Absolutely: Angel's aura is 10m across, your's barely reaches beyond arms length. (Mind you: if you grapple a spirit it's toast).

Seth, can I get the Magical TacNet to give them a path to follow.
And I'm going to Astral Project into the Temple, whilst holding the dagger and the skull. To look around.

Hehe, well, I guess that saves me the trouble of compiling a machine sprite to pilot it . Can I split the first aid between stun/physical? I'm only down 2 of each, and with 20 dice he should be able to just buy the necessary successes to cover those, even if they're separate tests.

Still going to make myself an admin account just in case, but I'll leave the wireless whichever way the sprites prefer .

@Edana
With the 7 successes that he rolled, he can heal 5 things.
I suspect there is a RAW order that things get healed in, but I'm mostly not worried, and anyway you are only down 4.

MR CHIPS might need to run a diagnostic on Immortal Li, its a good thing that Evo-Orderlies have robotic arms especially designed for doing that sort of thing.

@Sabs
You brave dwarf you. Alyena is just putting her hands over her eyes and saying "You what! Please tell me again. No this is just a bad dream".

I'll give you a minute of messing around while the others are grouping. During that time you work out how the magical TacNet works (you have been kind of busy up till now). Your head is beginning to hurt with the hard thinking you have put it through.

The tacnet will run just like a standard tacnet, except it needs to run over a mind net. Mandala can cast that spell, I don't know if anyone else can. The bonus's are capped at 3, with the same sort of rules as normal (except the one about the number of sensors you need to have). You have to spend a complex action to activate it. It will collapse if the mindnet goes down.

I'll do you an IC post when I have thought about what you find in there...can I get an assensing roll and a composure roll anyway?

@General
I don't think I am behind on answering any questions. If I have missed anything please tell me again.

Worse comes to worse, Marduk will die a horrible painful death.

intuition(3)+assensing(6) = 9d6 6 3 3 3 6 1 6 2 4 (3) hits.
Composure, thats' willpower+charisma right? 6 2 4 6 6 3 3 2 1 6 2 (4) hits

Ask Boris if that's really the worst. Cyberzombie Marduk. I like the sound of it.

Given that Marduk's powers are assensing and knowledge skills I don't think it would change him much.

Besides, he's got to get my Body before he can Cyberzombie me.. I don't think he has enough time in the next 15 minutes.

Uh oh. Mandala's Mindnet has been down for about 10 combat rounds. He dropped it way back to avoid the -2 penalty for sustaining a spell.


I need help figuring out what Mandala will be like in the Fourth World. Folks here are talking about being different kinds of 'adepts' back then. I have no idea what that means. Sorry, I'm just ignorant of most things Earthdawn.

I'm a little weak on this topic. Spirits existed in Earthdawn, but it wasn't a player option

• One option is that you weren't free yet, but were one of Alyena's pets (shes a fine upstanding Nethermancer)
• Another is that you are a free spirit masquerading as .... in which case you can masquerade as anything you want.
• Masquerade as a thief would be good: everyone expects thiefs to be a bit secretive.
• Masquerade as a rare adept class: Herald (so rare I just made it up) whose powers are not well known by the general population
• You could be a known free spirit: that would make you something of a celebrity, which has pluses and minuses

That is an excellent question. To my knowledge, spirits are not a playable race in Earthdawn. However, I only now have the 3e core GM and PC compendiums, so it's possible that earlier/other books have rules for playing as spirits. If anyone would know, it'd be Seth or sabs. We could try helping you build ED Mandala using the rules for spirit NPCs.

