The Rules in a Nutshell

by Lord Owl

Since only the most hardy of rule fans will be able to read through the whole rules section, I want to give a short and easy summary here for the casual reader ;).

The Shadow is a race very unlike any else in VGA Planets, and in concept related to though not identical with the Shadow of the Babylon 5 series. Of course it is evil, but that quality is hard to grasp rulewise and is mainly in the responsibility of the individual player – more easy to grasp, The Shadow is alien, and an enemy to all intelligent life (used here in the widest  possible context in respect to some players and races ;). And this alieness and enmity you will easily recognize in the rules for The Shadow.

The Shadow starts with no homeworld and no ships, and indeed with no stuff at all. It’s weak, and undetectable. But it has a small percentual chance to randomly infest planets and thus making small bases, which are still undetectable (and impossible to interact with) by all means. These small bases begin to grow, dependant on the stress and base frequency of the planet, because The Shadow thrives on the natural forces of entropy in the galaxy, and dependant on bases of other races at the same planet, because The Shadow thrives in the shadow of civilization, and dependant on the wholeabout evil acts in the game, because The Shadow is indeed evil and thrives on suffering and mass destruction of any kind.

When a base reaches a size of 100k ‘colonists’ (further called minions) it will be detectable and as vulnerable as any other base in the game. More vulnerable in fact, since The Shadow lacks any defendable area of space at first due to its random appearance, and only a base of 1M minions or greater is really able to defend itself. Any wise player seeing a Shadow base under 1M minions will send out a ship with blaster cannons or something similar to put a quick end to it with orbital bombardment.

Nonetheless, somewhere The Shadow will be able to grow, be it because of incompetence, neglectence, or diplomacy. Then he will begin to get dangerous.

The Shadow is very easy to manage. He has no basebuildings, no money, no resources. His ships are automatically spawned by bases of a certain size. The first harmless scouts actually appear before the bases get detectable, but to spawn serious warships a base needs 1M minions or more. At first sight the higher up ships seem to be absurdly powerful. They are simply not meant to be comparable to most normal ships, for three reasons mainly: a) The Shadow lacks any structured empire and has a hard time to gather fleets of ships. This is further enhanced by a limitation on the numbers of its good ships, so it has to fight with the few ships it has got. Indeed it needs to, to make room for new ones, resulting in battles against superior forces of good guys and an ‘I don’t care for losses’ attitude true to its SciFi origins. And b) the ships of The Shadow will never get any boost from exotic techs, so the high stats are somewhat misleading. And c) the armament of each type of ship is a constant and can’t be altered. A distinct weakness against fighters and photon torpedoes marks most of the designs, so you can even handle the great killers if you know what you’re doing.

Lacking any real centre, and with bases growing randomly throughout the cluster, killing The Shadow isn’t easily done. It being an evil menace, there are nonetheless two heroic ways to do it. First, the force of The Shadow is dependant on growth, and if you ever manage to drop its total minions under 75% of the greatest number it has reached previously in the game, its strength will collapse on itself and its forces will vanish from the cluster, simple as that.

The second way is more intriguing ;).

If a base of The Shadow reaches a size of 50M minions, a Gate is opened into the dimension of darkness itself and The Shadow is on the peak of its strength, terrible to behold. The cluster trembles on the edge of oblivion, and whatever the other players do, they better do it fast. But while such a Gate is immune against many kinds of attack, it is indeed killable. And when this happens, in that very instant, The Shadow is done in and all its forces vanish from the cluster never to appear again. Just like in the movies.

So, opening a Gate is a two-edged sword for a Shadow player. But oh, the pure power of it, and the glory, and the fun! What are you evil for, if not to take risks.

A side note – for unknown reasons baffling the scientific world, the usually unloved and belligerent Chupanoids are anathema to The Shadow. If you have nothing else, these are the weapons of choice.

And if push comes to shove, you might even get help from a mysterious race of galactic elders, only popping in for explicitly supporting the forces of good versus the evil of the Shadow. Can you say ‘White Star’?

Of course, allying with The Shadow is possible, too. Actually there are even great many benefits to it – just as long as you are aware that The Shadow enthrals with mighty gifts, but in the end will eat you, too.

So much for a starter on The Shadow. If you are intrigued now, feel free to look up the details in the rules section. The FAQ and the Analysis of advantages and disadvantages are also recommended easy reads.

I myself got hooked on The Shadow exactly because it’s so unlike any other race in Planets, and I think Lordfire succeeded in expressing this feel of movie-evilness and alieness in a nice set of rules :).