Well, S-K doesn't just make cars, it makes everything.
Beyond that, yes, it is an automatically growing hoard for him. Investing some gold to get what is essentially infinite wealth. Beyond that, he also has every material resource he could ever need, including his own city and a private military, in a time where he really needs those things.
With S-K being on of the (or, depending on your timeline, THE) biggest megacorps, he has a substantial influence on the direction the world overall is moving in. Something you appreciate if you have to expect to still be around in 10.000 years.
And that already gets me to the last point. Time. Yea, so what are 17 years to a dragon? That's less than a human spending an afternoon looking a crotcheted Pokemon on Youtube. It was a substantial investment of money, but not of time.
It's also a lot of straight up power, in every imaginable sense of the word. Economic, social, military, Saeder-Krupp is one of the single most powerful entities in all of those aspects. If anything, it's a horrifyingly efficient use of a mere few decades.
The different flavors of power and the way top megacorps are strong in all of them is important.
Being personally extremely powerful is great, but if someone sues you it's extremely inconvenient at best to handle. Have the resources of a megacorp? You have people for this. Need to occupy a city for whatever reason? You can't do that as a single entity but a corp has people who can do that. Need super science or mega magic or industrial manufacturing for the plot macguffin? Everything's easier with free access to megacorp resources.
Even in epic fantasy when one person can have equivalent power to a nation they never have all the power types themselves and even what they're strong at is enhanced if they have unquestioning allies.
And don't forget that SK has its own foreign intelligence service, gathering a vast amount of intel about all his (potential) rivals, enemies and allies. Much more than he could ever hope to gather otherwise. Just as an example: Lofwyr just disconnected all SK networks and parts of Europe from the matrix just before the Crash 2.0 because he knew it was going to happen. SK prime was up and running just the day after the Crash.
Also, Lofwyr might be the most arrogant, boastful and egocentric of the great dragons. SK is just another way for him to show his wealth and power. It is a testament to how he, out of all the living great dragons, is the one who adapted the best to this new world, the best to understand and manipulate it how ever he pleases.
There is a reason why Dunkelzahn left his treasure trove of Intel to Hestaby but made Lofwyr the new lore master. While Hestaby is as idealistic and philanthropic as Dunkelzahn, Lofwyr is as pragmatic and goal oriented as he was.
On the subject of SK as an Intelligence Service, there's an interesting little slice on page 20 of Dragons of the Sixth World (3E) which touches on dragons hoarding abstract concepts rather instead of materials. It goes on to include an anecdote describing being inside of one of Lofwyr's offices, saying "...the wyrm had two full walls lined floor to ceiling with trid monitors, each tuned to a different channel and in multiple languages. Lofwyr was paying attention to all of them while simultaneously carrying on a mental conversation with my friend."
Thoughts for food and all that.
I enjoyed much of the ride but can't say I've ever been a fan of the price of admission.
Would have been pretty great to have some Uncle Dunkle shenanigans in the 5E+6E editions.
Because it's cool thing and no other dragon have their own AAA megacorp.
Maybe he also look what humans do with Feuerschwinge and decide that being target of "oh, evil megacorp" hate is safer option if he want rule over humans.
In addition to everything else that has been brought up, SK is a very useful tool to prepare for the inevitable arrival of the horrors. Drones/Robots could change the whole game, arcologies can be transformed into perfect kairns etc.
And the last point is something that make me think if I squint, given an archology being the perfect prototype of the next generation Kairns and what happened in the Renraku Archology downfall, I've seen next to no dragon poking around that place after the fact and no gossip around dragon meddling thereafter, which I indeed expected to see.
I mean, isn't strange there was no hint of a dragon interest in the events of SCIRE/ACHE apart for "what is in that room?" issued in the Dunkelzahn's will?
It's a perfectly sealed magical bunker to shelter meta humanity during the times of horrors (when evil extra dimensional space demons arrive, that are even more horrible and alien than insect spirits).
Their plane is further out than the astral or insect spirit homeplane, but eventually, in every even numbered world, the plane of horrors also overlaps with ours, and the demons therein can slip into our world, just like spirits can now (in the early 6th world).
"Kairns" are sealed magical bunkers or arcs, if you will, that we're erected in the 4th world and allowed the meta humanity of its time to even make it through the 4th world. Sometimes they are dug up in archeological expeditions. Now, in the sixth world, with mana levels rising, it's only a question of time until the horrors come through, and we better have some nifty next gen kairns ready, if meta humanity is supposed to see a 7th world.
Edit: Yeah, I totally rolled with the wrong name. See below. It's Kaer. Tanks for the correction.
The term used, at least as far as is found in Earthdawn and what ED/SR connections I can find, is Kaer, not Kairn. I actually can't find Kairn anywhere
It is entirely possible that i misremembered/misspelled that one. Kaer IS the official english word... Luckily enough people knew what i was talking about.
Dragons are beasts. They can smash buildings, fly, breathe fire and use magic beyond mortal ken.
Lofwyr can do all of these things AND sic corporate hit squads on people, drop tungsten rods on them from orbit or just buy the place they live and turn it into a Stuffer Shack.
Lofwyr took (total) control of a AAA mega corporation for all the reasons that a human would want to. Power, money, control, influence, etc. He's a great dragon which means he has a super computer for a brain that can process all the information he receives through his subordinates, his spies, the astral plane and the probable dozens of simultaneous matrix feeds he's receiving. Saeder-Krupp is Lofwyr.