@Seth: Just a couple quick things before I get some much needed sleep (it's been a rough day):
1. I'm pretty sure Fearghas would be a dualclass adept. One of those is Swordmaster, I'm pretty sure, it just fits his personality better than Warrior. I was originally thinking the other would be Wizard, but I realized that the Wizard adept is very similar to hermetic/chaos tradition magic, where Fearghas follows the charisma-based Path of the Wheel. Elementalist doesn't really fit his concept, and neither does a Nethermancer. Illusionist might work, but those are all the magician Disciplines in the ED player's book I finally got. Do you know of any others from earlier editions or supplemental books or whatever?
2. Maybe I missed something, but should I be worried that this Mr. Chips guy knows what a Horror is, given the super-hinting and vague treatment they've been given in all the non-novel SR material? Including that the immortals apparently are a little afraid to even talk about some Horrors, given the power of Names? Or are you just simplifying the explanatory parts IC to make it easier for us? I'm just curious.
3. Out of curiousity, whatever happened to Zadaine? Is he still interested in playing?

MR CHIPS is hyper intelligent, and has been living in a pyramid spying on a horror for years, and listening to you lot. He's worked it out.

I believe that I made a mistake with Mr Zadaine: I didn't put him on the reserve list. Thank you for pointing him out. Ah well one more will be fine: another learning lesson for GMing this kind of game. Alyena runs a scouting group (two beaver colonies...6 to 8 year olds), and the hardest part of the job is managing the waiting list. I begin to see her problems.

Did you decide whether or not we are still using SR rules for the ED stuff (I may have missed it)...

I've got an old ED rulebook and I'm sure I can approximate air sailor powers from the SR adept power list...

The pipes for the blood ward are embedded in the concrete of the pyramid. This is of course maintenance hell, except that they have some pigs that they use to crawl along the inside of the tubes and keep them clean. There are three places where the pipes are exposed: these are the blood pump rooms

• One of them is the room opposite Angel's original room.
• One of them is in the temple (NE corner IIRC)
• One of them is in the top level (just above the temple)

Currently the rage spirits have trashed the pump in the room opposite Angel's room. Blood is not spewing out into the room, so you would guess that they have valves that prevent this.

Someone with mechanical engineering skills would be able to do something. And with a suitable roll (preferably standing in a pump room) I'll give more data. Marduk has already identified and located suitable chemicals.

Obviously the more access points you inject chemicals into the more effective the result will be.

The "Herald" idea sounds like something Mandala would like. Can someone explain or point me to an explanation?

Man, from our backgrounds, it would be amazing if Immortal Li and Mandala did not know each other! At least in passing or by reputation. Take a look at Mandala, PoliteMan, and tell me what you think. We could have some fun with a 'reunion' in the midst of a Horror's stronghold.

Edit: "Ahh.... sooooo.... we meet at last, Immortal Li. I am Mandala. I have long desired to make your acquaintance. How unfortunate to do so in such circumstances. Interesting times, no?"

I think, what would make sense for Mandala, is that he was a Free Spirit who was impersonating a Troubadour. That seems to fit well with most of his powers. (Admittedly not so much the stunball but hey.. )

Adepts are known quantities, but Human adepts were known for funky tricks. And even amongst Adepts, they sometimes would develop slightly different power structures. (in the fluff).

Fearghas: If anything, given the fighting style you've displayed. I would go with warrior/swordmaster. You've been doing Airstrikes most of the game Fearghas not being a warrior would be weird. You could have developed the 'spellcasting' part more recently. You have after all seriously expanded your skills in the last 2000 years.

I invented it yesterday. However it sounds exactly like an ED adept. With powers for travelling, gaining (legal) access to premises, beaurocracy maybe, and a loud voice that people listen too.

Have to say I agree

Ditto. Warriers get cool powers like air dance, gliding stride, death from above... pretty much all levitate powers.





Remember I only need the titles, so that I can distribute nice fluffy powers and loot.

Seth here is that roll you wanted:

15d6: 1 6 6 4 5 4 5 6 3 4 6 4 3 6 3: (7) hits.

Here goes nothing!

Yeah, "Troubadour" sounds even better! I'll go with that. Have fun with the kinky stuff, Seth.

@Sabs
Good time for a good roll

@Mandala
Kinky? I wasn't going to get stuff from The Book of Erotic Fantasy but if you insist.

Wow, yeah, just double checked that. We must have bumped into each other at least once in couple thousand years. I'd imagine, given the Buddhist and Confucian beliefs, they've had at least a few philosophical discussions. And yet we haven't really seemed to recognize each other yet. Li, at least, looks and feels very different from how he was back in the day, which might explain it.

