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> Rust-Colored Dreams, Fragments of What Might Have Been
Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 02:10 AM
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Great Dragon
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I was digging through ancient databack-ups and found some old proposals and whatnot that might be of interest to y'all.

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2007 Plot Proposal
By Bobby Derie

DESERT WARS 2071
This book would be a set of fiction surrounding the three Desert Wars that occur in 2071, consisting of news reports, propaganda, recruiting posters, shadow comments, and rundowns of the major players; followed by scenarios, adventures, and adventure hooks. The book would be broken down into five main sections: an introduction to the Desert Wars, one section for each of the three 2071 Desert Wars, and a wrap-up section on running the Desert Wars (both as a player and a gamemaster).
The plot thread that links the three events together is a series of set battles between two AA corporations (my tentative suggestions are Manadyne and Yakashima) to resolve ongoing legal conflicts regarding mutual industrial espionage and copyright infringement brought before the Corporate Court. Since neither of the AAs possess substantial military assets, they resolve to hiring mercenaries...which is where runners come in, with potential positions as mercs, company men, medics, combat magicians, Matrix assault units, spies, etc.
The three Desert War events take place in the Mojave Desert, staged out of Los Angeles; the Arabian Desert, staged out of Dubai; and the Taklimakan Desert, staged out of Macao/Hong Kong. This will allow new gamemasters and groups to introduce their campaigns in any of these locations, drawing off of and highlighting the settings in Runner Havens and Corporate Enclaves. The wrap up would contain information for helping players create characters for Desert Wars (or Desert Wars veterans, etc.) can draw off material presented in Street Magic, Arsenal, and Augmentation, and for helping the gamemaster plan and run battles. At the back of the book would be three maps for set-piece squad-level battles, with permission to photocopy to use as player handouts.

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FERAL CITIES PROPOSAL
By Bobby Derie

This proposal covers two metroplexes for Feral Cities, one intended as a major city (approx. 40,000 words), Tehran, and one intended for a minor city (approx. 5,000 words), Tôla (formerly Fort Dauphin). I’m more than willing to work with one or more partners on these or any other cities for the book.

TEHRAN – CITY OF NATIONS
In 2020, the Ayatollah declared a Jihad against the Awakened, and the Great Dragon Aden laid the city waste. Since that time, the city has been all but abandoned, suffering looting, neglect, and the plague of shedim. Criminals and fanatics sought refuge in the ruins, but no true community has come together in the city until now.

Fifty years after the rage of Aden, Tehran is beginning to blossom once more. Unhindered by the ruling Islamic government, many have sought refuge in the city, and in 2070 the blasted city has entered an economic boomtown phase that, when combined with its lack of central authority, has begun to attract more immigrants and businesses to the city. The City of Nations is poised to transform itself and become a guiding power in the Middle East...or fail and fall into ruin once again.

The introductory fiction for this chapter would have Elijah invading a shedim glass-house.

GHAZW (2K)
This introductory section would be an extended post by Nephilim (a guest shadowtalker) on the state of Tehran today, giving a very brief overview of the extant of the destruction from Aden’s rampage and the neglect of years, relations with the current government in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and an overview on getting to the city and what one can expect of the infrastructure (i.e. bringing your own water and gas, and whether or not you should expect field toilets, WiFi and power point access, that sort of thing).

BLOOD AND BULLETS (2K)
Nuyen doesn’t flow through Tehran, it stalls. The general lack of Matrix infrastructure in the city means that only a few, high-tech installations have the capability to handle nuyen transactions, which leaves the rest of the city to get by on physical currency and barter. The mujahideen enclave and the Abn’Allah community have both issued hologram-weave plastic dinar bills with embedded tags, by common agreement the production of these bills is limited and are traded at a 1:1 ratio. The poorest residents, as well as many criminals and Yazidi, resort to barter economics; the three most common barter goods, in order of increasing denomination are bullets, water, and slaves. Bullets are the most common, with one dinar approximately equal to two rounds of ammunition for an SMG or heavy pistol. Water is typically traded by the half-liter, with the value based on purity and availability–if you’re trading with one of the groups that has running water or access to a well, water doesn’t buy much.

Slavery is an unfortunate fact of life in Tehran, though the practice is widely frowned upon and only engaged in by the maffiya, the shedim, some of the Abn’Allah, the worst elements of the mujahideen, a couple of the Yazidi, the Apep Consortium (though they deny it)...the worst offenders are, of course, the maffiya and the shedim, who both engage in kidnapping to support the practice, with the maffiya shipping the slaves out of Tehran to other parts of the Middle East.

The Pasdaran Bazaar is a massive open marketplace running down Pasdaran Avenue (left fairly intact by Aden) and operated by the Tehran Maffiya, and the central economic heart of the city. Slave trading, prostitution, loan sharking, and other unsavory or illegal (under Sharia) practices takes place off of the main marketplace in commandeered buildings. The Abd’Allah and local banks cooperate to maintain the old Grand Bazaar, which is open to mercenaries and independent merchants as well for a small fee. A poor incarnation of what it once was, but the Grand Bazaar seems to grow a little every week.
Local Tehrani industries are generally given over to the production of food, particularly small livestock such as goats or miniature cows and agricultural produce such as millet and emmer wheat, and providing essential (sewage, medical, drinking water, power) and secondary (Matrix access, weaponry, mechanical and electrical repair, petrol and biofuel production) services, with recent limited industrialization (plastics, ceramics, and textiles) using desktop forge technology. One unique Tehrani export is Shedim glass art, though the trade in these sculptures is illegal in many jurisdictions outside of Tehran.


