I prefer my OED for that sort of thing.

And dare I ask what this turn to goo nonsense is about? And how could that be simpler than crossing the channel/Irish Sea in a 'Zode under cover of darkness?

Oh god, turn to goo?
That thing was broken in the wayback, I shudder to think of what some of the greater deviants here would do with it.

But to sum up - running in England has got to be frosty or very gutter. Do poke your GM and find out what he's aiming for, so you can make a character that would be playable and suit the game they're running (Translation: so you can min-max the frag out of that thing).

Having them speak english would be a good start, as well.



And now I have to explain to my minions why I'm laughing at them. Thanks


-Tir

"Our runs have stopped being so much like Gandalf with an AK to something more akin to Team Venture with Dr Orpheus running astral and the boys with dikoted katanas. This has been considered an improvement"

I think it's going to be pretty gutter, but with a freeze warning for the greater London area (i.e. pretty mirrorshades, but plays like (and draws inspiration from) the Guy Ritchie films). And of course I want to min-max the thing. If I'm going to be from Belfast (woo United Ireland! Erin Go Bragh! etc. etc.!) I'll probably take Bilingual for Irish (or whatever that Elven language is, if it is more prevalent) and English.



I'm glad you thought the joke funny. And I get the feeling our runs are going to be Big Chris and Little Chris and Eddie and his pals team up and steal the paydata so Barry the Baptist (or the Guv'nor if you prefer) doesn't drown us in oil drums more than Gandalf (toting Glamdring in one hand and an AK in the other) and the Terminator invade Mordor (which, now that I think about it, would make an awesome run).

Sure, why not. You just have to think ahead and build it into the devices (and obviously, it won't work for most bodyware). Smartlink - place the chip close to the skin. It's pushed into a chip reader. Replace the wires with something low-signature. Cybereyes - remove them and put in some trashy temporaries. The socket is what holds all the good stuff, and it has to be accessible for maintenance. Same with ears. Now you can walk in with a full cyber sensory suite + smartlink, and all you have to show for it is a few cheap and legal implants, and a left-over fiber-optic cable from some previous endoscopy work. Spurs, leave the anchors in. Heck, if you can leave the wires in (or tuck them into something else, like a datajack or simrig), you can just leave all the wiring in and internal jacks or slots, which the pieces can be attached to, enough for VCRs and skillwires.

Yes, it would require some pricey custom cyberware (since you're adding additional 'cuts' in the hardware). But I doubt it would more than double the cost, and it'll make them practically invisible, insofar that they literally aren't there.

English, Irish Sperethiel and Irish Gaelic are all popular there, and there are plenty of radical/fringe/political groups you could belong to (any one of which could be just for flavor as a casual sympathizer, or a perfectly good reason to no longer be in the Tir, if the Constabulary really considered you "in").

I'll talk to my GM. Is there any basis for this in previous editions of the rules? If I could point to that I'd be able to get some sort of idea of the costs. I'll have to figure out what sort of surgery would be necessary to reattach all that stuff, of course, but that's another issue as well. Still gonna cost an arm and a leg though.



Sperethiel is the Elven tongue, yeah? Where can I find more info on these groups, Shadows of Europe?

Various dictionaries or a hardcover edition of CLRS are fine choices to whack pesky customs officers, but none of these include anything about Viral Huntington's. Hardwired, which apparently some people on this forum still have not read, does.

Yes, Sperethiel is SR's Elvish. Unlikely that it's your native tongue unless you're over 7000 years old, though.
Also the most complex language ever according to the old Tir Tairngire sourcebook (tonal language, horribly intricate grammar etc.).
I'd get it at Rating 1-3, with a specialization in the Tir na nOg accent, and pick English and Gaelic as your mother tongues if you go for bilinguality.
Sperethiel is more of a ceremonial prestige and cultural pride thing for 6th world elves. But then, i'm basing this on information that's 20 years old ingame. Might be different nowadays.
Still, the fluff seems to indicate that Gaelic is more widespread than Sperethiel in Tir na nOg, at least unless you're part of the elven nobility, and it also sees some use in areas of the UK, particularly the Wild Lands.

The most in-depth source for you would be the Tir na nOg sourcebook (SR2), btw. Shadows of Europe most likely has some stuff as well that's a little more up-to-date, but i don't own that one yet.

