Jason hasn't had the chance to sign off on this, but he did say he was cool with me posting it unofficially, so here it is: Errata for "The Infected" from Running Wild. Link is also in my sig. Enjoy.

Any particular reason to nerf the viruses?

Because they're absolutely pants-on-head retarded as written?

Its a Great Idea
Thanks Patrick

I'm gonna share Your link with 4 German Forums If You don't Mind

Hough !
Medicineman

Basically this.

I am a fan of the changes.

Strains I and II are still going to kill you if you catch them, with strain II being the real danger. Strain III just gives you new life!

Dez: Sort of like Loch said, though I'm not sure I'd have phrased it quite that way. HMHVV-III was bad enough, but when I really looked at HMHVV-II, I began to wonder why people weren't bitching and moaning about the impending loup-garou apocalypse....

I wanted to keep them dangerous (the penetration I recommend is still worse than VITAS-3, for instance, and diseases like tuberculosis and malaria still tremble before the HMHVV family), but not fucking insane. If there weren't a lot of in-game support for HMHVV-II really, honestly being that bad, I'd've nerfed that virus's power by a decent chunk. It could still happen, mind you, when Jason turns his eye toward it, but I just left its Power at fuckin' 13.

Anyway, yes, there was a reason for nerfing the viruses.

Good work, those problems were beyond obvious. The loup-garou was just rarer, I guess; we definitely talked about how powerful it was in various threads.

Please do. Spread it far and wide!!


Neither one actually kills you, though you do technically flatlline for Strain I. You just get a nice cardiac-shock-type resuscitation (I hate that word, I can never spell it right the first time through).

Strain II, as you noted, is the real danger, but it's rare. Ninety percent of the Infected population in the world is a form of ghoul. Of the remaining 10% of that population, 9 of 10 are Strain II, and Jarka-Criscione is a real bitch. Infection is almost guaranteed if you're actually injected with the virus. What saves us from a loup-garou apocalypse is the extreme rarity of victims to start with. Most people in the Sixth World have probably seen a ghoul, even if they've never met one. Almost nobody meets loup-garous, and not many more than that have likely even seen a picture of one of the damn things. The number of Strain II Infected worldwide only numbers in the tens of thousands.

That's what keeps Strain II in check. God help us all if a whole bunch of them got loose in a city or something, though.


Hmmmm. Just because I don't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen. So much talk of the ghoul apocalypse might have drowned it out.

Why was only III changed to injection? The infection fluff reads basically the same for both III and II.

And would not the change to injection be enough to change the nasty of these infections? with it one would either be harmed enough to draw blood using one of their natural weapons or in some other way mix bodily fluids with them (ugh) for the tests to become a issue. My understanding is that they was written as contact because of a misreading of the disease rules when the Runners Companion chapter was written.

(edit) I see, you're asking why -II *isn't* Injection. Makes sense to me, make it Injection: bites, clawings, etc.

Mind if I put this up for election as understatement of the year?

Also: are my eyes deceiving me? Do I actually see a new errata? That Jason might actually look at and approve of? Wow. The times seem to be a'changing.
Great stuff Patrick.

Yep, the errata makes -II have lower penetration, but otherwise stay the same. But -III, having much the same fluff regarding infection danger, gets both a new vector, a change in penetration and a lower power.

I didn't change the vector of Strain II because of numerous past in-game references to it being spread by contact. Looking back, I can see where Injection would make a lot more sense, since those references were generally made by unreliable sources. Watch this space; I'm not above making that change. I'll let you know.

Okay, the change about the Strain II vector's been made and published. Give Google Docs the chance to update the published version, which should be within the next couple minutes. Current version of this is v1.1, which should be shown in the updated version.

I dunno. I remember in the old Paranormal animals of NA, the shadowtalk seemed to highlight that they were infectious through mere contact.

I guess.

