So Bull has Hacking as an attribute ?

Dude, do not poke the sleepy Bull

So, umm.... I'm a newb and pretty light on Shadowrun lore and previous editions...

But seeing as the world of Shadowrun is populated by orks, elves, trolls, dwarves, vampires etc... and yes humans why is it that the content is overwhelmingly human males?

I know this sounds pretty PC, and it might actually be, but as I stated, my main concern is the lackign variety of other Shadowrun character types.

Bah. Aptitude, I meant. He also has Exception Attribute (Logic). It does nothing for hacking (Which irritates me to no end), but he's always been smarter than the average ork.

Horvagab: It just shook out that way. *shrug* It was something we were discussing after the book was hitting layout. While there were a handful of character that Jason said "we want folks to write about these", the rest were all submissions from the freelancers, so it's characters that the freelancers wanted to write about. Afterward we looked an went "Huh, no Dwarfs or Trolls to be seen. Weird."

*shrug*

Bull

As if Humanis needed fanning...

And Bull, come to the resonant side...we have a use for Logic, and Resonance is something like hacking as an Attribute

Actually, little as they've been used lately (and most of that, I think, not effectively)...yeah, they do. Yes, I like a ray of hope in my games...but you can't have light without darkness, and (meta)human hate and stupidity are some of the darkest things out there. Who needs corporate overlords when ordinary people are enough to wreck a society?

Oooops. Sorry. I'll stop ranting now, before I really get started.

It's okay, Patrick. It's the Texan in you...

"If you think Humanis is bad, try a bunch of 12 year old kids", to paraphrase Bull.

I missed the bit on Aina before. So this is a tie-in to Artifacts, okay. I'll reserve judgement then. Still, the Nadias ... eh. But okay, so it wasn't Hardy's idea. He still went with it, like with the trees that make Amazonia start a war, but it wasn't his idea, my bad.

I really am looking forard to see more of deVries and the anti-Twilight movement of his. That was awesome. Other things - Serrin, Thorne - were pretty itneresting, too. I'm sort of missing Minoshi Oni, and agree with Seph that there should have been a bit more coordination about metatypes and variance. Maybe you can do a follow-up PDF?

Don't have anything to say here, really, I just wanted to perpetuate that statement. I was really worried how some folks were going to take that, and you were one of them, for reasons I can't quite put my fingers on.

Not that it would have changed the way I did it, mind you, but I would have been disappointed to find that you hated it. I want everyone to like what I write, but ultimately, the only person I'm really writing for here is, well, me. I'm fortunate, I suppose, in that stuff I like turns out to be stuff other people like, too.


Actually, I believe that one is in the works. Not sure who all is in it since I'm not working on it (and really not pursuing a lot of freelance work at the moment because of outside influences), but I think Mihoshi Oni will be in it because they've got art for her already.

But it was noticed. I'd love to do a whole other book like this sometime, because it was great fun to work on this one.

No he's not, he has a magic of 11 and right next to is and edge of 10.

A room temperature glass of water is smarter than your average ork.

That said (Far away from Orks, BTW), the one I write as a Shadowtalker sounds like dumb barrens muscle, but is actually exceptionally well read (Sleep Regulators will do that to you.). He just refuses to use a keyboard (Never learned to type), and uses a vocal recognizer to put in comments to posts. It's very difficult to talk with a "Dumb Trog" accent when you're discussing Nietzsche and Sun Tzu.Well, with their "Golden Boy" getting things ready in the Seattle Metroplex, it just might be time for another warehouse firesale...

Humanis is seeing some use in Seattle Missions

Another reason for me to get into the Missions, I guess.

Yeah, I figured it was not deliberate, just how things happened. It seems strange, but hey, these guys are awesome, if I acuse them of being non-PC, I'll be blasted to bits or worse .

Thanks for the explanations though Bull

Uhm, Brackhaven? Humanis has certainly made more progress in recent years than ghouls since Bug City.

Well.. as LD Hardy does have the authority to deny submissions and at the same time present characters that need to be in the book. And he should have an overview who submitted what and what that means for the racial distribution.

But does it really matter? Is it really that bothersome that there are few, to no, representatives of the various other metatypes in the book? After all, by fluff, Humans outnumber the rest of the metahumans. Seems like that is represented by the book that was published.

Haven't been particularly impressed with the Brackhaven plotline, really, and even if I was, it's just Seattle. Humanis is supposedly a worldwide group of hateful bastards, and they've not been used effectively as a plot device.

Ah, that's lame.