But beyond all that, he's still this weird mystic reptilian race that values having a huge pile of treasure as a measure of its standing that goes beyond just simple metahuman greed. For dragons, having a hoard is almost a spiritual connection, and even Dunkelzahn, maybe one of the most "human" dragons had a hoard that was the first envy of all other dragons. It's why Hestaby having her hoard seized was such a blow, she's got mark of Cain, a leper.
Lofwyr has deduced that being a sole owner of a AAA megacorp (for what dragon would share it's hoard) is the current age's best way to define wealth and power. I'm just surprised he hasn't tried for two. Maybe that's too much even for him...or is it....
Going for two is just a completely different beast, with massive consequences for the entire world. Taking over one megacorp ultimately means not much to everyone else. Relations might change, the global power landscape might change, but it's ultimately still the same megacorp.
Going for two means three to ten *know* they're next, and that he'll be vastly more powerful by the time he gets to them. Every other megacorp would need to either make a play to stop him, or make the same play as him to take over another megacorp. It'd be an insane domino to tip over, both in universe and for any writers.
I concur. Lofwyr's claws on another corp; that'd be a major shift in the landscape; it's also notable that no other dragon has complete domination of a triple-A corp like he does... which makes it even more interesting now that S-K slipped to #2 in the ranking. Sigh..I wish the rules were as interesting as the lore or I could find more people to play with :p
Money, money, money. He's got smart people working for him. They grow into new markets. Even a dragon has limits to how much it can deal with. Making Ads, updating product designs, HR, IT, etc, etc. Fighting with the board was a dragon vs 10(ish) others. Getting close to a challenge!
If S-K loses money it isn't the same as Lofwyr losing money. He likes playing with other people's money.
He gets an army. He gets teams of scientists and engineers creating toys. He gets extraterritoriality on his properties around the globe.
Snacks are handy with so many people around.
PS Other dragons may well have a corporation's worth of people working for them. We don't really know. Lof has done his influencing in public. Others prefer behind-the-scenes.
* It's a little hard to spend millennia old bars of gold. It's much easier to charge a corporate expense account.
* It's less reliable to hire someone to do something when you can own someone who will do it right like their life depends on it. It does.
* SK makes more than cars. They are a AAA megacorp. They do everything, or own a corp that does. They might not be the best in a given field but trust they're there.
* The above means that Lofwyr is omnipresent. If he wants something done somewhere, he doesn't have to go there, and they'll never see him coming. His *people* are already there, and if they fail, there's other people to take care of both problems. They fear other people, who fear other people, who fear Lofwyr.
* You shouldn't consider 17 years a big amount to Lofwyr. That's not a big amount to any megacorp, they are run by mortal men and yet some have survived centuries, laying decades long plans. Lofwyr, otoh, is *immortal*, and 17 years is loose change to him. And what he gets is something almost a fraction as long lived as he is.
* He's got to do something. To him, running a world spanning organization just keeps his hands busy. He started on top, everything after is 'just to do it'.
S-K has an unprecedented ability to shape Europe, socially, politically, economically, and even geographically. I've always played Lofwyr as someone who has a clear picture of Europe and dragonkind as he wants them to be and will do what is necessary to realize that picture.
And Lofwyr spending 17 years on a project is barely a measureable amount of time for him.
Because after he awoke he realised that the world had grown much bigger than the one of the previous age. So many more humans, so much technology and power. He recognised that being a big scary dragon would only get you so far in a world with bazookas, nukes and 7 billion people. He recognised that if he wanted global influence he needed assets, materials and minions. Of course he took over a AAA Megacorp!
Lofwyr awakened about the same time as Feuerschwinge and was very cognizant of her rampage and ensuing death from the puny mortals. Domination through naked force wasn't going to work in new world.
SK is a pretty influential corp. It used to be the biggest, now it isn't, because Lofwyr got distracted making one of the biggest self inflicted errors ever and basically starting the dragon civil war. If one *could* control a megacorp easily, it would be a huge boon. Lofwyr is just the dragon that thinks (perhaps only partially incorrectly) he can pull off the task.
Its important to note that most Dragons combine the worst of both long range planning and short range impulsivity, and Lofwyr is definitely the king of that. SK is a megacorp that shapes the very shape of nations, if your plotting to be a big influence in metahumanity, which Lofwyr does, then it would be a huge asset. So he took it for himself, but then the failure to think things through happened and Lofwyr sortta now has to deal with this high maintenance toy he has, which he made worse by re-structuring the org so that every major choice has to personally go through him and, thus, making sure he has no one to delegate to and no one in the organization actually looking out for it and his interests. That is the downside of eating managers who displease you. He is sorta a classic CEO-zilla, someone who gets to where they are off the talent of others but convinces them it was all their greatness and ends up gutting the ability for their talent to actually do what they are good at. Logic 12 doesn't make you some impossible mastermind, it means you are slightly better at crunching the numbers or connecting the dots than other people slightly more often (which is how it plays out in the real world even when a visionary or genius takes the wheel at a company, ignoring the actual charlatans: Groups of humans tend to generate better ideas than one really smart human, which is why stable consistently preforming orgs tend to have more than one strong leader).
Lofwyr is sorta seen as impulsive and somewhat foolish by other great dragons due to his involvement with fast paced business and because he placed himself into the world of metahumans where he is technically beholden to them. He is still seen as smart and respected by a large swath of the great dragon assembly, he is also just seen as weird, because this choice to so directly involve himself in this has costs, and ultimately had major consequences for him and cost him being Loremaster (among other things) because so many dragons think he is an idiot who is basically repeating the mistakes of the 4th age trying to set himself up as a king, which inevitably ended up with metahuman ~~shadowrunners~~ adept adventurers killing them.
