I totally want the city of Ammadhur to look like this,

Just a random thought...

Magic is finite, the corruption is not. The well of magic was kept full by the gods, until their death. Now that they are no longer there to refill it, it is a limited resource, and will eventually run dry. It may take 1000's of years, maybe longer, but it will run out eventually. However, the corruption is alive and self-perpetuating. As long as there is life in the world, the Blood will be there, and will be a path to power. This eventually, all magic will be corrupt, and some time thereafter the entire world will succumb to the blood.

DOOMED! DOOMED I TELL YOU!

Don't know if I actually want to use this or not, just a thought...

Notes on the nature of magic and sacrifice

Though the gods made constant war on each other, up until fairly close to the end they were surprisingly civil as to how they went about it. They chose a battleground together, and they reached a mutual agreement about many of the tools and weapons they used, such as the well of magical power that they created for their worshippers to wield against each other.

Magic is a power source. Discounting the corruption that now festers in its depths, it is value neutral. It is a source of energy that was designed to react to the will and desire of its users, and to conform easily to structure imposed from outside. Thus, rituals used by those with a firm purpose in mind will draw power from the well and cause it to shape itself into different forms.

There are those that say that magic itself has a kind of sentience, a rudimentary intelligence that responds to and communicates with those that try and use it, that consciously shapes itself in conformance with the desires of the mages wielding it. This has never been widely accepted or proven, and if true, nobody knows what effect the corruption has had on that mind.

While there is no consensus as to whether or not magic is alive in and of itself, it is clear that magic reacts to life, and is tied to life force in some way. Natural plants and animals will draw up and store a small amount of magic by themselves, and can even use it in rudimentary ways. Thus shamanistic mages have found ways to use plants and animals as intermediaries between themselves and the raw force of magic, sacrifices of plants, animals and people can give access to a sudden burst of power, and natural ingredients can aid mages in the casting of their spells.

Some shaman have found ways to use sacrifices to place a barrier between themselves and the corruption at magic's heart, or at least they believe they have. The idea is to use another person or being to cast a spell through, allow the corruption to infest that person, and kill them at the height of the spell, this gaining both an extra boost of power and a filter for the corruption and it's effects.

Need to put a few new things together soon, here's a few notes:
- Lightbringers - they are to mages what the cherubim were to the gods. Beings of light created as servants, now mostly wild an corrupted.
- want a new race, something small and quick. Possibly an airborne race as well.
- need to describe the current Tyrant and a few others in the Ammadhur government
- need to add a second animals an beasts post, set out some domestic animals.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1613260297/shadowrun-returns

I need maps

I need some maps, and I can't draw for fuck all. I know Ammadhur should be visually based on Mantua in about the early 17th century, with guard towers along each bridge, and the bridges separating parts of the city. Don't have a clue what the surrounding landscape should look like. Would any of my lovely and talented friends like to help me create the geography of the world of Maeleff, and possibly draw me a map or two?

Cherubim/Blood Wisps

Called "blood wisps" by most, or "cherubim" by scholars that study the dead gods and their creations, these creatures are invisible and silent, and only semi material (to most). Only way to tell where it is is that anywhere it touches anything (including the ground) it leaves a bloodstain. It's blood is poisonous, but not a power source, having been extremely degenerated from the original source of its power.

They are degenerate forms of what amounted to angels, spirit servants of the gods. Originally they were pacifistic, body servants and sex slaves for the gods and their chosen servants. When the gods died, they were affected as well, being composed of something like the same stuff. But as they, like the servitor races, are only similar to the gods physically, rather than identical, their numbers were drastically reduced but not utterly destroyed.

The few that are left are somewhat inbred and highly aggressive, cunning rarher than truly intelligent, unlike their ancestors.

Visible and audible only to those that have been corrupted. To them, they appear as androgynous creatures of unearthly beauty, naked and alluring despite being covered in blood. To the uncorrupted their blood is a powerful poison, to the corrupted it is a powerful euphoric. The creatures seek to kill the uncorrupted and seduce the corrupted.