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Shadowrun Mysteries & Lore
Athenor
Battle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
Battle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
Well, as promised (and authorized by the mods), here's the discussion thread!
Shadowrun is one of the few RPG's that people read media for without ever actually playing the game. It has a rich history, steeped in 10 in-game years of events, over 100 sourcebooks, countless novels, and many forms of canon product. It has a pretty rabid following, needless to say: When I was at GenCon in 2003, it seemed like everyone in the exhibitioners booth had been involved with Shadowrun at some point.. Or, at least, the cool ones are.
So.. Why the second Shadowrun thread? The first thread rocks -- don't get me wrong. But I see that more as a games, rules, and "Holy shit, guess what happened on my last run!" type of thread. Nothing wrong with this.. Nothing at all. This thread, however, is going to be focusing exclusively on the story of Shadowrun, and its various mysteries and discussions.
I would like to start off by stating, I see this as kind of a flowing Debate and Discource style thread. I want to keep it to official canon lore (citing your source would, of course, be nice.. but with how much is out there, that can be hard). Hypothesis and theory is alright, but it is to be respected. In my mind, this is what will set this thread apart from most Shadowrun lore discussion: I don't want there to be sniping, attacks, or any of that bulldrek that I saw on Dumpshock. No one is completely right about the fiction (sometimes not even the game writers themselves), and sometimes people will present interesting theories that are just too cool to ignore.
There will be "spoilers" in this thread. Plot points will not be tiptoed around. Consider this your one and only warning -- You may see things that will surprise or amuse you, but by reading the last sentance, you agreed to it. Too late to turn back now!
I really don't want this to be a rules thread. Stuff has happened, both in the sourcebooks and in the novels, that isn't possible in the rules. That's because if you are important enough to get a novel written about you, you're above the rules. ;-) Thus, any debate of "Well it's not possible in the rules" will be prompty ridiculed.
Also, realize that Shadowrun is a morality play.. And these guys are doing highly unethical, illegal, and sometimes evil things. Don't hold that against the posters. ;-)
I'll begin with 3 "mysteries" to talk about; feel free to add more. One is what spawned this idea, the other two have come up since.
The Bureau of Heaven and Earth
Runner Havens is the new core setting book of Shadowrun, detailing Hong Kong and Seattle. As is usual with books of this nature, huge plot elements were laid down in it, but I don't think any was as big as BoH&E (H&E from here on out). After all, it got its own section.
Now. This section starts out with an unapologetic guy by the name of Puck saying this was information that has to get out, and FastJack supporting him in it. So knowing who Puck is would be a good place to begin. Puck, put simply, was the hand of the Devil. He was a White Zombie, or an Otaku under the command of Deus, the 3rd Artificial Intellegence in Shadowrun. He was directly involved with the Renraku incident, and has the blood of countless people on his hands. Put simply, he is a -very bad- guy.
Fastjack, on the other hand, is the current owner of the Shadowland node (where all the books in the Shadowrun universe are "published" to). He is well over 70, and is like the wise old decker. He was involved when Puck attacked Shadowland in 2059.
So why are they working together? Puck got ahold of some headware memory that contained the literal memory of someone involved with the Bureau. They were centered around a figure that sounded like cyborg, if not an android -- something that, up to this point in Shadowrun, has not existed. They were investigating suspected "complex forms" in the Matrix, and perhaps in the population.
Now, to me, these guys sounded like they were related to the Tibetian Monks, who are very secretive in Shadowrun. Yet their influence has been growing ever since the Renraku incident, when they harbored the CEO of Renraku thanks to the manipulations of Dunkelzahn. The text theoriezes that the monks are going after Artificial Intellegence, but I am not so sure. What's more, I'm more interested in the movements of said monks, and what interest they could have in the Matrix.
Captain Chaos
This one's more touchy, and at this point I have a lot less information, so it'll be more theorycraft. As SR4 outlines, Captain Chaos is.. missing, and has been since the Crash 2.0 of 2064. Now, they've never really talked about the Cap's meat body... but in System Failure, you get a glimpse of it.
System Failure implies that Captain Chaos's meat body has died.. but his consiousness is still alive in the Matrix. What's more, it seems to have been shepherded by some proto-AI's, or the ghosts in the machine, or something. This didn't just come out of the blue... There is evidence of the proto-AI's and ghosts being out there before.
So where is the Captain? It's hard to say with only a handful of sourcebooks out there for Shadowrun, 4th. Still, it's fun to speculate!
Los Angeles
When Shadowrun, 4th came out, there was a shitstorm on Dumpshock over southern California. See... it sank. Yes, that is horribly cliche for a cyberpunk or apocalyptic setting... But what's worse, it was hardly touched on in 4th's rulebook, leaving many angry at the writing. To add insult to injury, the water pattern didn't follow natural faults and landlines.. It seemed like it was randomly drawn.
Now, a year later, some more information has come out about what has happened. And it's in an unlikely source.
