a lot of possibilities. And it would benefit my character, too, as he could definitely have used some protection courtesy of being more of a scholar and scientist rather than a warrior.

Is that a kind way of saying you're not quite ready for people to be submitting character ideas, or should people start talking about what they'd be interested in trying out? Personally, I'm leaning a couple different ways, but could start nailing it down if its time to do that.

I was curious about this as well, it seems like for some gear the PCs would have had thousands of years to locate the item, and then could have held onto it for just as long.

This is worth exploring. My guy is not a possession type spirit, but I understand there are mechanisms for hiding away in items during mana starvation. I don't have a good grasp of how a spirit survives in a gem or sword during down times in the mana. Would he still have his powers? A Free Spirit has a lot of his persona wrapped up in those.

My guy is turning out to be quite the artisan, so you could end up with a singing sword!

That's one of the nice things about unique enchantments, they can do things that aren't normally allowable. The example in Digital Grimoire features a sword, the Black River, that is basically a force 6 weapon focus that anyone can use, magical or mundane, with no bonding cost at all. In effect, a D&D style magic sword. Give it a gander when you get the opportunity. There's tons of possibilities.

As for the artisan bit, that's fantastic! I had already decided that one of my character's metamagic abilities is Centering (Music Appreciation).

I'm getting reeled in here... I can feel it.

Seth, when you say one can buy one pt of Relationship for 1 BP, is that a one-shot deal for 1 BP only, or are you simply stating the exchange rate?

OK even more feedback. Thank you all

Factions:
As far as factions went, I listed ones that I knew something about, if you want to suggest changes to the list go ahead. I will probably have about the same number that I started with, but I am very happy to change the names.

The bp cost for faction is to buy more faction points. You get an initial number, but if you want to spend bps to be on better terms with other hideously powerful immortals, that might be a good thing. It only costs 6 points to turn them from "minor enemy/they have a history with you" to "they like you a bit". To make it even more, I think you can even have -ve points in a relationship (up to about -3, as you will not survive anything worse than that). These don't count against your 35pt disadvantage cost. Go ahead make an immortal your enemy: you know it makes sense

On a game design point of view, I felt this reflected the interplay of hideously powerful, not really understandable elemental forces better than contacts. I may be wrong, so if people prefer the contact mechanism let me know. No one is going to be better than loyalty 2 with many of the immortals though.

Free spirits and mana loss:
Free spirits get a number of "spirit powers" equal to their edge. One of those is a new power that allows you to ignore one point of background. Hence the (confusing) words "costs a point of edge", I should have phrased it better. Note that when your force is reduced, all your other attributes (including edge) are reduced too. This means that you will loose spirit powers in the past (don't worry, every one gets chewed on: there is a reason it's called the miserable dark ages).

Free spirits and surviving crazy low mana levels
A free spirit can infuse its essence into a gem. When this is done, the free spirit cannot go below 1/5 their normal force (force 1..5 -> 1, force 6..10 -> 2), even if the background count goes crazy low. The disadvantage to this is that the free spirit cannot go more than their magic rating *10 meters away from the gem. The spirit take bind its essence to a prepared gem (see enchantment rules for preparing vessels) in a ritual taking from dawn till dusk, but most spend a point of edge. They can unbind themselves (also spending a point of edge in a ritual taking from dusk till dawn). The gem will always be a strong sympathetic link to the spirit, and act as its formula (I hope I got those words correct I am away from books). These crysals are the life boats for spirits. They allow them to carry on operating even when the magic is totally gone: although they are seriously crippled. I do not anticipate that the game will visit time periods when the mana level was low enough to require them, although all free spirits probably had 2 or 3 of them during the last 5000 years. Of course all of those will have been destroyed, and there is almost no chance that a bad guy could get their hands on one of them.

The above is "tech" that is available to all free spirits. If some crazy troll enchanter wants to get involved who knows what could be done! I created the mechanism as a survival story for free spirits, allowing them to still operate when everyone else drops to being a mundane. I don't expect the game to dive this far into the dark ages, but you never can tell with players.

Technomancers
Good question. I spent some time thinking about this and talking it over with other GMs. Our thoughts were as follows:

• Technomancers get 50 bp bonus because they are "mundanes" (no magic)
• In the past they get another 30bp bonus if the resonance attribute is worthless (so from about 1970 onwards you get your technomancy, before that its 30bp bonus)
• Techomancers get the following bonus's from unwired page 137: immunity to crash, immunity to nuke"

This still puts you at a slight disadvantage in the past I think, but makes you ungodly powerful in the present. I will try and not do the power inflation game, so most systems are difficulty 3/4, Tough systems are 5, most megacorps are 6, and a very few (megacorp black systems, immortals...) are level 7 or 8. With resonance 7 or 8, stealth/exploit at 8, and a helping level 4 or 5 registered sprite you can sail through anything up to the level 7 or 8 systems. This is an interesting roleplaying thing, as in the past you have been much less useful and suddenly you have come into your own. All that time you knew you were special, and now you are!

