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Message no. 1
From: Ben Acosta <BACOSTA1@*****.BITNET>
Subject: All Ancients Great and Small
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 14:43:26 CST
A question which might relate to ancient holdovers from the Fourth World, such
as Elves and Dwarves.

Has anyone ever considered the possibility of humans being around for a long
time due to the use of some sort of Magical substance?

For example, maybe there really is a Fountain of Youth.

Another example is from the legend of Gilgamesh. I haven't read it in a year
or two but as I recall Gilgamesh was given by some god a plant or herb which
would give humans eternal life. In the legend it says he loses it, but that
doesn't have to be the case.

A third example would be all those human demi-gods such as Hercules, Perseus,
and some of the other Greek Heroes. Maybe some of them really did have divine
lineage.

One final way for a human from long ago could be walking around is to have one
finally freed from a magical imprisonment. Merlin comes to mind. (I'm a
little rusty in my Arthurian legends. Wasn't Merlin magically imprisoned in a
cave or something?)

+-------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
:Benjamin J. Acosta : "When dog bites man, it's not a story. :
:BACOSTA1@*****.UA.EDU : When man bites dog, it's a story. :
:Science Fiction Fan : And when man and dog slug it out for :
:Comic Book Reader : twelve issues and the dog turns out :
:Role Playing Gamer : to be a mutant and Wolverine has a :
:Renaissance Man : guest appearance, It's a Marvel story!" :
:THIS SPACE FOR RENT : --A saying in the Marvel Comics Bullpen :
+-------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
Message no. 2
From: The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject: Re: All Ancients Great and Small
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 20:43:37 GMT
>or two but as I recall Gilgamesh was given by some god a plant or herb which
>would give humans eternal life. In the legend it says he loses it, but that
>doesn't have to be the case.

Or maybe he DOES lose it but some humans find it: the monks of Shangri-La,
a small cult in the Amazon jungle, Dick Clark.

>A third example would be all those human demi-gods such as Hercules, Perseus,
>and some of the other Greek Heroes. Maybe some of them really did have divine
>lineage.

In which case you would have to define the Gods in Shadowrun terms. We attempted
this some time ago, but would be interested in your ideas on the subject.

>One final way for a human from long ago could be walking around is to have one
>finally freed from a magical imprisonment. Merlin comes to mind. (I'm a
>little rusty in my Arthurian legends. Wasn't Merlin magically imprisoned in a
>cave or something?)

Yeah. And actually, not just him but Arthur & company are supposed to rise
up at some point and defend Good again. This may be a Norse variation of the
myth mixing Art and Ragnarok. But it was the basis of a series of fantasy
literature I started reading but never finished, involving a young boy, his
albino friend, and somehow the Round Table Wrecking Company gets woken up.


J Roberson
Message no. 3
From: "David R. Henry" <dhenry@******.NODAK.EDU>
Subject: Re: All Ancients Great and Small
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 20:34:32 CST
>A question which might relate to ancient holdovers from the Fourth World, such
>as Elves and Dwarves.
>
>Has anyone ever considered the possibility of humans being around for a long
>time due to the use of some sort of Magical substance?

I can't speak for the humans being around, but Earthdawn does say that
certain Dwarfs (note grammatically correct spelling :-)), especially those
of the Theran Empire (or Atlantis), had figured out rituals to give themselves
Elven-length lifespans. They could very well be hanging around as well.

There's also a strange bit about the T'skrang lizardpeople having a very
secretive origin, and so they may not be long-lived, but may have ties to
certain lifeforms that are. Favors may be owed.

It should be noted that according to the Ways and Paths of Tir na nOg, the
whole idea of immortal life (in one body) sort of runs counter to a true
spirit fulfilling their progression on the Great Wheel. Reincarnation is
a very important ideal for those Elves, although, as usual for anything
high-powered in SR, we have no idea how much truth the creators of the Ways
and Paths leaked out to their followers.

>One final way for a human from long ago could be walking around is to have one
>finally freed from a magical imprisonment. Merlin comes to mind. (I'm a
>little rusty in my Arthurian legends. Wasn't Merlin magically imprisoned in a
>cave or something?)

More or less. Mallory has him stuck in a cave under a tree, but heaven knows
there's other versions. :-). It should be noted that as per the London
Sourcebook, the Cornish Bards are working with their Brittany counterparts
to find Merlin's cave. Meanwhile, a Great Dragon is up to mysterious stuff
under the legendary seat of Arthur's Round Table (Great Dragons are
contractually obligated to be obscure, though, aren't they?). Arthurian-
loving SR GMs can make what they will of those snippets.

drh
Message no. 4
From: Ben Acosta <BACOSTA1@*****.BITNET>
Subject: Re: All Ancients Great and Small
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 1993 23:38:31 CST
I write:

The Deb Decker writes:

>>A third example would be all those human demi-gods such as Hercules, Perseus,
>>and some other Greek Heroes. Maybe some of them really did have divine
>>lineage.
>In which case you would have to define the Gods in Shadowrun terms. We
>attempted this some time ago, but would be interested in your ideas on the
>subject.

Well, I'm a player and not a GM, so I'm not very experienced in making up new
things for Shadowrun, but I'm going to take a few shots in the dark and purpose
some approaches to this (And me without low light vision).

The first thing that comes to mind is to ask whether a book called The Primal
Order was out at the time. It's a book that was put out a few months ago by
The Wizard's of the Coast which dealt with deities. A section of the book had
deity mechanics for various game systems and I believe Shadowrun (I) was one
of the systems detailed. I didn't read the section that closely but I do
remember seeing it. If you've heard of it before I apologize for bringing up
old news, but I just wanted to be sure that avenue of thought was followed.

