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Darkest Hour: What am I to make of...

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Stalker

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« Reply #30 on: <11-19-10/0511:01> »
More clues for the clueless! :D

There's been a murder, obviously a ritual sacrifice in combination with a massive spell. The murder is being investigated at the moment.

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Astral forensics found a residual background count that faded with the signature.

What exactly have they found?
- The remains of what used to be a larger background count, but the astral signature had already faded?
- The remains of what used to be a larger background count, as well as remains of an astral signature (which can be used for the investigations)?
- Just a bit of background count (no further clues as to the power of the spell) and no astral signature?

Angelone

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« Reply #31 on: <11-19-10/1412:12> »
The second, the background count and the remains of a larger signature. Which can be analyzed.
REJOICE! For bad things are about to happen.
la vida no vale nada

Longshot23

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« Reply #32 on: <11-20-10/0347:19> »
More clues for the clueless! :D

There's been a murder, obviously a ritual sacrifice in combination with a massive spell. The murder is being investigated at the moment.

Quote
Astral forensics found a residual background count that faded with the signature.

What exactly have they found?
- The remains of what used to be a larger background count, but the astral signature had already faded?
- The remains of what used to be a larger background count, as well as remains of an astral signature (which can be used for the investigations)?
- Just a bit of background count (no further clues as to the power of the spell) and no astral signature?

What's this from?

Stalker

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« Reply #33 on: <11-20-10/0728:24> »
What's this from?

As the thread title says. Darkest Hour. ;)

@ Angelone: Doesn't the fact that the signature has "faded" suggest that the signature is already gone - contrary to the "residue" of a background count, which is stil there?

Angelone

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« Reply #34 on: <11-20-10/0824:54> »
Not necessarily, faded could mean it's not as strong as it once was. If it was gone it wouldn't have been detected. Unless of course it was detected and then vanished afterwards.

The quote is basically stating that the background count is fading at the same rate as the signature and will disappear with it.
« Last Edit: <11-20-10/0833:55> by Angelone »
REJOICE! For bad things are about to happen.
la vida no vale nada

Stalker

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« Reply #35 on: <11-20-10/0900:28> »
If it [the signatue] was gone it wouldn't have been detected.

Not necessarily so. ;) Sometimes you can just physically tell that someone must have cast a spell at a site (e.g. because the stains and grime of a fireball are still visible). Since spells always leave a signature behind, you may conclude there must have been one, but it may have faded before you arrived (unlike the background count left behind by the terror the victim went through, which may last longer than the actual astral signature).

In the case given here, however, I think you're right. Thanks for pointing that out! :)
« Last Edit: <11-20-10/1218:34> by Stalker »

Longshot23

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« Reply #36 on: <11-20-10/1008:03> »
What's this from?

As the thread title says. Darkest Hour. ;)

@ Angelone: Doesn't the fact that the signature has "faded" suggest that the signature is already gone - contrary to the "residue" of a background count, which is stil there?

Oh, okay - I haven't seen it as yet.

Stalker

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« Reply #37 on: <12-06-10/0703:28> »
There's a character called "Samriel" who keeps appearing throughout the series. Now, in Darkest Hour, there's an explanation for his name that reads like this:

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Samriel translates from Sperethiel as “discomfort”, implying necessary discomfort as in medical treatment.

I don't really get it. Is there some sort of proverb or concept this explanation alludes to and of which I'm not aware? All I could think of was the old saying that "Medicine needs to be bitter in order to take effect." Is that it?

raggedhalo

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« Reply #38 on: <12-06-10/0757:05> »
No, it's like how surgery is actually a painful procedure (even with anaesthetic etc.) but is a good thing.
Joe Rooney
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Stalker

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« Reply #39 on: <12-06-10/0832:28> »
A "necessary evil", so to speak? ;)

Stalker

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« Reply #40 on: <12-16-10/0444:31> »
The following snippet was actually taken from Corporate Enclaves, but was incorporated into the player handouts in Darkest Hour as well. It’s that bit about corporate cliques:

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Cliques develop within different ranks of the corporate hierarchy, united by common interests

I’m not sure about the highlighted bit. Who is part of a particular corporate clique? Just wage slaves from the same level in the corporate hierarchy (peers and co-workers, that is), or people from different echelons within the corporate hierarchy (i.e. you’d have a secretary and some guy from corporate management in the same clique)?

