...the Balkans.

This was the primary battlefield between Euro and Islamic forces which was laid waste to during the last Euro war. As mentioned in SoE, it is pretty much Merc territory, and since crash 2.0 not much has apparently changed. This is for all purposes, still a war zone where runners can easily find themselves outclassed by well equipped mercenary or local military units. Next there are the guerrilla forces: the private armies of local warlords, local resistance movements, and terrorist cells, all who have a mistrust of outsiders. This is their home ground, their "turf".

In a sense, the Balkans are Europe's Barrens.

Actually, even parts of the UCAS/CAS/NAN borders are pretty bad when it comes to constant, low-level skirmishes. Not really high body count, but it certainly makes it not a nice place to live.

Also, I'm not sure how much of a hell it is, but Sudbury, Ontario is certainly a damned hole!

Australia - head inland inutil the first mana storm, then turn left to go to hell.
Tasmania - Yeah, just don't go there.
Madagascar - All it needs is for some fallout to make it worse.
SOX - but that's been mentioned, as has Glow City (Awesome place for a run though. "What do you mean, "who brought the giger-counters, dosimeters and exposure badges?" What the hell would we need...ohshit."
The StinkFens as well - I remember reading about some baaaaad environmental crap there.

Enjoy the travel !

Not to mention the iodine tablets.

He didn't say they were. Just the Pegasus ones, not the Pre-Pegasus ones.

its the 150 Mio People living there that make it a Hellhole
150 Millions !!

with...No ! I could never ever Dance 150 Million times
Medicineman

But he is right (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
I must correct myself.
Pegasus translated Arsenal and Bodytech before SR4A so these are SR4.01D compatible
Its just...well for Me Pegasus is equal to SR4A and Fanpro represents the older SR4(and SR3)
and for my simple Mind SR4A is good,SR4 is worse and SR3 is worser (and SR2 is worst)

with a simple Dance
Medicineman

I'm pretty sure there is a SR4 rulebook in my shelf. See, a german one. Released way before SR4A. And before Arsenal and Bodytech too iirc. Anyway. I stand corrected for SOX, though.

Page reference?

Making an entire continent a hellhole, especially one as large as Africa, was probably the laziest writing Shadowrun has ever produced.

South Africa is not SO bad IRL. And my Uncle was able to get in and out of Africa with only an acid scar from some kind of weird insect. (Yes, folks, Xenomorphs exist on Earth!).

It's not like it is mostly hellholes in real life.

Lord of War, anyone?

A LOT of Africa really is, especially places like West Africa.

You won't need them - iodine 131 is a nasty bugger, but it has a very short half-life (8 days only) - which means it has decayed to negligible levels since the accident. But there's no lack of an unhealthy dose of longer-lasting crap hanging around - eating dust is even more of a losing proposition there...

Ah yes, sorry. Cold War misinformation coming to me again... They suggested Iodine Tablets in case of "a nuclear event" to bond with the radiation and flush it out of your system, not mentioning that it only worked with one type of radiation.

Don't get me started on air raid sirens, either. I suffer from migraines, and they always chose the worst time to test the damned things...

Well, iodine is low-tier - the medkits found in Russian bomb shelters have tranq tabs in them (which turned quite a number of junkies into diggers) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

The original 4th Ed rulebook was released in Germany as "Shadowrun 4.01D" by Fanpro*, and the Anniversary Edition as simply "4. Edition" by Pegasus. All other books, whether by Fanpro or Pegasus, refer to the most recent version of the BBB. So quite a few Pegasus books actually refer to 4.01D, but there should be no reference to a German "SR4" book before the translated Anniversary edition came out.

*: AFAIK there's also a re-realase of the 4.01D book by Pegasus...at least there is a version of the book with a TOC, which the original version did not have.

Do you happen to know how much of that's spilled over into Poland, specifically Warsaw? I recall that Poland is pretty fucked up due to being a major stomping ground and having a revolution, but I'm not sure what level of infrastructure exists in Warsaw. I assume it's still a major city...?

It's not toaly useless : iodine 131 is a major byproduct of uranium and plutonium fission, and one of those who can easily pass into the metabolism - the idea is to saturate the organism with iodine to make sure as much as possible of the 131 isotope justes passes trhough whithout being snateched by the metabolism. But it's only need for a relatively short period after the main event.

Of course if you have some plutonium dust stuck in your lungs, it's mostly a moral comfort...

Free Poland won the Civil War; Russian forces fell back without much of a fight during the Crash, and then were pulled out altogether.
SK played a major role in that; and now Poland is its playground and favorite battleground fighting EVO influence from the East.
That said, I don't believe much is known about the current state of Warsaw - it was in deep when the rybokrats were still in; with slums, electricity and water limits and food shortages; but quite a time has passed since then.

Sweet, my assumption about it being a corporate warzone between Evo and others is correct! Woo! Seems like prime turf for a three-way tug of war between Evo, SK and Renraku Europa.

Considering that I lived in the "Die a guaranteed slow, horrible, painful death" nuclear zone ring during the cold war, a very small comfort.

For the 150 Millions ?
Almanach !
Page 211 German Version
oh...It says Half of the 250 Million Inhabitants live in Metropole...
So its just ca 125 Mio. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/indifferent.gif)
I Thought it was even more...

@Sengir
*: AFAIK there's also a re-realase of the 4.01D book by Pegasus...at least there is a version of the book with a TOC, which the original version did not have.
Noooooh.... the only BBB by Pegasus is the Anniversary edition.
Whats the Meaning of TOC ?

with a slightly smaller Dance
Medicineman

I consider Metrópole as formed by the states of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The last census (2010) says there is 76.8 million people living there right now (with the cities of Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo having 17.6 millions of the total).