The Shadowrun Situation

[Archmage]

Okay. So what determines mom's hormone concentrations? What determines baby's sensitivity to that hormone?

I think your response is pretty good evidence for my original statement.

What hormones? What are you even talking about?

Mom's "hormone concentrations" (estrogens, progestins, and testosterone) are determined by her genetics. "How do I respond to pregnancy" is coded in a mother's DNA. Under normal circumstances the human endocrine system maintains an appropriate balance of systemic hormones for fetal development.

Likewise, a developing fetus is just running the program imprinted in its DNA. Cells multiply and differentiate based on those instructions and the availability of resources (amino acids, fats, etc). The mother's hormone levels during pregnancy are maintained so that the uterus stays in proper condition to support a developing fetus. Details like the genetic sex of the fetus are determined at the time of conception and don't change unless the DNA mutates. Maternal hormone levels don't wildly fluctuate and cause the whole project to change course unless you introduce exogenous sources of estrogen/testosterone/progesterone.

If an environmental factor causes a mutation, the DNA of the fetus has changed. Therefore, the change is genetic. If DNA isn't changed, the change isn't genetic.

Magery in Shadowrun not being inherited by identical twins or clones or whatever despite being linked to "the Magus gene" is clearly a result of some Sixth World ambient mana fuckery. You have to have the gene to be a mage. Environmental conditions have to trigger it for it to activate and do anything. The fact that you can't just clone mages and then expose them to the appropriate environmental trigger can only be explained so many ways, but the one that is ultimately going to get applied is "it's magic, so sometimes people with the Magus gene are mages and sometimes they aren't."

[Orion]

Archmage,

As it happens, there are known traits which are determined biologically but not genetically. remember that hbormone concentrations are effected by all kidns of thigns in your diet, environment, and life history. They're not just genetic. So there are traits your mother's womb can give you that are not part of her genome. Male homosexuality seems to be one. Men are more likely to grow up to be gay the more male children his birth-mother carried, regardless of who he was raised with.

[Stahlseele]

Update: somebody on the official german board actually still had it and sent it my way. carry on, nothing to see here anymore.

[Archmage]

As it happens, there are known traits which are determined biologically but not genetically.

Of course there are. But as I recall from Street Magic, there is in fact a mage gene. Which means that while it requires proper environmental pressure to awaken, but if you lack the gene, you can't ever awaken.

So if you're not a magician, you can't ever become one unless you're a latent magician, in which case you have the gene but aren't expressing it.

[Otakusensei]

As it happens, there are known traits which are determined biologically but not genetically.

Of course there are. But as I recall from Street Magic, there is in fact a mage gene. Which means that while it requires proper environmental pressure to awaken, but if you lack the gene, you can't ever awaken.

So if you're not a magician, you can't ever become one unless you're a latent magician, in which case you have the gene but aren't expressing it.

Not a normal gene, not passed or expressed in any standard currently understandable way. That's why they call it meta-genetics.

Given that Earthdawn is the past and everyone there is awakened to some extent, more than likely every person alive in the 2070s has the potential to awaken. What triggers that may be puberty, if their personal potential was high, or maybe just a spike in the mana levels. Once the general unaspected background count reaches a level closer to Earthdawn you'll see everyone alive having the potential to at least be an adapt. However that's a long way off without some serious meddling from dragons, IEs or monsters from beyond the stars.

[Seerow]

So, rather than reading through 120 pages of the thread, someone care to summarize what the result of all of this was?

In the first post Frank was talking about the shadowrun license likely going elsewhere, but that was about a year ago, and I've seen nothing of the sort, so I assume that didn't happen.

[name_here]

I think that the end result is that the parent company has put CGL on a short leash and the license is getting short-term, temporary extensions for the foreseeable future.

[Seerow]

I think that the end result is that the parent company has put CGL on a short leash and the license is getting short-term, temporary extensions for the foreseeable future.

So there is still hope for a SR5 coming from a fresh company in the (relatively) near future?

[Username17]

I think that the end result is that the parent company has put CGL on a short leash and the license is getting short-term, temporary extensions for the foreseeable future.