OK, well unless Seth has a problem with it, I can have Mandala RP a little shock at the transformation... as we high-tail it away from the ravening spirits.

Make it so Number One.

@General
I have made a link to all the conversations that the Horror has had with you. This should help clarify the horror's motives., although as everyone knows the plans of the horrors are incomprehensible.

My plan now is to to let you lot get together and coordinate a mini-ritual for a trip to the past. If you decide to go do something else that is OK too. You are now in "sandbox" mode: i.e. I will only be responding to what you do, not driving events. Mind you if you leave it a while, I might trigger an Apocalypse!

Alyena is away this weekend (lots of Scouts/Cubs/Beavers) so I will have plenty of time to sort out Earthdawn stuff.

My guess is we would like to deal with the pump first, no?

yes, and I'd like to know if my attempts to use the tacnet to mind-speak with Alyena are successful, or a giant dud

A giant dud. Mostly doesn't work through a ward (subtract the level of the ward - 12 in this case - from the force of Mindlink spell).

Then Marduk will go back to meet up with everyone else

That is a good point. I guess my problem is that Fearghas is rather spread out in his roles. There are some aspects of his character that are compatible with Swordmaster, some with Warrior, some with Illusionist (mostly non-combat ones that I haven't touched on yet), and even a small few that are compatible with Wizard. His fighting style does fit well with a Warrior/Swordmaster combo, you're right, but it seems odd to me that someone from the Denairastas clan (who are predominantly magicians, because their free dragonkin low-light vision and Astral Sight make them good at that) wouldn't have some skill in one of the spellcasting Disciplines. I've also been meaning to have fun with Phantasm once we left combat anyway.

What about Warrior/Illusionist? Does that seem fitting? I suppose he could also have a couple circles in Swordmaster if he needed it.

e-do: Just thought I'd let you know that I like your writing thus far, even if Fearghas is going to hate Boris's cybered guts with a sarcastic passion.

Warrior/Illusionist, with no swordmaster would be lovely. I don't think you need Swordmaster. Swordmaster is Erol Flynn, maybe Zorro.

Don't forget that most people were one type of adept. Its not like d20 where you can easily multiclass: it is quite hard to multi-class in Earthdawn. Two is possible, three I think is too hard. (I had to check my to, too and twos quite hard there)

In the case of swordmaster, the kind of things they get that warriors don't are "heartening laugh", "resist taunt", "winning style", and my very favourite "graceful exit". Warriors get probably more leaping and bounding feats and IMO are better at being...well...warriors.

Warrior/Illusionist would work well I think.

Mandala, Li is kinda hurt and not the toughest guy in the best of circumstances. He's probably going to see if he can make a Spirit Pact with Mandala in the near future, looking at that Immunity to Normal Weapons power. If you're interested, take a look through my spell list and see if anything catches your eye.

For the Earthdawn part, Li is probably a mix between Kung-Fu monster and healer (rather than his current spellcasting focus). Not sure which rule system we're using, for Earthdawn I'll probably need some help. As an aside, his skills should reflect a pure martial artist who's begun to branch out into spellcasting/healing. For fluff reasons, he's a very idealistic, kinda traveling do-gooder so there's plenty of way he could end up outside of Cathay.

PoliteMan, Seth wants ItNW to be unshareable, and I can see his reasoning, as things would have to get pretty ugly if all of us needed to be attacked by guided missiles in order to be damaged.

The argument that ItNW is pursuant only to the spirit power Materialization suffers a bit, though, as it comes with the Mist Form power as well. Nevertheless, I am happy to go with whatever Seth wants in his game. In this particular scenario, background count is hurting us badly, and Mandala has Seth's handy-dandy Resistance to Background (1) power, which he is happy to share. It would take us about half a minute to go through a Spirit Pact ritual. Aria is also interested in a Spirit Pact. We have to be careful, though. Half a minute here, half a minute there, and we soon use up the 13 minutes or so we have left to bring down the outer ward.

