What the...? The Horror is able to influence her age and regenerate/revive/clone her? I knew they where powerfull, but THAT powerfull? I believe he's one of the greater ones, right? I have no real idea as to how powerfull horrors really are so I'm tripping in the dark here...

There are reasons they are called 'Horrors' you know. They can do all the sick and twisted sh*t that your average kidnapping pervert troll can't.
Thank god the mage in my group hasn't been trying to create a Mana Spike to bring over a small horror to then try to control. But if he did.... well... lets just say he won't be peeing while standing anymore.

Well, there are many things being called "horror" today that are neither scary nor powerfull in any way...

Would be really interesting to see some SR stats for those guys. Might send one after my players one day!

The lesser Horrors are basically thugs. They bring destruction and some travel in large packs, but any one is easy* to kill and most are easy to recognize.

Those that have names are a different matter. They vary greatly and have different priorities. The reasoning for specific behaviour of the Named is unknown, but many of them do seem to follow the same basic plan when they visit. Artificer makes mazes, Tempter assists those working on noble goals, Aazhvat induces insanity the world over, and Giftbringer deals in envy.

What sort of trouble do you wish to impose?

*with enough firepower

For the named horrors, check out the book Horrors (translated as Dämonen). I think it stats around 12-14 and gives you an idea of their powers.

As a group, they are far more powerful than Great Dragons (who wisely hid themselves away from the baddies). There's probably about 12-20 high powered named ones, around a couple hundred-couple thousand lesser, self-named horrors, and then tag on perhaps a million or so thug horrors, probably .2 to .05 per person on the world.

Verjigorm, IIRC, is the horror who took over a Great Dragon.

The guy to give numbers is AH. If he doesn't know or can't look it up, then it's a GM decision.

Don

PS. It's easy. Take a look (idealistic and simplistic, albeit) at the war in Afgahnistan. Idealist mission, noble to help out people, but it goes to heck due to the actions of the noble. He aids you in trying to secure the moon for the masses, but he's going to make you fail. Failed hero is the result, IIRC.

Ah, thanks for the clarifications on Tempter. I can see how that works now.

So, how powerfull would the self named ones be? I think that the named ones are just too powerfull and too world changing to get them in contact with the PCs and they probably couldn't even get through in a mana peak either. The thugs are probably too weak and more like a regular spook (albeit a nasty one).

That's why I asked for horror stats, weakest of them.
I am really not sure that I want to buy a book for two stat blocks.
Or is there somewhere on Inet made/converted?

Maybe for sheer fun also Mantis thread should be ressurrected? I kinda liked it

To have a Horror-backed campaign does not need one to be active on earth. A region where wraiths are acting unusually organized could be the basis of attempting to aspect the magic in that region so one of the weaker Named can get a foothold. A corrupted mage with an old book can be the cause of some similar trouble. Maybe have one of the conjuring attempts get a gnasher or wingflayer (just one) and the PCs either try to fight it or just run.

Slipshades are minor Horrors that don't follow the expected patterns. All they seem to do is gather pretty things and hoard them. You could be mean by having the PCs find an abandoned lair of some drogn-kin and have a few slipshades oppose their efforts to loot.

If you have a type of place that you want some Horror or construct to fill, I can see what fits best and give you a few interpretations of the stats.

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

-Siege

Horrors range in power from the Dread Iota (which is basically a bacteria) to completely physical critters that can be killed by a farmer with a pitchfork (and can kill the farmer with the pitchfork) to dragonslayers.

That said, there's one big nasty: Verjigorm, Hunter of Great Dragons. You heard that right, he hunts Great Dragons, kills them, and steals their eggs to Corrupt them. With four other powerful Horrors, Verjigorm once took the time to force a dragon to write a book on the history of the Horrors...by making it rip out its own scales to use as parchment, rip out its own talons to use as pens, and use its own blood as ink.

Thankfully, Verjigorm requires a very high mana level to physically manifest for any length of time.

The thing about Horrors is that they come all at once. For every Named Horror, there's lots and lots and lots of unNamed Horrors who are still deadly, if not as powerful, intelligent or particular in how they feed. Hell, there's one Horror that feeds on other Horrors(note: he still manages to kill quite a few people in the process)! And for every unNamed Horror, you can bet your ass there's a bunch of Horror constructs, which vary from shambling undead to...weirder...and deadlier...things. Consider this: a group of windlings was corrupted into flying half-humanoid half-maggots who can reshape bone at will from a distance...letting them suddenly cave in your skull, say, or twist your spine into a disturbing sculpture. That said, a bullet through the head should kill one of 'em.

[/edit] For weak Horrors in SR, use Nomads and Wraiths from the SR3 Critters booklet.

Do you mean the "Nothing" ?

Okay, here's a quick and dirty horror conversion I knocked out. I'm not claiming by any means it's very accurate or well-rounded, but just something to have a look at.

