Shadowrun - Blood of the Earth - News November 2072

Freak Weather storms caused power to fluctuate in large portions of the southern hemisphere today. The lightning hit both South America and South Africa fairly hard. While the power loss was not bad by itself, the damage that it did to the grid infrastructure in those areas will take some time to repair. People believe that it will get better relatively quickly as long as the weather does not return.

Gang warfare has erupted all across China in anticipation of the death of the Great Mandarin, one of the larger organized crime figures in that region. He is famous for having carved out a criminal empire almost unrivaled in the world and rumors of his impending death are causing long hidden rivalries to burst to the surface.

An upstart company, Kilasu, has begun to acquire factories in South East Asia and Southern China , taking advantage of the chaos to obtain them at cut rate prices. Company blogs have hinted that newly automated weapons will be released in the near future which will revolutionize drone warfare.

The Naraxin Conference was held by several major powers on board one of the Red Line cruises. It is unknown precisely what the conference was about, but according to the shadownet a runners stole something of immense value from the ship. The incident was leaked by Aztechnology, who provided the magical security for portions of the conference along with Tir Taingaire. Aztechnology is pointing the finger directly at the Atlantean Foundation. According to commentators, this level public commentary by a AAA corp about something done by shadowrunners is almost unheard of, and it is believed that they are doing so in attempt to shift the blame for losing the artifact. Rumors from sources inside the company indicate that Aztechnology was actually guarding the artifact for someone else.

Tensions between Tir Taingire and the Salish-Sidhe have increased dramatically. Tir accuses the SS of hiring shadowrunner teams to disrupt their financial sector, which they have been somewhat successful at. Worse, there is substantial evidence that they have been doing this for some time and have compromised the relatives of several senior government officials. There are also reports of border skirmishes between the SS and Tir at Tir’s South-Eastern border.

Dennis: 0 Stored DP
Anarch: 5 Stored DP
Brooks: 3 Stored DP
James: 3 Stored DP


Group Edge: 0. Cost to Increase: 5 DP

Accelerated Karma: 1 Per Session. Cost to Increase: 10 DP

Darkness Index: 0/1 (Effect/Countdown)

Magic Index: 0

Tech Index: 1



Group Assets: $10,000 Vehicle Harbor in Seattle



A E D G T F S

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The research on the Dagger of Archne is sketchy at best. You are able to obtain some fairly impressive sources (though cloaked through several layers of anonymity). Still despite all the effort and research, there is only so much out there about it.

Who Wants It

You know for sure that the Atlantean foundation wants it. Word on the shadow net is that there it is also wanted by the Druids (possibly in alliance with the Fey in Europe ), the Dragons and the Elves. There is strong reason to believe that there is a consortium of powerful corporate interests, possibly directed by the Corporate Court and at least two other organizations. Speculation as to who those are ranges from AI’s, Technomancers, Boogiemen, Shedim, Old Nation States, Insect Spirits or even aliens.



What it Does

There are all kinds of rumors, but broadly speaking it is generally agreed that the dagger holds physical ties to metaplanes that no one has ever seen on anything else. Legends speak of mages able to go to places that others could not; sometimes finely parsed versions of meta planes that others already knew about. It also has a habit of not staying very long with one owner. Those who own it often have good luck or bad luck. There are other powers attributed to it; control of spiders, attachment to the spider totem, attachment to other totems, storms and the like but the accounts become more and more shady as time go on. It must be pretty powerful though, because its effects on the astral are almost impossible to detect. Generally speaking it is believed that there are probably only 4-5 metahuman adepts capable of it, and a small handful of dragons. But then again that’s a rumor.



What is its History

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of lore before the awakening, at least as far as legendary Earth stuff goes. Arachne was a greek woman, according to myth, who thought she was a better weaver than the fates and changed into a spider as punishment. But there is nothing in versions of her myth that indicate anything about a dagger. It mainly appeared shortly around the beginning of the sixth world. One reliable account had it with one of main casters of the Great Ghost dance. Beyond that there are all kinds of theories about it being around thousands of years in the past, being some kind of herald of the doom of the Fifth World or its salvation.