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What happened to Dunkelzahn?

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CanRay

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« Reply #30 on: <03-28-11/2318:33> »
Evo, having Buttercup (A free spirit) on the board, is one of the Megas that actually are planning something.  Most likely.
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Charybdis

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« Reply #31 on: <03-28-11/2320:42> »
Evo, having Buttercup (A free spirit) on the board, is one of the Megas that actually are planning something.  Most likely.
CanRay, do you LIVE on these boards?  :P
We joined the forum around the same time, and I can't refresh a page without seeing your name in the 5 most recent postings  :o

I knew I liked you  8) +1


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CanRay

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« Reply #32 on: <03-28-11/2324:49> »
I'm an E-Ghost.   :P
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Angelone

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« Reply #33 on: <03-28-11/2326:59> »
Captain?
REJOICE! For bad things are about to happen.
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Abstruse

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« Reply #34 on: <03-28-11/2329:26> »
Okay, here's the full low-down on Dunkelzahn, the Horrors, and pretty much the entire backbone of the first 10 years or so of Shadowrun's metaplot.  Please note this will spoil a lot of adventures, sourcebooks, and novels that I highly recommend you read because they're really good.  I'm not even going to block out the spoilers because that's all this entire post is.

In the 4th World (aka Earthdawn), the world was ravaged by beings called Horrors (they are never once called this in Shadowrun canon, only "The Enemy" by Harlequin and that's the closest anyone comes to naming them).  The Horrors are basically Lovecraft's nightmares/wet dreams in some interpretations, but I personally think that the Skinwalker from the Dresden Files novel Small Favor by Jim Butcher sums them up best.  They're hard to kill and they feed on human/metahuman fear and pain.  And they are epicureans too.  Sure, there's the instant screaming terror sort of fear from blowing up someone's house with their family inside, but that's like fast food.  Tasty, but no depth of flavor and it's not that filling for very long.  But that slow physical and emotional torture?  That's the stuff right there...  And there are billions of them.  Billions upon billions, just waiting for mana levels to get high enough to come to the world and feast.  The trick is (and this is important) that the mana levels have to be very high to get here, but they don't have to be very high to stay here.

Fast forward to 2018 or so when the Great Ghost Dance happens.  Who gave them the info on how to do it?  No one knows.  But performing the ritual caused a "spike" in the mana levels.  Imagine the gap that the horrors have to go through, and it's the Grand Canyon (not my images, it's how it's depicted multiple times).  The Great Ghost Dance made a sort of stone bridge jutting out from our side to the side with the Horrors.  It means they can come early, which is a bad thing (Understatement of the Year award candidate!).  Blood magic also makes this bridge even longer, allowing the Horrors to come sooner.  Key sign that things are bad, the Insect Spirits were about a century or three early for the mana cycle.

Fast forward to 2055 or so.  Harlequin goes on a metaplanar quest (well, he doesn't really do crap except watch the backs of the poor runners who do all the hard work) against hordes of Horrors who were able to bridge the gap and sneak over.  After the quest is over, the Horrors are stalled but not stopped (unless you ask Harlequin who thinks he single-handedly saved the world).  Souce: Harlequin's Back adventure and the novels House of the Sun and Worlds Without Ends.

But there's a problem.  Aztlan/Aztechnology is actually working to make the bridge longer through ritual sacrifices.  Dunkelzahn tries to warn everyone who has the power and knowledge to do something (as depicted in the Aztlan sourcebook), but apparently they don't do a damn thing because Dunkelzahn decides the best course of action is to blow himself up.  He does and uses his will and some documents left behind to send a run to Aztlan who is attempting to create a Locus (think Off-brand AAA battery : Power Focus :: Fusion nuclear reactor capable of powering the entire East Coast : Locus) by sacrificing several thousand people in a Blood Magic ritual.

Sidebar: See, Horrors can do nasty things to people to torture them.  One of them is corrupting the individual to the point they're kinda a mini-Horror themselves.  Rumor is that Aztechnology/Aztlan is run by a Horror-touched Great Dragon, which is a Bad Thing (yet another Understatement of the Year candidate).

