NEWS

What happened to Dunkelzahn?

  • 188 Replies
  • 90937 Views

Charybdis

  • *
  • Ace Runner
  • ****
  • Posts: 1506
  • If it's last name is Dragon, first name Great: RUN
« Reply #45 on: <03-29-11/0113:19> »
"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!"
'It had gems for eyes, dude. Gems! Solid diamonds in the cufflinks, was just all cool!'
'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

Abstruse

  • *
  • Guest
« Reply #46 on: <03-29-11/0131:14> »
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....
Dragons of the Sixth World.  That's how it's done still.  Hestaby is supposedly raising the clutch of Rhonabwy and the Sea Dragon (and she's trying to get them back), there's supposedly a bunch of clutches in Madagascar but Harlequin commented it was a decoy, and there's a couple of others mentioned here and there.  Lofwyr has a clutch somewhere in Tir Tairngire that may or may not have hatched (from the novel Never Trust an Elf) which...

SPOILER ALERT

...Glasgian Oakforest thought would be fun to track down and go all smashy-smashy on.  Needless to say, Lofwyr was pretty damn pissed about that, leading to the deal set up between Lugh Surehand, Aithne Oakforest, Lofwyr, and Hestaby that involved Lofwyr handing over his Princehood at Tir Tairngire to Hestaby, Aithne Oakforest buggering off to Europe, and chewed bones raining down along Oregon and Northern California.

Some may raise their own clutches, but odds are it was with Dunkelzahn's permission due to his more liberal attitude concerning the old ways.
« Last Edit: <03-29-11/0139:39> by Abstruse »

Angelone

  • *
  • Ace Runner
  • ****
  • Posts: 1345
  • A decent perfection
« Reply #47 on: <03-29-11/0132:55> »
Gee fella ain't you full of helpful information. ;)
REJOICE! For bad things are about to happen.
la vida no vale nada

Abstruse

  • *
  • Guest
« Reply #48 on: <03-29-11/0143:59> »
Gee fella ain't you full of helpful information. ;)
Who, me?  I own almost every book including the novels and I've been playing Shadowrun for almost two decades at this point.  I've picked up a lot of trivia.  I'm running into problems in the game I'm about to join as a player because I know more about the metaplot than my GM.  Wasted three of my knowledge skills to explain how my character might know all the crap I do (Sixth World History, Shadowrunner Hangouts (since I couldn't find one that said "I can identify Shadowtalkers from 1st-3rd Ed by their posts without looking at the SIG"), and Conspiracy Theories).

And seriously, this is me holding back.  I deleted half of that Horrors history lesson since I kept going off on tangents.

CanRay

  • *
  • Freelancer
  • Mr. Johnson
  • ***
  • Posts: 11141
  • Spouter of Random Words
« Reply #49 on: <03-29-11/0203:53> »
But tangents are fun and distract...  OH SHINY!!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum

#ThisTaserGoesTo11

FastJack

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Prime Runner
  • *****
  • Posts: 6367
  • Kids these days...
« Reply #50 on: <03-29-11/0734:02> »
Gee fella ain't you full of helpful information. ;)
Who, me?  I own almost every book including the novels and I've been playing Shadowrun for almost two decades at this point.  I've picked up a lot of trivia.  I'm running into problems in the game I'm about to join as a player because I know more about the metaplot than my GM.  Wasted three of my knowledge skills to explain how my character might know all the crap I do (Sixth World History, Shadowrunner Hangouts (since I couldn't find one that said "I can identify Shadowtalkers from 1st-3rd Ed by their posts without looking at the SIG"), and Conspiracy Theories).

And seriously, this is me holding back.  I deleted half of that Horrors history lesson since I kept going off on tangents.
I like you, you'll fit in nicely here. ;)

Pathica

  • *
  • Newb
  • *
  • Posts: 37
  • Eats paint chips
« Reply #51 on: <03-29-11/0901:02> »
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 :)
2nded, I have zero Earthdawn knowledge, and as much as it saddens me, serious gaps in some of my SR lore... Threads like these make me so very happy. :)

~There is no gravity, the world just sucks.~

Malex

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 300
  • Hoy!
« Reply #52 on: <03-29-11/0957:35> »
I second that. I have NO Earthdawn 'lore' and I just recently (past year or so) started reading over alot of my Shadowrun material in earnest. So a thorough explanation of the underpinnings of the plotline is highly appreciated.

Thanks Abstruse.
Look past the lies, and all the scary stuff that remains is the truth.

