Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: Twitchy D on <11-02-12/1247:09>
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Winternight. Neo-Norse mythology based cult that believes that the Matrix will bring about Ragnarok. Made a deal with Pax and her "God" Deus. Got their hands on a stockpile of nuclear weapons and an experimental nanoweapon called Ymir. Helped bring about the Second Crash, then after that, I lose track of what happens to them, other then they have a few terrorist cells hiding throughout the world, possibly one or two in or around LA. That sums up all the knoledge I have of them right know, using only the Core Book, Vice, Feral Cities and Corporate Enclaves. I'm still tring to figure out how they first started, who their leaders are/were, what their ideaolgy is, why they seem to be fighting against Deus and Pax now, and whether or not a PC could be a former member of their cult. Thus, the creation of this topic. Enlighten my uninformed mind, oh keepers of knoledge unknownst to me!
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Surtr, not Ymir ... the king of the Fire Trolls and the one whose flaming sword ingites the Tree of Life during Ragnarok.
Leaders were Thursday (Thor's Day), Friday (Freia's Day), and Wednesday (Woden's Day).
Most of them were rounded up during Crash 2.0, but a tad too late, and the ones left became pariahs and were hunted down. There's almost nothing left of them.
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Okay... That's a good start. But I thought that Augumentation had mentioned that they had a weapon called Ymir, whose vector was ingested or inhailed and caused cold damage...
Also, with the tree thing that's now in the Matrix appearing on the deeper levels, wouldn't Winternight have a vested interest in it, seeing as it looks like a massive tree? And how do the remains of the group feel about what they had done? Are there any known survivors that excaped into the shadows besides the one mentioned in Vice's wanted section? Any that could be running in the shadows? And if their past came out, just how likely is it that a team would murder the heck out of that person, and how many initiative passes would that take?
PS: Ymir is in Arsenal, in the chemistry chapter. It's an inhaled/contact vector poison that causes blood to congeal, leading to frostbite-like effects. My bad.
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They're probably interested in the World Tree, yes, but trying to get themselves re-organized is the bigger force at the moment. The Corporate Court unleashed, well, *everything* to eradicate them during the Crash 2.0... they attacked the Z-O and nearly crashed it, set off nukes all over the globe, created the Jormungandr worm which brought down the Matrix ... to call them public enemy #1 is to sell them short. :) Two of the three heads got chopped off, while one (The decker I *think* but not sure off the top of my head) managed to get free later.
The corps don't mind a little crime in their order, keeps the people scared and in line, but CHAOS, they hate, and when you bring down teh Matrix and nearly the Z-O, well, you gotta go down. Even in the shadow community, Winternight is a pariah, and I'd lay odds that there are less than twenty of them left in the world. (I could, of course, be wrong on that part.)
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Made a deal with Pax and her "God" Deus.
Pax had long parted ways Deus at that time. And if her vision of a dissonant matrix had come true, it would probably have hurt Deus just as much as the rest of the world.
She is also heavily hinted to be still around, but I doubt she holds much allegiance to Winternight any longer. Pax only used WN as means to an (failed) end.
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Pax had her own terrorist cell, Ex Pacis. They only allied with Winternight, and neither side, I think, was totally honest with the other. She's hinted to have found a way to slow down her own Fade (probably as Dissonance's Greatest Champion), but if she's a major player it's very behind the scenes.
That said, she shouldnt be too old, early to mid 30s, assuming she was a little older than FastJacks daughter, so shes got some decades left to raise hell
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Made a deal with Pax and her "God" Deus.
Pax had long parted ways Deus at that time. And if her vision of a dissonant matrix had come true, it would probably have hurt Deus just as much as the rest of the world.
Didn't know that part. I thought that she was still associated with him in 2072.
She is also heavily hinted to be still around, but I doubt she holds much allegiance to Winternight any longer. Pax only used WN as means to an (failed) end.
I would figure that she ditched Winternight after the Second Crash. She just seems like that to me. It would explain why whatever remenants there are would be hunting down any and every technomancer they could find, judging by the fact that the world tree could possibly be related to Deus, and their Emergance synchs up after the fight in Manhattan.
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... to call them public enemy #1 is to sell them short. :)
I don't know... While Winternight is very bad news, I doubt that they could compete with THE BUGS. Winternight is made up of people, with human needs and human wants. Insect spirits are, judging by their thought processes regarding humans, as Cthulhu-like as currently possible in the Shadowrun Universe. We'll just leave the Horrors alone for now...
