Back to the main page

Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Grifter13 <sids@*********.CA>
Subject: Hello everyone.
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 16:34:23 -0800
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_0028_01BE1C7F.49CC4260
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

I've been lurking for a couple of weeks now and I was just wondering if =
you guys could give me just a short rundown of the plot lines out there. =
I have been to Avengers web sight so I've read the FAQ and I kinda =
understand what he is up to but if anyone else that is running a plot =
could fill me in I would appreciate it.

Now as I understand it these posts are part story/part online game =
right? Like what I mean is that I see a lot of post that consist of a =
conversation between two characters controlled by the same person, and =
some that are just...well not conected to anything or so it appears. Is =
that the GM establishing the plot with NPC's or is that someone just =
telling a story?

Maybe I should just lurk a little longer till I get used to the format =
of the list and learn who the major players are, or I could just dive =
headlong in and mess things up royally. I'm apt to do the later as I GM =
my Shadowrun group and I really want too shrug off all that GMing =
initials and just screw the GM for once. What I'm really saying I guess =
is that I'm lookin to join a plot line/game if there is room for me.

Chris Sidsworth

------=_NextPart_000_0028_01BE1C7F.49CC4260
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>

<META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 =
http-equiv=Content-Type><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 =
HTML//EN"><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<META content='"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=GENERATOR>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>I've been lurking for a couple of =
weeks now and
I was just wondering if you guys could give me just a short rundown of =
the plot
lines out there.&nbsp; I have been to Avengers web sight so I've read =
the FAQ
and I kinda understand what he is up to but if anyone else that is =
running a
plot could fill me in I would appreciate it.&nbsp; </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Now as I understand it these posts =
are part
story/part online game right?&nbsp; Like what I mean is that I see a lot =
of post
that consist of a conversation between two characters controlled by the =
same
person, and some that are just...well not conected to anything or so it
appears.&nbsp; Is that the GM establishing the plot with NPC's or is =
that
someone just telling a story?&nbsp; </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Maybe I should just lurk a little =
longer till I
get used to the format of the list and learn who the major players are, =
or I
could just dive headlong in and mess things up royally.&nbsp; I'm apt to =
do the
later as I GM my Shadowrun group and I really want too shrug off all =
that GMing
initials and just screw the GM for once.&nbsp; What I'm really saying I =
guess is
that I'm lookin to join a plot line/game if there is room for =
me.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Chris =
Sidsworth</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>

------=_NextPart_000_0028_01BE1C7F.49CC4260--
Message no. 2
From: Karl Low <kwil@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 15:24:16 -0700
>Now as I understand it these posts are part story/part online game right?
Like what I mean is that I >see a lot of post that consist of a conversation
between two characters controlled by the same person, >and some that are
just...well not conected to anything or so it appears. Is that the GM
establishing the >plot with NPC's or is that someone just telling a story?

Hey there. Actually, you've hit on what seems to be a semi-regular
mistake. This is not in any way an online game. The only connection it has
with the game Shadowrun is that it (ab)uses the setting from the game.

This is strictly a story mailing-list. That doesn't mean that there isn't
interactivity between the people, but it does mean there is no GM. All there
is is the person who's writing their part of their own story. If you want to
get tangled into somebody else's story, then write them. Give them suggestions
of what you'd like to do and see if they're interested in working with that.

A couple simple rules:

1. Never post anything that alters someone else's character or situation
unless they've given you the nod to do so. (Global altering things therefore
need a lot of nods.)

2. Keep your personal knowledge and your character's knowledge separate
(Private means exactly that)

3. Remember the story is being told over an electronic medium, your posts
should reflect that. (Hence the FAQ)

4. Try to stay within what the published material says as opposed to
what's happened in your home game. Just because I'm playing in a world where
the Catholic church is one of the major powers doesn't mean I bring that onto
TK.

And some basic advice:

When writing, you're probably better off sticking with lower or medium
powered stories until you've got a sufficient background built up. Nothing
wrong with a high powered story, but until a person has a feel for the list,
they tend to raise eye-brows and bring things to a "Yeah, right.. as if." kind
of level fairly quickly.