FORWARD MOMENTUM (6-8K)

The driving forces nudging Tehran from being the baked-out, glassy remnants of a dragon’s wrath and a living, vibrant city are greed, fervor, cred, and hope–not particularly in that order. The Jihad brings in a steady stream of mujahideen and nuyen, which helps support the flourishing maffiya market and the supporting industries (and their families); ironically, the city is better off the longer the conflict with the shedim goes on–a conflict that can’t last forever. On top of that, the presence of the Jihad means that the Irani government has taken an interest in Tehran again–will the Abd’Allah allow themselves to fall under the reign of the Ayatollah again? What does Aden think of this?

Basically, this section discusses the fact that Tehran’s situation, while improving, is not stable, and from the point of view of the locals and outsiders. The future of this feral city–and it is a feral city, with multiple conflicting “authorities” who only care about their own specific parts of it–is still very much up in the air.

THE NATIONS (10-12K)
The most important part of Tehran is how it functions, which is basically down to three parts–the factions that the population is divided into, how they interact in daily life, and what each of them brings to the city. Some factions have claimed specific areas, while others have simply settled in wherever they can. This section is provided by Goat Foot with additional comments and material from Elijah and Nephilim.

Shedim
The most notorious of the residents of Tehran, the city has been a magnet for shedim since their first noted appearance in 2061, if not earlier (as in Jerusalem). Unlike in other places, these shedim are strongly controlled by the master shedim, and appear to have their own language and some ultimate goal they are pursuing, which involves their occupation of part of the city, which they are rebuilding and remodeling in a unique architectural style. Shedim-occupied parts of Tehran are constructed of glass (originally those sheets made from the dragon Aden’s breath on the desert sands, but later made with applied fire magic and the local sands) and ceramic bricks into odd ziggurats, squat towers with rooftop gardens, and domes covered with disturbing arabesques. Ibn Eisa is the representative of the shedim in the city, and sometimes receives visitors and deals with outsiders for certain supplies, information, or artifacts. Despite their willingness to deal with the locals, and even strangers, the shedim are also known to launch occasional raids for living bodies, or to possess the recently dead. (I’m trying to avoid too many parallels to Parlainth with this aspect by emphasizing the alien culture of the shedim).

Mujahideen
To nearly all of the religions in the Middle East, the shedim are an abomination. The Islamic Republic of Iran, the Ayatollah Juvayni in Iraq, and the Arabian Caliphate came together in conference in 2066 to jointly declare a jihad against the shedim defiling Tehran and its many mosques, especially after the shade of Ibn Eisa led a horrific raid on a museum in Qom. Mujahideen from all over the Islamic world have descended on the city to combat the shedim and reclaim the holy places.

However, an unorganized force of ragtag recruits would have no hope of combating the shedim, and the religious leaders knew this. To this end, the jihad was organized under an Islamic military/corporate model, with the three principal “investors”–the Caliph, the Ayatollah Abdallah of Iran, and the Ayatollah Juvayni of Iraq funnel their financial and material support to General Musa ibn Abu al-Rashid, the former commander of the Iraqi Pasadaran who became an Arabian ulema (Islamic scholar-magistrate). General Musa has set up a fortified base-camp in the former Golestan Palace, where he receives and trains new mujahideen as they enter the city and coordinates his assaults against the shedim.
The mujahideen are one of the driving forces behind the economic revival of Tehran, as the presence of so many troops demands support, which is provided by local businesses, camp-followers, the maffiya, smugglers, family members, and the like. General Musa regularly employs foreign mercenaries, either for precision strikes or to help train his troops.

Yazidi
Aden continues to have an interest in the fate of Tehran, and his eyes, ears, and fingers are a sect of Yazidi that occupy a fortified shrine in the city. The Yazidi’s influence is felt far more than their numbers or territory would tell: they have extensive contacts with Kurdish smugglers and mercenaries that make them one of the best-supplied and self-sufficient groups in the city, and they have been staunch opponents of both the shedim since their arrival, giving unexpected but crucial support to the mujhideen during several battles. Still, in a predominantly Muslim city the Yazidi face a great deal of racial discrimination; they are sometimes referred to as the Left Hand of Aden. The Yazidi deal warily with the archaeocorps, sometimes sharing information with them and even allowing them to view their most sacred relic, the Shroud of Shadows. Within the last year, Kurds from across Iran have begun a great migration to set up a fortified Kurdish Quarter around the Yazidi shrine, often arriving one family at a time.


Archaeocorps

The Apep Constortium, the Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research, and the Atlantean Foundation are the most extensive of the corporate presences in Tehran, drawn by the unusual shedim activity and the wealth of archaeological artifacts and opportunities present. Here, the groups can freely plunder museums or conduct digs wherever and whenever they please, though this sometimes brings them in conflict with the locals. The well-funded archaeocorp expeditions feature some of the latest technology in Tehran, including satlinks and WiFi access. Of the three, the Apep Consortium has the closest ties with the Irani government, and is the only archaeocorp currently building permanent structures. The AF and DIMR, by contrast, have temporary compounds; the bulk of the DIMR personnel actually live in solar-powered zeppelins, while the AF has a central compound of prefab modules set up in the historic district of Rey, surrounded by electrified fences and guard towers.

The archaeocorps depend on regular convoys of supplies, either by zeppelin (for the DIMR), or along a road built by the Apep Consortium (the AF pays a toll to use the road for their own convoys); these shipments are always heavily guarded, and often attacked. Individual employees of the archaeocorps also participate in the local economy.

The Abd’Allah
Even in the Sixth World, racism and religion mix in strange ways. The Abd’Allah (Servants of God) are a community of metahumans who face persecution in their own cities and towns, who have come to Tehran for a fresh start–and a chance to live an Islamic life. Predominantly hobgoblin, the Abd’Allah community (about forty thousand individuals) includes an Islamic bank that supports local businesses, limited WiFi areas, six mosques (one of which has an attached school), a hospital, and a local Imam. The community does not have a police force or formal laws; Sharia is enforced by the local population–which means depending on where you go, you might be stoned to death by engaging a prostitute, or you might not.