So there is still hope for a SR5 coming from a fresh company in the (relatively) near future?

Catalyst has been running on a "temporary license extension" for 8 months. The creditors who took them to court got paid and dropped the suit days before they were going to have to submit their financials to the federal court. There are still creditors and workers (who when you think about it, are just another kind of creditor) who haven't been paid in years. Yes, as in more than one year. Still.

So basically they are in the same position they were before. They are still financially insolvent, they are still a bunch of liars, and their license to produce Shadowrun is still overdue and they still don't have any word on ever getting a new longterm lease.

Loren Coleman is still reselling rights he does not have to foreign companies to make longterm license agreements he cannot legally make. And he still lives in a mansion while the company continues to circle the drain. The latest series of books have been simultaneously way late and haphazzardly slapped together.

TOPPS could pull the plug at any time. Catalyst does not have a contract. But TOPPS is also apparently stuck with a sunk costs fallacy where they think the fact that Catalyst is paying them anything right now is better than cutting them off. So at least for now, TOPPS is not pulling the plug. It's very sad.

But yes. Since Shadowrun is still very much a purchasable property, there exists the possibility of a company poaching the property at any time and proceeding to make something good instead. I've seen Jason's 5th edition proposals and they are dire.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

There's been Jokes about SR5D20 too . .
Also, the next map-part of Shadows of Latin America has been released by Fexes over on dumpshock just now:
http://fexes.deviantart.com/art/The-Car ... -203431231
and bolivia:
http://fexes.deviantart.com/#/d3d4fvd

[Fucks]

Given that Earthdawn is the past and everyone there is awakened to some extent,

Not correct - only adepts are magically awaken. Adepts make up ~10% of any population.

[Stahlseele]

Which is still ten times as many as there are in shadowrun, with 1% awakened worldwide and those 1% being ALL awakened, even if they can only cast one single spell or are magic 1 adepts that can smell really well . .

[Lokathor]

Given that Earthdawn is the past and everyone there is awakened to some extent,

Not correct - only adepts are magically awaken. Adepts make up ~10% of any population.

Not correct either. On top of the full Adepts that adventure, there are also half-adepts who do things like magically farm instead of skillfully farm (whatever the fuck that means).

[Maxus]

there are also half-adepts who do things like magically farm instead of skillfully farm (whatever the fuck that means).

Probably just go for a walk in the fields a couple times of day.

I don't know Earthdawn, but you -could- make a case for half-adepts in some sort of setting being passive talents.

The plants and trees around a farmer's house are thicker and greener. If some girl isn't paying attention, you won't notice her in the room, at all. Another person can see in the dark.

Basically, things that're always on and probably uncontrolled.

[Lokathor]

No, they physically farm out the fields, it's visually the same as "normal" farming, but they don't have farming as a Skill; They have it as a Talent. Talents are magically gained with flashes of insight and Skills are gained slowly and with training. It's all the same until you go and Rename yourself, because changing your Name resets your True Pattern and clears out all your Talents and anything else linked to your True Pattern. (Which, now that I think about it, would be an interesting price to pay to ride yourself of a curse or horror mark.)

Keep in mind that almost almost every skill is available in talent form, it's just that your talents available are determined almost entirely (Humans, lol) by your Discipline (like a class) and your skills can always be anything you find a trainer for, so you sometimes pick up skills to grab options that your Discipline doesn't give you (such as a Wizard getting Haggle). This is not true in reverse: many talents exist that don't have a skill form, such as Spellcasting, Spell Matrix, and Fire Blood.

Half-adepts exist as a portion of the commoner population and learn Disciplines that give them Talent access to commoner things like Pottery and Weaving and crap. Many half-adepts can become full Adepts, and in the process they actually lose their old Disciplines that they had as a younger person. Others move straight from not being a magic user at all to being an Adept. The full class discipline users also have "half-magic" which gives them a bonus with anything related to their discipline that specific talents don't cover, like Warriors gain it for knowing about soldiering and honor codes and battle history and stuff.

