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Shadow
I am working on the TSS competition to write a module in 10,000 words to bring back Big D. The winner gets a new copy of SoE. What I am looking for is the complete history of Big D's "death". I read the Dragon Heart trilogy, but alas I do not own DotSW. Can anyone help me out here with some research?

[ Spoiler ]
Lilt
[ Spoiler ]
mfb
not gonna bother with spoilers, if you don't know this stuff already it's a good time to learn.

as far as i know, D became a free spirit named Lethe (named so because he had no memory) upon his death, due to the machinations of the Dragon Heart he created. the Heart shunted him to the metaplanes. after much wacky hinjinx, he possessed Burnout and now guards some sort of metaplanar chasm. on the other side of the chasm are the Horrors, whom Burnout/D is keeping at bay by destroying any attempts to bridge the chasm.
Ancient History
Dunkie's amnesic post-mortem spirit attempted to possess the cyberzombie known as Burnout. The cybermantic rituals performed on Burnout prevented the spirit from leaving.

Now, Dunkie-Billy (aka Burnout; used to be a hermetic magician until he...you guessed it...took too much cyberware and burned out!) have been translated onto the metaplanes, where they use the Dragonheart to keep us safe from the nasty Horrors!

Yeah, Dunkie could be brought back. But it would be a bitch to do so, and then we'd be wide open to the Horrors again.
booklord
As I understand it old Dunkie simply sits there smashing any spike points that may appear. Since he's already taken out the big one there isn't much to stop him from taking a vacation and seeing what's going on back on Earth. You know he's got to be curious.

I just don't see how they'd be able to bring back his dragon body.
mfb
"dunk smash! rrrarrrr!"
Dashifen
Maybe he could "find" a new one. Ghostwalker seemed to have his stashed somewhere between DC and Denver when he came through the Dunk. Rift. Perhaps there are other dragon bodies laying around?

grasping at straws, I know
Lilt
As down-cycle hunting worked, I'm presuming Dragons must have some link to their physical bodies.

I do suspect Dillyzahnout could take trips back to the physical plane though... They'd probably be brief though and he'd not take them without good reason. As it happens I see no reason a powerful initiate physadept drake, such-as Ryan Munchcury, couldn't make a metaplane-call every once in a while to see how things are going.
mfb
as a free spirit, dunk probably gained the materialization power. if he can break out of burnout's body, he'll have no trouble forming an appropriate form in the physical plane.
Lilt
Y'see that's one thing about Lethe... He could never touch the physical plane.
mfb
ah. i got tired of the writing, and skipped from halfway through the first book to the last few pages of the last book, so i probably missed a detail or two.
Shadow
Wow. I obviously need to re-read those books. That was so not what I got out of them. I need to do it in a hurry to.

So Lethe was big D all along eh? Kinda weird but cool.
kevyn668
I understood it as Dunk's spirit is trapped in the physical body of Billy/Burnout which in turn is in the metaplanes. Harlequin used the same ritual he used in H's Back to take Burnout's physical body to the Astral.

Unless someone is theroizing that exposure to the Dragon Heart and the massive amounts of mana somehow transformed Billy/Burnout back into a spirit...

Hey Shadow, you gonna make Lucreto (whatever her name is) have a cameo at least?

Edit: Just read your last post. I think there was something about Dunk had to hurry with the last part so the ritual didn't work quite as well and he, well, lost his mind. Not sure, though.
locomotiveman
QUOTE (Dashifen)
Maybe he could "find" a new one. Ghostwalker seemed to have his stashed somewhere between DC and Detroit when he came through the Dunk. Rift. Perhaps there are other dragon bodies laying around?

grasping at straws, I know

Dashifen, do you mean Denver rather then Detroit, or is there something in the novels that sugests Detroit? (I've only read one SR novel, it was good, so I don't want to break the illusion)


Also, since you are in the Lehigh Valley, what do you think would happen to the area in the SR universe, I lived there for much of my life and may be moving back.
Caine Hazen
I assumed that Burnout got passed entierly over to the Astral plane...his whole physical being and that he was protecting the spot near the Foevea in Mexico from blood magicians ever using it again. Who knows maybe he just roams the astral looking for "bridges/spikes" and alerting Ryan and Assests Inc to potential threats
danbot37
what if those dragon bones dunkie asked to be found in his will were a way he could come back? Maybe they're imbued with some kind of old unknown earthdawnian (is that a word?) magic that once assembled would give him a body to return to. So maybe he planned on it.


curious question... I know its too late, but if he had come back before his term was up as pres, would be entitled to take back over? Or is it too late by then?
Erebus
So D would become a DracoLich!?!?
Shadow
QUOTE (kevyn668)
Hey Shadow, you gonna make Lucreto (whatever her name is) have a cameo at least?

I am not the master of the meta plot.... who?

Ok in the same spirit as my original question:

Is their anyone who meets the following requirments?