The Abd’Allah is part of the support community for the mujahideen, but faces some prejudice from the ultrafanatical members, and the Imam and the General have clashed over crimes and reprisals between the two groups. Some members of the Abd’Allah also deal with the archaeocorps, the shedim, the maffiya–anything to make a living. The Imam, Isfahani Mostowfi, is a hobgoblin and former civil engineer that has led his people to reclaim, repair, or rebuild Tehran’s infrastructure, particularly water, sewage, and power systems to the neighborhoods occupied by the Abd’Allah; others in the city regularly try to leech off these services.

Smaller groups attached but separate to the Adb’Allah include representatives of the New Islamic Renaissance, particularly feminists, homosexuals, the heavily augmented, scholars and others that are more open than the mujahideen but more liberal than the devout metahumans of the Abd’Allah. There is also a small community of Jewish metahumans who maintain a single synagogue and a moneychanger (nuyen to dinars, dinars to nuyen) that are tolerated principally for the additional boost they bring to the economy.

The Tehran Maffiya
Ultimately an offshoot of the Kabul Maffiya, the Tehran maffiya are smugglers and opportunists that are responsible for one of the biggest grey markets in the Middle East. The maffiya will deal with anyone from the shedim to the mujahideen to Aden himself if their price is met, and they bring in a constant supply of weaponry, ammunition, medical supplies, food, petrol, clean water, portable generators, desert survival gear, illegal alcohol and pornography, nicsticks, and anything else they think will sell. They export slaves and shedim glass artifacts.
The leader of the Tehran Maffiya is Mahoud Zora, a bloodthirsty man who is said to have ripped a shedim in half with his cyberlimbs and lived to tell the tale. Zora is also known to be an addict to the hookah, and his occasional drug-crazed bouts have only deepened his reputation. Unusually, the Tehran Maffiya is known to give shelter to rape victims who would otherwise be victimized by their neighbors; the women often end up as prostitutes or as wives to the local criminals.

The Living Grid
Even the Bedouin tribes have technomancer members, though the lack of WiFi access can drive these metahumans almost mad. To protect themselves against this madness, Bedouin technomancers from many disparate tribes have grouped together, gaining strength–and sanity–from their proximity to one another, forming a living grid. During the events of Emergence, this metatribe received an unknown, almost instinctual directive, and turned to Tehran. Here, the tribes act as the foremost purveyors of information in Tehran, spying everything and sharing it with their fellows. The Sheikh, a woman known as Zia, deals with the leaders of the various communities, and wishes to patch together Tehran’s fractured grid.

Independents
While these groups are the most powerful and influential in Tehran, they represent only about half of the total population. The rest are men and women who have been attracted to Tehran for their own reasons, be it familial obligations, the chance of starting a business withou worrying about government oversight and pollution controls, or dreams of building a new society. Individually, these people have little influence over the city as a whole, but each must deal with one or more of the other groups on a daily basis. A Tehrani independent might start the day answering the call to prayer from the mujahideen citadel, then buy breakfast from the Abd’Allah in the Grand Bazaar before going to work at one of the small factories on the outskirts of the city, and enjoy a hookah in a maffiya bar or hire a Bedouin e-scribe to send an e-mail message to his mother in Esfahan on his way home.

LAY OF THE LAND (8K)
Discussion of the geography of modern Tehran; this is essentially a districts chapter. The old municipal divisions are obsolete; the general population breaks the city down into rough districts. Most of this section will be posted by Nephilim.

Apophis
Sometimes called “Snake Town,” the Apep Consortium’s large, permanent facility, and the various businesses it has attracted around it, includes most of Sharak-e Gharb in northern Tehran. Locals are hired to help in the removal of ruined buildings and the construction of reinforced ferroconcrete buildings, being paid in medical supplies, packaged food, clothing, and other essentials of life. A modern road leads from Apophis to the highway between Qom and Rasht.

Central Tehran
This area includes the Grand Bazaar and the Baharestan, historical landmarks now occupied by the Abd’Allah. The mujahidden maintain a series of fortified checkpoints in the district to ward off the shedim, and to act as staging areas in their ongoing assault. It is one of the densest districts on terms of population, with many high-rises that house families, mosques, and entire floors given over to agriculture and raising food animals, and also boasts the largest WiFi network, power, sewage, and running water. The district is also frequently the target of disease, particularly anthrax and antibiotic-resistant typhoid fever due to problems in the sewage treatment system and the presence of lifestock. The majority of the Jewish population live around the Yusef Abed Synogogue in this district.

Ianat-abad
“The Damned Place,” centered on the old Khavaran cemetery, is the stronghold of the shedim in Tehran. Here the walking corpses have raised their odd glass-faced towers and squat ceramic gardens, as well as walls of cement faced with sharp glass to help ward of the mujahideen. Rumors and satellite studies indicate that the shedim have been constructing, or excavating, beneath the district as well.

Pasdaran
The maffiya and various mercenaries occupy the better part of this northern region, especially Pasdaran Avenue, which is the site of the Pasdaran Bazaar. The ruined Borj-e Sefid serves as the headquarters of a small coalition of the 10,000 Daggers mercenary group; many local construction gangs have raided the fallen half of the tower for building materials for years. Pasdaran is renowned for its vice, with many maffiya members and affiliates operating bars, hookah bars, strip clubs, small casinos, and bordellos out of the mansions and townhomes in the former suburbian district.

Rey
Parts of this ancient historic district are more than five thousand years old, and the DIMR has been assiduously digging up the place ever since its zeppelins arrived. The lack of local air power (aside from a few spirits or wyverns) grants the DIMR a decided advantage when threatened by the locals, and otherwise makes use of electrified fences and guard towers to keep out shedim and troublemakers.

Shemiranat
Located on the slopes of the Alborz Mountains, this area includes several palace complexes currently occupied by the Yazidi and Kurds.

