I thought the single thread would work, but it might be a little bit too unmanageable. Hence my--what?--seventh question.

Is there any official information out there--supplement, by preference--that details what is happening in space and/or the ocean/sub-oceanic?

Part B to this question is whether anyone has done anything with those in their games?

Reason: I, like many others, have been tinkering around with that campaign (you know the one), so I'm interested in what's out there as I plan my multi-age shenanigans.

SR3 had at least Target: Wastelands

One of the important things is that magicians who go off-planet go insane.

So, there's that.

I can't recall any specific details on how or why, though.

Of course, there are orbital stations and habitats, but that's about it.

As far as the ocean is concerned, there are now arkoblocks (offshore arcologies) so that's a factor.

So, from what I recall of Target: Wastelands, mages go insane because of the lack of a manasphere in space. It's like a background count of -15, or something hugely negative. The orbital habitats have been doing science on creating an artificial manasphere with hydroponics and plants and stuff. They think that by having a large amount of life in a dense space they can create a pocket manasphere to make the background count something tolerable, so they can experiment on magic in different background counts.

Oceans alm I got it one of the 4e Dawn of The Artifacts adventures goes to an ocean thing. That's all I've got, at least before I check through my copies of those.

This is correct. It is the lack of life giving rise to a manasphere that drives the mages insane. Small space habitats typically have a bunch of plants and such stuffed into them to create a manasphere if they expect to have magicians working there. Ares has at least one habitat set up this way researching the insect spirits and where they come from, along with the horrors (Earthdawn nasties).

Yeah, lots of science on magical things in a safe environment where the magical nasties can't get loose, cuz the bckground count outside the room is, in theory, too low for Horrors or bugs to continue to exist in the material plane.

I sent my players to the moon once to fight rogue sprites who took over the moonbase after a techno went space mad. Had a huge hydroponics section to justify having the mage survive it.

Travel to and from them is the main difficulty. People fly into airports pretty often, but they're going to be aware of an unscheduled ship showing up to the secret lagrange point/deep sea base.

No they don't .. at least not by default just because they are in space and when talking about SR1 to SR3 in general or Target Wastelands in particular.
Pyhsical and or mentals problems (including "insanity") typically arise when trying to use magic in space or (worse) when trying to astrally perceive / project in space ... and yes that latter makes it a far more serious issue for dual natured and astral entities.



With the exception of certain stations it's generally a rating 10 background count and thus falls within the highest Mana Warp category (which have additional effects that are more excessive than the base 5 rating levels of background count)

Sidenote: That info actually comes mainly from MitS rather than Target Wastelands




Most man made habitats in space are still within the levels of Mana Warp background count and therefore still cause the associated effects just at a more managable level. It still takes highly initiated magicians to successfully use magic in space but those who can perform magic in space are serious mofos down on Earth ... one such capable magician was featured in the Tom Dowd short story Hunter and Prey.

*******************************



As noted above: No that's not correct. The Rating 10 Mana Warp does not inherently cause magicians to go insane ... at least not within the material up until SR3. If SR4+ changed that I'd certainly like to hear where exactly in order to know which parts of the later editions to hate even more.

I think you're correct. I forgot that it was specifically the astral perception that caused the insanity. I do recall that they were experimenting with artificial manaspheres in some book, but with nonexplicit rules, just a vague "this could make the background count less bad if you want" wink to the GMs, but written in-character.

Also, which book is MitS? My brain is bad at acronyms

MitS = Magic in the Shadows ... the SR3 main magic sourcebook.

Ah, yeah, I don't actually have that one. I missed 3e except for fluff books I grabbed later.

Wak pointed out Target Wastelands but it seems that my brain had a hiccup. It's on my tablet to read so that I can catch up.

Is there anywhere in particular that I can read up about Mars or is that in Target Wastelands, too?

Also, has anyone actually done anything with these two locales?

Mars info is scattered around. I'm missing a couple 5E books (and I'm not on the Monad story) so I'm not sure where to direct you on that one.

Short form is that Evo had a base there, but it was taken over by the Monads one person at a time, until there was no one left but them. Thusfar, they're the only ones out that far but Ares is *really* interested in finding out how they got there and possibly matching the move (minus the headcases).

There's also the issue of a Mars craft returning to Earth, vanishing for a week, then showing up again without the crew having any idea that they were ever missing.

As for the water? There's stuff going on there too. The Sea Dragon's started making some major moves, there are quite a few undersea bases, and Korin Yamana was recently eaten by a Megaldon. These may, or may not, be connected. (Also, there was a base in Lake Michigan that was growing underwater freshwater cactus and developed a sentient line of Merrow, but that research was terminated. of course, the base is still there...)

Who are these Megal's and what's the gig with their organised crime bosses?

*kaboom-tisch*

Thanks. I'll do some Googling to see if I can find any more information on Mars.

Edit: A Google later...

https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Mars

Err... Really?

Okay, thanks, Wakshaani. If you, or anyone else, happens to identify the publicly-available materials, please feel free to drop in a note.

Some discussion here including some references to official material.

There was also a short campaign on DS called Mars Alpha. The GM may have some references.

Thanks for the reference--much appreciated.

Do you (or have you) seen much discussion on these forums about such topics, i.e. outer space and the Big Blue Wet Thing? (Thank you, Mr Dimble. )

Those two and this are the only ones I can think of.

I had one 10ish years ago, dunno how findable that is. It was all Space, though. Ocean I mostly know There Is Stuff There.

If you have any specific questions, I'll answer what I can.

If you have any specific questions, I'll answer what I can.

Thanks. I'm still at the point of I don't know enough information to formulate appropriate questions.