Watch the stories.. you'll note some things that may be out of whack with
your concept of what Shadowrun is. For example, UCAS on the list seems to
have more power and resources than I personally have in my SR game. Otaku are
(in general) frowned upon, and there's some seriously high-level magic
fluttering around in some circles. You don't have to go by any of these of
course, but they're useful to remember.

>Maybe I should just lurk a little longer till I get used to the format of
the list and learn who the major >players are, or I could just dive headlong
in and mess things up royally. I'm apt to do the later as I GM >my Shadowrun
group and I really want too shrug off all that GMing initials and just screw
the GM for >once. What I'm really saying I guess is that I'm lookin to join a
plot line/game if there is room for me.

Heh.. definitely don't mess things up. That's a fast way to get yourself
off the list. Dive in if you want, but just remember to do it courteously.
We're all trying to write good stories here, and in the process have a gestalt
that's better than any of us could individually do.

Karl.
(Who feels he must gloat at least once about having won an SR3 Hardcover
from www.magespace.net for a short-story. :-) )
Message no. 3
From: Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 17:04:59 -0800
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998, Grifter13 wrote:

> I've been lurking for a couple of weeks now and I was just wondering if
> you guys could give me just a short rundown of the plot lines out there.
> I have been to Avengers web sight so I've read the FAQ and I kinda
> understand what he is up to but if anyone else that is running a plot
> could fill me in I would appreciate it.

That would, as they say, take a _while_. Much longer than I have time to
spare at the moment. There is a little bit of everything, from government
and corporate intrigue all the way down to life on the "mean streets of
Tarislar" and everything in between. I can't say as any of the one's I
have brewing have immediate need of your assistance.

> Now as I understand it these posts are part story/part online game
> right? Like what I mean is that I see a lot of post that consist of a
> conversation between two characters controlled by the same person, and
> some that are just...well not conected to anything or so it appears. Is
> that the GM establishing the plot with NPC's or is that someone just
> telling a story?

Of course it is connected to something, even if it is just establishing a
character (who they are, what they do, what they like) a lot of the
smaller posts that don't seem ShadowRun related are just character pieces.
Something to make their fictional existance a little bit more believable;
something to make the suspension of disbelief a little bit easier of a
pill to swallow. As was said before me, this isn't a PBEM, this is a
_cooperative_ fiction list. We are here to write well, and as has been
said many times before "nobody's going to award you karma at the end of
the run." It's all in the interest of making a good story.

> Maybe I should just lurk a little longer till I get used to the format
> of the list and learn who the major players are, or I could just dive
> headlong in and mess things up royally. I'm apt to do the later as I GM
> my Shadowrun group and I really want too shrug off all that GMing
> initials and just screw the GM for once. What I'm really saying I guess
> is that I'm lookin to join a plot line/game if there is room for me.

Offering your talent is one thing, but what would perhaps be more useful
would be to come up with some characters that you will be willing to use
(even if for a little while...there always is that one bullet/fireball
with their name on it somewhere if you get tired of them). Characters
seem to be the main currency around here. You come up with and develop
your characters by involving them in stories of your own or someone elses
devising. If you want to tell your own story, go ahead (although with the
previous caveats about not stomping on toes / worldviews / etc.). Since
you are going to either be writing for them, or at least having a strong
say in what they say or do if someone else is lead writer, you might as
well have characters that you will like to write for. Some people like to
use the SR character generation system, some don't (it isn't necessary,
the only arbiter of what your character can or can't do is you, although
it is requested you keep within bounds of the SR universe and good taste.
(a.k.a. Characters of divine abilities, resources, and luck tend to get
ignored really fast around here, because frankly they get boring really
fast. OR With great power comes the great responsibility of writing a
great story to justify it.)

If I was to give you one piece of advice, it would be to come up with a
character idea or two, flesh it/them out a bit (not just what kind of gun
they like, but who are they, what are they like, what _do_ they like,
etc.) and come back to PlotD and introduce us to them. And then you can
look for a plot to get them involved with.