Tehranpars
A “planned city” within the greater metroplex, including the remains of a fortified army garrison in old Lavizan, Tehranpars has become the central base and training facility of the mujahideen. It is the only portion of the city that is regularly policed, and the only area where a portion of the metro network is currently operating.
To the north of Tehranpars, the Lavizan Forest Park has overgrown and taken over some of the surrounding buildings, and rumored to contain paranormal creatures, particularly wyverns.

Tehransar
Also called “West Tehran,” this area is the primary industrial district of Tehran, with a number of small factories that boast desktop forges producing plastic, textile, and ceramic parts which are then assembled (by hand, or with the appropriate machinery) into finished products. Each of the dozen or so factories follows a similar business model, with the desktop forge being shipped in under heavy guard with “seed” plans and materials that allow the desktop forge to produce all of the necessary machinery for a given industry, and then produce the parts for that industry. It is strongly suspected by members of the Islamic Renaissance Movement that these factories are owned by Evo, and that when they reach a certain stage of development the factories will begin to cooperate to produce more complex products that will see the corp poised to reassemble Tehran’s infrastructure.
The majority of residents in this district are independent.

SITES OF INTEREST (10K)
Essentially a Places to See section given by Traveler Jones, this would give a couple dozen important sites, including the Pasdaran Bazaar and Grand Bazaar; the Scorpion Dreaming, a hookah bar with reputed ties to the Black Scorpions terrorist group; the Shrine of Aden, maintained by the Yazidi; the Gates of Eden, supposed to be the entrance to a paradisiacal Resonance Realm guarded by the Living Grid; the Sign of the Goat, a hangout for IRM scholars; the Tehran Exchange, an online stock and currency exchange for trusted Tehrani merchants; Outer Kurdistan, the Kurdish neighborhoods surrounding the Yazidi shrine; the Azadi Tower and the attached stadium (on a good day, the whole town shows up for soccer matches); the Hand of Fatima, a local talismonger shop that lives in constant danger of being burned down by its neighbors; Iblis’ Finger, a glass-and-bone tower in the shedim-haunted portion of the city where visitors may meet with Ibn Eisa; a Biofuel Plant run by local independent industrialists; the Magi’s, a nickname for the currency exchange run by the local Persian Jews (with discrete ties to Israel); the Street of E-scribes, technomancers from the local Bedouin metatribe selling their Matrix services; the House of Mahoud Zora, leader of the local maffiya, who can put the shadowrunners in touch with other maffiya–or be contacted by them to take care of their good friends; the Mehrebad International Airport, all but destroyed but one runway cleared for local traffic (read: smugglers) by the local maffiya, etc.

TÔLA
The city of Tôla (formerly Fort Dauphin) on the island of Madagascar is the pirate capital of the world–or at least the Indian Ocean. Pirates from Hong Kong to the Gold and Ivory Coast routinely make port at the Pirate ‘plex, a city that owes its continued existence to plunder from across the world. More than a jumped-up Tortuga with nothing to offer but ale and whores, however, Tôla has evolved a more functional anarchist equilibrium with the years. Basically, this proposal will expand on the city of Tôla as presented in Cyberpirates!, giving some additional information on the geography, ethnography, powers that be, and economy of the Pirate ‘plex–not too deep, because this would be a short section, but a bit more solid info than the rampant rumor-mongering in Cyberpirates!. The principal voice would be Sounder.

The major gangs in the region are centered around the seven or eight largest brothels; the bastard children of the prostitutes are raised and disciplined into gangs that protect their mothers, “aunties,” and “uncles” as they work or walk the streets, tossing out any patrons that become too rough or who try to take without paying. On top of this, different gangs and groups compete to provide certain basic services throughout the city, from fresh water to fire protection to Matrix access, often sabotaging one another’s efforts over particularly lucrative contracts. Most of the locals don’t actually make a living from pirating, but from supporting the pirates. They raise crops and fell trees at the outskirts of the city, brew dangerous alcoholic concoctions and nasty homemade drugs from recipes beamed off a satlink, or fish in the surrounding waters. Some of the more ambitious ones make their own catamarans out of wood or scavenged densiplast and cheap engines to raid pirate ships that have drunk themselves senseless.

The Hundred Pearls Triad is the largest of the pirate groups that regularly dock at the city, often preying on corporate shipping (preferring to charge “tolls” or enforce protection rackets than actually board and sink ships), and regularly smuggle Kong Chips from the Ten Thousand Lions and red orchid from the Smoke Circle Society in Hong Kong. Their current rivals are the Witch Smeller N’geeri and her villainous crew; N’geeri was forced to flee from Azania after an altercation with Mujaji’s shamans and preys on Azanian shipping by preference. Aquatic mercenary companies sometimes make port here as well, usually when they’re looking for cheap muscle to help out on shipments to Dubai or Sri Lanka.