Just remember, my initial compulsion was to keep it at Contact, and I can just as easily go change it back. It's all unofficial right now anyway, and I'm trying to get a feel for what people think and feel is right. It's not carved in stone; the change was made because someone made a reasoned argument. That said, I really don't care for the change and I'm just kind of seeing how things go for the moment.

We'll see how it shakes out, but don't be surprised to find that change gone in future.


That was one of my sources, the old entry for the loup-garou in PANA. Left it plenty up in the air, but I liked it.

Haven't made any more changes, and probably won't just yet. Gonna let it sit and see how it gels, see what the feedback on that change is.

This is just me, but I feel like vampires, werewolves, and ghouls are properly infectious via bites, etc. Not touch.

And that's one in favor of the change to Injection, and the most compelling part of the argument for the change. It makes sense.

Sometimes this balancing act between making sense and keeping some of the original flavor is a pain in the ass. My personal feel is to lean towards the flavor, but as I said, the Injection vector does make more sense.

I'll be over here grumbling a bit if you guys need me for anything...though I really should get back to work, I suppose. Stupid day job....

Speaking about infecteds :
The new infected strains which are mentioned in running wild have nowhere mentioned how the infection affects the attributes like it was described and statted in runners companion.
Namely the Gnawer, Grendel, Harvester and Mutaqua forms.
You could derive attribute alteration from the given examples, but still ...
Is there anything like a table or something other crunchy stuff about this?

That was more or less intentional, but I suppose when I get home I can find my notes and cobble something unofficial together for you. It's an easy enough chart to create when I have my notes with me. Deriving the mods is easy enough, since I assumed when I wrote them up that they were dead average members of the appropriate metaspecies and then applied the mods, so you could do it yourself if you lack patience.

That said, I didn't design the Infected introduced in the Running Wild article as playable, and have no intention of producing Qualities to make them so. I'll cheerfully show you the mods I used, but I'm not going to make it easy on you to make them playable, since I think that's a Really Bad Idea.

But a chart like the one on Runner's Companion p. 79? Easy peasy.

Patrick, thank you for following the good example Critias set with his unofficial errata. Knowing the developers give a shit makes a huge difference.

I, personally, would love to see your Unofficial Works collected in one spot(like google docs). The stuff you wrote for Infected Heights and Weights come to mind as a good example.
If its not too much to ask, putting all that stuff in one place would, frankly, be awesome.

I can probably make something like that happen.

Mr. Goodman's material for Running Wild has been on the Shadowrun Wikis for some time.

• HMHVV • Gnawer • Grendel • Harvester • Jabberwock at the Sixth World Wiki
• HMHVV • Gnawer • Grendel • Harvester • Jabberwock at the Shadowrun Wikia

As for the virus' vector. As I recall the old descriptions of "contact" made the point of saying contact with an open wound. To me that seems "injection" more than "contact" since it is entering through the wound, not the skin.

What about making it injection normally, and contact only if the uninfected person has physical damage.

I kinda thought that's what Injection meant, though I guess it's only if *they* cause the Physical damage (same as Injection via knife). If not, I can see that working… though, it's 'properly' fluid-fluid contact, not skin-to-fluid? Obviously, the infected work however they *say* they work, but still. There's something right about being worried, "did it bite you?" or "did you get scratched?".

Well ghouls and such likely eat without utensils, as such they likely lick their hands clean to some degree. This then leaves a saliva residue on their claws/nails. Scratch someone hard enough with that to draw blood and your looking at much the same as a poisoned blade.

As for SR4 contact and earlier edition contact vectors, i do not think Trollman even bothered to reference older editions before writing up the disease rules.

Right, I'm saying that if *they* claw you, that's Injection. If they *touch* you, it's not… even if you're bleeding already. I'm open to being convinced about the latter though; I'm only saying it's not obviously the 'right'/cool way to do it. Bites/scratches definitely are in.

... but if you happen to give them a pat on the head, that alone shouldn't be infecting you? Nor the scenario where they're pulped and sprayed on you? Basically, you're vulnerable if you have open wounds and make contact?

