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Shadowrun: Hong Kong

Alright, 2nd playthrough time! Cybered up street sam with guns or claws?
 
*stares*
Oh my god the Internet was right. there really is an America-San portrait for Male Orcs. Truly, AMERICA-SAN's legend is so great he can time travel now.

That is the best news ever. Screw work, time to go make AMERICA-SAN, REAL AMERICAN HERO TO ALL TRUCKERS.

*grins*

Well, that, and since I've beaten the game, use the debug menu to drop a couple hundred karma on AMERICA-SAN at the start and then just get in everyone's face while stabbing with razors. Heeheehee. Good times~
 
I have a question for someone familiar with the Shadowrun setting. Please note that there are endgame spoilers:

What exactly is a Yama King in Shadowrun? For that matter, what do Yama Kings do?

Because, uh, munching on people is the sort of thing in Chinese mythology that'd lead to job openings in the Underworld bureaucracy.
 
Creticus said:
I have a question for someone familiar with the Shadowrun setting. Please note that there are endgame spoilers:

What exactly is a Yama King in Shadowrun? For that matter, what do Yama Kings do?

Because, uh, munching on people is the sort of thing in Chinese mythology that'd lead to job openings in the Underworld bureaucracy.
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There's absolutely no guarantee that any of the mythology from the Fifth World is remotely accurate. Shadowrun has plenty of insane horrors from extradimensional space that are more HP Lovecraft than mythological. See, for example, the alternate ending of Dragonfall.

Anyway, I think the info you want is in Ghost Cartels, where there's a Yama King that's a Force 9 Spirit.
 
Creticus said:
I have a question for someone familiar with the Shadowrun setting. Please note that there are endgame spoilers:

What exactly is a Yama King in Shadowrun? For that matter, what do Yama Kings do?

Because, uh, munching on people is the sort of thing in Chinese mythology that'd lead to job openings in the Underworld bureaucracy.
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Click to shrink...


What's common knowledge.

THE YAMA KINGS
Posted by: Axis Mundi
The Kowloon Walled City is a dark blight on the landscape of Hong Kong, among the most desperate slums in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is an urban jungle in the extreme, where the poorest refugees are forced to survive and subsist in the claustrophobic heart of the tilting and crumbling tenements. Metahumanity can and does persist here, but it is always a hostile environment to them. To a few beings who exist outside of metahumanity, however, the Kowloon Walled City is a natural habitat and a prime feeding ground. Locally, these beings are called the Courts of the Yama Kings.

No one is quite sure the origins of the Yama Kings, but it is rumored that they may be powerful free spirits. It is possible they were summoned within the Kowloon Walled City by twisted wujen, but it is also possible they were spirits set free by the chaotic magic of Downtown Hong Kong who found their way to the Walled City. Where they came from is still debated, but why they made the Kowloon Walled City their home is not. These spirits, polluted and corrupted, feed from the desperation and violence of mortals. There is no greater source of that than the Walled City. Each one has found a particular method for gathering the pain it sustains itself with and servants to assist it, whether weaker spirits or enslaved people. Their Courts may vary in composition and philosophy from one to the next, but their purpose always remains to feed their King.

> Anyone wonder if perhaps the corporations leave the Walled City alone because they want to observe and study the Yama Kings? I wouldn't put it past them, myself.
> Kia

> Here's another log for that fire—when the Hong Kong Police Force has conducted Walled City raids lately, they've called in the assistance of Ares Firewatch teams, specifically the bughunter squads.
> Sticks

Details on the individual Courts are sparse since those that get close to the Courts themselves are twisted beyond reason, assuming they even survive. Frightening rumors from the refugees that live within the Walled City regularly circulate, and these stories can be pieced together into a patchwork tapestry of details. They say, for instance, that the Yama King Chih-Shiang has set himself up as a sort of judge of souls, and his Court exists to make those who live within the Walled City suffer for the bad karma of all their accumulated past lives. According to his Court, once all the sins have been flayed from the mortal's soul, the penitent will die and ascend, his soul freed from the weight of the bad karma. Sadly, many desperate Walled City residents, who feel their existence in the slum is punishment for past lives' misdeeds, believe Chih-Shiang's claims and volunteer themselves to his judgment. The Ebony Queen Lam Vy, however, is said to teach the Walled City's residents how to hide from the other Yama Kings by scurrying in the darkest corners of the slums, until they become so good at hiding and surviving that they become roaches in the walls.

> Guess we know why Ares brings in their anti-insect spirit teams.
> Plan 9

> There's another Yama King, Fu Mang, the Serpent of the Setting Sun, who perverts Hong Kong's own concepts of guanxi and face. Fu Mang promises wealth and influence to Walled City inhabitants Runner Havens Hong Kong who have less than nothing. All Fu Mang asks for in return is forty-four hearts, removed from the chests of the individual's family and friends while they still live. Hearts from random victims will not do, so those cursed into following Fu Mang's bargain often befriend others before performing their grisly act, turning their entire guanxi network into a list of victims. It is said that Fu Mang follows through on his promises and that there are a few wealthy people who have escaped the Walled City with riches, but that Fu Mang continues to whisper in their minds and reminds them of their crimes.
> Elijah

> How many of these Yama Kings are there in the Walled City?
> Lyran

> No one is quite sure and the rumors vary. Some say there are ten Yama Kings. Some say twelve. I've even heard eighteen. It becomes difficult to separate the mythical fears of the Walled City residents from the actual Yama Kings, which blurs the count even more.
> Axis Mundi

And some OOC knowlege: More Spoilers for the Tabletop RPG here.
The Yama kings are a esoteric collection of all the worst kinds of spirits that exist in the Shadowrun Setting, and some powerful regular spirits that have been twisted into hateful things by the toxic nature of the mana in the Walled city.