A Wormskull is moderate to low-powered horror taken from the main rulebook. There are weaker ones than this, and there are much, much stronger ones too. It's not one of the coolest or most.. horrible, but something to throw around I guess. Typically they manifest in a roughly humanoid form, 5-8ft tall. Their head is a bare skull covered and filled with worms, and the body is likewise made of writhing worms covered with pieces of armour. Their presence also tends to remove moisture from an area of 1000m around them. Just a flavour thing I suppose, to make things more creepy.

I'd treat them a bit like a spirit, since they have the ability to materialise and to disappear completely to the astral plane again. So give it the materialization power, but not the Immunity (normal weapons) or stats suggested in Critters (the other immunities are fine though (i.e. age, pathogens, poisons)). Also, unlike regular spirits, I'm sure horrors would be all too keen to materialise if it caused more despair and fear around them!


Wormskull

Force 6

Qui 4
Str 3
Bod 5/6
Int 5
Wil 5
Cha 3
Ess 6

Init 2d6+4

Hardened Armour (6, which is the 6 after the slash for Bod stat)

Animate Dead: To use this power the horror must touch part of the corpse to be affected. Make Force (6) test, if successful the corpse rises as a Zombie under the control of the horror, and remains in existence for three days. All the Zombie's stats are equal to half the horror's force. Calculate initiative and combat pool normally. A horror can create and control a number of Zombies equal to its Force, and exert influence over them up to a range of Force x 50m. Control is via an empathic bond and requires no test once the Zombie has been created, although the horror must be able to concentrate to issue any orders.

Immunity (Fear effects and spells)

Skin Shift: Make a Force test against the natural Body of the victim. If at least one success is scored the character takes Light physical damage, staged up as normal by extra successes (two successes cause a Moderate wound, etc). On each of the horror's next two actions, make the same test. On the first of the three actions roll three extra dice on the Force test. Maintaining this power over three actions requires no concentration, but it can only be used on one character at a time.

Spellcasting: Any spells up to Force 6, GMs discretion.

Terror: Make a Force test against the Willpower of all characters within 50m. If any successes are achieved on a character that character must make a willpower (Force) test to take any action against the horror. Until a successful willpower test is made, an affected character can take no other actions and remains cowering and wailing in terror. Using this power causes an automatic light stun wound to the horror.

-----

For those that don't know ED, Skin Shift is a particularly nasty horror power, and when a character is damaged by it "his skin tears loose from muscles and ligaments, twisting and rotating about his body". Nice eh?

Brief Earthdawn Stats I used, as taken from LRG main rulebook:

Dex 12
Str 10
Tou 10
Per 13
Wil 11
Cha 8


Animate Dead 24
Horror Durability 12-22
Immune to Fear
Skin Shift 24
Spells: Circle 6 Nethermancer
Terror 25


I roughly divided all the ED stats by three and changed them to SR stats, then modified some according to Physical/Spell Defence, Death Rating and so on.

Yeah, I know there are Zombies in MitS, but I just made my own version up, okay?

Hmm, I think most SR campaigns would need something tougher than the Wormskull to actually give an average party trouble. Even at Chargen plenty of Sams have higher initiative, and his armor will really only help with some SMGs, and Light Pistols. Unless you send them in numbers so large the players are swamped, of course, but you can kill the party swamping them with vast numbers of rabid housecats. I'd want my Horrors to be a bit more horrifying than something that's getting mowed down by the dozens by the Samurai's AK-98.

never playing ED my impression is to an SR character anything not uberpowerful is easily taken care of, its the nasties that you need to worry about, but this is only my impression, YMMV

I think he might be referring to Ristul. During ED, Ristul is an astrally limited Horror who is basically indistinguishable from the background count. This may be due to Ristul being most of the background count.

The little detail that three of the strongest spirits in ED may have paid with their own sanity (and slowly, more of themselves) to slow Ristul from consuming the earth may support the comparison.

Listed powers: (paraphrased)
Corrupt Karma: If the Horror makes a test, it can prevent a character from using karma to oppose the Horror. The TN is higher to prevent any use of karma. Must be done for each attempted use of karma. Requires LoS or a Horror Mark.
Horror Mark: Gives the marker effective LoS to the marked.
Horror Thread: A boosted form of Mark. Through time, study, and spent karma, the Horror can gain great understanding of a victim as well as be able to remotely control the victim in a manner similar to possession but with no chance of relayed injury. This can be used to override the target's own preferences or to shift the target's preferences so that it becomes a willing servant.
Karma Tap: The Horror may be able to give a suggestion to a target. A Mark makes it easier. If the suggestion is followed, the target has a bonus to a game mechanic that is difficult to translate to SR to complete that task. Maybe an extra pool or something.

Ristul's behaviour in the world was mostly limited to two specific manifestations.

Nightwists are nightmares given substance.
Ristular are the physical remains of people consumed by Ristul.

