[Sichr]

hm...I had something more...Geigerish..in my mind...

[TheVanguard]

Realy good one.+1, Bext time you can tell us something about the "landscape" of Insects metaplane...

Thank you
Actually, that is somewhat difficult for me. As GM, I run the Metaplanes as a dream-like environment that reflects the perceiver just as much as that what is being perceived ("We don't see things as they are, but as we are." - Anais Nin). Well, I've got this story idea in my head, and the hero visits The Hive at one point without knowing where he actually ended up. It appears as a night club to him, chock full of bodies only partially visible in the dark that dance in perfect unison to an alien beat. Every person, every single movement has its place and purpose, but he is completely unable to participate. The idea is that he is scratching on the surface of something that is both primal and sublime, a totally different universe he just does not belong to.

[Mirikon]

Perhaps this will help in describing it?

Metaplanar Gazetteer: The Hive

The writhing, organic mass known as the Hive is believed to be the original home of the insect spirits, or perhaps just some metaplanar world that they have completely overrun. If there is any surface to this world, no visitor has ever seen it. Instead it seems to be an endless labyrinth of dark, humid tunnels humming with a constant, maddening buzz and crawling with insect spirits of all types. Countless Queen and Mother spirits have hives here, and they are all in perpetual war for space and resources—perhaps why they seem all too eager to travel to Earth.

Few magicians who have traveled to the Hive survive very long. Hostile insect spirits will defend their branch of the Hive to the death and a visiting magician is seen as a hostile trespasser who threatens the Queen or Mother. Even if the magician manages to avoid the insect spirits, he will suffer from Evanescence as his metaplanar form slowly loses cohesiveness (see p. 148). There are dark rumors that a magician can stay in the Hive indefinitely if he undergoes a metamorphosis into an insect, but there are few who are willing to go to that extent.

Most of the magicians visiting the Hive are Ares bug-hunters and their visits are noisy and violent attempts to utterly destroy Queen and Mother spirits. To get around the need of a native guide to take them to this deep metaplane, the Ares bughunters have redirected concealed astral links into the Hive that they can follow like a trail of breadcrumbs at a later date. Since these links can be followed in either direction, however, Ares keeps the origin and terminus of the link under close guard (both the linked magician and the item).

[TheVanguard]

Thanks for going through the trouble of writing that down for me, that's really nice. However, I know that excerpt, but it fits my vision of the metaplanes only so far. To me, the Ares bug hunters encounter The Hive in this form because this is what they expect and want. They set out to wage a war against the insect spirits, trying to change the world through violence,and so the metaplanes reflect this by creating a violent environment. The hero in my story is suffering from feelings of alienation, so this is the aspect the metaplanes embody for him.

When dealing with magic in Shadowrun, I like to be as vague as possible in order to encompass both the hermetic and the shamanistic world view, so that neither one is essentially the one and only truth. Sticking to a subjective (magic) reality is the best way to do this, IMHO.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Which actually means you get very specific, but for that mage only.  If your mage is going to the metaplane of insect spirits while feeling alienated from humanity, I'm certain that the Hive will feel much, much nicer than the one the Firewatch teams encounter - because the insect spirits are going to be trying to convert him into an insect shaman.

Metaplanes are, in their way, NPCs in and of themselves, especially the 'home plane' of any spirit you happen to be going to.  Think of their goals, then of how they'd react to the mage at the time of his/her travel there.  Craft subjective reality depending on what those goals, attitude, and targets are ...

[CanRay]

After beating my group over the head numerous times that some teens were being lethargic because of Essence Loss, not due to some Sleeping Drugs, my group finally found out just how damaging Insect Spirits are when they were later attacked by said teens in Flesh Forms.

[Red Canti]

Actually, in the four instances where nukes have been actually used since the upswing of the mana cycle began, you've had:

Lone Eagle incident - Failed due to unknown causes

Out of curiosity, has it been anyone Else's head canon that these "unknown causes" was straight up sabotage?

[beowulf_of_wa]

and remember, "unknown" may really mean " we claim it's unknown, because the truth is just embarrassing"

[CanRay]

Or, "Someone figured it out, but caught a lethal case of dead before they could report in."

[hobgoblin]

and remember, "unknown" may really mean " we claim it's unknown, because the truth is just embarrassing"

On both sides (Russian defenses failed, US nuke failed, both sides keep shut to maintain the idea that something worked).

[TheVanguard]

After beating my group over the head numerous times that some teens were being lethargic because of Essence Loss, not due to some Sleeping Drugs, my group finally found out just how damaging Insect Spirits are when they were later attacked by said teens in Flesh Forms.

Now I'm confused. In what way is essence loss related to insect spirits? On another note, how did you convey an abstract game element like Essence in in-universe terms?

[CanRay]

Now I'm confused. In what way is essence loss related to insect spirits? On another note, how did you convey an abstract game element like Essence in in-universe terms?

Lack of essence means easier taking over the body for a Flesh Form or any other possession.

I describe it as being part of the users "Essence", a measurable amount that Hermetic Mages have been able to study in depth over the years.  Lots of papers have been written about it.

[Sichr]

Not sure, but IMO it is the more essence, the better...characters with lower essence tends to be harded to influence with magic

[TheVanguard]

Lack of essence means easier taking over the body for a Flesh Form or any other possession.

That's a house rule, isn't it? How did they manage to drain the essence?

I describe it as being part of the users "Essence", a measurable amount that Hermetic Mages have been able to study in depth over the years.  Lots of papers have been written about it.

So you've turned it into an in-universe element. Clever

[Patrick Goodman]

In Another Rainy Night, I make reference a time or two to the "psychic energy in a person's aura" when referring in-universe to vampire chow, if that helps any.