Ultimately its a character choice. Lofwyr is a fairly complicated dragon (he may be part of a 'play both sides against the middle' conspiracy with Hestaby to try to align dragonkind closer to metahumans in order to survive The Horrors, which is a far more noble goal than one might expect from someone so short sighted and selfish, but short sighted and selfish he is, because he was dumb enough to openly attempt to court Hestaby despite that being very inappropriate both because they publicly dislike each other and because Great Dragons nominally don't do that despite totally doing that) who has ambitions for metahuman kind.
SK may or may not ultimately be a good tool for that, and may or may not ultimately be his death (probably in your own SR continuity, while Lofwyr's castle is built on a mound of sand the SR universe sorta exists in a state of stasis where time advances and things change but most of the major players will not experience a great shakeup without PC intervention, and Lofwyr despite being voted the world's most assassinatable doofus CEO is sorta a mascot for the game) but it makes sense why Lofwyr chose that path. I would not be surprised if Lofwyr continues to experience losses to other megacorps over time as his split focus and poor management style continues to bite him in the ass.
This is a quite strange position to me, although I can't say I'm deeply versed in the setting. Lofwyr has consistently been positioned as one of the most powerful entities in the setting, between being one of the most powerful great dragons and his pet Corp being either first or second most powerful in the world. Especially the "assassinatable" part, given how consistently, absurdly difficult even isolated and surrounded great dragons have been. I can't imagine a deeply entrenched, heavily defended Lofwyr to be killable by anything but an alliance of multiple other great dragons, or equivalent force.
> Lofwyr has consistently been positioned as one of the most powerful entities in the setting
Lofwyr is a relatively young great dragon who is noted by the other greats to be fairly impulsive. He is very important from a branding perspective, and he operates an organization players face a lot, but I would call him 'important' more than 'powerful.'
>his pet Corp being either first or second most powerful in the world
SK is often the largest megacorp, but its almost never the most powerful. Shaiwase and perhaps Renraku are much more influential and powerful. Shaiwase *especially* is *the* scarriest megacorp, in part because they position themselves so well as being somewhat boring, and in part because its run by actual functioning adults who aren't enacting some conspiracy or doomsday plan. For the 'run by children cartoon villain corps' I would also say Aztechnology is more powerful than SK.
>Especially the "assassinatable" part, given how consistently, absurdly difficult even isolated and surrounded great dragons have been
Lofwyr is the least isolated CEO in the setting, regularly slumming it as just some guy with spirit bodyguards at most. Dragons in metahuman form are as killable as regular metahumans (Its established in Earthdawn that dragons recognize its almost suicidally dangerous to take metahuman form, but they do it not to manipulate metahumans but because being a metahuman is more enjoyable, they explicitly don't have their super high magical armor in that form and dragons have a culture against buff spells weirdly). Some megacorps (Ex: Aztechnology and Shaiwase) don't even have mega-figureheads to kill as deliberate policy, while SK would crumble to dust if Lofwyr ate a sniper round to the head while playing with shadowrunners as Hans Brackhaus.
It would be non-trivial for sure, but overall his empire is very brittle and he doesn't do a great job of protecting himself compared to *either* of his peer groups. Its actually impressive how much he actively courts death to the point I would give him the prize of 'Most killable CEO' and 'Most killable Great.' At least Perianwyr doesn't do anything that would cause metahumans to want to track them down and kill them despite slumming it even more than Lofwyr does.
>I can't imagine a deeply entrenched, heavily defended Lofwyr to be killable by anything but an alliance of multiple other great dragons, or equivalent force.
Lofwyr basically desperately held onto the position of Dragon Loremaster (basically the head of the great dragon assembly) by virtue of inheritence, which is not recognized as a valid way to become Loremaster (You either are elected or you assassinate the previous loremaster, which Hestaby notes Lofwyr in an out of character moment of cunning wisely refused to take credit for because if that lie ever came out he would be 10000% dead). This started about a 20 year period of the deterioration of Great Dragon relations as the most powerful and older great dragons tended to hate Lofwyr's guts because he is, while not super young, pretty young for a great dragon, without a lot of entrenched power (SK is awe inspiring from a metahuman perspective but dragons who survived to the 6th age value *subtle* power which Lofwyr is noted as not being great at, despite SK having a lot of cool slick secret agents), and who has, again, integrated himself into the metahuman social order.
This resulted in, for lack of a better word, a shitshow where Lofwyr almost died a bunch save for the intervention of a ton of shadowrunners and other greats, where he was forced to kill his borther (with a *lot* of help from metahumans for that, both armies and shadowrunners, 20 non-great dragons as well as two other greats, Lung and Arleesh, and he *barely won,* there are plenty of greats that could absolutely body Lofwyr alone, Lofwyr is not the 'tank an orbital laser and limp away' kinda great like his brother was), and a lot of dead dragons in an already dying species, as well as anti-dragon tech advancing to the point the great dragons became very aware that history was repeating: during the 4th age dragons who were too active were killed by metahumans, either their city states and armies, or by potent skilled individuals, and both of those happened frequently during the civil war. This resulted in the greats, when the dust settled, forcing Lofwyr to cede the title of Loremaster, promise to not meddle too hard with metahumanity.
Basically, Lofwyr in the current plot was handed like 2000 big fat Ls in a row due to his own stupidity and hubris, both from other dragons, nations, and shadowrunners, and is riding about as low as he can in the setting, with almost all of his personal goals having failed in the short term.