_____________

KARLSRUHE

THE CITY
The Karlsruhe Special Administrative Zone occupies a pivotal location in AGS politics and geography. Still officially under martial law, the city and surrounding district of Karlsruhe houses the Constitutional Court and the largest military garrison in the AGS – if not all of Europe.
Rebuilt substantially following the 2034 earthquakes and the Crash 2.0, which devastated its matrix infrastructure, the Karlsruhe metroplex combines 18th-century architectural ideals with 21st-century materials and construction, resulting in a fantastic gothic metropolis – at least, on the surface. Ghettos and unsightly modern structures often sit side-by-side with sculpted-plascrete monuments to an earlier age. Augmented Reality superimposes decoration onto the drab modern buildings and touches up the cracks and dilapidation of some of the older buildings.
The focus of this reconstruction is more than tourism, urban renewal, or civic beautification – Karlsruhe was constructed to be a powerful mana nexus, a mechanism for drawing in and perhaps redirecting mana from the most powerful domains in Europe. Restoration efforts and rituals carried out by various groups have managed to partially activate this device – each day, at exactly midnight, one of the “spokes” of the wheel activates, and the corresponding street becomes a manaline with a particular aspect for certain magical activities for 24 hours, when it deactivates and the next spoke (going widdershins) activates. This 32-day cycle is well-known in Karlsruhe magical society.
Not all of the experimentation and urban planning have resulted for the best, however. Karlsruhe is plagued by wild magic, periodic mana spikes and ebbs, and even reports of alchera and astral rifts. A number of paracritters have adapted to this urban environment, including a large population of gargoyles. Recently, a great deal of interest has been given to the sewers (the lowest levels of which are reputed to date to the 18th century, or earlier). These investigations have been stalled, however, because the sewers are the abode of hundreds of thousands of devil rats and demon rats. Regular patrols in the sewers suffer heavy casualties from these assaults, which urban legend purports are guided by a Rat King. The conditions have gotten so bad that the metroplex has instituted a Cull, offering 25 nuyen per pelt for devil rats and 200 nuyen per pelt for demon rats – no one knows how many desperate men and women have died attempting to collect the bounty.

Hotspots
The Hub – The castle at the heart of the 32 streets and the center of the pyramid, a nexus of magical and political power.
The University of Karlsruhe – Home of the local chapter of the Doctor Faustus Society and the New Karlsruhe Research Center, and home to several joint research programs with the Atlantean Foundation, the Dunkelzahn Institute of Magical Research, Charles University of Prague, and Saeder-Krupp.
The German Nuclear Research Center – Focuses mainly on the study of samples from the nearby SOX, but also involved in other research. Rumored to hold captured radiation spirits and a captured Winternight modified neutron bomb.
Turmberg – A former ruined castle, recently restored to act as an embassy for the government of the Troll Kingdom of the Black Forest.

THE PEOPLE
Karlsruhe houses a diverse and cosmopolitan population. A sizeable Jewish minority with a long history still resides in Karlsruhe, as does a large contingent of French expatriates and trolls from the Black Forest in the south.
Ethnically, the metroplex is extremely well integrated. Waves of émigrés from former German colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas have settled in the city during the troubles of the last century, forming small ethnic enclaves with a common German heritage.
Race relations are more divided, and tensions often flair over discrimination or acceptance of the troll and ogre population in the Black Forest, the result of the Great-Bandische Crusade, an underground racist organization started by the late Mayor Grabler.
Descrimination against magicians is low-level but widespread among Karlsruhe’s working class. The city suffered a horrible shedim infestation in 2061, which was only put down after heavy losses from both the military and the metroplex’s civilians. Every year since, on Walpurgis Night, shedim again attack the city. Magicians attribute this to a possible astral rift or gateway that opens in parts of the city sewers, but popular sentiment suggests it comes from magicians tinkering with the Hub.
Besides the indigenous population, Karlsruhe deals with a massive transitory population – the rotation of troops from other parts of the AGS, French workers that enter and leave the metroplex every day across the Rhine, and traffic from other parts of the AGS and Europe through the Autobahn, the Rhine, and the international airport.

THE ACTION
The military presence in the city limits many traditional criminal activities to the less-well patrolled sections of the metroplex, especially the ghettos. On the other hand, political intrigue operates on a massive scale, sometimes spilling into public view. Wizgangs and Street Covens claim and defend their territory from all takers, and the abundance of mercenaries occasionally seek illegal employment.

The Underworld

The bulk of the local underworld is involved in smuggling. The Organizatzi, as the local Vory are called, control the docks along the Rhine and thus smuggling from France and the United Netherlands, particularly BTLs and forged SINs. Their main opposition is a local Jewish ethnic mafia, the Shevuot, who have ties with the Nezeqin in Prague and possesses considerable influence in white collar crime and talislegging. Currently, the Shevuot are engaged in a bloody struggle to evict the Organizatzi and secure the Karlsruhe Underworld for themselves.

Industrial Manatech
A large percentage of Karlsruhe’s businesses cater to the needs of the garrison, but the bulk of the working population is employed in the burgeoning Manatech industry. Major players in this field include Universal Solvents LLC, a subsidiary of AG Chemie dedicated to the development of new magical compounds and awakened pharmaceuticals; Zeiss Mageworks, manufacturers of MageSight fiberoptic systems; and NuWorld Securities, an agricorp that specializes in awakened ivy, glomoss, guardian vines, and haven lilies.

Ruthenium Poncho and Enchanted Bayonet

Politics, magic, and the military are perceptibly linked in Karlsruhe, both in secret and in public. It’s an open secret that the Freemasons have insinuated themselves in local politics – which in this case is synonymous with the command structure of the local garrison – but what is not commonly known is that two different Masonic organizations are competing for control of the city: the Bavarian Illuminati and the Black Lodge. Outright magical manipulation of powerful figures is rare because of the high possibility of being caught, but adept spies, assassins, the threat of ritual magic, and divination-fueled blackmail are common tools. The local chapter of the Doctor Faustus Society has discreet ties to the Bavarian Illuminati, while the Black Lodge has contacts within the local Catholic Church.
Among the units of the AGS military stationed at Karlsruhe are the Strategic Thaumaturgy Group, small SWAT-style squads that integrate magicians, adepts, and manatech to locate and dispatch magical threats. MET 2000 also have a presence in the metroplex in order to recruit experienced soldiers from the garrison as mercenaries.

Adventure Ideas
- Bodyguard an Apep Consortium Egyptologist studying a vault beneath the pyramid-grave of the city founder – which requires the runners travel through three kilometers of devil-rat infested sewers.
- The Organizatzi hires the runners to start a fire in an ethnic Vietnamese neighborhood, and to plant false evidence point to it being set by residents in the neighboring Jewish quarter.
- A fanatical follower of the GBC hires the runners to break into the Turmberg and plant incriminating files pointing to dzoo-noo-qua (HMHVV-infected trolls) being secretly brought into the metroplex from the Black Forest.