PS: Does anyone know what happened to the Threats: Winternight free PDF that the main site used to have? Saw it mentioned in the Winternight entry of the Shadowrun wiki.
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I think the Shedim qualify as as bigger Big Bad right now than the bugs.
The bugs are insidious for sure, but they have pretty natural patterns: multiply. The Shedim live off fear and death do they not? I don't think the bugs have a greater agenda than to feed/grow/whatever.
But anyway, I hope Puck opens up a bit more about Winternight and Pax. Also, what was he up to again in the recent books? Can't recall if it's been revealed.
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Pax is still around. She is leading a group of dissonant technomancers, and has apparently found a way to use some kind of 'ritual technomancy' to corrupt AIs.
Also, Pax broke with Deus immediately after the Shutdown ended, when she saw that they were all just pawns to the AI. She started working to slow her own fading at that point, which is what drove her to work with Winternight and try to reform the Matrix in her image. The fact that she got to strike at her enemy, Deus, was an added bonus.
As for Winternight, they'd been weakened dramatically after the Court's reprisals during Crash 2.0, but Friday still lived, so they continued. There are hints as subtle as an anvil to the forehead that Ghostwalker was using them as pawns in his bid to gather the Piri Reis Map and other associated artifacts so he could go on another metaplanar hop.
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Didn't know that part. I thought that she was still associated with him in 2072.
As Mirikon said, she got heavily disillusioned about her "god" and instead turned to following the Dissonance. Her vision was turning the matrix into a dissonant hellhole, although to Winternight she sold it as trying to destroy the matrix altogether...which means the two are certainly not on good terms now that the truth is out.
It would explain why whatever remenants there are would be hunting down any and every technomancer they could find, judging by the fact that the world tree could possibly be related to Deus, and their Emergance synchs up after the fight in Manhattan.
What battle in Manhattan? Something in Missions?
PS: As to Winternight having more human motives than other threats, remember they were big in toxic magic. Toxics tend to have extremely alien world views
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It would explain why whatever remenants there are would be hunting down any and every technomancer they could find, judging by the fact that the world tree could possibly be related to Deus, and their Emergance synchs up after the fight in Manhattan.
What battle in Manhattan? Something in Missions?
Sorry, let me try again... The fight in The East Coast Stock Exchange. Forgot that The New York Stock Exchange was no more, and it's replacement went to Boston...
PS: As to Winternight having more human motives than other threats, remember they were big in toxic magic. Toxics tend to have extremely alien world views
Winternight still had two other leaders that, while they worked with toxics, were still relativly normal, for all the worth you could give a cult that belives in Neo-Norse mythology and was filled with people who likely had some screwed up lives that led them down a path to purpously bring about the end times. I would suppose that the toxics would still be delusional lunatics, just more focused on a Winternight-based philosophy rather then a Toxic Mage based agenda.
(Starts shouting aloud) OF COURSE, I ACCEPT THAT I COULD BE WRONG ABOUT THAT FACT. I DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SETTING, SO THERE MAY BE SOME MISTAKES IN THE PREVIOUS SENTANCES, WHICH WOULDN'T REALLY BE MY FAULT NOW, WOULD IT?
There, that should be sufficiant armoring... ;D
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Well, the East Coast Stock Exchange is the one that's no more, and the New York Stock Market is now up and running again. The ECSE never recovered from Boston getting hit with atomic EMP, and Manhattan got itself up and running at almost teh same time. Getting the stock exchange back was a major feather in Manhattan Inc's hat and they feel like a real city again. (Or, well, *the* real city I suppose.)
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Well, the East Coast Stock Exchange is the one that's no more, and the New York Stock Market is now up and running again. The ECSE never recovered from Boston getting hit with atomic EMP, and Manhattan got itself up and running at almost teh same time. Getting the stock exchange back was a major feather in Manhattan Inc's hat and they feel like a real city again. (Or, well, *the* real city I suppose.)
So the NY Stock Exchange goes down in 2005, the EC Stock Exchange goes up, then the Second Crash happens, EC goes down, and NY returns?
No wonder I got confused...
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Pretty much, yeah. I think the ECSE limped along for a year or so before New York got up and running.
Lemme check right fast.