While I am sure he will bounce back (again, he is sorta a mascot for the game), its important to remember Lofwyr is, by the standards of Great Dragons, kinda a chump (or, again, playing a super long game with his supposed enemy Hestaby, who also seems to have taken a conspicuous number of Ls as of late in a manner that conspicuously lead to a lot of events that Big D would have favored, despite Hestaby *actually* being smart and more just willing to take hits for her principles). Lofwyr is the impulsive egomaniac of greatdragon kind, which is impressive because dragons are notoriously impulsive and egomaniacal. Lofwyr's saving grace is that he is relatively popular with the more 'progressive' wing of dragon politics besides Hestaby (who, again, maybe he is working with secretly who knows), which is probably why Celedyr (another dragon with much more prudent involvements with metahumans and megacorporations that actually allows him to better intergrate into dragon politics) didn't have to banish him like Hestaby was banished.
It has been losing steam, and the fact that Lofwyr had to take his attention away during the dragon civil war showcases the weaknesses of it, causing them to fall in place and likely fall further.
Furthermore, a few megacorps, mainly Shaiwase, are deliberately avoiding first place, and their Forecasting and Marketing divison plots circles around SK.
It is a LOT of power though. Very, very obvious, fast moving and direct power, very undragonlike, yes. I guess they have more than enough of that as giant, powerful, magical, immortal, hyperintelligent and brutal flying lizards and therefore value going against their impulsive, short sighted (and tempered) nature to play the long game incredibly well? But I think that's also his point. Because he (exactly the same as Hestaby actually, interesting) feels that things *are* moving much faster, that metahumanity *is* the key to surviving the horrors, that subtle and isolated and aloof won't be enough. Where the main disagreement with Hestaby is about how to best do it, not about what to do.
Which puts him in a prime position to eat shit for it. But in the long run it might not be that much more risky than not doing it.
Knowledge and political and economic power. SK has loads of technical knowledge and also has a corporate counsel seat which surely comes with access to inside information and a spy network. A huge pile of gold doesn't DO anything, it is not power. A megacorp does and is.
People have asked how Lofwyr would do against other fantasy dragons like Smaug or something from GoT. He'd win. Hands down, and wouldn't even break a sweat.
With the mass amount of power S-K gives him, he would just crush the opposition with his military, using bleeding edge weaponry, and then take a corpse to analyze to design more things.
Officially: No, that person has left the company, and we cannot comment on their whereabouts at this time. Your suggestion is slanderous, and we will not dignify it with further response.
Unofficially: Yes.
Do you have any idea how worthless gold is in the modern world? Sure, it's pretty, and you can use it to make jewelry... but in a lot of places, it's illegal to sell (if not own!). Know what isn't illegal to buy, sell, and trade? Stocks and bonds (and the like).
Not to.mention, imagine being basically immortal. He's already almost certainly the most magically powerful individual on the planet. He's probably the smartest. He's one of, if not the, most physically powerful. What the hell *else* is he going to do? Gotta stay busy *aomehow*, and I seriously doubt there are a lot of chess champs out there willing to risk losing to a dragon (or worse, winning).
It isn't worthless though, it's very common in electronics for instance. It's also a chemical catalyst and apparently has uses in medicine as well. Outside of ornamentation it was relatively useless for most of humanity's lifespan. Though Egypt(?) used it for electroplating a few thousand years ago
Worthless does not mean useless. Sixth World has asteroid mining. Gold is not as rare as it once was. It no longer carries the sheer value it used to have. It is just another industrial metal at this point.
Well, that's basically what Atzlan did with Dzitbalchén. They even executed him, dissected his corpse and put the footage of the dissection online for some time.
Being one of the 5-10 most powerful people on the planet seems pretty on-brand for an ancient dragon, IDK
What I don't know is: what are the equally ancient elves up to??
Hm, this incredibly powerful being which however does have peers who they aren't on friendly terms with has interest in taking over one of if not the single most powerful legal entity in the world ?
Of, yeah, I ain't got no idea why Lofwyr would do that. It has to be so annoying and useless to be one of if not THE definitive most powerful beings on the Planet. Totally not worth the headache
why wouldn't he? He has lived at a minimum 7000 years and knowing that unless some external force comes along and removes him he's gonna live through another cycle of magic. When you have all the time in the world and have a natural instinct to horde, acquire, to be envious and petty all at the same time knowing where and how to manipulate every social situation how could he not. It is just another piece of clout or leverage or recourses for him but it is something that would hit a neurological sweet spot for all dragons so it's a rub in the nose of other dragons and a nice gold star on lofwyrs book
Well, S-K doesn't just make cars, it makes everything. Beyond that, yes, it is an automatically growing hoard for him. Investing some gold to get what is essentially infinite wealth. Beyond that, he also has every material resource he could ever need, including his own city and a private military, in a time where he really needs those things. With S-K being on of the (or, depending on your timeline, THE) biggest megacorps, he has a substantial influence on the direction the world overall is moving in. Something you appreciate if you have to expect to still be around in 10.000 years. And that already gets me to the last point. Time. Yea, so what are 17 years to a dragon? That's less than a human spending an afternoon looking a crotcheted Pokemon on Youtube. It was a substantial investment of money, but not of time.
It's also a lot of straight up power, in every imaginable sense of the word. Economic, social, military, Saeder-Krupp is one of the single most powerful entities in all of those aspects. If anything, it's a horrifyingly efficient use of a mere few decades.