That is one position, yeah. Like I said, I'm open to it, but not a proponent. I'm happy with 'must bite/scratch/etc.', but I see the logic of open wound vulnerability. The *really* important thing is that bites/scratches definitely spread it, and skin-skin contact definitely does not (for vampires, werewolves, and ghouls; less 'canonical' variants are allowed to have exceptional rules, IMO).

Having other kinds of 'logical' spread could be a problem, just as much as the old 'ghouls shake hands, entire city infected' objection before.

Give there's no crunch for 'pulped and sprayed on you' (weaponized ghoul purée?), I'm less worried about it.

Oh $deity. Vaporised Mutaqua with DMSO.
Would you like yours in aerosol or grenade form?

To add a point: generally, any liquid that gets into your mouth, or even worse, into your eyes, might as be considered Injection vector for the speed with which it enters your bloodstream. Ghoul spit is dangerous.

The Mutaqua infection (HMHVV 1 la) is only transmissible through the Infection power. So while gross, you don't have to worry about turning into a nosferatu troll.

Ghoul-juice grenades,though, are a dangerous possibility.

That's really not the point, though. Ghoul spit on your skin should probably *not* count; spit in your gaping wounds, probably (though less importantly) yes. That's Injection, by most reasonable interpretations.

I agree with Yerameyahu.
No more weaponized ghoul purée, please.

I agree with that, mostly. But you can still easily get flecks of infectious material on your face, which is full of mucus membranes. What about frag grenades? Would that aerosolize the ghoul and make the area a 'hot' zone?

Another case of abstract rules and realism. I'd say 'no'; there's no mechanic for shrapnel getting toxin-coated, then piercing someone and being an Injection vector.

I'm fine with 'technologizing the paranormal': making an aerosol or liquid 'toxin' derived from ghoul purée is thematically fine. It would, however, be a distinct Toxin/Drug/Disease item in the rules, one that doesn't currently exist. …Do rules even exist for things like injecting someone with a vial of a disease-laden fluid, care and handling of that fluid, etc.? I can't recall seeing anything like that, but I'm not sure it *doesn't* exist.

I think it would fall under use of the Chemistry skill, regardless. Failure or glitching indicates you have infected yourself.

Not biology? My point is the general lack of this entire process in the rules, AFAIK. Is there anything about weaponized diseases in general, let alone paranormal viruses? Are paranormal viruses 'alive', do they have astral presence/component (shadow DNA), etc.? It's not that answers for these cannot exist, they just (AFAIK) don't.

Well, Ghoul Juice with DMSO would work, because DMSO converts any substance to a Contact vector.

Yeah, if someone wants to cause widespread mayhem, GJ is definitely a way to do it. Long-term suffering and chaos. Very nasty to put that in a chemical splash grenade and lug it into a corporate meeting

Emphasis mine! Random infection like that is a perfect use of a glitch on somebody's part.

Ascalaphus, only if that's how the disease even works. As I said, I'm not aware of rules for storage, decay, etc. of bio-weapons, especially paranormal ones.

You never know. The grenade's contents might be suffering Essence degradation.

However, just be fast! Turn a ghoul into Fine Red Mist, put him in your water tank, and use that water cannon from Arsenal to spread your filth.

I'd probably say making the concept work is Medicine skill, actually.

My point is that we don't know, yes. We can make various guesses, but literally anything goes with magic. We can safely assume that ghoul (/infected) bodily fluids are viable (virulent) for long enough for the claw/bite to work (for the bite, this means fractions of a second?). For the claws, it requires us to decide exactly what is on the claws (spit?), or if they just have some kind of novel biology that allows it. Then we have to makes guesses about the kind of paranormal bio-weapon *techniques* available. Etc.

This line of thought reminded me of a little gem I've been meaning to share.