*checks*
Alright, no official date mentioned, but, yeah, in the wake of Crash 2.0, Boston couldn't run it anymore, so Manhattan took it back.
(For more on this, and general New York stuff, pick up Manhattan, the ROtten Apple, on drive-thru RPG and other PDF purchase sites today!)
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(For more on this, and general New York stuff, pick up Manhattan, the ROtten Apple, on drive-thru RPG and other PDF purchase sites today!)
Forgot to put your post in corporate shilling text. :D
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Yes, Winternight had a lot of toxics. They also had a lot of religious fanatics, and people who were basically conditioned to serve through BTL chips that made them almost into berserkers (in the classic Norse sense). Winternight's goals were to bring about Ragnarok and kick-start the end of the world, so I believe we can safely say that they were crazy as hell.
Also, while Pax was just using Winternight, remember that Winternight was just using Pax. Both of them intended to cut the other loose as soon as they were no longer convenient.
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Also, while Pax was just using Winternight, remember that Winternight was just using Pax. Both of them intended to cut the other loose as soon as they were no longer convenient.
Yeah, that's been mentioned. It would be just like terrorist cells that have different ideaologies working together. Serve their own needs first, help out with those loonies next door with their silly little project that'll OBVIOUSLY fail, and get them to spend their own resources on OUR MASTERPEICE! MUAHAHAHAHA!!! SOON, WE WILL FLY OFF TO ASGARD, WHERE WE WILL FIGHT TOGETHER WITH OUR GODS AGAINST THE FOUL THREAT OF LOKI AND HIS DELUDED ALLIES! WE WILL BECOME HEROS AND LEGENDS blah blah norse-mythological blah...
It just seems like Ex Pacis and Pax get a lot more focus nowadays, which is kind of obvious for a good reason, as well as really helpful to anyone looking for a really good BBEG that focuses on techology. But Pax and her Dissonant crew of Technos doesn't really grab me that much as that World Tree in the deep resonance, and the parralels to the myths that used it. I'm wondering what's Freida up to nowadays, now that she excaped. What would she make of the Wireless Matrix, those Technomancers, and yet again, that Mystery Tree in the Matrix's basement that keeps coming up in the stories?
Puck might have an answer or two, but from what it looks like, he's trying to prep for a fight against Pax and Co, so it's going to take a while...
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But Pax and her Dissonant crew of Technos doesn't really grab me that much as that World Tree in the deep resonance, and the parralels to the myths that used it.
Well, tree structures are an extremely common occurrence in computer science (and several religions) and TMs following this Paragon have nothing that would specifically link them to Deus, so IMO this connection is rather incidental.
I'm wondering what's Freida up to nowadays, now that she excaped.
Killing her is a job in Artifacts Unbound, but who knows if that was really her...
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Unless Winternight pulled a shell game on the Corporate Court, Friday is dead, as of Artifacts Unbound. On live TV, no less.
As for the world tree in the Resonance Realms, I'll just say two things:
1) Deus awoke to a feeling of betrayal, with a sword hanging over his head, so to speak. Everything he did in the Shutdown, and after, was to not only escape and survive, but to ensure that no one could ever put him in a position like that again. Once someone loses their raison d' etre, their reason for being, what do they do then?
2) When Crash 2.0 hit, Deus was in the middle of trying to make himself a god in the Matrix. What is there to say he didn't ascend somehow into the Realms? There are still many unanswered questions from the Crash, even a decade later.
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(For more on this, and general New York stuff, pick up Manhattan, the ROtten Apple, on drive-thru RPG and other PDF purchase sites today!)
Forgot to put your post in corporate shilling text. :D
Only counts ifyou worked on the book in question. I didn't, so I'm in the clear. :)
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Unless Winternight pulled a shell game on the Corporate Court, Friday is dead, as of Artifacts Unbound. On live TV, no less.
As for the world tree in the Resonance Realms, I'll just say two things:
1) Deus awoke to a feeling of betrayal, with a sword hanging over his head, so to speak. Everything he did in the Shutdown, and after, was to not only escape and survive, but to ensure that no one could ever put him in a position like that again. Once someone loses their raison d' etre, their reason for being, what do they do then?
2) When Crash 2.0 hit, Deus was in the middle of trying to make himself a god in the Matrix. What is there to say he didn't ascend somehow into the Realms? There are still many unanswered questions from the Crash, even a decade later.