A font of ideas (not all of them good...mind you, esp. the ones that were
put on by people who never were a part of STk) is the cast-list that can
be found through Avenger's website or at:

http://www.itribe.net/shadowrun/cast-db

Else, you may come up with a story idea you want to try out and introduce
that (in rough terms, you don't have to spoil the whole thing) and see if
anybody is interested in working with you.

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 4
From: Grifter13 <sids@*********.CA>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 00:56:56 -0800
> Heh.. definitely don't mess things up. That's a fast way to get
yourself
>off the list.

I don't mean it that way, I just wanted to...you know...well...anyway I
promise not to mess things up.

>Dive in if you want, but just remember to do it courteously.
>We're all trying to write good stories here, and in the process have a
>gestalt that's better than any of us could individually do.
>
> Karl.


Karl Low and Jeff thanks for the help.

Now as for a Plot line...I was thinking of having a group of runners stumble
across a group/society of Vampires that are up to no good in Seattle. I
don't want to say just what, but it involves getting mega Corp
status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone knows
that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that HMHVV
will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood and all
that. Now I'm still working on the specifics, but does it sound interesting
at all? One small problem though, I have 3rd Ed and they took out the
description of the vamps.

Nice simple but I'm hopeing that over time it will build up into something
serious or it could just be a short thing.


Chris Sidsworth
Message no. 5
From: Jett <zmjett@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 02:03:17 -0500
>
>
> Now as for a Plot line...I was thinking of having a group of runners stumble
> across a group/society of Vampires that are up to no good in Seattle. I
> don't want to say just what, but it involves getting mega Corp
> status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone knows
> that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
> involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that HMHVV
> will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
> course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood and all
> that. Now I'm still working on the specifics, but does it sound interesting
> at all? One small problem though, I have 3rd Ed and they took out the
> description of the vamps.
>
> Nice simple but I'm hopeing that over time it will build up into something
> serious or it could just be a short thing.
>
> Chris Sidsworth

I might be interested in getting Jett involved with that story line. She's been
away for a while, and while she was away, she kind of died. Now, she's a free
spirit trapped in her own body. Because she's technically dead and looks pretty
creepy, a lot of people seem to mistake her for a vampire. Think this might be
fun to play with?


--Jett

<*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>


"I'll make this clear, that I'm just here for backup. And to offer the
occasional advice or insult."
--Jett, on being an NPC

Behold the mighty sonic scream of the Jett!

http://www.scifi-fantasy.com/~zmjett/shadow.htm
Message no. 6
From: Mach <mach@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 05:32:11 -0800
On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Jett wrote:

From Grifter13:
> > Now as for a Plot line...I was thinking of having a group of runners stumble
> > across a group/society of Vampires that are up to no good in Seattle. I
> > don't want to say just what, but it involves getting mega Corp
> > status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone knows
> > that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
> > involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that HMHVV
> > will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
> > course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood and all
> > that. Now I'm still working on the specifics, but does it sound interesting
> > at all? One small problem though, I have 3rd Ed and they took out the
> > description of the vamps.

Hmmm. Well, I suppose they will be coming out with a 3rd Ed. creature
book soon enough. They went through the trouble of making up HMHVV, and
within the game concept it seems to work rather well, so I don't see them
abandoning them. Until a change is made in their description by new
material, I think it safe to go by the existing rulebook description of
powers and abilities.

N.B.: Having someone obsessed with trying to manipulate HMHVV into a
formula for immortality is one thing (all well and good, and if someone
wasn't working on it somewhere in the bowels of a research lab somewhere,
I would be surprised). Having them succeed is a wholy other matter and I
hope you recognize that. One of the easy default reasons for such is that
in Shadowrun's worldview magical things (like HMHVV) tend not to give up
their secrets under scientific scrutiny. Else, Seattle would be hip-deep
in mages by now. Another consideration is how SR vampirism works, by
draining Essence (the drinking/biting is mainly to form a conduit for
Essence) to replenish the Essence a vampire looses to power its
existance/powers. I suppose that one could eventually magically
manipulate HMHVV so that it doesn't need a blood transfer, but I don't
really see a way in which you can get vampiric immortality (or banshee
immortality, etc.) without having the Essence Drain, which is a rather
"nasty side effect." On the other hand, vampiric immortality is far more
advantageous than the lack of aging found in elves (the infamous
"clockwork gene"). Elves can still die quite easily, they just leave a
good looking corpse.