Some are simply powerful toxic spirts, which are spirits that have had their nature warped due to the poisons polutions of metahumanity. Spirits of Fallout, Sludge, Carnage, ect

Some are powerful Shadow Spirts, which are simply reflections of how terrible the world is. These spirits feed on the suffering of metahumanity, and find the walled city a buffet of misery.

Some are Bug spirits, alien beings that are difficult to understand, and can only come into this world by hollowing people out, and using them as a jar to hold the spiritual energy.

And then there are Horrors, who can only cross over at mana spikes, or when some idiot forcefully drags them into our world. Horrors are things that should not interact with our world, and last time they crossed over, they killed everyone and everything that wasn't hidden in a magial nuclear bunker. They are the Cthuthu equivalent for shadowrun.
 
Does anyone here hire mercenaries at all? I completely ignored them in my playthrough. Is there anyone who used them to good effect?
 
Urgh, the hub NPC save dialogue bug is really aggravating. Any word as to how to fix it, or I should wait for a official patch?
 
Yeah, I was looking forward to a Dragonfall-style hub-community. Where I actually enjoyed talking to the people of the Kiez.
And there are some interesting personalities here too - the talismonger, the streetdoc and that techno-ambassador. Unfortunately, the first is bugged for me so I really can't learn anything else about her :(
And I have no idea how to fix it either.


And no, I never use mercenaries.
If I were to use mercs, I'd not only lose out on money. I'd also lose out on chatter with my crew, which adds a lot of fun to the game. And I don't even see the mercs as being notably stronger than my crew, especially with the upgrades my crew can receive. So yes, I very much ignore that those even exist, other than to maybe take sneak-peaks at some cyberware.
 
btw when you guys go see Max Law, do you bother trading metadata for stuff, or just cash?
 
I didn't sell metadata, except when I wanted to fuck with my employer (only two runs). People pay you to keep your mouth shut. Going around telling a bunch of matrix junkies all your secrets isn't exactly good OPSEC.
 
Any way to see you teammate stats while in the hubworld? I try and buy additional weapons and spells for the main team's open slots but haven't found a way too see if they'll actually be able to use what I buy besides loading up a mission and looking at their stats in the squad select menu?
 
Whiskey Golf said:
btw when you guys go see Max Law, do you bother trading metadata for stuff, or just cash?
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Law bugged out on me, so I didn't have a chance to sell him anything. After I reloaded my game to make sure I didn't kill the Whampoan Elders during that mission (because he seemed so pissed off about me having to kill them all), the only dialogue prompts I get from him are asking about Whampoa and buying decker things. It's a shame, because I really needed that nuyen. I did give him Ambrose's Uzi prior to the final mission though.

Finally finished the game a couple minutes ago, and I think it needed another month of QA for all these bugs, though I guess it was rather enjoyable. It's a shame that I couldn't bring the Vampire Queen of Repulse Bay further into the final confrontation, but what use I got out of her was pretty good.

Also, as I was fighting the final boss, I realized something about its name:
Qian Ya actually means "Thousand Teeth" in pinyin. But if the Yama Kings are a Hong Kong phenomenon, shouldn't they be named using Cantonese pronunciations, with the boss being named Chien Nga or something to that effect instead? Since I'm pretty sure Qian Ya is mentioned in the Hong Kong writeup in Runner Havens, I'm guessing the blame for this goes to Catalyst (or at least the freelancer who wrote that section?). Or was Qian Ya something HBS came up with themselves for this game?

Probably gonna replay this soon so I can see what the bugged NPC interactions in Heoi would've gotten me if they worked right the first time...
 
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Sometimes I think people forget that China speaks Mandarin and Hong Kong speaks Cantonese. :V

At one point we used to get Hong Kong TV shows dubbed in Mandarin, and so people here in Malaysia thought Hong Kong speaks Mandarin. :V
 
Alright, so having completed Hong Kong last night, might as well give my thoughts. Don't worry spoiler free.

  1. I dislike the decking, but I don't hate it. Give it a bit more tweaks, add more passwords that don't require you to play minigames and you're good.
  2. I find Heioi a much more interesting place than the Kreuzbassar. I totally feel the how alive it is. I like Law, I like Ambrose, Matthew's story was tragic, it's just more atmospheric in that sense.
  3. You barely have enough money for anything! By the end, I was rocking the same ARES techsuit and still using the damn same pistol from a certain mission. They should have given us more weapon drops if Kindly is so fucking stingy about it.
  4. The missions, overall, were an improvement over Dragonfall. I liked everyone of them (save the decking heavy stuff), they can be absolutely freaking hillarious (no this isn't a ghoul this is a costume!) and a few of them could be completed without bloodshed.
  5. For all the talk about how godawful the Walled City is, I would like to, y'know, fucking explore it. At least have two-three missions in it instead of just the Runs. Let us come to our own conclusions and know its secrets.
  6. And the end boss is, well, not as good as Dragonfall. Maybe if we explored more of the Walled City, really get terrified of it, then it would have more of an impact. I just think the lore exposition about the things within was done with more tact and subtlety.
Still, I would actually rate it the same as I rated Dragonfall. The dark atmosphere is great, the city is more alive, but it has some issues with pacing and also the decking could really turn people off from it.

Now, I expect the playable epilogue by the end of the year to blow my socks off and hopefully give closure to the Walled City.
 
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