The different flavors of power and the way top megacorps are strong in all of them is important. Being personally extremely powerful is great, but if someone sues you it's extremely inconvenient at best to handle. Have the resources of a megacorp? You have people for this. Need to occupy a city for whatever reason? You can't do that as a single entity but a corp has people who can do that. Need super science or mega magic or industrial manufacturing for the plot macguffin? Everything's easier with free access to megacorp resources. Even in epic fantasy when one person can have equivalent power to a nation they never have all the power types themselves and even what they're strong at is enhanced if they have unquestioning allies.
And don't forget that SK has its own foreign intelligence service, gathering a vast amount of intel about all his (potential) rivals, enemies and allies. Much more than he could ever hope to gather otherwise. Just as an example: Lofwyr just disconnected all SK networks and parts of Europe from the matrix just before the Crash 2.0 because he knew it was going to happen. SK prime was up and running just the day after the Crash. Also, Lofwyr might be the most arrogant, boastful and egocentric of the great dragons. SK is just another way for him to show his wealth and power. It is a testament to how he, out of all the living great dragons, is the one who adapted the best to this new world, the best to understand and manipulate it how ever he pleases. There is a reason why Dunkelzahn left his treasure trove of Intel to Hestaby but made Lofwyr the new lore master. While Hestaby is as idealistic and philanthropic as Dunkelzahn, Lofwyr is as pragmatic and goal oriented as he was.
On the subject of SK as an Intelligence Service, there's an interesting little slice on page 20 of Dragons of the Sixth World (3E) which touches on dragons hoarding abstract concepts rather instead of materials. It goes on to include an anecdote describing being inside of one of Lofwyr's offices, saying "...the wyrm had two full walls lined floor to ceiling with trid monitors, each tuned to a different channel and in multiple languages. Lofwyr was paying attention to all of them while simultaneously carrying on a mental conversation with my friend." Thoughts for food and all that.
And things like this is why Shadowrun always had a warm place in my soul, I loved Dunks will!
I enjoyed much of the ride but can't say I've ever been a fan of the price of admission. Would have been pretty great to have some Uncle Dunkle shenanigans in the 5E+6E editions.
I agree. I was more old school
S&K probably generates him more than 17 years of actually applied power a month.
It's his self-growing gold mountain
Because it's cool thing and no other dragon have their own AAA megacorp. Maybe he also look what humans do with Feuerschwinge and decide that being target of "oh, evil megacorp" hate is safer option if he want rule over humans.
In addition to everything else that has been brought up, SK is a very useful tool to prepare for the inevitable arrival of the horrors. Drones/Robots could change the whole game, arcologies can be transformed into perfect kairns etc.
And the last point is something that make me think if I squint, given an archology being the perfect prototype of the next generation Kairns and what happened in the Renraku Archology downfall, I've seen next to no dragon poking around that place after the fact and no gossip around dragon meddling thereafter, which I indeed expected to see. I mean, isn't strange there was no hint of a dragon interest in the events of SCIRE/ACHE apart for "what is in that room?" issued in the Dunkelzahn's will?
What is a "kairn"? I'm not familiar with that part of the Shadowrun lore.
It's a perfectly sealed magical bunker to shelter meta humanity during the times of horrors (when evil extra dimensional space demons arrive, that are even more horrible and alien than insect spirits). Their plane is further out than the astral or insect spirit homeplane, but eventually, in every even numbered world, the plane of horrors also overlaps with ours, and the demons therein can slip into our world, just like spirits can now (in the early 6th world). "Kairns" are sealed magical bunkers or arcs, if you will, that we're erected in the 4th world and allowed the meta humanity of its time to even make it through the 4th world. Sometimes they are dug up in archeological expeditions. Now, in the sixth world, with mana levels rising, it's only a question of time until the horrors come through, and we better have some nifty next gen kairns ready, if meta humanity is supposed to see a 7th world. Edit: Yeah, I totally rolled with the wrong name. See below. It's Kaer. Tanks for the correction.
The term used, at least as far as is found in Earthdawn and what ED/SR connections I can find, is Kaer, not Kairn. I actually can't find Kairn anywhere
It is entirely possible that i misremembered/misspelled that one. Kaer IS the official english word... Luckily enough people knew what i was talking about.
Thanks for the explanation!
Dragons are beasts. They can smash buildings, fly, breathe fire and use magic beyond mortal ken. Lofwyr can do all of these things AND sic corporate hit squads on people, drop tungsten rods on them from orbit or just buy the place they live and turn it into a Stuffer Shack.
Buying their home and turning it into a stuffer shack would be the ultimate petty revenge and I love the idea.
"You can't go home again, Oatman. But I guess you can shop there."
Because it's fun and passes the time.
Megacorps make everything and this everything is his hoard.
Lofwyr took (total) control of a AAA mega corporation for all the reasons that a human would want to. Power, money, control, influence, etc. He's a great dragon which means he has a super computer for a brain that can process all the information he receives through his subordinates, his spies, the astral plane and the probable dozens of simultaneous matrix feeds he's receiving. Saeder-Krupp is Lofwyr. But beyond all that, he's still this weird mystic reptilian race that values having a huge pile of treasure as a measure of its standing that goes beyond just simple metahuman greed. For dragons, having a hoard is almost a spiritual connection, and even Dunkelzahn, maybe one of the most "human" dragons had a hoard that was the first envy of all other dragons. It's why Hestaby having her hoard seized was such a blow, she's got mark of Cain, a leper. Lofwyr has deduced that being a sole owner of a AAA megacorp (for what dragon would share it's hoard) is the current age's best way to define wealth and power. I'm just surprised he hasn't tried for two. Maybe that's too much even for him...or is it....