I know Mark Neidengard has done some writing that involves the vampires in
Seattle. I think his opinion would be useful in this case. *pokel*

As for my earlier commentary, were you wanting to just oversee/write the
plot, or were you going to contribute characters? A "Mr. Johnson"?
Vampire-hunter?

> I might be interested in getting Jett involved with that story line.
> She's been away for a while, and while she was away, she kind of died.
> Now, she's a free spirit trapped in her own body. Because she's
> technically dead and looks pretty creepy, a lot of people seem to
> mistake her for a vampire. Think this might be fun to play with?

Uh.... And how does that work exactly?

AFAIK, in the SR world, people do not become free spirits. You can exist
for a brief period in astral form after your body is killed before you "go
on to the great beyond." But this isn't a free spirit (and all the powers
that go with that). What you describe is akin to someone taking their
ally spirit and binding them into a human familiar/golem (a rather nasty
business in all respects anyway), but to do that to a human spirit is
beyond current SR Thaumaturgical Science. And by being "technically dead"
and "looking creepy" are you saying that she is actually decomposing
(could get messy real fast)?

--My two yen

Jeff
Message no. 7
From: Brion David Wauters <bdw8@****.UCC.NAU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 11:28:40 -0700
On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Grifter13 wrote:

> Now as for a Plot line...I was thinking of having a group of runners stumble
> across a group/society of Vampires that are up to no good in Seattle. I
> don't want to say just what, but it involves getting mega Corp
> status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone knows
> that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
> involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that HMHVV
> will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
> course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood and all
> that. Now I'm still working on the specifics, but does it sound interesting
> at all? One small problem though, I have 3rd Ed and they took out the
> description of the vamps.

Are vampires ever up to good? A vampire corp might have problems, since I
seem to remeber vamps being mainly "shoot-on-sight" for most goverments
and corps (not that they wouldn't use Vamp operatives). As for the HMHVV
immortality, I don't think it would work...but they won't stop a CEO
(crazed or not) from trying;)

It sounds like it has potential. Post the "intro" to the list, you'll get
a least a few interested parties.

Brion
Message no. 8
From: "Mark L. Neidengard" <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone. (fwd)
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 14:53:06 -0800
This came up in private conversation, and I thought it would be worth talking
about here.

According to Mach:
>On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, Jett wrote:
>
>>From Grifter13:
>> > Now as for a Plot line...I was thinking of having a group of runners stumble
>> > across a group/society of Vampires that are up to no good in Seattle. I
>> > don't want to say just what, but it involves getting mega Corp
>> > status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone knows
>> > that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
>> > involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that HMHVV
>> > will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
>> > course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood and all
>> > that. Now I'm still working on the specifics, but does it sound interesting
>> > at all? One small problem though, I have 3rd Ed and they took out the
>> > description of the vamps.

Oh my....this _is_ an interesting little kettle of fish. So, I've been doing
some things with the Kindred on the list (though I've been kind of busy as of
late so the number of those "things" has been kinda low lately ^^;;) My
version of them is largely due to a certain RL campaign I was in where on of
my characters had a run in with some of them - when I brought that character
to this forum, I also penciled in some of the Vampire apparatus from there.

>Hmmm. Well, I suppose they will be coming out with a 3rd Ed. creature
>book soon enough. They went through the trouble of making up HMHVV, and
>within the game concept it seems to work rather well, so I don't see them
>abandoning them. Until a change is made in their description by new
>material, I think it safe to go by the existing rulebook description of
>powers and abilities.

Agreed. Several strains of HMHVV-carrying creatures are already described,
the most popular being the "normal" vampire and the "nosferatu". As
for what
happens to the various metaraces when they get infected, I don't 100% buy the
notion that they become "weird" mutations like banshees or whatnot...in the
interest of compromise, I've said that there are several different strains of
HMHVV, and only rarer strains in places like, say, Ireland, are liable to
bring about the more peculiar varieties.