I was more speculating on the way Hardy handled the question which character should be featured in Street Legends - Bulls posting made me think "Well, Hardy didn't care/ had no idea/ couldn't use his authority as LD". Each one sucks.

Ahhh... I see what you are saying, and I can understand that, I guess. I just can't summon up any reason to care that the Metatypes are not equally represented.

Pfff...

I played Serrin in the Tournament this year. What a blast playing someone with such a high Magic! I have two retired high grade initiates from previous editions stuck away in folders from games in the 50's and 60's. Gonna make it a priority to pull them out, brush them off and convert to SR4.

Well, all of the new books had the problem of resembling essay collections to varying degrees...imbalance between metatypes is the slightest problem (probably) resulting from that

I met the real Bull over the weekend and he physically kicked me in the shin for saying the word RAW. True story. : )

OK, fixed that, thanks for the heads up.

That chapter was all me, actually. I mean, Jason approved it but...yeah. So blame or praise, I guess, right here. (Well, I mean, look at my user name.)



This was an error inflicted on my revised draft during the layout phase; a similar thing happened to Winterhawk. It made me a sad panda. His Edge should be 4. His Magic should be 6 (7). I know that 6 (7) may technically not be the correct annotation but it seemed the clearest way to indicate his Magic was 6 without the focus and 7 with it. If I had just put '6' or '7' that would kind have left it up to the reader's best guess.



Come on dude, it's Shadowrun in-universe narrative we're talking about here. The point isn't some objective statement that Haze is a bad person, it's that Pistons thinks he is. We're in unreliable narrator city, here. Also, in truth, real life criminals due tend to accord a lot more respect to murderers than they do to (perceived) rapists. But I see your point and I do kind of wish I had had Riser or Kane make it a little bit more obvious in the text, the kind of thing you're saying. My authorial intent certainly was not to say as word of god that Haze is a "villain". Just that he's done some sketchy stuff which has made a lot of enemies with the more squeamish or morally sensitive runners out there.



You think Mr. Bonds or even FastJack knows the full extent of either of these guys' augmentations? Another example of in-universe shadowtalk being inaccurate, as it should be. Anyone on Jackpoint would be quite likely to underestimate the personal power of Miles Lanier, and regret it. I mean the guy has been past the point where he needs to kill people himself for many decades, but that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy it.

That said, for the amount of augmentations they have both men have quite a fair bit of Essence remaining.

*OM NOM NOMs on popcorn*

Except that Foci don't Increase the Magic Attribute in 4th Edition, they add Dice to the Skill pool. Unless there is a new Foci I am unaware of.

Pass some of that over here. *offers a caffeinated beverage in return*

Does it have to be Caffeinated? My popcorn just finished popping... *profer's Bowl*

It doesn't have to be, I suppose; it's just that most of my offerings are.

Here Patrick, I have a wide variety of Mt. Dew flavors available. Scott Schletz was kind enough to bring me a 12-pack of Mt. Dew Pitch Black (WHich had been almost impossible to find locally), and I had a couple 2 liters of Typhoon stashed (Typhoon & Rum is a tasty combo ).

As for me? Well... I happen to still have Gurth's Stairs in storage, so I'm pulling them out and dusting off the couches for the freelancers. Come on in boys and girls, the freelancer crack has been refilled.

Bull

Heh... Water is always good too, you know...
I only comment because I cannot have caffeine. *shrug*

Ok, we got it.

Thorn's chapter (and fiction) were mine, but he's not my PC (which is to say he's no one's PC). He's a character from a short fiction piece I threw together many moons ago, that quite a few folks seemed to like but that never went anywhere else (Prayer, in case folks are wondering). The character's basic idea and evolution owe more to Jack Higgins' fun (if sometimes shallow) spy novels than he does any serious Hindu/Tir na nOg philosophies, but I thought it'd be fun to point out the perhaps-hypocritical pattern in how his life's fallen together.

He's also the guy that was the voice for a good chunk of Spy Games, and his reception from that piece earlier in the year is most of what got him into Street Legends. Other freelancers really glommed onto him and used him for lots of shadowtalk throughout SG (one even used him as the writer of the Tel Aviv section), and quite a few fans liked him, too...so, well, I figured I'd go ahead and stat him up, toss him in, and let 'er rip.

Thorn is my favorite of the new JackPointers. All in all, other than a couple of entries I was meh about, I thought the book was well done.

Cool. Glad to hear it!

In all seriousness, the post that you were quoting when you posted this is in itself the response to this post.