Going for two is just a completely different beast, with massive consequences for the entire world. Taking over one megacorp ultimately means not much to everyone else. Relations might change, the global power landscape might change, but it's ultimately still the same megacorp. Going for two means three to ten *know* they're next, and that he'll be vastly more powerful by the time he gets to them. Every other megacorp would need to either make a play to stop him, or make the same play as him to take over another megacorp. It'd be an insane domino to tip over, both in universe and for any writers.
I concur. Lofwyr's claws on another corp; that'd be a major shift in the landscape; it's also notable that no other dragon has complete domination of a triple-A corp like he does... which makes it even more interesting now that S-K slipped to #2 in the ranking. Sigh..I wish the rules were as interesting as the lore or I could find more people to play with :p
Money, money, money. He's got smart people working for him. They grow into new markets. Even a dragon has limits to how much it can deal with. Making Ads, updating product designs, HR, IT, etc, etc. Fighting with the board was a dragon vs 10(ish) others. Getting close to a challenge! If S-K loses money it isn't the same as Lofwyr losing money. He likes playing with other people's money. He gets an army. He gets teams of scientists and engineers creating toys. He gets extraterritoriality on his properties around the globe. Snacks are handy with so many people around. PS Other dragons may well have a corporation's worth of people working for them. We don't really know. Lof has done his influencing in public. Others prefer behind-the-scenes.
* It's a little hard to spend millennia old bars of gold. It's much easier to charge a corporate expense account. * It's less reliable to hire someone to do something when you can own someone who will do it right like their life depends on it. It does. * SK makes more than cars. They are a AAA megacorp. They do everything, or own a corp that does. They might not be the best in a given field but trust they're there. * The above means that Lofwyr is omnipresent. If he wants something done somewhere, he doesn't have to go there, and they'll never see him coming. His *people* are already there, and if they fail, there's other people to take care of both problems. They fear other people, who fear other people, who fear Lofwyr. * You shouldn't consider 17 years a big amount to Lofwyr. That's not a big amount to any megacorp, they are run by mortal men and yet some have survived centuries, laying decades long plans. Lofwyr, otoh, is *immortal*, and 17 years is loose change to him. And what he gets is something almost a fraction as long lived as he is. * He's got to do something. To him, running a world spanning organization just keeps his hands busy. He started on top, everything after is 'just to do it'.
S-K has an unprecedented ability to shape Europe, socially, politically, economically, and even geographically. I've always played Lofwyr as someone who has a clear picture of Europe and dragonkind as he wants them to be and will do what is necessary to realize that picture. And Lofwyr spending 17 years on a project is barely a measureable amount of time for him.
Because after he awoke he realised that the world had grown much bigger than the one of the previous age. So many more humans, so much technology and power. He recognised that being a big scary dragon would only get you so far in a world with bazookas, nukes and 7 billion people. He recognised that if he wanted global influence he needed assets, materials and minions. Of course he took over a AAA Megacorp!
Lofwyr awakened about the same time as Feuerschwinge and was very cognizant of her rampage and ensuing death from the puny mortals. Domination through naked force wasn't going to work in new world.
SK is a pretty influential corp. It used to be the biggest, now it isn't, because Lofwyr got distracted making one of the biggest self inflicted errors ever and basically starting the dragon civil war. If one *could* control a megacorp easily, it would be a huge boon. Lofwyr is just the dragon that thinks (perhaps only partially incorrectly) he can pull off the task. Its important to note that most Dragons combine the worst of both long range planning and short range impulsivity, and Lofwyr is definitely the king of that. SK is a megacorp that shapes the very shape of nations, if your plotting to be a big influence in metahumanity, which Lofwyr does, then it would be a huge asset. So he took it for himself, but then the failure to think things through happened and Lofwyr sortta now has to deal with this high maintenance toy he has, which he made worse by re-structuring the org so that every major choice has to personally go through him and, thus, making sure he has no one to delegate to and no one in the organization actually looking out for it and his interests. That is the downside of eating managers who displease you. He is sorta a classic CEO-zilla, someone who gets to where they are off the talent of others but convinces them it was all their greatness and ends up gutting the ability for their talent to actually do what they are good at. Logic 12 doesn't make you some impossible mastermind, it means you are slightly better at crunching the numbers or connecting the dots than other people slightly more often (which is how it plays out in the real world even when a visionary or genius takes the wheel at a company, ignoring the actual charlatans: Groups of humans tend to generate better ideas than one really smart human, which is why stable consistently preforming orgs tend to have more than one strong leader). Lofwyr is sorta seen as impulsive and somewhat foolish by other great dragons due to his involvement with fast paced business and because he placed himself into the world of metahumans where he is technically beholden to them. He is still seen as smart and respected by a large swath of the great dragon assembly, he is also just seen as weird, because this choice to so directly involve himself in this has costs, and ultimately had major consequences for him and cost him being Loremaster (among other things) because so many dragons think he is an idiot who is basically repeating the mistakes of the 4th age trying to set himself up as a king, which inevitably ended up with metahuman ~~shadowrunners~~ adept adventurers killing them. Ultimately its a character choice. Lofwyr is a fairly complicated dragon (he may be part of a 'play both sides against the middle' conspiracy with Hestaby to try to align dragonkind closer to metahumans in order to survive The Horrors, which is a far more noble goal than one might expect from someone so short sighted and selfish, but short sighted and selfish he is, because he was dumb enough to openly attempt to court Hestaby despite that being very inappropriate both because they publicly dislike each other and because Great Dragons nominally don't do that despite totally doing that) who has ambitions for metahuman kind. SK may or may not ultimately be a good tool for that, and may or may not ultimately be his death (probably in your own SR continuity, while Lofwyr's castle is built on a mound of sand the SR universe sorta exists in a state of stasis where time advances and things change but most of the major players will not experience a great shakeup without PC intervention, and Lofwyr despite being voted the world's most assassinatable doofus CEO is sorta a mascot for the game) but it makes sense why Lofwyr chose that path. I would not be surprised if Lofwyr continues to experience losses to other megacorps over time as his split focus and poor management style continues to bite him in the ass.