>N.B.: Having someone obsessed with trying to manipulate HMHVV into a
>formula for immortality is one thing (all well and good, and if someone
>wasn't working on it somewhere in the bowels of a research lab somewhere,
>I would be surprised). Having them succeed is a wholy other matter and I
>hope you recognize that. One of the easy default reasons for such is that
>in Shadowrun's worldview magical things (like HMHVV) tend not to give up
>their secrets under scientific scrutiny. Else, Seattle would be hip-deep
>in mages by now.

Yes. In order to maintain any semblance of parity in the world, it is
necessary to say that the Mana gene has thusfar resisted any systematic
efforts to engineer it, or at least to engineer it into anything useful (I
personally find the whole FAB bacteria thing to be ludicrous in the extreme
anyway). Any sort of being that can kill with a glance is quite world-
destabilizing if not kept in check.

>Another consideration is how SR vampirism works, by
>draining Essence (the drinking/biting is mainly to form a conduit for
>Essence) to replenish the Essence a vampire looses to power its
>existance/powers. I suppose that one could eventually magically
>manipulate HMHVV so that it doesn't need a blood transfer, but I don't
>really see a way in which you can get vampiric immortality (or banshee
>immortality, etc.) without having the Essence Drain, which is a rather
>"nasty side effect."

Heh heh...by my lights, not all vampires need blood anyway - they just need
some proxy for the exchange of Essence. Blood is perhaps the most convenient
of bodily fluids, but is far from the only one. And other more outre options
also exist, though for sanity reasons it's probably best not to stray _too_
far from the "archetypical" methods if one still wants to call it a
"vampire".

>On the other hand, vampiric immortality is far more
>advantageous than the lack of aging found in elves (the infamous
>"clockwork gene"). Elves can still die quite easily, they just leave a
>good looking corpse.

*smirk*

>I know Mark Neidengard has done some writing that involves the vampires in
>Seattle. I think his opinion would be useful in this case. *pokel*

*too much finals preparation* So, here's what happened in a campaign set in
New York where my character Jason Tylor first encountered the Kindred. He did
a bunch of research and discovered that there _had_ been projects in the
early days after the Awakening to try to understand what HMHVV was. All such
projects he could find had come to mysterious ends. Some had had their
funding cut and their results siphoned away into some anonymous academic black
hole, others had met with strange mishaps that terminated the inquiry, etc.
The idea was that someone, in my view, the Kindred, were behind most or all of
it (and the government was behind the rest).

My view is that, whether or not the Munchkin Immortal Elves(tm) could survive
the low Mana period, there were certainly some _old_ Kindred who definitely
could. There probably aren't that many of them, but there probably is some
"conspiracy" going on, distributed cells of influence whose leaders are
well concealed and potentially highly influential, some government and
corporate penetration, etc. _What_ the goal of such a conspiracy is is more
interesting. At least as far as the characters of mine that have dealings
with them know, the objective seems to be figuring out a way to obtain true
immortality, keeping the humans in the dark until the time is right to properly
reveal their existence (either to lord it over them or to usher the rest of
humanity into a better tomorrow...who knows which >} ) I'm sure there are
members of the organization that are also in it for the usual reasons of
organized crime, debauchery of medieval proportions, and other darker purposes.

>As for my earlier commentary, were you wanting to just oversee/write the
>plot, or were you going to contribute characters? A "Mr. Johnson"?
>Vampire-hunter?

I should really start writing more again for the list: I can certainly chip
in a number of runners _and_ a number of Kindred. The POP for my group of
vampires is primarily in Scotland, but the organization they're part of is
of course global. ^_^

>> I might be interested in getting Jett involved with that story line.
>> She's been away for a while, and while she was away, she kind of died.
>> Now, she's a free spirit trapped in her own body. Because she's
>> technically dead and looks pretty creepy, a lot of people seem to
>> mistake her for a vampire. Think this might be fun to play with?
>Uh.... And how does that work exactly?