One of the side effects of what Dunkelzahn does is create a Great Form Free Spirit that's as powerful as a Great Dragon.  This spirit decides to possess the body of a cyberzombie...and gets trapped by the rituals to create a cyberzombie.  Long story short ("Too late!"), the cyberzombie/spirit combo manages to drain the magic out of the bridge, shortening it so that the manacycle's back on target as normal.  The spirit then becomes self-aware and realizes that it is in fact the soul of Dunkelzahn...but does this after everyone else has left.  Oh, and Ryan Mercury finds out he's a drake.  Seriously, it makes sense in context, that's why I said to read the novels (Stranger Souls, Clockwork Asylum, and Beyond the Pale).

Anyway, Crash 2.0 happens and Fanpro's management decides they want to kill that whole thread even deader, so they dropped a plane on Cyberzombie Dunkelzahn's Ghost.  So don't expect it to ever come up again, especially since Horrors are an Earthdawn thing and that brand is now managed by a different competing company.

Also, Shedim have nothing to do with Horrors.  That's a completely different can of worms that took the Old Guard (beings that had been around since the 4th World) by surprise.

Charybdis

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« Reply #35 on: <03-28-11/2333:21> »
Evo, having Buttercup (A free spirit) on the board, is one of the Megas that actually are planning something.  Most likely.
It's certainly a radical move that demonstrates Evo are willing to take some risks.

Although, Dunkelzahn's Draco foundation (and Astral Preservation Society blah) will have a lot more weird and wacky inputs from weird and wacky sapients as well.

In my game, the PC's came across some Wasp Insect spirits and were incredibly surprised that they weren't attacked outright (as Wasps prefer to hunt other Insect Spirits) was a very interesting session and conversation between the two parties. The runners politely declined to be Flesh-form hosts themselves, but directed the Spirits to a local ganger gym. In return, the Spirits advised about some Astral locations that runner-mages might like to frequent.

It's not What you know... :)... it's Who...hang on...do spirits count as a Who, or a What? Hmmm, I think I've messed this up now... *sigh*
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Charybdis

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« Reply #36 on: <03-28-11/2336:11> »
Okay, here's the full low-down on Dunkelzahn, the Horrors, and pretty much the entire backbone of the first 10 years or so of Shadowrun's metaplot.  Please note this will spoil a lot of adventures, sourcebooks, and novels that I highly recommend you read because they're really good.  I'm not even going to block out the spoilers because that's all this entire post is.
That was an elegantly crafted summary of a LOT of material. +1 to you :)
'Too much is never enough'

Current PC: Free Spirit (Norse Shamanic)
'Names are irrelevant. Which fake ID do you want me to quote from?'

Phreak Commandment V:
If Thou Be In School, Strive To Get Thine Self Good Grades, For The Authorities Well Know That Scholars Never Break The Law

CanRay

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« Reply #37 on: <03-28-11/2357:19> »
Evo, having Buttercup (A free spirit) on the board, is one of the Megas that actually are planning something.  Most likely.
It's not What you know... :)... it's Who...hang on...do spirits count as a Who, or a What? Hmmm, I think I've messed this up now... *sigh*
I go by the Spider Robinson scale of Personage:  "If someone is able to say 'Excuse me' if they bump into me in a bar, they're people, no matter what shape."

Although, I'm more of the "Buy me a beer" variety.   :P
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Abstruse

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« Reply #38 on: <03-29-11/0014:32> »
Evo, having Buttercup (A free spirit) on the board, is one of the Megas that actually are planning something.  Most likely.
It's certainly a radical move that demonstrates Evo are willing to take some risks.

Although, Dunkelzahn's Draco foundation (and Astral Preservation Society blah) will have a lot more weird and wacky inputs from weird and wacky sapients as well.

In my game, the PC's came across some Wasp Insect spirits and were incredibly surprised that they weren't attacked outright (as Wasps prefer to hunt other Insect Spirits) was a very interesting session and conversation between the two parties. The runners politely declined to be Flesh-form hosts themselves, but directed the Spirits to a local ganger gym. In return, the Spirits advised about some Astral locations that runner-mages might like to frequent.

