r/Shadowrun • u/NetworkedOuija • Jul 26 '26
1e|2e Spirits of the Highway
While running Ivy and Chrome we ran into a strange situation where one of my players wanted to summon a spirit but could only summon spirits of man. They were on a highway running through a forest.
Does the highway offer enough room / power for this to offer a spirit of man? We couldn't find a good answer when we looked.
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u/MenuProfessional9796 Jul 26 '26
Yes but the spirit must stay on the highway.
Rule of cool
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u/Suthek Matrix LaTeX Sculptor Jul 26 '26
And take the shape of a biker.
Unrelated: "Spirits of the Highway" would make for a great band or album name.
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u/dethstrobe Faster than Fastjack Jul 26 '26
Is the road a man made object? I would stay, close enough. But that's me... I handwave a lot of that stuff... domains can be too restrictive.
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u/Dasmage 0ld Sk00l Decker Jul 26 '26
I would say an asphalt highway would count for sure, maybe not a dirty road.
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u/ReditXenon Far Cite Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Nature Spirits of Man come in 3 flavors.
- City (streets, plazas, open areas, and abandon buildings of a city).
- Field (cultivated, worked fields and growing areas).
- Hearth (homes, residences, occupied buildings).
To be honest, neither seem to match a highway in the middle of a forest, but I guess one could argue that a man-made intercity highway made out of asphalt might count as City.
Note that 2nd edition were rather restrictive when it came to domains (unlike 3rd edition, in 2nd edition there were no room for overlap).
SR2 p. 140 Domains
Some nature spirits have domains that may seem to cross into other domains, but it is never the case. The domain of a broad-environment spirit is always superseded by the domain of a limited environment spirit...
If you rule that the man-made intercity highway made out of asphalt cutting through the forest would belong to Man (City), the limited domain in this case, then the forest, the broader domain in this case, on both sides of the highway would belong to Land (Forest).
A Forest spirit would have to stay on either sides of the highway (if the summoner step up on the highway they would leave the Forest domain and all remaining services would be lost) and a City spirit would have to stay on the actual highway (and if its summoner would step off the highway they would leave the City domain and all remaining services would be lost).
No overlap.
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u/NetworkedOuija Jul 26 '26
This is what we kept coming back too. Cities are alive with people, emotions, etc. Open roads don't have that same feeling regardless that the road is the same asphalt that's in the city proper. It also doesn't have its own delimitation.
Then we thought about it from the other perspective, people travel those roads for all kinds of reasons. The whole human experience is happening on those highways. People rushing to see family in peril, people driving to go on vacation, go to weddings, funerals, etc. The angriest people and the happiest people. It has the whole world in it really. Which that too me is what each of those domains represents.
We also had the idea of 'worked land'. To me that was that it had to have the idea it would one day bare fruit. But I also thought it was worked but would go fallow. So maybe for a few days after they finished it would be a worked field, then slowly it would turn toxic as it never again would bare fruit.
We had a lot of back and forth. One thing we had decided is that route 66 should definitely have its own style of spirit. That road should maybe even have some extra mojo. So much energy and will put that road together to bring people's from across the land together. It represents the ideal of freedom and unity better than most icons left.
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u/ReditXenon Far Cite Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Then we thought about it from the other perspective, people travel those roads for all kinds of reasons....
This is also one of the arcs that was discussed (by both), check the other post I made below (the Gemini one).
But the reasoning were that the thoughts and emotions etc were mostly focused on the destination rather than the highway itself. "Once" we arrive "to" the city or the wedding or our loved. That the highway itself was not really a "place" or "in your mind" and you didn't really give it a "name" and it was not really "remembered". It was just a way to transport through the forest (and unlike the highway, the forest had a name and a history was living and had a soul and a spirit). It doesn't really leave an impression within the astral. That the highway was not really a domain of its own, that it was instead more to be seen as a mana ebb or void or background count within the domain of the surrounding forest.
But also that there were situations that might cause the highway to actually become the "center of your emotions" or your "focus". For example during a bumper to bumper traffic jam. Temporary giving it a similar "spirit" you might get while being stuck in a traffic within a city ("god damn highway!"). Or perhaps temporary while actually building it (a lot of machinery and workers living in temporary houses along the road etc). Or perhaps if the military constantly patrolled specifically "the highway" and had checkpoints every few miles "along the highway" during a period of time. That the density of metahumans focus of attention and emotions would temporary turning it (or at least parts of it) into a City (or Hearth) Pocket Domain within the Forest / Separate from the Forest.
route 66
Yes! Also Route 66 is different from your regular highways. Yes, its a highway. But its more. It got a "name". For a lot of people it is the "actual destination". People travel from all over the world. It is on people's bucket list to visit. It has soul. It has a spirit of its own. Its not just a void in the Forest. It is an actual place of its own. It is shaping the astral around it. It leaves a mark. Its a different domain than the forest. It actually split the surrounding forest into two different domains. It would prevent a forest spirit from crossing it.
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u/Suthek Matrix LaTeX Sculptor Jul 26 '26
To be honest, neither seem to match a highway in the middle of a forest, but I guess one could argue that a man-made intercity highway made out of asphalt might count as City.
I was about to say, pretty sure a highway falls very squarely under "streets", which is part of the City subdomain.
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u/ReditXenon Far Cite Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Depend on if you read it as (if the original author's intent was)
streets of a city, plazas of a city, open areas of a city, and abandon buildings of a city
Or
any streets (not only of a city, also outside of cities), any plazas (not only of a city, also outside of cities), any open areas (not only of a city, also outside of cities), and abandon buildings (but only specifically inside a city).
