i base my opinion that dragons are astrally active during downcycles on the fact that Masaru became a GD almost immediately after the awakening ("immediately" on a dragon/IE scale). i suppose it's possible that he became worthy of GD status towards the end of the 4th world, and it just got put off because of the coming downcycle, but... i dunno. i seem to remember hearing something about him hatching in the 4th world--doesn't seem like that's enough time to have done whatever it is a dragon has to do to qualify for GD, if he slept through the 5th world completely.

It has been suggested that dragons could have been physically active for certain /very/ short periods in very specific areas; such as the "mini-Awakening" in the Balkans during the Dark Ages.

Oh, and Ghostwalker and Dunkelzahn come from the same batch of eggs, so they're the same age.

Are Sirrurg and Lofwyr friends at all? Sirrurg tends to frown in the burning, painful way on dragonkillers, though this may or may not be due to a specific dragon that was offed rather than dragonkilling in general.

~J

Sirrurg is a loner, pure and simple. And he's supposedly hunting those who were stupid and powerful enough to hunt hibernating dragons during the down-cycle.

Right, I'm just wondering if his hunt would extend to the killers of a modern, awakened Great. Of course, he might just assume that then it's a fair fight. With him, you never can tell.

~J

I've found the "Kill the biggest thing in the game" comes up inevitably in any game. In D&D someone'll want to kill a god, etc. The assumption I make in all cases is that you can't. Not because they're physically unkillable, not because they're smarter then you, but because they're more important then you. It is often assumed in Shadowrun that the surge of mana in the sixth age allowed the Great Dragons to wake up and study at tech school. It's entirely possible that the reverse is true. I.E that the Great Dragons woke up, and that either caused the surge of mana, or was a contributing factor. The death of Big D has apearantly created a kind of mana warp. Conceivably, mana could gradually be draining from the world because of it. Big D was, let's face it, a sfotie. He was a compasionate aulturist. Lofwyr is not. Lofwyr would have no qualms about telling someone, or some government threatening to kill him, "I am magically linked to the land of Germany. If you kill me, the land will wither, and kill all germans. Do you wish to kill millions of innocent people?" That's merely one of an unlimited number of "dead man swtich" magical consequences of offing Lofwyr.

I think of the relationship dragons have to mana with the relationshipp humans have with bodyheat. Heat comes from other sources too, but the human body produces a tremendous amount of heat, especially when compared to a "lower" life form, such as a fish, or insect. The great Dragons may be amoung the most important sources for mana in the world.

Oh, the Big D was still a dragon, and a fairly ruthless guy by metahuman standards, sure. But when push came to shove in the Big D's will, his overiding priority was clearly the greater good that could be achiveied from the resources his hoad represented, not revenge. He was basically as much of a sofite as a canny old dragon could be and not actually jeopordize himself. Or...maybe the fact that he actually was killed does mean he thought the greater good in the world was worth risking his life, to an extent. It seems the odds caught up with him eventually.

Lofwyr's overriding goal is the greater good his resources can do, too.

The greater good to Lofwyr, but still.

~J

He was killed in the sense that he killed himself.

~J

Well the way I understand it he sacrificed himself to save the Human kind from the deamons. The rift caused by the Ghost Wars that would allow deamon to cross from astral space to the real world. This was done to reinforce the Last bastion.

By powering the Dragon Heart, yes.

~J

I really think a Great of Lofwyr's power'd be made unkillable would be Divining. I always thought, first based on the Nano-Second Buyout, then later the whole will thing, that at the very least The Big D would regularly scope out the future, just to see what's coming. I'd imagine that one's own death'd be pretty hard to miss in the old scryin' glass. So, Lofwyr plops down for his weekly black mirror session, sees a couple of uppity mammals are plotting to off him, and unlike the hordes of others, they have something like a 1% chance of maybe pulling it off. So, when they get off the plane in Germany, before they've passed through security, and are still without their weapons, a team of assassins hits them. Then, should they against all odds survive, they'd find that every single one of the contacts they were going to buy their dragon killing gear from has been professionally killed, and their fake SINs (or, if they have them, real ones) have been linked to a gang of BTL running serial killers. Serial killers with big bounties, of the No Questions Asked variety. Just heads for creds, ya know?

And if they should survive all of that, they might have to deal with Lofwyr exerting some sort of effort to stop them.

Dragons don't like using Divination according to Dot6W, both because it shows only possible futures and it makes immortality boring as hell.

But I also think there is a Metamagic like Masking that could hide one from Divination attempts.

1) Always remember the special powers Greats get that deal with their Karma Pool. (pp. 178-179)

2) This is a GD, not some random paracritter that happens to be slightly intelligent. They plan things for dozens of decades at a time.