FastJack

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« Reply #41 on: <12-16-10/0839:01> »
It could be anything, but most likely it's by department.

For instance, it most corporations today, you have the IT clique, the Marketing clique, the Customer Service clique, etc., etc.

Longshot23

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« Reply #42 on: <12-16-10/0936:24> »
It could be anything, but most likely it's by department.

For instance, it most corporations today, you have the IT clique, the Marketing clique, the Customer Service clique, etc., etc.

Or even smaller groupings within those divisions, depending on the actual people.  A clique could form around people involved in a particular, time-limited, project; or an multiplayer computer gaming group; or a sport team. 

I was going to quote a section on cliques from Teen Champions, but it's too much about teenagers.

Semerkhet

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« Reply #43 on: <12-16-10/1323:45> »
There's a character called "Samriel" who keeps appearing throughout the series. Now, in Darkest Hour, there's an explanation for his name that reads like this:

Quote
Samriel translates from Sperethiel as “discomfort”, implying necessary discomfort as in medical treatment.

I don't really get it. Is there some sort of proverb or concept this explanation alludes to and of which I'm not aware? All I could think of was the old saying that "Medicine needs to be bitter in order to take effect." Is that it?

Speaking of Samriel, any other GMs besides me dislike how he was used in "Midnight" and "Darkest Hour?"  He was fine in "Dusk" but then he turned into yet another Deux Ex Machina waiting in the wings to save the PC's collective bacon.  Better, IMO, to tweak the power level of your antagonists to fit your team rather than keep bringing in Samriel and his elven special forces. 

Semerkhet

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« Reply #44 on: <12-16-10/1357:25> »
Speaking more specifically to the topic title, "Darkest Hour: What am I to make of...", I could go on for a while if I had the book right in front of me.  I found many inconsistencies and some flat-out contradictions of continuity in "Darkest Hour."  Here are a couple off the top of my head:

In a sidebar, Jane is depicted as wearing an amulet surrounding her with a high-rating mana void.  I was not able to find any explanation as to why she was doing this.  I can think of a few, but it's a weird thing to leave totally unexplained.

When the team is meeting their contact in Hamburg at a anti-NEEC rally the name given for the location of the rally is very obviously a different place than the description and map given for the location.  Thirty seconds with Google Earth showed me that, so what excuse does the author have?  I guess you could argue that this is a minor thing but these days all of my players are sitting at the table with laptops and if I mention a real-world location someone in my group has it up on Google Maps/Earth immediately, which means errors like this don't slide like they used to.

In the section entitled "Grabbing the Disc" it specifically says in the Behind the Scenes section that the Aztechnology agents assisting the police with the investigation of Hermann Meyer's murder are positive that no one from Aztechnology was involved in the murder.  The text goes on to say that the murder was perpetrated by a shadowrunner from Bogota who was instructed to make it look like an Aztechnology blood mage did it, but the text fails to identify who the Johnson was.  Then in the final section called "Finding Lost Treasure" I'm reading the description of Captain Herrera, the Aztechnology commander at the Bosnian pyramid site, and it specifically says that it was she who came up with the "idea to get the disc from Meyer."  So, what, is Cpt. Herrera independently contracting shadowrunners and going behind the backs of her Aztechnology superiors?  I think not, especially given the other line from her description which says she is "...loyal to Aztechnology."  In fact, there is no other evidence that I can find that would indicate that anyone from Aztechnology even knows the disc exists; the reason given for there being an Aztechnology expedition at the Bosnian pyramids is that the pyramids are so much like Meso-American pyramids.  So what are we supposed to make of this contradiction?

Frankly, the overall impression given by "Darkest Hour" is one of organizational chaos.  My understanding of the staff turnover at CGL leads me to believe that the transition from the original DotA author, who no longer works for CGL, and the new author is mostly to blame for the problems.  A new author brought in to finish someone else's work is inevitably going to miss details and lead to continuity errors.  The real shame is that none of these things got caught in the playtesting, proofreading and editing process.  You'd think that someone along that chain would have picked up on these mistakes.