Um, yeah...how _does_ that work?

>AFAIK, in the SR world, people do not become free spirits. You can exist
>for a brief period in astral form after your body is killed before you "go
>on to the great beyond." But this isn't a free spirit (and all the powers
>that go with that). What you describe is akin to someone taking their
>ally spirit and binding them into a human familiar/golem (a rather nasty
>business in all respects anyway), but to do that to a human spirit is
>beyond current SR Thaumaturgical Science. And by being "technically dead"
>and "looking creepy" are you saying that she is actually decomposing
>(could get messy real fast)?

Concur - there are no mechanics and no precedent for humans to become
"elevated" to Free Spirit status. Indeed, that sort of thing is maybe the
eventual outcome of the aforementioned project the Kindred are working on...
and _have_ been since potentially the Fourth World. I should say that it
ought not to be possible for a normal human to achieve apotheosis that easily.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI. http://psy-s.cjas.org/~mneideng/
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Maigo no Daigakuinsei, Cornell U.
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 9
From: Pete *Iago* Palmer <peter@***********.NET.NZ>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 12:50:51 +1300
At 00:56 1/12/98 -0800, you wrote:

>Now as for a Plot line...I was thinking of having a group of runners=
stumble
>across a group/society of Vampires that are up to no good in Seattle. I
>don't want to say just what, but it involves getting mega Corp
>status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone knows
>that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
>involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that HMHVV
>will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
>course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood and all
>that. Now I'm still working on the specifics, but does it sound=
interesting
>at all? One small problem though, I have 3rd Ed and they took out the
>description of the vamps.
>
>Nice simple but I'm hopeing that over time it will build up into something
>serious or it could just be a short thing.
>
>
>Chris Sidsworth

I know that I would be interested in participating in this one, having
a character that almost begs to be part of it:

Draco Van Rensburg aka Drakko
Drakko is a spellslinger who specialises in the hunting down of Vampires.
Romanian by birth, and hailing from Wallachia originally, He affects the
appearance of a 1930s Secret Police operative a la John Buchan. He is cold,=

calculating and effective. Not known for his tolerance of fools or mistakes,=

he has few living friends, and those friends are treated more as=
acquaintances.

He's been around Seattle for a few years, since 2053. He usually works with
Kid Durango: an old time street sam way behind the SOTA, and Corvette: an=

ex-professional athlete who uses her cyber-augmentation for running these=
days.

But Drakko has one over-riding concern...Hunting down the victims of HMHVV=
and
allowing them some final rest. This is his raison d'être, and he usually=
only
works with Corvette on these matters, as the methods he uses pretty much=
aren't
to Kid Durango's liking.

If you're looking for actual stats blah blah I can post them but be aware=
they are
all for 2nd Edition, and all my characters are way behind SOTA.

Pete
Message no. 10
From: Justin Fang <justinf@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 16:10:42 -0800
Mark L. Neidengard wrote:
>According to Mach:
>>>From Grifter13:

>>>>status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone knows
>>>>that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
>>>>involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that HMHVV
>>>>will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
>>>>course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood and
all

I think that's a workable idea; a couple years ago I had a character make a
brief reference to a corp (Hayashi, originally derived from a local
campaign) that tried to do just that, (thei error apparently eneded in a
mysterious accident). (If you need a corp for your plot, Hayashi might
work.)

>Agreed. Several strains of HMHVV-carrying creatures are already described,
>the most popular being the "normal" vampire and the "nosferatu".
As for what
>happens to the various metaraces when they get infected, I don't 100% buy the
>notion that they become "weird" mutations like banshees or whatnot...in the
>interest of compromise, I've said that there are several different strains of
>HMHVV, and only rarer strains in places like, say, Ireland, are liable to
>bring about the more peculiar varieties.

I've always been amused by the idea that HMHVV is the Awakened form of the
rabies virus.

>>On the other hand, vampiric immortality is far more advantageous than the
>>lack of aging found in elves (the infamous "clockwork gene"). Elves can
>>still die quite easily, they just leave a good looking corpse.