1: They are a powerful mage.
2: They hated Big D with a passion.
kevyn668
Shadow:
Lucrecio was the blood spirit that was bound to Oscuro and subsequently freed by the blast that destroyed the Locus. She also was the one that found the displaced astral form of Talon.

To your two part question: Darke would qaulify. Assuming he lived or his successor if you choose that he did not. Other than that...one of the IEs? Ehran and Harlequin didn't HATE Dunk that much (per Post Mortem) but we don't know what the rest really think. I'd vote for Urdli. He's pretty much a dick in my book.
Andvare
QUOTE (Shadow)
QUOTE (kevyn668 @ May 3 2004, 03:06 PM)
Hey Shadow, you gonna make Lucreto (whatever her name is) have a cameo at least?

I am not the master of the meta plot.... who?

Ok in the same spirit as my original question:

Is their anyone who meets the following requirments?

1: They are a powerful mage.
2: They hated Big D with a passion.

"Give me an I. Give me an E"
"IE??? WTF do you mean by that?"
"Immortal elves, there are aparently plenty, and some hates all dragons, and AH could probably come up with a name on someone who hates Dunky"
kevyn668
QUOTE (Andvare)
QUOTE (Shadow @ May 4 2004, 03:17 AM)
QUOTE (kevyn668 @ May 3 2004, 03:06 PM)
Hey Shadow, you gonna make Lucreto (whatever her name is) have a cameo at least?

I am not the master of the meta plot.... who?

Ok in the same spirit as my original question:

Is their anyone who meets the following requirments?

1: They are a powerful mage.
2: They hated Big D with a passion.

"Give me an I. Give me an E"
"IE??? WTF do you mean by that?"
"Immortal elves, there are aparently plenty, and some hates all dragons, and AH could probably come up with a name on someone who hates Dunky"

As it has it has been said, not all elves hate all dragons and vice versa. Some elves hate some dragons...
Kanada Ten
I would use a secret human cabal -something similar to the Black Lodge. We also know there were down cycle hunters that Sirrurg is trying to eliminate as he finds them. Perhaps they would have the power and motivation you require. One such hunter held off Sirrurg for several minutes before the dragon downed the plane he was on.
kevyn668
QUOTE (Kanada Ten)
I would use a secret human cabal -something similar to the Black Lodge. We also know there were down cycle hunters that Sirrurg is trying to eliminate as he finds them. Perhaps they would have the power and motivation you require. One such hunter held off Sirrurg for several minutes before the dragon downed the plane he was on.

That guy was Black Lodge?!? Or are you theorizing?
Kanada Ten
I'm theorizing that he was a hunter and part of a larger group, but not a member of Black Lodge. I was just mentioning the Lodge because they have powerful mages.
kevyn668
Cool. Gotcha. smile.gif
Ancient History
'sides, everyone knows that the Black Lodge hates /elves/.
Abstruse
The epilog of the last Dragonheart Trilogy book says pretty much that the Billy/Burnout/Lethe/Dunkelzahn gestalt entity is just roaming the metaplane the Enemy is trying to come through and absorbing any spikes with the Dragonheart to prevent the Enemy from building another bridge, thus giving mankind a chance to prepare.

However, a few of the nasty little buggers got through before the bridge was destroyed...

The Abstruse One
Rock-Steady
QUOTE (Shadow)
I am not the master of the meta plot.... who?

Ok in the same spirit as my original question:

Is their anyone who meets the following requirements?

1: They are a powerful mage.
2: They hated Big D with a passion.

Azzie Bloodmages. They're still out there.

Or take some of the unknown spirits that came through the rift.
FXcalibur
Uh, spikes? Dragonheart? What's the dragonheart?
northern lights
i'd put my money on alachia. she was always a dumb bitch and dunkie highly favored the dwarves of throal, so she probably hated him all the more. however, she should be secretly financing another crusade to go and kill alamaise again. i for some reason always got the idea she was behing the down cycle hunting, just a suspicion.
Lilt
@FXcalibur
It's nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the metaplot that links Shadowrun to Earthdawn. You should probably just forget any stuff you hear about a scourge of hideous, terrifying, creatures called horrors that will be coming to destroy humanity in 3000 years or so. It's nothing important...





...yet.
Dashifen
QUOTE (FXcalibur)
Uh, spikes? Dragonheart? What's the dragonheart?

The dragon heart was an imense oricalcum carving created by Dunklezahn to protect the world from the Enemy -- aka the Horrors. The spikes where places where high level ritual blood magic (i.e. the Great Ghost Dance specifically) created a "bridge" between out metaplanes and the plane of the Enemy which would have allowed them to come over and have a party using us as the pinatas. But, with the dragon heart, these spikes can be controlled and the bridges can be destroyed.

For more information, read the Dragon Heart Trilogy. You're best bet to find it is probably Ebay.
Abstruse
You can get all three books for under $10 on eBay if you shop around. Someone posts the trilogy every other week it seems. But the Dragonheart was an incredibly powerful magical artifact that the Burnout/Billy/Dunk/Lethe hybrid is using to suck the mana out of the spikes, thus eliminating them.