Yeah, Li has several spells Mandala would like to use for a while. Shape [Metal] seems like it was made specifically to fuck with old-style, non-Matrix-integrated blood pumps. And while Mandala isn't exactly a combat-heavy kind of guy, he is mobile as all get-out.

So. Let's get together down in room 27A, which is the place we are supposed to guard at all cost, get the magical tacnet up and running, and then see if we can save our asses by causing the outer ward to drop. A couple of us can nuke a pump while a few more keep the Horror busy for a turn or two. Easy, right?

Probably made easier by the fact that the Horror is very cross at the moment, and killing his own minions in a fit of rage.

*fingers drumming together in front of his face* Eeeexcellent! My plan is coming together perfectly!

You need a white cat Mandala. It sounds better if you are stroking a white cat when you say those things

Mandala could Materialize with a white cat attachment.

I've got something I'd like to try which might help us getting from point A to point B through heavy fire. Not sure how well it'd work.

Molten Metal Golem:
Step 1: Summon Fire Spirit
Step 2: Summon Wall of Lead (or other low melting point metal)
Step 3: Have spirit melt metal.
Step 4: Shape Metal into desired form (giant golem)
Step 5: Possess or Animate golem
Step 6: ???
Step 7: Profit!

Sorry about the cyberzombie bashing - nothing personal

I was hoping to be ready for the quest to the past by today, but its taking me a bit longer than I thought to get ready. We should be ready to kick off by the weekend. The search for a horror's true name, starting from the heart of his power should be memorable I hope.

Could you make sure that you are all IC in room 27a (if that's where you are going to set off from).

If there are any magical goodies that you especially want yell now!

My plan is to give everyone 1 point of buying per 5 points of resources spent on the current character. Each point will buy a magical do-hickey: weapons, armors, charms. You will be starting from an embassy ball given by the Therans. I'll also be given everyone a named magical item that in Earthdawn you would have spent xp learning how to use.

My assumption is that you are here representing the Blood Elves. All of you that are elves are of course still bleeding...mu ha ha. You are also mostly immune from people trying to pick you up for a casual one night stand... If you want to be here representing a different kingdom, or as a servant in disguise just let me know.

Can I be here Representing Throal?

Probably there representing Cathay, or Lung. Don't know much about ED. Are we using ED rules?

Fearghas is too strongly against Alachia and the Ritual of Thorns to have been a Blood Elf. When in the 4th age is this going to have taken place, again? Whether he would still be serving the Denairastas clan would depend on when this took place and whether he'd fled Iopos and joined the group already.


@sabs: If you're up for it, I could go with Fearghas being still involved with the Denairastas (which would mean he'd be at least a little fascist) and working as an agent to further their plans to defeat both Throal and Thera. Maybe it could even be the first time he crossed paths with everyone else. If you're up for a little IC antagonistic relations RP, of course.

@Seth: Is it just me, or does it seem like most of the non-blood magic items in ED are rather lackluster? Like a bedroll of comfort, a light-up quartz crystal, an air elevator, a dirt-magnet broom, a mug that fills itself with nice water once a day, boots that keep themselves dry, one-size-fits-all hats, and so on... it seems like you almost HAVE to go into blood charms or threaded stuff to get anything mildly interesting. Am I missing something? =/

@PoliteMan: No, we're keeping with SR ruleset. Also neat idea with the golem, although I'm not sure how easily you could shape the metal into a golem (especially since it would need flexible joints in order to move). I myself was thinking of trying to find a way to Call some unusual spirit like an insect spirit or a tangleweb and negotiate for their exotic assistance, but that's a no go since the blood ward has cut off access to and from the metaplanes.

Real magic items are threaded. Legend is power.

And I'm completely up for you being a Denairastas that would be cool. Marduk isn't going to be happy with either Thera or the Blood Elves. so

I suppose it could work if I play Mandala as ignorant of the affairs of the 4th world as I am. Maybe the time we go back to is round about when he becomes Free and would therefore be quite naive about everything Earth.

I might have asked this already, but is there somewhere online I can look to get a rough idea of what the ..... you guys are talking about?