Also, Leonization already allows you to buy a second (and probably third,
fourth, etc.) youth. So dying of old age or other natural causes shouldn't
be a worry for any successful corporate executive. Dying from *unnatural*
causes would be a worry, and it's quite possible that an executive would be
paranoid about being assasinated and thus become obsessed with the idea of
getting vampiric regeneration and immunity to poison/disease.

>All such projects he could find had come to mysterious ends. Some had had
>their funding cut and their results siphoned away into some anonymous
>academic black hole, others had met with strange mishaps that terminated
>the inquiry, etc. The idea was that someone, in my view, the Kindred, were
>behind most or all of it (and the government was behind the rest).

In Hayashi's case, it might just have been an actual accident. :)

>>>I might be interested in getting Jett involved with that story line.
>>>She's been away for a while, and while she was away, she kind of died.
>>>Now, she's a free spirit trapped in her own body. Because she's
>>>technically dead and looks pretty creepy, a lot of people seem to
>>>mistake her for a vampire. Think this might be fun to play with?

>>AFAIK, in the SR world, people do not become free spirits. You can exist
>>for a brief period in astral form after your body is killed before you "go
>>on to the great beyond." But this isn't a free spirit (and all the powers
>>that go with that).

Well, I suppose if your body suffers brain death (but is otherwise still
intact and breathing) while you're astrally projecting, *and* you have a
(hypothetical) spell that allows you to temporarily "possess" a body, then
*maybe* your astral self could cast and quicken that spell on your comatose
body.

--
Justin Fang (justinf@****.caltech.edu)
This space intentionally left blank.
Message no. 11
From: "Mark L. Neidengard" <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 16:17:58 -0800
According to Justin Fang:
>Mark L. Neidengard wrote:
>>According to Mach:
>>>>From Grifter13:
>
>>>>>status(extraterritoriality) and all that. Oh and of course everyone
knows
>>>>>that a Corp has to be involved in it some how right. Well the Corp is
>>>>>involved because the CEO(or whatever) is obsessed with the idea that
HMHVV
>>>>>will allow him to live forever, after a little genetic manipulation of
>>>>>course to get rid of the nasty side effect of having to drink blood
and all
>I think that's a workable idea; a couple years ago I had a character make a
>brief reference to a corp (Hayashi, originally derived from a local
>campaign) that tried to do just that, (thei error apparently eneded in a
>mysterious accident). (If you need a corp for your plot, Hayashi might
>work.)

Actually, a little mayhem and subterfuge might do this starving grad student
good. It's been a while. ^_-

>I've always been amused by the idea that HMHVV is the Awakened form of the
>rabies virus.

Bwhahahahahah.

>Also, Leonization already allows you to buy a second (and probably third,
>fourth, etc.) youth. So dying of old age or other natural causes shouldn't
>be a worry for any successful corporate executive. Dying from *unnatural*
>causes would be a worry, and it's quite possible that an executive would be
>paranoid about being assasinated and thus become obsessed with the idea of
>getting vampiric regeneration and immunity to poison/disease.

And/or spending lots of money on expensive security measures. ^_^

>>>AFAIK, in the SR world, people do not become free spirits. You can exist
>>>for a brief period in astral form after your body is killed before you
"go
>>>on to the great beyond." But this isn't a free spirit (and all the
powers
>>>that go with that).
>Well, I suppose if your body suffers brain death (but is otherwise still
>intact and breathing) while you're astrally projecting, *and* you have a
>(hypothetical) spell that allows you to temporarily "possess" a body, then
>*maybe* your astral self could cast and quicken that spell on your comatose
>body.

True, but that wouldn't be the same as Free Spirithood...
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI. http://psy-s.cjas.org/~mneideng/
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Maigo no Daigakuinsei, Cornell U.
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime Addict
Message no. 12
From: Grifter13 <sids@*********.CA>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone. (fwd)
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 22:11:44 -0800
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark L. Neidengard <mneideng@****.CALTECH.EDU>
To: PLOTD@********.ITRIBE.NET <PLOTD@********.ITRIBE.NET>
Date: Tuesday, December 01, 1998 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: Hello everyone. (fwd)



>Oh my....this _is_ an interesting little kettle of fish. So, I've been
doing
>some things with the Kindred on the list (though I've been kind of busy as
of
>late so the number of those "things" has been kinda low lately ^^;;) My
>version of them is largely due to a certain RL campaign I was in where on
of
>my characters had a run in with some of them - when I brought that
character
>to this forum, I also penciled in some of the Vampire apparatus from there.