All the Vampire-based/nonghoul infected all have the Infection power.
Infection is not prohibited from being transfered by Endowment.
How do you get a vampire with endowment, though?
The spirit endows Endowment. Easy, right?
Sadly, it doesn't work like that because they don't also have Essence Drain, and you can only endow one power at a time.


I've actually considered throwing a mission or NP at my table, involving a group of blood mages using their magic to steal the life force from other ritual subjects(willing or unwilling) in order to make up for the whole their cyberware makes in their essence. You see, Endowment can grand you essence drain, but you don't get Essence Loss with it, so the essence you Drain never goes away. So they lose one point of magic through a diminished essence stat - they never get this point back - but they can spend that one point of hole over and over and over again as they get more victims, gradually becoming a terrifying combination of mage and machine.
Either that or they drain over 6 ahead of time, and thus don't lose magic for going under 6 when getting cut open. I forget which.
While anyone can do this, needless to say, it should really only be put in the hands of NPC's, much like blood magic and other evil Twisted paths of magic.
Its a good thing to throw at your party, though, if you want to scare them!

Meh, mostly when such things are thrown at a group they are only scared for the duration of the fight. Afterwards they wonder how they can get a piece of the action (if they survived).

Or maybe i should stop grouping with powergamers...

Man, I missed this earlier somehow.

The Penetration changes for all three strains give you a fighting chance, but it's still going to be a bitch for most people. I didn't change the Power of either Strain I or Strain II because it seems to model pretty accurately what happens in the fluff (scant though that fluff is for Strain II). I'm not averse to lowering the power of Strain II slightly, but it's still (in my mind, at least) the most dangerous version of the disease. I'm open to arguments either way, but it's my feeling that Strain II has always been an almost certain condemnation if you get it.

The Pestilence power from past editions wasn't exactly a walk in the park if it got used on you. These rules are a bit harsher, possibly, but I honestly haven't run the numbers to compare Pestilence to the SR4 disease rules.

Got sidetracked. Anyway, for Strain III, I think lowering the power a little in addition to the vector change more accurately reflects, in rules, what appears to be in the fluff. Still wanna fix the length of time issues that got introduced in SR4, but there's not a lot I can do about that, I don't think. C'est la guerre, I suppose.

Thanks for the plug, MJBurrage!

I'll likely still throw a PDF together and host it on my website. I need to put something useful there anyway.

Thanks for sharing the changes Patrick. My group has always been a bit aghast (slight pun intended) at how easy it was to become infected. These revised rules are much more reasonable.

For a long time we have played with Ghouls as Injection vector after a PC Ghoul realized that if he shook hands with anyone they would almost definately become infected. Honestly with the original rules there is no reasonable explination for why 95% of the world is not already ghouls.

Glad you fixed these, kudos!

Its actually very difficult for retroviruses (like the HIV and the HMHVV strains) to remain viable outside the cell or blood/human secretions; even HIV in human saliva doesn't last very long, hence why its rare to transmit HIV to by swapping spit. Of course you can always just say HMHVV virion capsid is surprisingly durable.

That said, I always saw ghouls as being able to transmit the infection via their claws as something easy to justify. When I think about the claws on a ghoul, I don't picture them as manicured and well-trimmed, but more jagged, sharp, and super-naturally hardened nails that are leaving ragged wounds in their victims. Because their constantly growing, and being used to hunt/feed, I see the ghoul nail bed as more or less having permanently crappy cuticles and bloody hangnails, leaving the claws permanently exposed to ghoul blood and hence virus. A ghoul might be able to clean the wounds up a bit, but they're always going to be there.

Same thing kinda goes with the teeth on a ghoul. Jagged, pointy maws accustomed to biting into meat, bone, viscera, flak jackets, etc. Doubtless there will be some gum bleeding there a bit. That could go for most of the Infected I suppose. The rarest profession in Shadowrun might be a dentist that works with the Infected.

Makes sense. What about those cheaters who get 'pretty surgery' on their ghouls?