Street Magic has a section on the Astral Space and the Metaplanes. In it, many areas are described in-character, in regards to magical hotspots and oddities around the globe. On that cault my eye was page 116, The Deep Lacuna.
This explains that right before the flood, a massive tunnel complex appeared during the earthquakes that caused the sinking, which then collapsed and flooded. They are thought to be an Alchera, a magical construct that reflects nature that appears on the physical plane. The book goes on to theorize that these caves may have been one of the shelters from Earthdawn times that humanity hid in to survive the Horrors, but that might be a red herring.
So.. what do you think?
These are just some seed discussions. No part of the plot is really off limits, as long as you are respectful. And as you can see.. Earthdawn isn't off-limits either, although Shadowrun will always get priority.
Feel free to ask your own questions or start your own discussions as well.. I only presented my posts like this in the OP (instead of individual posts) because I am worried about my internet crashing.
Shadowrun is one of the few RPG's that people read media for without ever actually playing the game. It has a rich history, steeped in 10 in-game years of events, over 100 sourcebooks, countless novels, and many forms of canon product. It has a pretty rabid following, needless to say: When I was at GenCon in 2003, it seemed like everyone in the exhibitioners booth had been involved with Shadowrun at some point.. Or, at least, the cool ones are.
So.. Why the second Shadowrun thread? The first thread rocks -- don't get me wrong. But I see that more as a games, rules, and "Holy shit, guess what happened on my last run!" type of thread. Nothing wrong with this.. Nothing at all. This thread, however, is going to be focusing exclusively on the story of Shadowrun, and its various mysteries and discussions.
I would like to start off by stating, I see this as kind of a flowing Debate and Discource style thread. I want to keep it to official canon lore (citing your source would, of course, be nice.. but with how much is out there, that can be hard). Hypothesis and theory is alright, but it is to be respected. In my mind, this is what will set this thread apart from most Shadowrun lore discussion: I don't want there to be sniping, attacks, or any of that bulldrek that I saw on Dumpshock. No one is completely right about the fiction (sometimes not even the game writers themselves), and sometimes people will present interesting theories that are just too cool to ignore.
There will be "spoilers" in this thread. Plot points will not be tiptoed around. Consider this your one and only warning -- You may see things that will surprise or amuse you, but by reading the last sentance, you agreed to it. Too late to turn back now!
I really don't want this to be a rules thread. Stuff has happened, both in the sourcebooks and in the novels, that isn't possible in the rules. That's because if you are important enough to get a novel written about you, you're above the rules. ;-) Thus, any debate of "Well it's not possible in the rules" will be prompty ridiculed.
Also, realize that Shadowrun is a morality play.. And these guys are doing highly unethical, illegal, and sometimes evil things. Don't hold that against the posters. ;-)
I'll begin with 3 "mysteries" to talk about; feel free to add more. One is what spawned this idea, the other two have come up since.
The Bureau of Heaven and Earth
Runner Havens is the new core setting book of Shadowrun, detailing Hong Kong and Seattle. As is usual with books of this nature, huge plot elements were laid down in it, but I don't think any was as big as BoH&E (H&E from here on out). After all, it got its own section.
Now. This section starts out with an unapologetic guy by the name of Puck saying this was information that has to get out, and FastJack supporting him in it. So knowing who Puck is would be a good place to begin. Puck, put simply, was the hand of the Devil. He was a White Zombie, or an Otaku under the command of Deus, the 3rd Artificial Intellegence in Shadowrun. He was directly involved with the Renraku incident, and has the blood of countless people on his hands. Put simply, he is a -very bad- guy.
Fastjack, on the other hand, is the current owner of the Shadowland node (where all the books in the Shadowrun universe are "published" to). He is well over 70, and is like the wise old decker. He was involved when Puck attacked Shadowland in 2059.
So why are they working together? Puck got ahold of some headware memory that contained the literal memory of someone involved with the Bureau. They were centered around a figure that sounded like cyborg, if not an android -- something that, up to this point in Shadowrun, has not existed. They were investigating suspected "complex forms" in the Matrix, and perhaps in the population.
Now, to me, these guys sounded like they were related to the Tibetian Monks, who are very secretive in Shadowrun. Yet their influence has been growing ever since the Renraku incident, when they harbored the CEO of Renraku thanks to the manipulations of Dunkelzahn. The text theoriezes that the monks are going after Artificial Intellegence, but I am not so sure. What's more, I'm more interested in the movements of said monks, and what interest they could have in the Matrix.
Captain Chaos
This one's more touchy, and at this point I have a lot less information, so it'll be more theorycraft. As SR4 outlines, Captain Chaos is.. missing, and has been since the Crash 2.0 of 2064. Now, they've never really talked about the Cap's meat body... but in System Failure, you get a glimpse of it.
System Failure implies that Captain Chaos's meat body has died.. but his consiousness is still alive in the Matrix. What's more, it seems to have been shepherded by some proto-AI's, or the ghosts in the machine, or something. This didn't just come out of the blue... There is evidence of the proto-AI's and ghosts being out there before.