Restricted gear
I am letting people buy deltaware at the same cost and availability as standard
If you have 4pts in a making skill you can make stuff up to availability 16. You still have to "buy" it with money and you still need to pay bps to attune to it if needed.
If you have 6pts in a making skill you can make stuff up to availability 20. You still have to "buy" it with money and you still need to pay bps to attune to it if needed
Cybertechnology counts as a making skill for bioware or cyberware.
If you really want a unique enchantment, send me the details and I will work out a cost. Remember that the level of enchantments is reduced by the background count.


Well I am on holiday at the moment, and away from books. Also I want to get the feel of the game correct before I kick off. I think I will start the recruitment thread very early March. I have two real world people who will be playing:

• A bear shifter who was once a horror construct, and is linked to the life of the horror that created him. You can call him Mr Tank.
• An elven horror hunter, who was once a dual class Nethermancer/Horror Hunter.

I'm planning on 5..7 players, so the ones that have registered an interest here will be taken in "first come first served" basis. (that includes people that have already posted registering an interest). This will be my first time GMing a pbp (although I have GMed for 25 or so years) so I intend to be as careful as possible: I think its different GMing pbp, but I am not sure how yet.

If you want to avoid having to shift skills around too much from age to age you could do a sort of scaling system for certain skills. Like... from Earthdawn to Victorian era automobile driving and repair become carriage driving and repair. Gun skills become crossbow/ballista skills, etc. Follows the idea that you're not just going to wake up one day and decide to completely get rid of a skillset/talent.

Also, I'm thinking about either an arcane theorist and scientist --> technomancer or a druid.

I think I'll try my hand at a technomancer elf, then.
Scientist and martial artist in earlier times, who started to get a feel for machines. I'm assuming free submerging, like magic types get initiations. Technomancy could even still be useful earlier, with resonance trodes. So in times past, the mind was manipulated, and now it's tech of all sorts.

Edit: scratch this. I just can't get it to work with an immortal, being as shadowrun-specific as technomancers are.

I was going to suggest this, but it sounds like you're changing your mind about it anyway. Might still be relevant to Zadaine.

A Free spirit could not have zipped back and forth.

A Kaer amongst other things had Wards and Barriers both physical and Metaphysical to stop such things. Remember, some Horrors were free spirits. You can't be zapping back and forth at all. Think of a kaer as one of those Panic Rooms in a house.


Seth, is there still room in the game for one more? I am a SERIOUS Earthdawn addict

Once a spirit has been inside a ward, say by being invited in, it can come and go as it pleases by dematerializing, going to its home plane, going to the astral inside the ward, and materializing.

OK, I'm utterly failing here. I'm looking for the reference to support this but can't find it. There is a specific reference to a magician having to be careful about inviting a spirit into his mana lodge, for this reason. Can someone help me out?

Invitation working that way does not jive with the Earthdawn fluff. There were tons of Horrors that got a hold of 1 person, but spent years weakening to the wards so they could break in fully. If they could have just made that 1 person invite them in to by-pass all the wards. Wow. Also, Kaers are more complicated, they're ritual wards put up by many people using special materials and rituals. It's not 1 Magician, it's a 100 magicians working in concert.

Perhaps in Shadowrun it can do that, but being able to do that in Earthdawn is actually world-breaking.

I'm still undecided about joining, but I have a question about the factions.

Should we have any sort of relationship with Icewing/Ghostwalker, Lofwyr (forget what his name was in ED), and/or the Denairastas clan? I've gotten the impression from the limited Earthdawn information I know that there were more than a few immortals in that clan, being fathered by the great dragon The Outcast, but I don't know much else about them.

I see your point. I thought that once people hid inside a kaer, they were there forever. Thus preventing Horrors from getting at them at all. As I say, I know little of Earthdawn.

No, A Kaer is a complex set of layered Magical and Physical Defenses. Physical walls, physical traps, Magical walls, magical traps. Red-herring wards that are there to confuse the magically aware Horrors, so that they spend literally 100's of years figuring out how to break the ward, but never figuring it out because that ward doesn't really work, so nothing they do will 'work'. They were protecting themselves from amazingly powerful magical creatures with millenia of magical knowledge. Some horrors were purely physical, some were purely astral, and some were both.

A Kaer also was openable, they had clock that told them what the magic level out in the world was. Earthdawn background is that Magic leveled out higher than they expected, and just stayed there. So some people opened up their Kaers and went exploring. Most horrors are gone, though some still exist, and people are returning to a new life.