Another way to look at Gods in Shadowrun (As opposed to the ONE TRUE GOD, Tom
Dowd :-) is to think of them as a very powerful variation of free spirit.
I'm going to steal blatantly from Ars Magica (Or at least I think I am. I've
never played the game, and don't own the books. I spent all my money buying
Shadowrun and Torg stuff. I just read other RPG books in the store.) and
conjecture that the universe was created by one God (Though I'm of a
monotheistic orientation, the main reason I'm assuming this is because I'm
deriving this cosmology from the Ars Magica supplement Pax Dei). The various
other "Gods" come into existence due to the faith of people forming them from
the high mana of the newly created world (sort of like an unconcious summoning,
maybe). These Gods are sort of a cross between powerful free spirits and
totems. They have all the known powers of free spirits, and maybe others yet
to be discovered. They recieve Karma from their worshippers. And they give
bonuses to their various priests to perform miracles (in other words, cast
spells) associated with their natures. This leads to the conclusion that
those priests are a form of shaman, or shamanic adept.

As to whether the Gods could breed with each other to produce other Gods, or
with humans to produce demi-gods, as shown in myth, is a question I feel I
should leave in more qualified hands. I've strained my brain enough for
tonight. Time to catch some Z's.

+-------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
:Benjamin J. Acosta : "When dog bites man, it's not a story. :
:BACOSTA1@*****.UA.EDU : When man bites dog, it's a story. :
:Science Fiction Fan : And when man and dog slug it out for :
:Comic Book Reader : twelve issues and the dog turns out :
:Role Playing Gamer : to be a mutant and Wolverine has a :
:Renaissance Man : guest appearance, It's a Marvel story!" :
:THIS SPACE FOR RENT : --A saying in the Marvel Comics Bullpen :
+-------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
Message no. 5
From: The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject: Re: All Ancients Great and Small
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 11:20:16 GMT
>Well, I'm a player and not a GM, so I'm not very experienced in making up new

Making Things Up: no experience required.

>The first thing that comes to mind is to ask whether a book called The Primal
>Order was out at the time. It's a book that was put out a few months ago by

Haven't heard of it.

>other "Gods" come into existence due to the faith of people forming them
from
>the high mana of the newly created world (sort of like an unconcious summoning,
>maybe). These Gods are sort of a cross between powerful free spirits and
>totems. They have all the known powers of free spirits, and maybe others yet
>to be discovered. They recieve Karma from their worshippers. And they give
>bonuses to their various priests to perform miracles (in other words, cast
>spells) associated with their natures. This leads to the conclusion that
>those priests are a form of shaman, or shamanic adept.

This is one point we got to when discussing Dino-Totems. Something must be
worshipped to qualify as a totem. I think totems are a good way to handle
the gods, and your definition is one we discussed and one that I rather
like. Others will argue that 1)you should be able to correlate the "nature"
totems directly to the gods and then dicover that 2) you can't. If you use
"god" totems, make them up as new totems.

Of course, people would have to be worshipping them now (2054) to make them
exist.

>As to whether the Gods could breed with each other to produce other Gods, or
>with humans to produce demi-gods, as shown in myth, is a question I feel I

People imagined that they existed and they existed; people imagine the gods
make out and new gods exist.


J Roberson
Message no. 6
From: Ben Acosta <BACOSTA1@*****.BITNET>
Subject: Re: All Ancients Great and Small
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 13:20:57 CST
>other "Gods" come into existence due to the faith of people forming them
from
>the high mana of the newly created world (sort of like an unconcious summoning,
>maybe). These Gods are sort of a cross between powerful free spirits and
>totems. They have all the known powers of free spirits, and maybe others yet
>to be discovered. They recieve Karma from their worshippers. And they give
>bonuses to their various priests to perform miracles (in other words, cast
>spells) associated with their natures. This leads to the conclusion that
>those priests are a form of shaman, or shamanic adept.

This is one point we got to when discussing Dino-Totems. Something must be
worshipped to qualify as a totem. I think totems are a good way to handle
the gods, and your definition is one we discussed and one that I rather
like. Others will argue that 1)you should be able to correlate the "nature"
totems directly to the gods and then dicover that 2) you can't. If you use
"god" totems, make them up as new totems.

Of course, people would have to be worshipping them now (2054) to make them
exist.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I don't know about the other pantheons, but I'd say worship of the Aztec
Gods is very much alive and well in 2054. After all, most of Atzlan probably
practices the Aztec religion. Maybe the reason Atzlan doesn't get along with
the Tirs is that the Aztec Gods didn't get along well very much with the Elves
of the Fourth World.

+-------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
:Benjamin J. Acosta : "When dog bites man, it's not a story. :
:BACOSTA1@*****.UA.EDU : When man bites dog, it's a story. :
:Science Fiction Fan : And when man and dog slug it out for :
:Comic Book Reader : twelve issues and the dog turns out :
:Role Playing Gamer : to be a mutant and Wolverine has a :
:Renaissance Man : guest appearance, It's a Marvel story!" :
:THIS SPACE FOR RENT : --A saying in the Marvel Comics Bullpen :
+-------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
Message no. 7
From: The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject: Re: All Ancients Great and Small
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 17:44:34 GMT
>Well, I don't know about the other pantheons, but I'd say worship of the Aztec
>Gods is very much alive and well in 2054. After all, most of Atzlan probably
>practices the Aztec religion. Maybe the reason Atzlan doesn't get along with
>the Tirs is that the Aztec Gods didn't get along well very much with the Elves
>of the Fourth World.

Or maybe it's because of serious religious reasons on the part of the
people. Maybe the Aztecs tend toward blood magic more. Maybe they just
can't agree on which side of the toast to butter.

J Roberson

Further Reading

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Thwap!