The whole IRA crew had become more or less the government in the Tir after they got taken over by an immortal elf (well, that was before the elfs took over completely) and there's no Real IRA in SR AFAIR.
The terrorist groups that are still active are mostly Protestant (New Ulster Revolutionary Movement and Ulster Liberation Front).

Yes, Sperethiel is SR's Elvish. Unlikely that it's your native tongue unless you're over 7000 years old, though.
Also the most complex language ever according to the old Tir Tairngire sourcebook (tonal language, horribly intricate grammar etc.).
I'd get it at Rating 1-3, with a specialization in the Tir na nOg accent, and pick English and Gaelic as your mother tongues if you go for bilinguality.
Sperethiel is more of a ceremonial prestige and cultural pride thing for 6th world elves. But then, i'm basing this on information that's 20 years old ingame. Might be different nowadays.
Still, the fluff seems to indicate that Gaelic is more widespread than Sperethiel in Tir na nOg, at least unless you're part of the elven nobility, and it also sees some use in areas of the UK, particularly the Wild Lands.

The most in-depth source for you would be the Tir na nOg sourcebook (SR2), btw. Shadows of Europe most likely has some stuff as well that's a little more up-to-date, but i don't own that one yet.

The whole IRA crew had become more or less the government in the Tir after they got taken over by an immortal elf (well, that was before the elfs took over completely) and there's no Real IRA in SR AFAIR.
The terrorist groups that are still active are mostly Protestant (New Ulster Revolutionary Movement and Ulster Liberation Front).

Hahahaa!

Seriously though, no, I'm not aware of it being really explored previously. The closest I'm aware of is Man and Machine's rules for reusing cyberware components. A smartlink, for instance, has a limited simsense rig, a hand induction pad, an ocular interface, and the smartlink chip (usually in the lower back). By canon, if you have cybereyes and a simsense rig, getting a smartlink is ONLY the cost of putting in the chip. Seems reasonable, if you have a legitimate simrig for say shooting sims, and legitimate cybereyes, you can physically replace the bit of the cybereye that contains the illegal pieces, plug your smartlink into your simrig, do some configuration and you're golden. You would need someone with some biotech or cyberware skill, but you shouldn't be facing the full complexities of installation.

If it helps, you can say a freelancer told you that. Just hope he doesn't ask which system

Since the Lord Protector has been mentioned several times, it worth noting that according to Sixth World Almanac, the Queen dissolved the Office of the Lord Protector in July 2071. Lord Marchment (who has been the holding the Lord Protector position for as long as it existed, since 2025 -think Edgar J. Hoover with more powers and a cup of tea-) retired from public life. Then, 6WA gives no clue about what UK would be like after this event. Nothing significant at least until November 10, 2072 it seems (since that's the last date featuring in 6WA).

I fear that UK will become "random Western country under corporate influence" with some typical Awakened phenomenon for local flavor (France went the same way in SOX and 6WA). I would prefer something like riots and terrorism forcing the good and nice Prime Minister to maintain most of the security services old practices. But I'm not sure whoever wrote that part wanted things to return to the way they were before.

According to the promotional material CGL released, Spy Games is going to cover Denver, and Conspiracy Theories is going to cover London.

That's a bit more complicated.

First you got to back back in time, in 1993 and 1994. On March 20, 1993, the IRA bombing in Warrington kills two children, the day before Mother's Day. From then on, the Provisional IRA ceases to be the avengers of the 1972 Bloody Sunday 13 victims. For the first time, an US Administration moves on the Northern Ireland issue, through the US Irish community (a reckoned force in the Democrat East Coast strongholds). In August 1994, Bill Clinton has the IRA signing a cease fire, starting a political process. Music lovers would also add the release of Cranberries' song Zombie in late 1994, written after the Warrington bombing, which maybe had an impact on the public opinions. In spite of the IRA breaking the cease fire between february 1996 and june 1997, and the 29 killed by Real IRA splitters in 1998, the conflict is Northern Ireland is going toward an end from that point.