Stylish horror. I am more interested in that one, helping heroes. On another note, I think that Faust got a great deal. He achieved everything he strived for, and did not pay for that. Bills were paid by others near him.

Okay, idea, blatantly ripped from Urusei Yatsura. I want horror which gives victim instant successes and helps to look cool, like shooting all enemies with two shotguns and then spinning them like pistols before putting away. All for one day - at the end of day he manifests and consumes soul of victim. Here is where his stats are needed, if someone near will be willing to help "the lucky guy" - and I think they will not. Powers are not needed at all, they are quite self-explaining.

I always had this idea of using a Horror Mark against the Horror, just like a symbolic link type of thing, If you have something on me, then I have something on you.

Well, it's a common example. A mark reflects the Horror that made it, and might be hidden, and sometimes just looks different. A mark probably couldn't be mistaken for cyberware.

But, what if cyberware (it's effect on the soul) is the result of a horror, possibly the Faustian deal one.

It doesn't work like that. A mark is slightly more involved than a dog pissing on a tree to mark it, but notably alien from the aura itself (rather than a reflection of the difference between the body and implants). Asides from which, none of the "Faustian" Horrors work like that. If Artificer and Nemesis got together they could /probably/ come up with some pseudo-cyberware.

What if they influenced the creation of something that would slowly destroy the soul while seemingly give you an edge? think of the treasure trove of pain that cyberzombies must present for Horrors.

It's just a thought

Send in the cyberzombies to go after the Horrors.

Second.

And see those same zombies become meat puppets for the horrors, I doubt the zombies could defend themselves. I think they'd be too busy pondering the meaning of that last birthday candle on their 2nd birthday cake to notice the mind of something truly resembling a demon slipping into their body.

Well, the Horror isn't going anywhere after it possesses a cyberzombie. Heck, just install an off switch on the cyberzombie a la Burnout/Lethe and voila! Horror prison!

Why couldn't the Horror control a cyberzombie?

Because all the cybernetics got switched off?

Because the Horror is now happily figuring out the meaning of that last candle? Because the MBW 4 just caused CDS? Because...

Because the Horror can kill the silly cyberzombie and just animate the dead corpse of a body?

True... but it could have done the same to any normal (meta)human.

what can I say? I'm inspired for a game I'm running

Either they snapped and let Ristul in with little resistance, or they offered themselves and many of their followers to slow Ristul so that it could not spread far during the height of the mana cycle (when it could physically manifest). Which sequence of events you hear depends on which historian you listen to.

It'd be interesting to see how Ristul would fare against some high-level FAB-III clouds (Or, if this is the future of SR, something more advanced along the same lines, like FAB-VII). One is a living Spirit/Background count, the other eats background counts, Spirits, and pretty much anything else magical as well. If Ristul covered a wide area he might even be vulnerable to multiple clouds at once. We'd need a force Rating for Ristul when calculating damage, though.

One concern with SR, remember that if your players meet a Horror, the odds are they will devote the rest of their lives to hunting down and killing Horrors. Somehow, they will find a way. Most runners, even fairly amoral ones, will tend to decide that it's in their own best interest to make sure those things aren't the future. And if they're fairly moral types, then there's no way they'll go back to stealing paydata for Mr. Johnson when more of those things might be showing up. They might do stuff like that to earn a little cred on the side, but they will probably have a new goal in life, and when they're constantly searching the Matrix for evidence of encounters, bringing bits of the Horror's body to DIMR for inspection, posting messages in Shadowland (Where a lot of people who know what the Horrors are hang out) etc. it's pretty hard for the GM to stop them. So you might want to think carefully about inserting Horrors unless you're going to run a very horror-centric campaign.

DIMR?

Don't know about eating background count, but it will create voids (source: Target: UCAS).

I think this thread is a good example why the "horrors crossing over" plotline was largely eliminated and left for dead in the DragonHeart trilogy.

Mr. Sandman: DIMR is the Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research, set up in his will to study magic. Of course what they know about horrors is debatable since FASA, and to some Degree Fanpro, didn't/doesn't like letting the players know what is going on in their own games, but if I ran into a Horror I'm pretty sure that's where my character would take the body for study.

Actually if the Horrors really got Nasty I suspect humans would just migrate into space for the Duration. Nothing Astral can survive in space. They've already got sufficient space travel ability to have orbital habitats that can handle themselves permanently, a few hundred of those all over the place, and the Horrors can have EArth for the Scourge while Mankind's safe and sound up there. Maybe build an orbital ring system with a series of Upraised Middle Fingers painted on it's underside to remind them what we think of them, and the Dragons too since they won't be able to come and get to live with the Horrors by themselves.

Frustration; one of Humanity's greatest Weapons against the Horrors.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. That's the only way to be sure.

Ho-ho-hold on one second. This installation has a substantial dollar value attached to it! and what, you're.. you're a sergeant? I dont think you have the kind of authority to make a decision like that.