FURTHER NOTES:
- Rats and bats are descended from the same distant ancestor. Now imagine if that common ancestor was an Awakened critter like a devil rat or demon rat. In other words, picture a large, hairless bat that is incredibly aggressive, capable of regenerating almost instantly from injuries, and able to direct the actions of its un-Awakened kin. That’s a fliederteufel, or “flying devil.”
- The flying devil is primarily an insectivore, and some Ebony Tower magus figured it would be a great idea to encourage these critters as a means to sniff out flesh-form insect spirits. It worked…except that after scouring the ‘plex of all the insect spirits, the damn flying rats didn’t leave. They’ve killed whole tribes of squatters in those abandoned warehouses by the Danube. And then there was the time that nosferatu got control of a swarm of the damn things.

- The high density of Awakened in Prague demands a constant stream of magical goods – both legal and illegal. It’s an open secret that the Jewish mob is a major supplier in the Prague shadows, smuggled in from their contacts throughout Europe and beyond - but what most people don’t know is the bulk of the refined reagents, fetishes, and ritual materials come from their cousins in Karlsruhe.
- The syndicates are pretty closed to outsiders – you have to be Jewish of course, and not just-converted Jewish, but Jewish for a generation or two – and they only accept members who have been vouched for by an existing member. Naturally, this means that they can get pretty short-handed. Runners can get work as muscle, smugglers, or just specialists.
- A lot of Karlsruhe’s underworld cant incorporates a number of Yiddish words.

- Prague is on the fractal edge of magical research, and produces volumes of formulae, theses, treatises, articles, journals, algorithms, programs, and files that are immediately dropped into corporate and national top-secret bins.
- What it doesn’t have is a comparable cottage industry in magical goods or manatech. There is a dedicated contingent of enchanters who specialize in foci-to-order, but corporate and university enchanting departments have most of their resources tied up in unique enchantment research.
- Many Prague institutions depend on or supplement their magical defenses with manatech devices including FAB systems, biofiber, and Awakened plants, which are produced in Karlsruhe. Manatech research is the primary genuine research that Karlsruhe engages in.
- The proximity of Karlsruhe to the SOX attracts a steady stream of Prague scholars and contributed to the development of the manapatch.

- To maintain the size of their standing garrison in Karlsruhe, the German government began enlisting German-speakers from former German colonies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in exchange for citizenship. As a result, Karlsruhe has a number of multi-ethnic neighborhoods.

_________________

Robert Derie: Oh, thinking back to drugtech and all that. Thought of unique air radicals as a drug, or possibly as a replacement for oxyrush. Too much of it, though, and you can't breathe normal air...interesting side effect, to say the least.
fastdos14: heh, facemasks as an indication of addiction
Robert Derie: Well, then I got weird. Picture an astral rift to the Metaplane of Air. Now picture guys in diving apparatus going through to collect unique air radicals.
fastdos14: whoa..odd. wouldn't have tohught of that
Robert Derie: <shrug>
Robert Derie: Anywho: Way of the Salaryman. I have lots of material. It's hard to get really complex and detailed subject matter across without sounding all textbooky.
Robert Derie: Trying to think of a good way to do it. Maybe an artsy film documentary clip, or something.
Robert Derie: Describe the scenes, see?
fastdos14: been having the same prob with other sections. How about doing handover notes
fastdos14: you write a document from one vp giving advice to an incoming vp
fastdos14: or any random position
fastdos14: I was thinking about it for bitter satori
Robert Derie: Hrm. Might work for Bitter Satori, but I think I need a broader -or at least more than one - perspective for Way.
fastdos14: true that. Maybe do an insder documentary type thing? diff corp perspectives and layout can divide it and make it cool looking
Robert Derie: How do you feel about the Neo-Tokyo Tower becoming a commercial concert venue? Huge plascrete bowl at the bottom of the tower with a stage at the center, send the signal to broadcast straight to the tower.
Robert Derie: Maybe an post-urban anthropology study.
fastdos14: ooh i like
Robert Derie: Aagh.
Robert Derie: I just found out what denki anma is.
fastdos14: what is it?
Robert Derie: Fake Japanese wrestling move. Girl standing on a guy's fork sort of thing.
Robert Derie: I have a possible solution for the 'gap' left by the asbence of the war shrine.
fastdos14: ?
Robert Derie: Gotokuji shrine in Western Tokyo - the Shrine of the Cat. Supposedly the origin of the maneki neko.
Robert Derie: Up the marketing a bit, sell the maneki neko...did you know it's traditional for successful businessmen to donate a torii (traditional gateway) to a shrine? Some of them have quite a few.