Also, there are "Magician" type disciplines (Wizard, Elementalist, etc), but they're still considered to be a subtype of Adept by the people of Earthdawn.

[fectin]

If a fetus's development is altered by mom's hormones, that's environmental influence, not genetic influence.

So it's not genetic.

Mom's "hormone concentrations" (estrogens, progestins, and testosterone) are determined by her genetics. "How do I respond to pregnancy" is coded in a mother's DNA.

Oh wait! It's genetic after all!

But apparently, saying:

Is it genetic? Depends what you mean.

is

evidence that you don't know anything about genetics.

Asshat.

Also, amplifying my earlier point, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA

[Fucks]

Given that Earthdawn is the past and everyone there is awakened to some extent,

Not correct - only adepts are magically awaken. Adepts make up ~10% of any population.

Not correct either. On top of the full Adepts that adventure, there are also half-adepts who do things like magically farm instead of skillfully farm (whatever the fuck that means).

There are rules for that?

[Fucks]

Which is still ten times as many as there are in shadowrun, with 1% awakened worldwide and those 1% being ALL awakened, even if they can only cast one single spell or are magic 1 adepts that can smell really well . .

Yeah. Whatever.

[Lokathor]

Not correct - only adepts are magically awaken. Adepts make up ~10% of any population.

Not correct either. On top of the full Adepts that adventure, there are also half-adepts who do things like magically farm instead of skillfully farm (whatever the fuck that means).

There are rules for that?

There are essays about it in the (i think) Earthdawn Player's Companion, and I could look again give you the 3e page numbers for that if you really insist, but I've no idea where that info would be in 1e or 2e. It probably wasn't made up new for 3e though, because they didn't start making much new material in 3e until Serpent River.

There are no specific rules. It's implied that the half-disciplines are entirely incompatible with the full disciplines so that you can't mix them, and that's it from a mechanics side of things.

Note To All: It was brought to my attention that Street Magic (4e) upped the awakened rate to 2%, oh so high! However, that's among the whole of the awakened types, not just magicians.

[Neurosis]

So does that mean that the rate of Awakened in the Sixth World is already equal to 20% of what it was in Earthdawn?

[Lokathor]

I don't know what the stats for the awakened rate are in Earthdawn actually. However, also keep in mind that populations were lower back then. Also, they were a bunch of ukranians so who can really say?


But seriously, as has been suggested to me by another, the people of the Fourth World were essentially half-starved idiot cave men who thought that stuff was cool and effective because they didn't know any better. In the Sixth World pretty much everyone (at least in the cities) gets 2000 calories a day or more when they're growing up, and so they're absurdly strong in comparison.

[Stahlseele]

So does that mean that the rate of Awakened in the Sixth World is already equal to 20% of what it was in Earthdawn?

seems like it.
and they still have some hundred years to go untill they are at ED Levels of Mana.

[Otakusensei]

When making a character in Earthdawn, does someone have to pay some amount of something to be "magical"? Or are you considered magical by default?

If considered magical by default, is it possible play someone non-magical?

Because if everyone has the potential to gain Talents, then everyone has the potential to awaken much easier than in the current Sixth world. And that would imply that the potential to awaken is in everyone in Shadowrun, but at different levels.

[Stahlseele]

If it's really in the breeding, then how probable would it be for someone to still be without the needed genes for some kind of talent?
and would being an elf or ork or troll or surgeling count as a talent?

[Wesley Street]

When making a character in Earthdawn, does someone have to pay some amount of something to be "magical"? Or are you considered magical by default?

If considered magical by default, is it possible play someone non-magical?

Because if everyone has the potential to gain Talents, then everyone has the potential to awaken much easier than in the current Sixth world. And that would imply that the potential to awaken is in everyone in Shadowrun, but at different levels.

In Earthdawn you play what is called an "adept" (not to be confused with the SR concept). Adepts are special folk who are able to tap into magic so you are "magical" by default. That doesn't necessarily mean you can cast spells, that's a specific kind of adept. Magic simply makes you more awesome than the average ditch digger.

I haven't read enough fluff to determine if becoming an adept is a fluke of nature or pre-determined by breeding.