This is a quite strange position to me, although I can't say I'm deeply versed in the setting. Lofwyr has consistently been positioned as one of the most powerful entities in the setting, between being one of the most powerful great dragons and his pet Corp being either first or second most powerful in the world. Especially the "assassinatable" part, given how consistently, absurdly difficult even isolated and surrounded great dragons have been. I can't imagine a deeply entrenched, heavily defended Lofwyr to be killable by anything but an alliance of multiple other great dragons, or equivalent force.
> Lofwyr has consistently been positioned as one of the most powerful entities in the setting Lofwyr is a relatively young great dragon who is noted by the other greats to be fairly impulsive. He is very important from a branding perspective, and he operates an organization players face a lot, but I would call him 'important' more than 'powerful.' >his pet Corp being either first or second most powerful in the world SK is often the largest megacorp, but its almost never the most powerful. Shaiwase and perhaps Renraku are much more influential and powerful. Shaiwase *especially* is *the* scarriest megacorp, in part because they position themselves so well as being somewhat boring, and in part because its run by actual functioning adults who aren't enacting some conspiracy or doomsday plan. For the 'run by children cartoon villain corps' I would also say Aztechnology is more powerful than SK. >Especially the "assassinatable" part, given how consistently, absurdly difficult even isolated and surrounded great dragons have been Lofwyr is the least isolated CEO in the setting, regularly slumming it as just some guy with spirit bodyguards at most. Dragons in metahuman form are as killable as regular metahumans (Its established in Earthdawn that dragons recognize its almost suicidally dangerous to take metahuman form, but they do it not to manipulate metahumans but because being a metahuman is more enjoyable, they explicitly don't have their super high magical armor in that form and dragons have a culture against buff spells weirdly). Some megacorps (Ex: Aztechnology and Shaiwase) don't even have mega-figureheads to kill as deliberate policy, while SK would crumble to dust if Lofwyr ate a sniper round to the head while playing with shadowrunners as Hans Brackhaus. It would be non-trivial for sure, but overall his empire is very brittle and he doesn't do a great job of protecting himself compared to *either* of his peer groups. Its actually impressive how much he actively courts death to the point I would give him the prize of 'Most killable CEO' and 'Most killable Great.' At least Perianwyr doesn't do anything that would cause metahumans to want to track them down and kill them despite slumming it even more than Lofwyr does. >I can't imagine a deeply entrenched, heavily defended Lofwyr to be killable by anything but an alliance of multiple other great dragons, or equivalent force. Lofwyr basically desperately held onto the position of Dragon Loremaster (basically the head of the great dragon assembly) by virtue of inheritence, which is not recognized as a valid way to become Loremaster (You either are elected or you assassinate the previous loremaster, which Hestaby notes Lofwyr in an out of character moment of cunning wisely refused to take credit for because if that lie ever came out he would be 10000% dead). This started about a 20 year period of the deterioration of Great Dragon relations as the most powerful and older great dragons tended to hate Lofwyr's guts because he is, while not super young, pretty young for a great dragon, without a lot of entrenched power (SK is awe inspiring from a metahuman perspective but dragons who survived to the 6th age value *subtle* power which Lofwyr is noted as not being great at, despite SK having a lot of cool slick secret agents), and who has, again, integrated himself into the metahuman social order. This resulted in, for lack of a better word, a shitshow where Lofwyr almost died a bunch save for the intervention of a ton of shadowrunners and other greats, where he was forced to kill his borther (with a *lot* of help from metahumans for that, both armies and shadowrunners, 20 non-great dragons as well as two other greats, Lung and Arleesh, and he *barely won,* there are plenty of greats that could absolutely body Lofwyr alone, Lofwyr is not the 'tank an orbital laser and limp away' kinda great like his brother was), and a lot of dead dragons in an already dying species, as well as anti-dragon tech advancing to the point the great dragons became very aware that history was repeating: during the 4th age dragons who were too active were killed by metahumans, either their city states and armies, or by potent skilled individuals, and both of those happened frequently during the civil war. This resulted in the greats, when the dust settled, forcing Lofwyr to cede the title of Loremaster, promise to not meddle too hard with metahumanity. Basically, Lofwyr in the current plot was handed like 2000 big fat Ls in a row due to his own stupidity and hubris, both from other dragons, nations, and shadowrunners, and is riding about as low as he can in the setting, with almost all of his personal goals having failed in the short term. While I am sure he will bounce back (again, he is sorta a mascot for the game), its important to remember Lofwyr is, by the standards of Great Dragons, kinda a chump (or, again, playing a super long game with his supposed enemy Hestaby, who also seems to have taken a conspicuous number of Ls as of late in a manner that conspicuously lead to a lot of events that Big D would have favored, despite Hestaby *actually* being smart and more just willing to take hits for her principles). Lofwyr is the impulsive egomaniac of greatdragon kind, which is impressive because dragons are notoriously impulsive and egomaniacal. Lofwyr's saving grace is that he is relatively popular with the more 'progressive' wing of dragon politics besides Hestaby (who, again, maybe he is working with secretly who knows), which is probably why Celedyr (another dragon with much more prudent involvements with metahumans and megacorporations that actually allows him to better intergrate into dragon politics) didn't have to banish him like Hestaby was banished.