Robert Derie: Aye
Robert Derie: Ah, weel. How do you feel about the Neo-Tokyo Tower becoming a commercial concert venue? Huge plascrete bowl at the bottom of the tower with a stage at the center, send the signal to broadcast straight to the tower.
Robert Derie: Oops, that was meant for Malik.
Robert Derie: But Hell, I want your opinion too!
mike Otaku: About the Tokyo Tower, I'd have to check its actual location (and what is around it) before giving you an opinion
Robert Derie: Well, this is the third one, so it can go damn near anywhere. We're assuming the current model and the one they're putting up are torn down (or, at the least, non-important).
mike Otaku: Right, I forgot the earthquakes
mike Otaku: In this case I think it can be a pretty cool concert stage. With the spotlights attachec to the 1st floor above the ground floor. You could have plenty of cables and things hanging over the stage. 360° view on the stage. Artist entering on the stage floor by an elevator in the middle going up to the 1st floor (or is it 2nd floor for you americans?)
Robert Derie: Depends on where you're at, but generally we say 'ground floor' and then '2nd floor'
Robert Derie: I was thinking that the tower construction would require corporate sponsorship anyway, and you need a venue for the bands - the bigger ones are practically corporate entities in their own right, the idoru can be projected holograms to perform...
mike Otaku: so, that's 2nd floor I meant. The first of the elevated storry in the tower
Robert Derie: Right.
mike Otaku: Bottom of the bowl is below ground floor. Rows of seats from around the stage up to Ground floor (and probably a bit above too, so that you walk in in the middle rows), and lights and tech support on the 2nd floor
Robert Derie: And below the stage, for your elevator.
Robert Derie: THink I might have a solution for the 'gap' in the chapter from the war shrine.
mike Otaku: Nope, the elevator would be some kind of glass pillar in the center of the stage, linking the bottom of the bowl (the stage) to the tech support/artist lodges above in the 2nd floor. That'd make for some spectacular entrances
Robert Derie: Ah, the descent-from-heaven route. Gotcha.
mike Otaku: yup
Robert Derie: Anywho: Gotokuji. Shrine of the Cat, supposedly where the Maneki Neko was created, is in Tokyo.
Robert Derie: Ramp up the corporate marketing bit a couple degrees and I think we've got a winner.
mike Otaku: Of course this needs to be well protected from the elements. Torrential rains are common in Japan, around the end of summer. And a bowl shaped concert stage wouldn't like to become a fish bowl
Robert Derie: Drains in the floor, maybe a tarp for when things get really bad.
Robert Derie: Anywho, it'll keep the bums out.

regelphex: read the text !
ancient0history: Huh?
regelphex: Corp Enclaves
ancient0history: Reed or red?
regelphex: from reading
ancient0history: So you read the Places draft?
regelphex: exactly (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
ancient0history: Okay. Wasn't sure exactly. Damn English.
regelphex: I have an excuse. I am not a native speaker (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
ancient0history: We have two words that are spelt the same but pronounced differently.
regelphex: i know
ancient0history: Yeah. Sorry. Whatcha think?
regelphex: overall I think its excellent...
regelphex: there is A LOT of useful stuff that hasn't been covered so far elsewhere...
ancient0history: Thankee. Still needs tightening up, though.
ancient0history: Watada house is probably going to go into the Syndicates chapter.
ancient0history: We might have to cut Takonashi, though I hope it can stay in. It neatly continues three seperate metaplots.
ancient0history: Ipissimus is one of those "WTF didn't I think of this during Street Magic?" things.
ancient0history: And the voice of the author needs to be made more Japanese and specific to the character.
ancient0history: I'd like to expand on the surrounding countries a bit, but I need to steal some wordcount for that.
regelphex: by overall problem is shadowtalk
regelphex: you have way to much of it
ancient0history: Yeah, there is that too. First thing to take the weedwacker to.
regelphex: the Tsjuki Fish Market is just fluff...
regelphex: if something has to be cut for WC I would go for it
ancient0history: I'm hoping to make it sexier, since it was in the initial proposal.
regelphex: I especially like the Black Shogun and the log insert
ancient0history: Maybe the whale breeding pens or megadalons...
regelphex: the Ipissiumus is also extremly cool..
ancient0history: Yeah, I wasn't sure how the Black Shogun would do over. I do like it, though.
regelphex: and don't mind that you did not think about it for SM, ists better placed here
regelphex: the Baka Kia episode sounds too much Emergence..
regelphex: and I would add least for one person in the text add a short profile...
ancient0history: Yeah. Since CE is supposed to take place during Emergence I figured tempers might still be flaring.
ancient0history: Not happy with it, though.
regelphex: either Ghost Face Woman, the fixe Take Ono
regelphex: fixer
ancient0history: If we have short profiles, they'll probably be in the Runners section.
ancient0history: But I will pass the idea along to Malik.
regelphex: regarding the Trading Partners section...
regelphex: WHY HAWAI'I?
regelphex: Why is everyone so obsessed with it...
regelphex: its too far away
ancient0history: It's fairly important, actually in the Pacific, actually.
ancient0history: -actually
ancient0history: It is also incredibly corporatized, nearly controlled by the Japanese, and Ryumyo has a vassal there.
ancient0history: Hell, they even have a local Yakuza gumi.
ancient0history: Granted, the whole section may end up on the cutting room floor.
ancient0history: Does that answer your question?
regelphex: hm..nevertheless I would think that it is more useful to cover Korea, Russia, China, and SouthEast Asia with laying a focus on the Philippines
ancient0history: Southeast Asia is a big place. I did give considerable thought to Singapore, Inc.
regelphex: BTW...will the chapter contain intros to japanese metavariants...
regelphex: ?
ancient0history: Anyway, we'll see how many words we can spare
regelphex: like you did for the menehune?
ancient0history: Japanese metavariants are covered in the Overview.
regelphex: or Fox Shapeshifters..
ancient0history: Like the menehune.
ancient0history: Kitsune? heh. Them and two-tailed blackberry cats, eh? If I have wordcount
regelphex: I liked that you took over the Gaki from SoA
ancient0history: I'm a walking trivia fountain. Had to at least make mention.
ancient0history: No stats, however. Those are saved for the Runner Companion.
regelphex: what I missed as little is a lit of that japanese pop culture...
ancient0history: yeah. Working on that.
regelphex: it is a little bit in the gambling (cool stuff BTW)
ancient0history: You don't think I went overboard?
regelphex: no I think it is good as is...
ancient0history: 'k
ancient0history: I really appreciate the feedback, Lars. Thanks.
regelphex: no prob