I'd just like to say that I hate Kellan Colt for nothing else than being in Born to Run, and being a headdeskingly out of place character who is loved by all for her Purity of Heart. I was kinda hoping she had mind altering capabilities. Also she should have Fireball on her list, it was her first spell, after all.

I'll readily admit I never made it all the way through her trilogy to see, but in what I did read of them, I don't remember her ever casting it again. Could be it was just that first random, terrified, angry, manifestation of power (as fire), and she never actually learned the actual spell, I guess.

I think that you missed the point I was making. I was replying to your assertion that a Focus added directly to Magic Rating (Thus your annotation of 6(7)). Unfortunately, Foci do not work that way, least of all the Power Focus. THAT was what I was replying to.

No worries though.

I read the whole trilogy, continually going, "It's gotta get better, it's got to!", then drinking a whole case of brain bleach.

Not only does Puck have no cyber, he has no Echoes either, which is odd, but explainable if he rid himself of all his cyber, got cloned eyes implanted and genetic alteration to replace his lost Essence(the money for which, I guess, he could have gotten if he sold his island) and, in becoming a technomancer, he lost all his otaku Echoes and had to re-learn Matrix immersion.
If you would like a nice juxtaposition, though, check out Puck's creepy picture from Shutdown and compare it to his sad, hands-in-his-pockets picture in Legends.

What is truly unnerving is that Icarus casually mentions that Deus is out there. This is a direct contradiction from Emergence. The God-like AIs were dead, integrated into the Matrix as a whole. That was the point of bringing about non-God like AIs. Letting them be PCs even.
To say that Deus is back should be an Earth shattering revelation which should shake everyone in their boots. Deus' abilities are unlimited in the Matrix, which is why letting him out of the Network or the SCIRE was super scary and now not only is he back, it is generally accepted he is back by everyone on Jackpoint, except maybe Snopes who still isn't quite sure.
Moreover no one is worried about it. Slamm-O! gives him a shout out. The most feared Matrix entity in all of Shadowrun, which needed two other God-like AIs to take him down, the perpetrator of one of the single greatest acts of malevolence in the history of of the world is now back from the dead and this, THIS is the first we are hearing of it.
Not the first the Sixth World is hearing of it, but the first we, the readers are.
It brings up a million questions; everything from "Are Mirage and Magaera back too?" to "What is the nature of the Resonance now that Emergence and Unwired have been ret-con'ed in a single paragraph?"
It's be like finding out, second hand "Oh, and did you know that Gengis Khan is back and this time he has a nuclear bomb?" It's big deal, a VERY big deal and deserves either a dismissal as the ramblings of that nut Icarus which everyone dismissed as crazy or a full explanation somewhere.

That and why did no one mention that Puck is British?

No one ate his cooking, so they never knew before?

The picture of "Agent" shows him having an obvious cyberarm that isn't mentioned in his statblock.

Miles Lanier is taller and weights less than Richard Villiers, yet the picture on pg.159 gives the opposite impression. Bull's picture protrays him as way too slender for a guy who's just about 2 meters tall but clocks in at 159 kilograms.

Even provided he was willing and had the funds: With all the stuff high-ranking Whites got he would need years to get back to full Essence, and Revitalization is something completely new in the 2070s.

Also, as with all Jackpointers (who are supposed to be on the network for the unique intel they can provide) his knowledge skills are extremely underwhelming. If memory serves, he as one of Deus' former elite soldiers, knows NOTHING about Otaku, the cult of Deus etc. pp., and knows as much about AIs in general as about Urban Brawl.


Puck's been pictured before? Got a page number for that?


Yep, that's more or less what I was thinking, too. Although I consider it an extremely stupid error on the writer's part rather than a retconn.

Glad you liked it.

Curiosity compels me to ask: Which entries were you "meh" about?

In the shadow talk on Agent, they mention the possibility that his cyberarm might be fake.

Kellen Colt is my least favorite. The only Shadowrun novel I have ever read to completion was "House of the Sun" ( I couldn't get past 100 pages for Shadowboxer). I guess her entry would be better with having read the novels. The writing is not bad, just the character herself is just not interesting to me. She seems to be to much like Frosty.

Didn't like Yankee, but this is all personal bias against the shadowtalker who provided it ( Riser is one of the Jackpointers who I hope gets a bullet, preferably while mouthing off to someone he shouldn't have). I also thought Yankee was going to be someone else, and was somewhat disappointed it was not that character.

All in all, I hope we see more full color books like this. Hopefully one detailing Tir Tairngire.