Bugger. It's like the first year of doing a doctorate all over again. Womp.

Stop it! Stop it! Don't bring back those memories! Ahhhhhrrrgggghhhh......

There was some updated information in Hazard Pay, which also was the first sign of the plotline about the Monads building a spaceship to go to mars -- sure, how else would digital entities travel to another planet?

I mean, I assume even digital entities would need some sort of housing to recieve them? Possibly less risk of data loss?

Well, the Monads have bodies, so...

Right, cuz they're the nanobot people. Corporate entities probably need transport.

They have hitched a ride on bodies, but don't want to be in there and have the means to make the transfer to digital again

FWIW, I'm having a real Hamilton "Edenist" moment as it pertains to elves in spaaaace right now.

So, I'm thinking about the Big Blue Wet Thing at the moment.

There's speculation in there from Target Wastelands, but have you done anything about it?

Quick thoughts and what might be construed as "low hanging fruit." In no particular order:

• Isostatic Uplift -- We're seeing this in the world at the moment, but what cool things might be revealed in environments hidden by glaciation? Or deliberately hidden in an excuse of climate change?
• Are there shenanigans involved in sub-oceanic environments specifically tailored to acquiring true elements like Water, Earth, and Fire?
• What physical (or other?) characteristics might sub-aquatic research be tailored for that could make the corps money?
• Sub-surface and protected by Elemental Water? Protection against the Horrors?

Lay your conspiracy theories on me!

But if you take a SURGED character with Astral Hazing with you it's much more manageable at a background count of 4.

Beyond all the specific SR in space stuff you could borrow ideas from Eclipse Phase. It isn't the 7th World but there's nothing preventing you developing crossover fan material or just importing concepts from it into your home game.

Oooh. Thanks for the link...

Edit: Holy moly. That's awesome. Thanks!

...And I agree that this is all about the "home game" or "around a specific tabletop". I don't know you, but I'm not an author for the game, so all of these threads are about things that I find interesting and would love to engage with people about.

Just checking, but did you mean "8th World" (etc.)? All the ages of magic seem to be even numbers--like the good Star Trek films.

I meant 7th World.

A very longterm member here and author of much of the Magic rules in SR, Ancient History, elaborated in the "Ancient Files" (see my sig) and elsewhere the mana cycle (with the use of parentheses to graph magic rising and falling):It's not always easy for authors passionate about their brainchilds, bumping heads across the web with fans passionate about their game, so IIRC he doesn't haunt these halls any longer.

But yes - this incarnation of the boards is coming up to its 20th anniversary and before these boards, we were on jive (which apparently got clobbered during a server migration and apparently has been lost) so the chances are pretty high that if something is viable to bolt onto Shadowrun, we've planned it in some detail; quite likely numerous times. The search function is a bit unhelpful in that it rejects searches for short words such as FAB or SR3. But with sufficient patience, it works. As for my suggestion to try Eclipse Phase, it was written by the hands behind SR4 and investigates more deeply the issues of transhumanity. Since the mana cycle rises (and you get awakenings) and falls (when magic fades from the world) it is viable to graft Eclipse Phase in as the "7th world" in a magic low, a tech high, where (trans)humanity is free to colonise the solar system without being gobbled up by Horrors (yet).

If you wanted to bring it thousands of years closer into the near future (when magic is still relatively high) then this is a succinct summary of how that could be contrived: The books for Eclipse Phase are distributed free by the authors and Role Play Public Radio has a number of "actual play" recordings of a campaign to whet your appetite.

Fair enough. I just wanted to check in case it was a typo and did not mean to offer insult or anything akin to that.

The only reason that I had any reticence was because of the events described in Equinox with the whole "building a Moon-sized mana sink in spaaaace". With that said, if it were going to happen in the remaining period of blooming/mana ascendance, then it would technically break the traditional ages anyway so... Point taken.

Of course, just when the Sixth Age ends can be an interesting discussion.

*sigh*

How I miss the ED/SR conversations.


I've seen it happen, so fully understandable. (Quite how AH got banned from RPG.net is beyond me, but there we have it.)


Thank you. Any reticence on my behalf is mostly because I have GURPS Transhuman Space and, I think, that does a sufficiently good job of introducing what bits of transhumanist technology and concepts as I can and for itto remain "Shadowrun".

(That and it works with the system that I'm using.)

No offence taken! You've been here years and say things like 'mea culpa' so I like you. I was only surprised that when I linked:to a thread where they discuss whether Eclipse Phase might hypothetically be a good ruleset for the seventh-world:That's why I was a little surprised at the uncertainty - but not insulted! I'm all about the setting, context, story, plot, and discovering the superordinate causes behind why everything in a story came together the way it did, explaining small mysteries observed earlier without being understood at the time. So anything that enriches the depth of that immersion is great for groups. It's all good here.

To be fair, I signed on a long time ago to get some inspiration and have recently done that once again.


I'm sure that it's a cool rule-set, if I understand you right, but my hesitation is less about drawing inspiration from it but more about focusing my attentions in other mechanical directions. Not fault, of course. I skim through the system quite a bit!


That's very true I'm sure.

FWIW, I'm very much focused on the integration of the various "Shadowrun" settings rather than shifting them to another setting. As such, setting-agnostic stuff is where I'm kinda leaning towards. That and how does one translate that into setting-specific concepts. Foe example, "transhumanism" in Shaodwrun also translates to the bridging of "spirits" into the technomagic. This is the basis for "spirit ships" that can translate through astral space, but also the notion that "ancestors" can be summoned into technomagic bodies.

Sorry, it's late and I might not be as articulate as I could be!