What's unclear is if this is a double-dip magic cycle, or not. We're at a Plateau. What happens when that Plateau ends? Does the Magic level go back up, unleashing horrors again, or does it start to nose dive. We know that eventually the Isle of Thera explodes, marking the end of the 4th World. But we actually don't know how much time passes between the Earthdawn setting and that.

sabs, out of curiosity, has it ever been explained in ED fluff what it is about Egypt that makes the dragons so reluctant to venture there? You seem like the most ED-knowledgeable person here right now.

There's a few things I think we need to talk about and decide as a collective whole. For instance, why are we all so closely knit and what brought us together? Are we part of a magical group that's persisted through the Fifth Age? What kind of shared experiences do we have? How have we managed to stay friends, or at least associates, through the ages? Did we have some magical means of staying in contact with one another similiar to the orbs Dunkelzahn and Ghostwalker used in the Age of Legends? Do we have any common enemies or friends of a noteworthy nature? etc.

I don't know why, but my natural inclination is that we were a somewhat legendary group of adventurers during the Fourth World. Since we're only "second tier" immortals, I doubt we influenced nations or anything, but we could have easily been in the upper echelon of adventurers, moving and shaking things behind the scenes. I can also see us gathering together to catch up on old times and look out for each other whenever we moved to new areas of the world during the various time jumps. I think that'd be more fun than everyone being off doing their own thing (not to mention easier on Seth).

Just something to start chewing on.

Creanan myth states that dragons sleep beneath Creana, and that no dragon can walk on the earth or fly through the air of that ancient land.

Basically, we never get told why. But Great Dragons won't go to Creana even in Earthdawn. Since Creana is Egypt, this is why they avoid Egypt like the plague. It's more cross-over stuff. Unfortunately it's not really talked about /why/ just rumors.

If we are a group hanging together through the ages, should our Relationships with the big Names be roughly similar?

EDIT: ... both in pluses and minuses. I'm going to have to read up on those guys, maybe in AH's encyclopedia.

I assumed the plan was that the PCs at least teamed up a lot over the ages. Otherwise when they all project back in time, they could potentially be scattered across the world, doing totally unrelated (but equally important) things. Whatever is decided among the PCs, its probably going to be important that they would have spent a significant amount of time together, during each of the major ages.

Some bits of Earthdawn lore that I like, that answer some of your questions since my last post

Threading:
The world is like a tapestry and your lives are like threads moving through the tapestry. You can spend part of your life force (karma) to permantly bind your thread to other others. Examples are binding your self to your magical weapons: the stronger the weaving the more you can use the weapon. Of particular relevance to this group however are the group bonds. It is possible to create an adventuring group, then bind your threads together. In shadowrun terms this is a magical group, but its much stronger than that.

You are all members of a group (I suggest you think of a name), and benefit from that group bond. Group bonds do impose restrictions upon you (it is hard to act against another member of the group) and this is especially true for you as the group has lasted for thousands of years growing stronger.

Note that it is not necessary for you to "like" each other, its just that you work well together, and your fates are constantly bound together.

As far as communicating with each other: your group bond transmits extreme emotions. Should one of you die, a psychic burst will propogate to the other detailing the events of your death. (this is powerful insurance against those that know such things, as they know if they kill one of you, they attack you all). As the magic levels increase, the powers of your group bond will increase. At the moment it was very little effect (other than tying your fates together, and the limited communication described above).


Kaers:
These are magical constructs thousands of years of magical learning beyond shadowrun. They take decades to make. Blood runes are carved into the very rock itself. The description given above was excellant, and if anything undersold how strong they are.

Getting out of the Kaers:
Each Kaer had a thaumaturgy-ometer. A ball of true earth suspended above a bowl of true water. As the magic increases the repulsive force increases. At the height of the horrors, the ball reached its apex. The Therans, who distributed the "tech" for the Kaers stated that when the ball touched the water it would be safe to do so.

Something strange happened just as the ball was about to touch the water: it stopped dropping. For 50 ears many communities waited desperate to leave the kaers, but the ball never touched the water. Gradually the kaers opened: the magic level strong enough to support the weaker horrors. This is the world of Earthdawn.

Friends and enemies
Almost all the friends and enemies that you made during Earthdawn are dead. To your knowledge no other group with a group bond has survived all the way through the 5th age, and made it to the 6th (you may be wrong...remember what I said about memory).


I think Lofwyr was called "Goldensnout". I have no problems with individuals being fathered by the Outcast. I don't have much data on Denairastas (the outcast). Most drakes I think were created by Ghostwalker. As far as relationships go, I'll look at what people spend their relationship points on.

Yes

Street Magic page 94. But as has been pointed Kaers are "special", and as guarded on the metaplanes, as they were on the astral and physical (well beyond shadowrun's magical capabilities - unless some immortals remember a way)