*Deus manifests to Technomancer, Paragon style*
*Technomancer screams and curls up in a fetal position*
"Woah, woah, woah! Relax! I'm not going to kill you. I'm over that "homicidal" thing now. I just want to talk. I've got a job for you. A little 'present' to deliver to someone at Renraku."
"Wait, I thought you just said you were over that stuff?"
"Okay, fair enough. I'm mostly over it."
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To be fair, as Deus gained experience, he did shift away from the overt homicidal methods, except as a response to an attack, like with Megaera trying to take over the Network. His primary driving force is survival and freedom. So long as you aren't a threat to that, he is likely to ignore you. Any servants of his in the area, however...
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Note that one of the Paragons looks like Deus' preferred image. (I think he liked being a tree, right?)
Then again, The World Tree/Tree of Knowledge is a pretty prevalent image period.
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Fragments of Winternight are still around, albeit under other names. Fragments of Ex Pacis are still around, albeit under other names. As both are functionally toxic organizations, and as toxic organizations are generally incompatable with anyone who doesn't ally with their own particular psychosis, they'd tend to not work well together - even when, before Crash 2.0, they more-or-less did.
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I think the Shedim qualify as as bigger Big Bad right now than the bugs.
The bugs are insidious for sure, but they have pretty natural patterns: multiply. The Shedim live off fear and death do they not? I don't think the bugs have a greater agenda than to feed/grow/whatever.
Its like arguing about what's worse, Tyranids or necrons. Pointless arguement imo.
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Well, Tyranids, obviously ... ;)
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I think the Shedim qualify as as bigger Big Bad right now than the bugs.
The bugs are insidious for sure, but they have pretty natural patterns: multiply. The Shedim live off fear and death do they not? I don't think the bugs have a greater agenda than to feed/grow/whatever.
Its like arguing about what's worse, Tyranids or necrons. Pointless arguement imo.
Actually, thats a pretyy good comparision. One wants to eat/possess/grow, the other wants death to be the status quo.
That said, I would go with Bugs, because at least life goes on, even if its not metahuman.
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Actually, thats a pretyy good comparision. One wants to eat/possess/grow, the other wants death to be the status quo.
That said, I would go with Bugs, because at least life goes on, even if its not metahuman.
And now I have a bunch of fleshforms sitting in a circle, swaying back and forth while singing "Ooblah-dee, ooblah-dah, life goes ah-on, la la la la life goes on."
...
Curse your words!
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That's what you get for slipping the Beetle shaman a John Lennon personafix chip...
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That's what you get for slipping the Beetle shaman a John Lennon personafix chip...
Then he becomes the Beatle Shaman who is also the Walrus!
Coo-coo-cah-choo!
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Spirit Mentor: Walrus
Benifits: +2 to combat spells, +2 to swimming checks.
Cons: Rediculous Jowls from your shamantic mask gives you a -2 to charisma checks, as you just look absolutely hilarious.
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Well, Tyranids, obviously ... ;)
QFT.
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Unless Winternight pulled a shell game on the Corporate Court, Friday is dead, as of Artifacts Unbound. On live TV, no less.
Sure, but from a meta perspective epic baddies have a tendency to come back ;)
2) When Crash 2.0 hit, Deus was in the middle of trying to make himself a god in the Matrix. What is there to say he didn't ascend somehow into the Realms? There are still many unanswered questions from the Crash, even a decade later.
Another unanswered question is whether Paragons are concrete "supreme examples" or something that represents essence of everything people associate with some concept (analogous to Totem Animals). In the former case it would make sense that the mixture of three battling AIs, both a Dissonance and a Resonance Pool, and unprecedented computing power created a Paragon. In the latter case, the World Tree would just be the idea that everything in the matrix is nicely organized into tree structures.
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Sure, but from a meta perspective epic baddies have a tendency to come back ;)
... or something that represents essence of everything people associate with some concept (analogous to Totem Animals). ... In the latter case, the World Tree would just be the idea that everything in the matrix is nicely organized into tree structures.
This is what is more likely. Or rather, the first style is; in my mind at least, it's obvious that Paragons are meant to be directly analogous to Totems.
And the World Tree is the idea that information is connectable and interconnected - not that it's any particular structure, just that Info Point A can and will somehow connect to Info Point Z.
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in my mind at least, it's obvious that Paragons are meant to be directly analogous to Totems.