So where is the Captain? It's hard to say with only a handful of sourcebooks out there for Shadowrun, 4th. Still, it's fun to speculate!
Los Angeles
When Shadowrun, 4th came out, there was a shitstorm on Dumpshock over southern California. See... it sank. Yes, that is horribly cliche for a cyberpunk or apocalyptic setting... But what's worse, it was hardly touched on in 4th's rulebook, leaving many angry at the writing. To add insult to injury, the water pattern didn't follow natural faults and landlines.. It seemed like it was randomly drawn.
Now, a year later, some more information has come out about what has happened. And it's in an unlikely source.
Street Magic has a section on the Astral Space and the Metaplanes. In it, many areas are described in-character, in regards to magical hotspots and oddities around the globe. On that cault my eye was page 116, The Deep Lacuna.
This explains that right before the flood, a massive tunnel complex appeared during the earthquakes that caused the sinking, which then collapsed and flooded. They are thought to be an Alchera, a magical construct that reflects nature that appears on the physical plane. The book goes on to theorize that these caves may have been one of the shelters from Earthdawn times that humanity hid in to survive the Horrors, but that might be a red herring.
So.. what do you think?
These are just some seed discussions. No part of the plot is really off limits, as long as you are respectful. And as you can see.. Earthdawn isn't off-limits either, although Shadowrun will always get priority.
Feel free to ask your own questions or start your own discussions as well.. I only presented my posts like this in the OP (instead of individual posts) because I am worried about my internet crashing. He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
Athenor on
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Posts
(see Alice).
What got me with System Failure was the military coup on the UCAS presidency. THAT fucked me up. Mainly cause I wasn't expecting it.
Any word on Roxy (that..... thing... in the tube at Aztechnology)?
Any info at ALL on Aztechnology? Last I heard about them was thier guerilla-civil war in the Yucatec area. Scorched earth tactics used by the Big A kinda backfired when Toxic nature spirits started showing up and kicking everything's ass.
Imagine how cool that would be. The guy who's pretty much been the heart and soul of Shadownet, an AI, hopefully benevolent (I know it's Cap, but this is Shadowrun after all), watching out over the Nodes. Maybe it was all part of Dunk's plan, y'know?
The more I read about it, the more I realize that I have to really get my hoop in gear and start collecting all of the SR4th stuff.
For Lore, how about the floating rocks over Crater Lake? For that matter, what is up with Crater Lake? There hasn't been a whole lot said beyond, "there's like, floating islands and stuff man!"
It just talks about it as a -4 rating mana ebb (which, to be honest, is an insanely strong ebb, almost approaching warp ratings). But yeah.. it apparently switched from being a huge pool where mana collected, to being drained like a sieve.. Yet spirits still congregate there, and of course there are the "skull of the dragon" formations. It almost sounds like someone was using it as a mana battery, to me.. Which isn't all that unheard of, given the Wuxung Skytower.
And yeah, that's what I think will happen with the Cap... He won't appear until some time of dire need, but he will return someday, no explination of what happened... I can even see it being an adventure.
What book has the prior write-up of Crater Lake?
Cap was saved by the Jack B Nimble program Dunkelzahn left in his will, right?
So my money's on one of two things: The white knight charging in to save the day from... I dunno... Winternight or something. Or Cap as a horribly twisted AI causing all sorts of problems.
Thank you, Rubacava!
Shadows of North America did. I believe Target: Awakened Lands had a section on it, California Free State alluded to it, and I am 100% confident that Tir Tangrine had a writeup on it, but I don't have that book.
Orik: I really would like to keep this about the story, but eh. ;-) I'd say that as a player, the GM screen is not nearly as useful as it was for 3rd edition and previous. The reasoning is simple: In 4th, a -LOT- more of the supplement pages are given permission to copy. It's a big change, really, but most of the tables can be printed legally, and players can create their own tables and charts.
Now, as a GM? Hell yes, simply because there is such an overabundance of information with Shadowrun that any little bit helps.
Jack B Nimble.. Isn't it said that it was written by Leonardo, or he had some hand in it? Leonardo is one of those characters I know the least about in regards to Shadowrun lore...
For the life of me, I can't remember if he showed up, in any fashion, in relation to the Jorgumund.. I don't -think- he did.
... God I love the Jorgumund, though.
You know, I have a friend that swears VITAS was released by an Aztlan expedition, and was intentionally released...
I do like how HMHVV is an adaptable virus. Depending on Strain and metatype of the infected you can be a Ghoul, Vampire, Windego, or that really long string of letters
Have there been any recent comments on the Ghoul cabal/nation/thing in Africa?
How are the Tibetan monks increasing their influence when the CEO of Renraku has, as far as I know, been literally the only outsider to visit them since the barrier went up? They seemed like they were completely indifferent to the rest of the world and only wanted to get their zen on or something.