QUOTE
To Alachia, I leave the Everliving Flower. I have no more use for it.
[Ouch.  This is a slap in the face, since the Big D STOLE the Everliving Flower, a magical artifact, to get the Blood Wood, under Alachia, into the Second Theran War.]


From Dunkie's will with annotation from AH in brackets. Alachia would be a very good candidate given this little number...fortunately, no one in the entire Shadowrun universe with the exception of Lethe/Billy/Burnout/Dunk himself knows that Lethe was Dunkelzahn...not even Harlequin. But that doesn't mean someone can't find out somehow...

The Abstruse One
Pistons
QUOTE (kevyn668)
Shadow:
Lucrecio was the blood spirit that was bound to Oscuro and subsequently freed by the blast that destroyed the Locus. She also was the one that found the displaced astral form of Talon.

Actually, to be picky she was a blood mage. She was part of the gestalt under Darke's control, and when she was killed, he made her into a blood spirit. (And then she was later freed... yadda yadda yadda.)
Abstruse
She was the only blood mage who was immune to Thayla's song (see Harlequin's Back for more info on that), so they used her to get to Thayla.

The Abstruse One
JongWK
Just use the dragon bones in Mars as a new host for Dunkie. I'm sure AH would love it. wink.gif
BIG BAD BEESTE
Nah, there's a megacorp cloning dragons but using frog DNA for the missing bits down in Madagascar.
Nath
QUOTE (JongWK)
Just use the dragon bones in Mars as a new host for Dunkie. I'm sure AH would love it. wink.gif

Dunkelzahn in his will is specifically asking for people to gather a dragon skeleton and display it in the Smithsonian, not that far from the Rift wink.gif
Erebus
QUOTE (Nath)
QUOTE (JongWK @ May 4 2004, 04:57 PM)
Just use the dragon bones in Mars as a new host for Dunkie. I'm sure AH would love it. wink.gif

Dunkelzahn in his will is specifically asking for people to gather a dragon skeleton and display it in the Smithsonian, not that far from the Rift wink.gif

Using a dragon skull he provides too.
Shadow
Thanks everyone who posted. If my module doesn't get published in TSS I will see if I can make it available to you all elsewhere. Now, everyone cross your fingers and wish me luck!
kevyn668
QUOTE (Pistons)
QUOTE (kevyn668 @ May 3 2004, 11:13 PM)
Shadow:
Lucrecio was the blood spirit that was bound to Oscuro and subsequently freed by the blast that destroyed the Locus. She also was the one that found the displaced astral form of Talon.

Actually, to be picky she was a blood mage. She was part of the gestalt under Darke's control, and when she was killed, he made her into a blood spirit. (And then she was later freed... yadda yadda yadda.)

@Pistons: no offense taken...or meant by my responce. smile.gif

I don't normally bite on these but I have to on this since I feel novel knowledge is my stylo...I know she was a blood mage. But at the end of the book she is a blood spirit.

nyahnyah.gif

Just to be absolutely clear: this isn't meant as an attack or a challenge to a debate. Just me saying "I knew that" wink.gif
Tal
QUOTE (Nath)
[QUOTE=JongWK,May 4 2004, 04:57 PM] Dunkelzahn in his will is specifically asking for people to gather a dragon skeleton and display it in the Smithsonian, not that far from the Rift wink.gif

Speaking of the Bossman's will, is there actually a version of that thing floating around IRL anywhere? Seemd like that sucker'd be the raw materiel for bloody hundreds of runs...
Connor
The sourcebook Portrait of a Dragon: Dunklezahn's Secrets has his will and covers the surrounding events.

Ancient History's site also has a copy of the will with his thoughts and knowledge on each of the bequests he has info or speculation on...
Jason Farlander
Theres also a copy of the will posted at http://www.srrpg.com

Tal
*Ponders* Didn't D's body get completely vaporised? How then do we get
QUOTE (Big D's Will)
For purposes of research, I leave my body to the Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research.
Jason Farlander
Dunky wrote his Will in advance, and didn't get a chance to update it before his head a splode.
Kanada Ten
Plus, he doesn't want to make it look obvious that he knew anything. Master of misdirection, old Dunk. Nobody would think he planned on Nuking himself if he's donating his body to science.
Nath
QUOTE (Jason Farlander)
Dunky wrote his Will in advance, and didn't get a chance to update it before his head a splode.

Not that simple. Dunkelzahn included in his Will that Ryan Mercury was bequested his "Heart" and that he could find it at Lake Louise. So he obviously found the time to update his Will according to what could and did happen.
Connor
Perhaps regardless of the time and circumstances of the ritual his "Heart" would always be able to be found at Lake Louise...?
Erebus
Perhaps the reason his body is missing is that it had a sustained spell on it to deliver the various parts of it to the appropriate parties upon his death.
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