Kindred as in Vampire the Masquerade right. I was going to steal some ideas
from there, mainly just how the social structure works but not the clans or
powers. Basically I was going to hav a couple of 'elder' vampires rule over
the majority of the younger vampires, kinda like the princes in Vampire.
>
>
>>N.B.: Having someone obsessed with trying to manipulate HMHVV into a
>>formula for immortality is one thing (all well and good, and if someone
>>wasn't working on it somewhere in the bowels of a research lab somewhere,
>>I would be surprised). Having them succeed is a wholy other matter and I
>>hope you recognize that. One of the easy default reasons for such is that
>>in Shadowrun's worldview magical things (like HMHVV) tend not to give up
>>their secrets under scientific scrutiny. Else, Seattle would be hip-deep
>>in mages by now.
>
>Yes. In order to maintain any semblance of parity in the world, it is
>necessary to say that the Mana gene has thusfar resisted any systematic
>efforts to engineer it, or at least to engineer it into anything useful (I
>personally find the whole FAB bacteria thing to be ludicrous in the extreme
>anyway). Any sort of being that can kill with a glance is quite world-
>destabilizing if not kept in check.


Spending millions of new yen is one thing, getting results is another. All
it is really is just a flimsy plot device designed to drag another 'player'
in to the action.

Actually I didn't know about the Immortal Elves but that just would not work
for what I want.


>>As for my earlier commentary, were you wanting to just oversee/write the
>>plot, or were you going to contribute characters? A "Mr. Johnson"?
>>Vampire-hunter?


I have never done anything like this before but I would love to try it. A
couple of people have voiced intrest in having there characters involoved,
but what I don't understand is the mechanics of something like this. As
people have told me this is not a PBEM, so just how do others participate?
Like if some people on the list become the core group of runners, how would
I convey to them the out come of a run? Would I simply post a cybercam
recording of the run? I'm beging to see that this can be a difficult format
to work with until one gets the hang of it.

>I should really start writing more again for the list: I can certainly chip
>in a number of runners _and_ a number of Kindred. The POP for my group of
>vampires is primarily in Scotland, but the organization they're part of is
>of course global. ^_^
>
>>> I might be interested in getting Jett involved with that story line.
>>> She's been away for a while, and while she was away, she kind of died.
>>> Now, she's a free spirit trapped in her own body. Because she's
>>> technically dead and looks pretty creepy, a lot of people seem to
>>> mistake her for a vampire. Think this might be fun to play with?
>>Uh.... And how does that work exactly?
>
>Um, yeah...how _does_ that work?


Is that like cybermancy with out the cyber?

>--
>/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, CS Grad, VLSI.
http://psy-s.cjas.org/~mneideng/
>"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Maigo no Daigakuinsei, Cornell
U.
>"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
> -Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Shadowrunner and Anime
Addict
Message no. 13
From: "Paul J. Adam" <plotd@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Hello everyone.
Date: Wed, 2 Dec 1998 23:34:55 +0000
In message <Pine.SOL.3.95.981201112245.18481A-100000@****.ucc.nau.edu>,
Brion David Wauters <bdw8@****.UCC.NAU.EDU> writes
>Are vampires ever up to good?

Depends on the vampire. Are _humans_ ever up to good? :)

>A vampire corp might have problems, since I
>seem to remeber vamps being mainly "shoot-on-sight" for most goverments
>and corps (not that they wouldn't use Vamp operatives). As for the HMHVV
>immortality, I don't think it would work...but they won't stop a CEO
>(crazed or not) from trying;)

Vampire conspiracies... I just saw 'Blade' last night. Loved it. Not
planning to have a vampire underworld on ShadowTK, though :)


--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Hello everyone., you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!