Nath

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 587
« Reply #53 on: <03-29-11/1409:49> »
Mountainshadow is Dunkie.  Not exactly very secret if you know German, apparently.  (Or so I heard.  I only know English and Bad English from dealing with folks from the USA.).
Dunkel means Dark and Zahn means Tooth.

I took 4 years of German and that's all I get for it.
According to Earthdawn sourcebook Dragons, one of Mountainshadow best agent went by the name Dark Tooth. Deneirastas believe he could be an old and experienced drake. Moutainshadow comments Dark Tooth is "far cleverer and more capable" than Deneirastas imagine. Several people (myself counted) took this remark as irony and believe Dark Tooth was Mountainshow in human form.
« Last Edit: <08-15-11/1408:17> by Nath »

Abstruse

  • *
  • Guest
« Reply #54 on: <03-29-11/1746:13> »
If you want to get a bunch of info about Shadowrun and Earthdawn's shared histories, you can either read a crapload of books over several years then re-read them after you read another so you can make connections you didn't see before...

...or you can just go to Ancient History's site at http://ancientfiles.dumpshock.com/ and spend an afternoon learning stuff that honestly I didn't even know and couldn't have figured out on my own.  Especially since a lot of the stuff is really tiny shout-outs in Shadowtalk/JackPointers talking that just happen to give you a "three years later" update on what's going on.

Malex

  • *
  • Omae
  • ***
  • Posts: 300
  • Hoy!
« Reply #55 on: <03-29-11/1850:22> »
Ok, so now that the why Dunkelzahn died is out of the way. Why go through all the trouble to become President in the first place? Was that a last minute decision or had he put things in motion by selecting who'd succeed him?
Look past the lies, and all the scary stuff that remains is the truth.

Charybdis

  • *
  • Ace Runner
  • ****
  • Posts: 1506
  • If it's last name is Dragon, first name Great: RUN
« Reply #56 on: <03-29-11/1947:49> »
Ok, so now that the why Dunkelzahn died is out of the way. Why go through all the trouble to become President in the first place? Was that a last minute decision or had he put things in motion by selecting who'd succeed him?
I never for a second believe that Great Dragons are caught unprepared (except, perhaps, by other Great Dragons :) )

I have full belief that Dunkelzahn planned the exact date and time he'd be president, twenty years in advance  :o Also, being a presidential candidate ensured that there were tens of millions of witnesses to his death, followed by unprecedented interest in his will and estate (again, prepared in advance and updated regularly).

Things like that don't happen by chance.

'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

  • *
  • Freelancer
  • Mr. Johnson
  • ***
  • Posts: 11141
  • Spouter of Random Words
« Reply #57 on: <03-29-11/2020:50> »
No, but parts of his will were obviously not prepared properly, such as the donation of his body to science.
Si vis pacem, para bellum

#ThisTaserGoesTo11

Charybdis

  • *
  • Ace Runner
  • ****
  • Posts: 1506
  • If it's last name is Dragon, first name Great: RUN
« Reply #58 on: <03-29-11/2049:01> »
No, but parts of his will were obviously not prepared properly, such as the donation of his body to science.
Considering the other parts of his will were so well prepared (and obviously recently updated), this to me smacks of Red Herring to imply he wasn't involved in his own demise.

'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

Abstruse

  • *
  • Guest
« Reply #59 on: <03-29-11/2202:11> »
Ok, so now that the why Dunkelzahn died is out of the way. Why go through all the trouble to become President in the first place? Was that a last minute decision or had he put things in motion by selecting who'd succeed him?
This is just a guess since there's no canon explanation given (and likely not one to come), but here are a few reasons he may have run for president while planning suicide:

1. He hoped he wouldn't need to off himself because the warnings he'd given the others in the know back in the Aztlan sourcebook.
2. He really wanted to be president to help guide the country similar to the sort of bequests he made in his will to prepare the world for the Horrors (check out Ancient History's Annotated Will on the link above).
3. He wanted to make sure that no one else won the presidential election except his hand-chosen man, Haeffner.
4. He wanted to make sure that he was elected president before he died, giving his will as much legal clout as possible since any challenges to his citizenship (and thus his will) would've been made before he ran.
5. He knew a rift would develop when he offed himself and that rift would eventually allow his brother Ghostwalker to return, and the only way to ensure he would be in the right place at the right time would be on inauguration night.

That's just off the top of my head, it's probably all of these and twenty more reasons we'd never be able to figure out.