Hi. I was recently rereading some of my Earthdawn books, and wondering (as I often do), how much of ED would work in the SR world. This time I got to thinking about threads. I've always considered that any type of thread magic would be right out. Nothing like it is mentioned in the SR books.

But then I remembered foci. You have to bond with the foci in order for them to work. In SR, you spend karma to bond the foci. In ED, the adept weaves a thread to the object, spending legend points. SR karma and ED legend points are exactly the same dynamic in their respective games.

So, if some threaded item (say a lightning mace or a silvered shield) was uncovered in SR, would an adept be able to bond with the item? I'd imagine they wouldn't get more than the Level 1 Thread effects, since in SR you bond once and it's done, as opposed to the multiple thread weavings in ED. But could it be done?

Quick, to the Ancient History-signal!

I am no ED expert, but thread weaving is more than just bonding to the object. You have to find out about the object's history. The more than you know about the object and its power the more you have access too. Shadowrun bonding is a different process. I would rule, if there was an object like this that existed, that you would have to pay the bonding costs for each level. In SR there is a multiplier cost for something like power focus. It used to be level * 3 right? So just pay force in karma the first time and you get limited power. Then when you find out more and bond it the second time, you get access to more power.

I am definitely not very knowledgable, but that was how it was explained to me.

:turns on the skylights. A giant nuyen symbol appears in the sky.:

You don't need to bond all of a stacked focus at once, so why wouldn't a threaded item be similar? The main difference is that instead of distinct different functions, each new bonding builds on the previous ones. There are many where some of the needed deeds will be impossible except maybe by astral quest, but it isn't a large stretch to allow complex bonded foci.

The process has some superficial similarities. In SR terms, a standard threaded item would be akin to a stacked focus with multiple runic enchantments - for example, needing to know such-and-such knowledge or performing such-and-such a deed before bonding such-and-such enchantment. In addition, you would have to purchase the enchantments in a specific order.

For a relatively simple thread item, it may only be a matter of only being able to upgrade the focus (paying additional karma to do so) in discrete steps, sometimes once a specific deed has been performed or piece of information obtained.

By this conversion, Item History and similar talents would essentially be a geas on the Psychometry metamagic technique or Aura Reading skill.

Essentially all of the Key Knowledges could only be learned by interrogating Dragons or IE's. That'd be an epic quest all it's own, and that'd just be for Thread Level 2!

You're right, many of the Deeds would be impossible. Death's Sea doesn't exist any more, for example.

Good point. I forgot that you need the item's name to even start attaching threads.

funny you should mention that isnce a lot of nethermancers used to take trips to 'Throne' for just that reason.

I've dropped one thread item into SR so far, the sword Nightscar if anyone is familiar with it. It has a spirit named Gloom trapped inside of it. It was angry in Earthdawn for being trapped in the sword for 500 years or so. Now it's absolutely insane! And one of my players has it. He has no idea what he's in for.

Oh my. That'd be interesting to watch.