[Beta]

Anyone know if there is more about The Hive beyond what is in Astral Ways?

Astral Ways briefly talks about The Web, and its queen.  It is a metaplane near The Hive (home of the Invae), and possibly one of the reasons that The Hive has not expanded farther.  But the information on the Web is pretty short.  I have an upcoming opportunity to send a character there, and am wondering if there is more written about it anywhere else?  I don't recall anything about it from the 5e books but I might have forgotten something. 

[FastJack]

I haven't seen anything new on it.

[Beta]

I was more wondering if there was something old on it (4e or something).

[FastJack]

The only thing I can think of that may be related is the old Spider totem. Especially Spider from the Secrets of Power Trilogy. She was toxic/insect in the book, but was operating very different from the Chicago/UB bugs.

[Lewis Greywolf]

There are five or six paragraphs in Aetherology (p 26 and p 29) but that all there is as far as I know.

[Beta]

There are five or six paragraphs in Aetherology (p 26 and p 29) but that all there is as far as I know.

Thank you so much!  I thought there had to be something somewhere, I'd forgotten about that part of Aetherology.  I'll go read that now!

[FastJack]

Oh, that's good. I had forgotten about Aetherology!

[Beta]

Aetherology delivered exactly what I needed, and just in the nick of time!

(Background, just to show how perfect and timely this information was:

In a (5e) game I have a magician with the Spider mentor spirit, whose long term objective is to create or draft a spider great form spirit and guide it to becoming the City Spirit of Chicago (and hence fending off the mostly rather undesirable great form spirits currently vying for that role, as outlined in the Anarchy publication Chicago Chaos).  It is a cool concept -- both a predator to insects and figuratively someone who can knit things together with their 'web', and it works with Chicago's history as a transportation hub (a web or roads, tracks, and flights all centred on the city).  The most likely outcome is that they die trying, but I'm letting them take a good run at it, waving hands vigorously where necessary as we have no information on how something becomes a city spirit.

Currently they were about to buy the "Favoured Pupil" quality from Forbidden Arcana, in one part for the karma savings so that they can dump all their longer term karma into this scheme, but two parts for the role play aspect of showing building a closer bond with Spider, as one step towards making all of this happen. 

Yesterday was the session where the in-game date reached the point they wanted to spend the karma, so I had them get diverted to The Web when they thought they were investigating a metaplanar portal in Denver. (a powerful but not ultimate spirit "aether-web snagged them" he said, waving his hands vigorously). They are going to have to prove their mettle with some invae hunting, then, thanks to Aetherology, that there are three prime spirits in The Web.  They are going to have to choose one of Warrior, Finder of Secrets, or Trickster as part of forging that closer bond.  The character absolutely has aspects of all three, so the choice will be fascinating, and is FAR better than anything I'd come up with for this step.)

PS. I may raise another topic on this, but has anyone heard any rumours of whether the 'city spirit of Chicago competition' is going to get picked up in any of the main SR books, or if that is just staying as an Anarchy side plot?

[Longshot23]

There are five or six paragraphs in Aetherology (p 26 and p 29) but that all there is as far as I know.

Don't tell me - the major draw to go to Metabeles is the [almost] unique blue crystals that have mana battery-like qualities, and the smaller denizens practice a bizarre form of the Possession tradition . . .

[DeathStrobe]

Wow, Beta your table's narrative is super dope. After doing something as cool as that, I might just recommend completely ignoring canon if it ever conflicts with your table's story.

[Beta]

Wow, Beta your table's narrative is super dope. After doing something as cool as that, I might just recommend completely ignoring canon if it ever conflicts with your table's story.

The reason I prefer to stick with canon as much as possible is that my imagination has its limits, so if I have to keep thinking of things they get repetitive.  Using published material gives me a source of things that are different than what I'd think of (sure, I tweak them, but I try to keep the basics there).  But the more that my campaign veers from canon, the harder a lot of published material becomes to use.

So, for example, in my campaign Celedyr left a foundation portal into Marianne, 'just in case' -- letting the party find that was a cool moment.  BUT he's never used it, so things continue on per canon (so far).  Likewise we will do this Chicago city spirit thing, but it is possible that the spider spirit will eat another spirit and lay a young that looks like the consumed spirit (but is secretly also spider), so that that we can at least have a veneer of canon even if the party got to do their thing.