On the comment that everything should have stats: Ever take a peek at Harlequin/Harlequin's Back? Not once do they give stats for The Laughing Man. Why? He's the driving force, for one. For two, he can do anything and everything you can, and better. If you give something stats, it can die. If you don't want it dead, it doesn't have stats. Therefore, FASA never gave him stats.

It also specifically states that dragons follow a different type of magic. They don't have a path, a totem, a specific point of interest... Just magic.

I always play it so that if the only thing keeping beings like Lofwyr alive is their intelligence and foreplanning and ressources, not stats or personal power. Any dragon in my campaign is so much wormfood going up against prepared military or the equivalent. So, if a great does want to take a joyride in the air, they better make sure no thor missiles, laser satellites or other stuff are in range, switch some ECM and such on, create a diversion on the other side of the planet, and stay on the move.

Any non-greater dragon is just some harder target than usual, but nothing a combined-arms unit backed by protective magic can not kill. Stuff that shreds a main battle tank kills a dragon too.

But then, in my campaign, humans still are, as a whole, top of the food chain. Dragons and other critters with exceptional intellect and magic powers - I consider immortal elves not really elves, but some elf-looking horror spawn - may manipulate them, even control a big load of them through various means, but in an all-out fight against humanity those beings would be wiped out by sheer numbers, modern weaponry, and the penchant of humans to kill stuff.

(Yes, that means that Megacorps and some select countries are way above anything all "ancient threats" other than those that control S-K and Aztechnology can bring to bear. The Tirs, for all their vaunted magic, are simply not in the same league as those powers, especailly those packing nukes and orbital weapon systems. Again, in my campaign only.)

Actually, I'll point out that Immortal Elves are actually elven-looking dragonspawn.

Also, if I was running a game, and the PCs wanted to kill Lofwyr... they'll need to wade through zillions of heavily armored cybered-to-the-gills security gaurds, drones, monowire death corridors, et cetera, et cetera. He lives in a massive corporate arcology, it'll have the best security money can buy.

I'd say to kill Lowfyr, an orbital strike may be easier than personally killing him. Drop a thor missile or 12, or a few bunker-buster nukes on the S-K HQ when he is inside. Penetrating the security for those may be easier than physically getting to the dragon as a team of runners. Both seem to be nigh-impossible though.

No Lowfyr is very killable I could do it with two 1st edition burnt-out-mage archtypes with out any karma pool or anything!! Or any character for that matter....just turn to page 167 of the 1st edition SR corebook, (I'll help out those who are not hardcore enough to still own a 1st edition copy) his name is gang leader and he snaps his fingers and like 5-6 really big guys with chains and shit would just chop lowfyr to little dragon pieces!!! Too easy!!! One contact and whamo you have dragon killing potential.

All kidding asside. I am sure no own will read this post, as its been dead since for ever, but I just cant help but to say, great dragons dont die unless they want to or another great dragon wants to make it happen(.) That is just what it is.

Just reviving the dead here,

But if you were to stat out a great dragon one thing to remember is that they can kill each other in physical combat, so whatever armor/body/strength stats you give them, remember that they should have a physical attack that can get through that level of armor and cause damage.

I don't think it says exactly how Lowfyr killed the other dragons in combat, but if it involved tooth and claw then either those do an insane amount of damage against an insane amount of armor, or they do a huge amount of damage against a large amount of armor and body.


I guess if we knew the actual attack damage of a dragon bite/slash then we would be able to figure out their body/armor levels.

actually, the way i'd do it is that they'd require a combination of physical and magical attacks to hurt each other. for instance, in order to get a bite through another GD's armor, the attacker might have to cast some sort of 'soften armor' spell and then make his attack.

Am I the only one thinking of the fight between Superman and Darkseid from JLU where Supes punches Darkseid through three skyscrapers?

Or his fight with Captain Marvel, which actually managed to be even more insane.

Oh, here's an idea: The GDs play 4-D chess using metahumans as the pieces. Human history? A series of chess games. Loser dies.

No... Lofwyr and Nachtmeister (and Alamaise in Ragnarock) fought each other tooth and talon. But, yeah, I have to assume some magic was used.

Don't forget that packs of Wyverns have taken down adult dragons (in the Fourth World, anyway). Of course, a Wyvern pack may have exponential powers like Storm Crows. Which is actually a frightening idea...

have you explained to your players that going after loffy is an end game run, win lose or tie the charactors are retired after the run. when you have killed a great dragon there is nothing left to do. the only thing left is to start a new game.

Sure there's something to do—you start going after the rest of them!

~J

Yeah. I mean, that first Great? That's just getting your rep made a little bit, getting your foot in the door, showing the world you can handle it. A little ink on the resume, so to speak. Then it's time to really start working.