It's not What you know... :)... it's Who...hang on...do spirits count as a Who, or a What? Hmmm, I think I've messed this up now... *sigh*
Buttercup may or may not know about the Horrors.  My money's on "no" considering how deep Yamatetsu was in with the Invae before that was blown wide open.  Either that or they managed to keep their "secret magical research" quiet from the free spirit on the Board of Directors, which is far more unlikely.  The only major operations I can think of that know about the Horrors are the Draco Foundation/DIMR, Tir Tairngire and Tir nA nOg, Aztlan (obviously), every Great Dragon and most of the non-Greats, and maybe a couple of others. 

And thanks for the compliment...I glossed over a lot of it though, there are a lot more details and threads all over the place I didn't get into due to not wanting to write a book myself on the forums.  Bottled Demon, all the bequests/"contests" in Dunkelzahn's will, Dragons of the Sixth World, etc.  Plus, Ancient History's site has most of it anyway if someone's that interested and I covered some more a few posts below talking about Crater Lake.

CanRay

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« Reply #39 on: <03-29-11/0028:07> »
It really is sad about the problems between CGL and AH.   :'(
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Charybdis

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« Reply #40 on: <03-29-11/0031:05> »
Buttercup may or may not know about the Horrors.  My money's on "no" considering how deep Yamatetsu was in with the Invae before that was blown wide open.  Either that or they managed to keep their "secret magical research" quiet from the free spirit on the Board of Directors, which is far more unlikely.  The only major operations I can think of that know about the Horrors are the Draco Foundation/DIMR, Tir Tairngire and Tir nA nOg, Aztlan (obviously), every Great Dragon and most of the non-Greats, and maybe a couple of others. 
I also vote No in that regard. Buttercup hasn't done anything to imply she's a particularly old or impressive spirit. Some of the Great Dragon butler-spirits could be old enough, though.

Query on the Great Dragons, though. Are they still teaching the non-Greats akin to the old Earthdawn material in that regard? Used to be that 'normal' dragons would handover their eggs to the Loremaster (used to be Vasdjenas, then Dunkelzahn, now Lofwyr), to be hatched and raised by Great dragons.

Some of the adventure modules and dragon-discussions in SR though, imply that 'normal' dragons are looking after their eggs themselves, and there's no listed link between Greats and non-Greats anymore. Could well be that some of these dragons aren't learning their ancient history from the source/Jewel of Memory anymore....
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'Names are irrelevant. Which fake ID do you want me to quote from?'

Phreak Commandment V:
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Charybdis

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« Reply #41 on: <03-29-11/0031:48> »
It really is sad about the problems between CGL and AH.   :'(
I must be all acronym'ed out. I have zero idea what you're referring to  ???
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Current PC: Free Spirit (Norse Shamanic)
'Names are irrelevant. Which fake ID do you want me to quote from?'

Phreak Commandment V:
If Thou Be In School, Strive To Get Thine Self Good Grades, For The Authorities Well Know That Scholars Never Break The Law

CanRay

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« Reply #42 on: <03-29-11/0037:06> »
CGL = Catalyst Game Labs.

AH = Ancient History.
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Charybdis

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« Reply #43 on: <03-29-11/0101:41> »
CGL = Catalyst Game Labs.

AH = Ancient History.
Yes, is a shame there won't be a lot of linked stuff anymore.

Was always amusing running Earthdawn and SR campaigns concurrently, having ED PC's trying to plant clues for SR PC's to find.
'Too much is never enough'

Current PC: Free Spirit (Norse Shamanic)
'Names are irrelevant. Which fake ID do you want me to quote from?'

Phreak Commandment V:
If Thou Be In School, Strive To Get Thine Self Good Grades, For The Authorities Well Know That Scholars Never Break The Law

CanRay

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« Reply #44 on: <03-29-11/0103:29> »
"So we found this ancient painting in what was obviously some kind of vault...  It looks like...  Us.  Um, guys, what the hell?  They even got Jimmy's eyes right."  "They're not even painted."  "Exactly!  Stone cold!"
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