But Sargeant and Gascoigne wrote London Sourcebook and Tir na nOg before 1994. None of those events happened in SR history. The conflict went on. As soon as 2011, the Provisional IRA started using magic (actually several months before the official date for Awakening on December 24 according to the books). The Tories ruled UK continuously until 2011. When the Labour finally won, the people wanted them to end the war, whatever the price. In 2014, the Act of Dissolution and the Treaty of Galway reunite Ireland. The Dublin government is left alone to negotiate with the Provisional IRA.
Liam O'Connor, the leader of Londonderry IRA steps into the light to take part in the negotiations. He then publicly reveals he is a spike baby, as several other fellow members of his cell. They are elves born before 2011. O'Connor himself is allegedly born on December 11th, 1979. These revelations somehow caused a schism within IRA.

O'Connor followers formed the Tir Republican Corps, a more or less official counterinsurgency group to fight against the remaining republican and protestant groups. However, they never succeeded in completely destroying them. The Official IRA was still around by 2063, along with the INLA (Irish National Liberation Army), the UUPP (United Ulster Protestant Party), the URF (Ulster Revolutionary Force) and the NURM (New Ulster Resistance Movement). The banning of the Catholic Church, the growing number of elves within the government and administration, and the advent of elven culture and nationalism that followed the proclamation of Tir na nOg, radicalized these groups even more, if necessary.
Also, Great Dragon Rhonabwy has been supporting any group fighting against the elven powers.

According to 6WA (the most recent publication), 36% of Tir na nOg natives speak Irish Sperethiel, compared to 20% Irish Gaelic. An overwhelming majority speak English as well, and have it as their primary language, mind -- but the Tir elves have been pushing Sperethiel on folks for more than a generation now, and it's catching on.


There are still plenty of IRA-analogs active, as Nath pointed out.

NURM and the ULF aren't the only games in town, by a longshot, though they are the two most prominent Protestant Paras (along with the United Ulster Protestant Party). There are still the "Official IRA" and the Irish National Liberation Army that are old-school Republican Brigades that violently oppose the Tir takeover. The INLA's turned into a bunch of criminals and gangsters over the years, but the Official IRA's seen a recent spike in popularity and purpose under Douglas de Valera (great-great-great-whatever grandson of Eamon). The Catholic Church is also perpetually entangled, offering magical healing, sanctuary, and sometimes even direct magical support through the Sylvestrines (to appropriately faithful folks on either side).

So if you want your razorboy to be a vocal supporter (even if not an active member) of one of these groups for flavor in a London game, first you've got to pick your side. Many of these groups that are anti-Tir government are also increasingly anti-metahuman (and particularly anti-elven), so that complicates things a bit. If you're just wanting to spew the occasional slogan while raising a pint, you could just be a very vocal pro-Tir guy -- that'd be colorful enough to still raise a bit of ire in England, and add a little flavor to your character.

I'm not sure I want this guy to be a Republican or a Volunteer, though that connection might explain where he got cybered up and gained his skills, so it's something I'll have to consider. Why and when was the Catholic church banned?

Also, Nath, if I wanted to be nit picky, it's just Derry.

Who are the big players, corp-wise, on the ground in dear olde London?

That one's some old FASA history. Despite +90% of Ireland being Catholics as recently as 2015, they started to get pissed off at the Pope after the church's outspoken condemnation in the time following VITAS/UGE, calling all metahumans abominations. There was further fallout due to changes in abortion, divorce, and remarriage decrees in the years that followed, and by 2024 quite a few bishops didn't return fully to Catholicism, but instead founded the Church of Ireland. Liam O'Connor (founder of Tir na nOg) still saw the Catholic Church as a political threat to his magical new fairy wonderland, so he orchestrated a series of sex scandals, a prostitution network, and a bunch of other embarassing stuff to further wreck Catholic credibility in Ireland...the Church of Ireland grew to fill the spiritual void, which O'Connor encouraged.

So from 2034 on, the Catholic faith is a pale shadow of what it once was across Ireland.

... and a 'series of scandals' brought to light between 2010 and 2020, that are never mentioned in detail. Now what could the author have meant ...

It's not banned per se, though, but the Euro-Tir and the Vatican hate each other, and love to piss at each other.


Not quite, second-generation Irish and American Tír elves are apparently raised in Sperethiel as native language too, much like post-1948 Israelis.


Yeah, CGL has a long history (as in, even pre-Hardy) from turning distinctive settings into McCorp States for "accessability". Because apparently a setting where you can't act like you're in Seattle is challenging players too much.

Anyway, unless some miracle happens, this setting change will be somethinge else best left ignored (like the Potted Plant War explanation for the fighting between Amazonia and Aztlan)