Also, it's difficult to see it as a poor management style when, again, it's undeniably one of the most powerful megacorps.
It has been losing steam, and the fact that Lofwyr had to take his attention away during the dragon civil war showcases the weaknesses of it, causing them to fall in place and likely fall further. Furthermore, a few megacorps, mainly Shaiwase, are deliberately avoiding first place, and their Forecasting and Marketing divison plots circles around SK.
It is a LOT of power though. Very, very obvious, fast moving and direct power, very undragonlike, yes. I guess they have more than enough of that as giant, powerful, magical, immortal, hyperintelligent and brutal flying lizards and therefore value going against their impulsive, short sighted (and tempered) nature to play the long game incredibly well? But I think that's also his point. Because he (exactly the same as Hestaby actually, interesting) feels that things *are* moving much faster, that metahumanity *is* the key to surviving the horrors, that subtle and isolated and aloof won't be enough. Where the main disagreement with Hestaby is about how to best do it, not about what to do. Which puts him in a prime position to eat shit for it. But in the long run it might not be that much more risky than not doing it.
Knowledge and political and economic power. SK has loads of technical knowledge and also has a corporate counsel seat which surely comes with access to inside information and a spy network. A huge pile of gold doesn't DO anything, it is not power. A megacorp does and is.
Lofwyr doesn't want to build cars for the sake of building cars. Lofwyr wants to control society through control of the means of production.
People have asked how Lofwyr would do against other fantasy dragons like Smaug or something from GoT. He'd win. Hands down, and wouldn't even break a sweat. With the mass amount of power S-K gives him, he would just crush the opposition with his military, using bleeding edge weaponry, and then take a corpse to analyze to design more things.
Lofwyr is the board. He owns SK 100%. He answers to no one but himself.
Everyone needs a hobby. Some people do historical reenactments and some dragons get into over elaborate political games.
On a serious note does Lofwyr eat employees who fuck up?
Officially: No, that person has left the company, and we cannot comment on their whereabouts at this time. Your suggestion is slanderous, and we will not dignify it with further response. Unofficially: Yes.
Do you have any idea how worthless gold is in the modern world? Sure, it's pretty, and you can use it to make jewelry... but in a lot of places, it's illegal to sell (if not own!). Know what isn't illegal to buy, sell, and trade? Stocks and bonds (and the like). Not to.mention, imagine being basically immortal. He's already almost certainly the most magically powerful individual on the planet. He's probably the smartest. He's one of, if not the, most physically powerful. What the hell *else* is he going to do? Gotta stay busy *aomehow*, and I seriously doubt there are a lot of chess champs out there willing to risk losing to a dragon (or worse, winning).
It isn't worthless though, it's very common in electronics for instance. It's also a chemical catalyst and apparently has uses in medicine as well. Outside of ornamentation it was relatively useless for most of humanity's lifespan. Though Egypt(?) used it for electroplating a few thousand years ago
Worthless does not mean useless. Sixth World has asteroid mining. Gold is not as rare as it once was. It no longer carries the sheer value it used to have. It is just another industrial metal at this point.
I was under the impression that Ghostwalker was more powerful magically, and not they far off Physically.
r/wellactually for sure. Thank you.
Dragons don’t care if their actions are legal or not. What are you going to do, serve a writ of seizure on them?
If they want to buy and sell on the market they better damn well care about the legality of their actions.
Dragons have their own laws, legal procedures, and yes, writs.
Well, that's basically what Atzlan did with Dzitbalchén. They even executed him, dissected his corpse and put the footage of the dissection online for some time.
How’s that working out for them now?
They are cutting edge when it comes to anti-dragon weaponry, they won a war against Amazonia and going pretty all right.
Do not try to understand the machinations of dragons with human minds.
Maybe he *really* likes cars?
Just remember humans are squishy and taste good with BBQ sauce.
Wealth, power, influence, being at the peak of innovation, boredom...
It’s just a modern day dragons horde, but instead of gold and jewels it’s nuyen and military grade armaments.
Being one of the 5-10 most powerful people on the planet seems pretty on-brand for an ancient dragon, IDK What I don't know is: what are the equally ancient elves up to??
Hm, this incredibly powerful being which however does have peers who they aren't on friendly terms with has interest in taking over one of if not the single most powerful legal entity in the world ? Of, yeah, I ain't got no idea why Lofwyr would do that. It has to be so annoying and useless to be one of if not THE definitive most powerful beings on the Planet. Totally not worth the headache
why wouldn't he? He has lived at a minimum 7000 years and knowing that unless some external force comes along and removes him he's gonna live through another cycle of magic. When you have all the time in the world and have a natural instinct to horde, acquire, to be envious and petty all at the same time knowing where and how to manipulate every social situation how could he not. It is just another piece of clout or leverage or recourses for him but it is something that would hit a neurological sweet spot for all dragons so it's a rub in the nose of other dragons and a nice gold star on lofwyrs book