Turns out there isn't a whole lot on the Internet. I have a load of old books that I use. Here is some links anyway

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthdawn
http://eeeekasearthdawn.wikispaces.com/Places

Basically the Therans are a very high magic powered empire. They rule a large part of the world, and consider the bit you come from a rebellious province. You consider them slave owning, totalitarian despots who are trying to conqueror the lands you live in.

The Therans have a technique for keeping the mana level stable: it should be dropping but it isn't. Your sages are telling you that cataclysms will occur if this isn't stopped (I gave the example of the elastic bad earlier). The council of princes of your lands have agreed to do a raid, and your group has been chosen to do it. You are not entirely sure why you have been chosen, but there is a load of filthy loot plus the fact that you may avert the cataclysm to consider.

The scene will kick off at an Embassy dinner in Great Thera, and I'll

Hmm, I can't really find any info on Cathay. Luung runs a monastery, the five kingdoms are split, and they fought off a Theran invasion. That's about all I got. Anybody got any more info.

Took a look at Adepts, I'm curious about Sky Raiders but Warrior or Swordmaster would probably work fine, dedicated to the passion Mynbruje.

From a build perspective, this is a wandering warrior/do-gooder type. Probably mostly focused on unarmed combat and mundane healing. It'll take time for his magical focus to grow, spurred by Lung and an effort to normalize Cathay/China's mana level.

Also, regarding build, am I reading the critical strike power right? It's limited only by your magic level, so with Magic 9 you could have 9 levels of critical strike? That seems...powerful.

I'll try to post a preliminary build tomorrow or the day after.

Thanks, I'll look into those websites. It may be the weekend before I can spend a lot of time doing that.

I've made a stab at Earthdawn skills and powers (changing as little as possible but being close to how I imagine an air sailor might be)

Comments very welcome!

<<Ryl>>

Don't know about equipment goodies yet - can I request my own air ship?

Don't think as an aparant human that I'm a likely advocate for the Blood Elves either, more likely there as a representative of a merchant prince or free trader?!?

Seth looking at Ryl, and I had some questions.

How did you want to handle Half-Magic?
I think also there should be some discounts for Discipline talents, effectively.

Ryl, so you have an idea what Air Sailors can do.

Initiate:
Navigation, parry, Speak Language, Throwing Weapons, Unarmed Combat (all magical)
First Circle:
Discipline Talents:
Air Sailing, Avoid Blow, Climbing, Karma Ritual, Melee Weapons
Novice:
Talent Options:
Air Dance, Durability(Medium), Great Leap, Haggle, Heartening Laugh, Missile Weapons, R/W Language, Wind Catcher
Second Circle:
Adept ads +1 to his Physical Defense
Discipline Talent: Distract
Third Circle:
Empathic Sense
Fourth Circle:
Karma: adept may spend 1 karma on dex tests.
Discipline Talents; Air weaving
Journeyman:
Talent options:
Acrobatic Strike, Disarm, Etiquette, Lasting Impression, Lion Heart, Riposte, Tactics, Taunt.
Fifth Circle:
Collaborate: once per round, when performing the same type of action as an ally, the adept may take some strain to grant the ally a bonus to an action test towards achieving common goal.
Discipline: Swing Attack

At best you'd have 1 or two talent options from journeyman, and probably 5-6 fromt he Initiate and Novice talent options. You would also have all the Discipline Talents.

I think that we cannot do full earthdawn: I asked back in May and generally speaking people were opposed to the idea of learning a new system and making a character in it. (Personally I love learning new rule systems and making new character...but hey)

So that means I will be giving people cool funky powers lifted straight out of earth dawn, and giving them shadowrun game mechanics. (its this task that's taking me a while)
Example: Air sailing: well its a skill...
Avoid blow/Melee/Durability/...many others: not migrating it
Air Dance: Big bonus on initiative
Great Leap: what it says
Heartening laugh: buff on resisting social interactions / fear
etc

So everyone will probably get 5..10 extra powers.

I'm not planning on migrating half magics or knacks at the moment.