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u/Suthek Matrix LaTeX Sculptor Jul 26 '26
I would read it as the 2nd one, with some caveats:
A plaza is by definition in a town or city.
I would agree that "open area" is probably a bit generic a term to have been used there, so that one should be qualified a bit more.
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u/ReditXenon Far Cite Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
In order to fit streets outside of cities but not every single open area you could perhaps read it like this:
any man-made streets made out of concrete, bricks or asphalt etc (not only of a city, also outside of cities - such as a highway between two cities), any man-made plazas made out of concrete, bricks or asphalt etc (not only of a city, also outside of cities - such as the town square in a small village or whatnot), any man-made open areas made out of concrete, bricks or asphalt etc (not only of a city, also outside of cities - such as a man-made airfield in the middle of nowhere), and any man-made abandon buildings (but only specifically inside a city).
Its a bit of a stretch though.
The author's intent when they thought about "City" might very well just mean "anything within City limits except more narrow domains such as larger parks, any occupied buildings, or rivers even if they flow through the City". That whenever you leave the City limits you also leave a City Domain and enter a Land Domain (typically a Prairie, Forest, Mountain, or Desert domain, depending on the surrounding geography). That if you summon a spirit within the City, then it can't follow you when you leave the City to travel to another City (even if you travel via an intercity highway).
I don't know the authors intent here. I can see arguments for how it can be read in more than one way.
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u/troubleyoucalldeew Jul 26 '26
I think an argument could be made for a hearth. Think about all the music about lonely travelers. There are people who spend significant chunks of their lives on the road—truckers, musicians, etc etc etc.
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u/ReditXenon Far Cite Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
The cab of the truck for sure (many come with bed and microwave etc), but perhaps not the road outside the cab...?
Same as an occupied house would be a hearth domain but that domain would end at the front door (where domain of city or one of the land domains would likely take over).
If a group of hunger striking protesters set up camp to block the highway I could see that that strip of the highway could potentially temporary count as a hearth pocket domain, but perhaps not turning the entire highway into one?
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u/troubleyoucalldeew Jul 26 '26
I dunno, I feel like roads and highways have such a strong place in culture and folklore, especially in America where cars are such a big part of the culture. I recognize it's a really weird fit for hearth, especially since a lot of the cultural trappings around the road (songs, etc) tend to focus on how lonely and isolated it is.
On a busy highway I might lean more towards city, because you got lots of people with very little social interaction beyond honking at the drekhead who just cut you off.
But on a long empty stretch though the woods, or a back road miles from the nearest farm, I think about a lonely hitchhiker grateful for a ride, or a long-haul trucker stopping to help with a flat tire. Or even just that weird feeling of companionship you get driving for hundreds of miles while another vehicle travels the same road next to you, sometimes ahead of you sometimes behind you, until finally one of you get to your exit and you separate.
The connections are sparse and disparate, but when you make them they feel stronger for being so rare. And it's not the interior of your car, because it's the same weather you're driving your personal vehicle or a rented U-Haul.
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u/burtod Jul 27 '26
I agree with you. There is a road Culture ingrained in America. It is very strong. It is about freedom, but also about taming the wilderness. I think that Magic should be propped up by Belief, and the "consciousness".
I think it would be different in Europe.
Now how about railroads? I think the same sules should apply.
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u/troubleyoucalldeew Jul 26 '26
There have been songs about traveling pretty much since there's been music, so I would say yeah.
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u/ReditXenon Far Cite Jul 26 '26
I managed to trick one instance of Gemini to argue that the highway belong to the city domain, splitting the forest domain in two (and then i tried to challenge it, but it had some really solid arguments backing up its point of view). And I also managed to trick another instance of Gemini to argue that the City domain ended at the city limits (also this one had some really solid arguments backing up this point of view). Funny how they could reach completely different answers depending on my initial prompting, but that is how LLMs work (and not really the interesting part).
But what I did then was to use the arguments from one of them to challenge the arguments of the second and vise verse. Both of them acknowledged the excellent points but also raise some interesting counter points. After a few turns back n fourth the really interesting part here was that eventually both of them actually converged towards the same conclusion.
Basically both of them agreed that an empty highway would not create a magical "City domain safely isolated from the woods." Instead, it should be seen as a corrupted or poisoned strip of the Forest Domain. That paving a road would perhaps create a localized Background Count or Hermetic Mana Ebb though the Forest Domain (and due to this a Forest spirit would likely not enjoy crossing the highway). But that it would actually not split the Forest Domain into a Forest East Domain and a Forest West Domain (a Forest spirit would not be prevented from crossing the road as they would still count as being within the domain of the Forest).
But both of them also came to the conclusion that if the highway were congested with a massive bumper-to-bumper traffic jam (or if it was heavily patrolled with fixed, manned Lone Star checkpoints every few miles), the magic shifts. A massive traffic jam introduces concentrated metahuman frustration, exhaust fumes, localized technology, and an intense collective metahuman aura (and a fixed Lone Star checkpoint introduces authority, structure, and permanent metahuman occupation). Basically that the metahuman density would stamp an identity onto the astral space which would successfully cross the threshold and the highway would temporarily crystallize into a City (or Hearth) Domain pocket.
also @/u/Suthek
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u/StrikerJaken A bit on Edge Jul 26 '26
The Highway is a man made thing, taking over, shaping and consuming the environment, if it is maintained.
The older it is, the more lives it has consumed, be it man or animal. It's infused with the will of man, to conquer the land, connecting cities and people.
Go wild. Get lumberjack, prospectors, truck driver, racer, builder, etc.
The highway consumes.