Pretty much. But it has never been explicitly stated, so in theory an author could still go ahead and say "well, this is where the analogy ends, each Paragon is an actual, singular entity"
BTW,a tidbit I just remembered: The Berlin book mentions an NPC who was a Winternight member and managed to stay under cover. He nowadays spends his time writing malware to get back at Loki. Does not sound like he causes more havoc than the average script kiddie, but it shows than some people survived the purge.
His matrix proficiency does not really fit WN's ideology (which he seems to believe in, unlike Ex Pacis), but terror groups can make strange bedfellows if it serves their needs...
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As I said - there are several fragments still around, in several books. No, I won't tell you where any more. ;)
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in my mind at least, it's obvious that Paragons are meant to be directly analogous to Totems.
Pretty much. But it has never been explicitly stated, so in theory an author could still go ahead and say "well, this is where the analogy ends, each Paragon is an actual, singular entity"
BTW,a tidbit I just remembered: The Berlin book mentions an NPC who was a Winternight member and managed to stay under cover. He nowadays spends his time writing malware to get back at Loki. Does not sound like he causes more havoc than the average script kiddie, but it shows than some people survived the purge.
His matrix proficiency does not really fit WN's ideology (which he seems to believe in, unlike Ex Pacis), but terror groups can make strange bedfellows if it serves their needs...
Isn't there something in Unwired to the effect that nobody is really sure what the Paragons are... whether they're some sort of Resonance AI type thing, a manifestation of the fundamental fabric of the matrix or a projection on the part of the technomancer? I may have made this up and I don't ahve the book in front of me but some memory about this is knocking but refusing to come in...
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I do enjoy these discussions. (I wrote the Friday adventure and other material in AU.)
Here's the correct link to the Winternight chapter from Threats: http://old.shadowrun4.com/resources/downloads/fanpro_winternight.pdf
If you're really interested in Winternight and Deus and all that, then it's probably worth getting the Third Edition book, System Failure.
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Cool! Thanks for the link, I thought that reading up about this stuff would be a good idea. Leftovers of those Berserker and God BTLs would make for a good maguffin for a run, either to find them to destroy them for a government, bring them to a corp for reverse engineering, or just to give them to the runners after the Johnson gets cacked before he pays them and see what they do with a small pile of insanely illegal brainwashing hardware that'll get tracked back to them if they try to get rid of them. ;D
Appreciate the help, man!
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PS: Does anyone know what happened to the Threats: Winternight free PDF that the main site used to have? Saw it mentioned in the Winternight entry of the Shadowrun wiki.
does anyone know what he's talking about here? is there a pdf just of winterknight?
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Look up two or three entries; James provides a link.
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Thanks.
I missed that he was saying that was what the pdf was. And since i own all those books i was thinking it was a stand alone thing.
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Cool! Thanks for the link, I thought that reading up about this stuff would be a good idea. Leftovers of those Berserker and God BTLs would make for a good maguffin for a run, either to find them to destroy them for a government, bring them to a corp for reverse engineering, or just to give them to the runners after the Johnson gets cacked before he pays them and see what they do with a small pile of insanely illegal brainwashing hardware that'll get tracked back to them if they try to get rid of them. ;D
Appreciate the help, man!
http://crimsondude.tumblr.com/post/13382267276/non-canon-bonus-artifacts-unbound-material
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Frenzy Virus/BTL.
(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111009164915/mlp/images/thumb/6/69/First_Pinkie_Pie_smile_S1E23.png/640px-First_Pinkie_Pie_smile_S1E23.png)
My face after I saw that.
Something new I can inflict on players! YAY!
Rigger: GRAAAAAAAAMAIMCRUSHBURNSCREAMBLOODKILLKILLKILL!!!
Troll Tank: GUYS COULD YOU GET HIM OFF ME?! HE'S CHEWING ON MY FAVORITE HORN!!
Mage: Just pull him off and sit on him, man! Goddamn, 's always about you...
Rigger: (with a mouthful of troll horn) AAANG-NAANG-NAANG!!
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I aim to
kill please.
And of course no virus ever mutates or gets out of control.
There's a lot of "Fuck You" material I put into AU to mess with PCs. I also added optional rules treating bug spirits' "hive mind" connections as a Rating 4 Tacsoft, the shedim commandos, the Force 10 Shadow spirit, the Legendary-level NPCs, the nerve gas grenade, etc.