______________________

THE GOING RATE: How Much To Pay Your Runner Team

By Robert Derie

The Going Rate
Part of the setting in a campaign is the going rate, or how much a Mr. Johnson can expect to have to shell out to get a particular job done. Like any other part of the economy, the going rate is determined by supply and demand. If the streets are swarming with wannabes, a team of shadowrunners might have to fight just to get a low-paying job; if a particular runner team is the only one in the sprawl that can get the job done, they can expect higher rates.
No matter the job, the Mr. Johnson, or the reputation of the team, the price offered for a run should be commensurate with the difficulties the shadowrunners should expect to face. Shadowrunners undertake dangerous, illegal actions that can result in injury, prison, or death, and they expect proper compensation.
There is no magic formula that can tell a gamemaster exactly how much her group of players should get per run, but a good rule of thumb is to base it on the cost of the average lifestyle in her campaign. Keep in mind that shadowrunners usually only manage one shadowrun per month, so average runs should at least cover the monthly payment for that character, plus a little extra to cover the runners’ expenses incurred during the run. Difficult or very dangerous shadowruns should set the character up for a couple of months at their current lifestyle, or a month at the next higher lifestyle. Details on lifestyle costs can be found on page 261 in Shadowrun, Fourth Edition. Characters who wish to maintain a higher lifestyle than the average you set for your campaign can do so–all they have to do is work more often or pursue higher-paying jobs. Many campaigns creep toward higher lifestyles as characters become more powerful and the scope of runs increases.
It is up to the gamemaster to provide players with the proper incentive to accept a Mr. Johnson’s offer without disrupting the balance of the campaign. A gamemaster who consistently offers low fees for dangerous work frustrates her players, while “sugar daddy” gamemasters who give too much nuyen for too little effort often find their campaigns running out of control.

Negotiation
In the stereotypical shadowrun, the players sit rapt in attention as the gamemaster, in the persona of Mr. Johnson, delivers the pitch. After she’s finished, it’s time for the fun part: haggling. Most players have come to expect (and enjoy) a bit of dickering over the price. While ideally the negotiations should be roleplayed between the gamemaster (as Mr. Johnson) and the face or spokesman of the group–after all, social situations are where face characters excel–the relevant rules for negotiations can be found on p.121 of Shadowrun, Fourth Edition. Gamemasters should keep in mind the Social Modifiers Table on p.122 as well; most professional Mr. Johnsons are Neutral to any shadowrunners they are hiring, though racist or biased Mr. Johnsons may start out as Prejudiced or even Hostile. If the Mr. Johnson is planning to betray the runners, they may accede to the runners demands after token resistance.
Only the most inexperienced Mr. Johnsons offer the full amount they are willing to pay in their initial offer. A good rule of thumb is to have Mr. Johnson initially offer 80-85% of the total, and then bargain with the characters, raising the price by 5% for every net hit the shadowrunner scores, and lowering the price 5% for every net hit the Mr. Johnson. Players feel a sense of accomplishment if they can raise the price up 15-20%, never knowing that they are being paid no more than what Mr. Johnson expected to pay them. Mr. Johnsons do not have limitless resources, however, and no Mr. Johnson will raise the price over 120-125% of what they intended to pay the runners.
If the runners repeatedly attempt to raise the price after the Mr. Johnson has signaled the end of the negotiations, remind them that Mr. Johnson can walk out and find plenty of other shadowrunners to do his dirty work for the price he offers.

The Advance
As a show of good faith, cover necessary expenses, and “sweeten the pot” during negotiations, a Mr. Johnson will typically advance each of the runners 10-15% of their pay up front. Player characters may negotiate to increase the percentage of their pay upfront with another Negotiation test, as outlined above, with each net hit increase or decreasing the size of the advance by 5%. Under no conditions will a Mr. Johnson advance the player characters more than 50% of their final take.

Alternate Forms of Payment
A Mr. Johnson will give a runner team as much information and assistance he deems necessary to get the assignment done. Reasonable expenses are acceptable, provided the shadowrunners had the foresight to include them in the negotiations, and the interests that the Mr. Johnson represents (if he does not represent his own) may be able to assist the characters with semi-specialized equipment or information. This is especially true if the runners are in a foreign sprawl or country, where they lack the contacts to obtain basic gear. If the shadowrunners make absurd requests or require Mr. Johnson to ferret out information they should be able to obtain on their own, their fee should be reduced accordingly.
When nuyen isn’t sufficient by itself, a Mr. Johnson may sweeten the pot by offering gear or services that shadowrunners could not easily obtain on their own. Megacorps and syndicates could swap out weapons, programs and equipment (at –20-50% of the listed price) in exchange for nuyen, while a magical group might offer instruction, access to their facilities, magical goods, or even a grimoire of spell formulae. If player characters include a request for certain items in the negotiation process, most Mr. Johnsons are ready and willing to agree–provided they have access to such equipment, of course.
In street level campaigns, a person or group without sufficient cred may try to hire the runner team by trading goods and services. Such runs make excellent roleplaying opportunities, and the gamemaster should be careful in making the payoff worth it to the runners in the end. A group of player characters who save a restaurant from a gang might be able to eat their for free for a month, taking 5% off their lifestyle costs, while a team that saves the gunsmith’s kidnapped daughter from being raped might earn a Major Favor (See Favors, p. 280, Shadowrun, Fourth Edition).
Variety is the spice of life, as they say, and being paid by Mr. Johnson is no exception. Every now and again, a Mr. Johnson may not pay the runners with certified credsticks or wire the nuyen directly into a bank account under one of the runners’ assumed names. A Mr. Johnson could show up with a suitcase filled with bundles of old nuyen notes–or even foreign currencies like CAS dollars or Quebec francs. Corporate Mr. Johnsons may pay runners in corporate scrip, a type of currency issued and redeemed by one of the Big Ten megacorporations, and which can be used (if you have the right fake ID) to shop at corporate stores (which usually have –20-50% discounts on select equipment, and only accept corporate scrip). In some sprawls, underworld markers and corporate or government bonds are the preferred payment, which the runners can redeem for nuyen from whoever issued them. Mr. Johnsons in corporate employ are particularly fond of paying runners in stock, as it discourages shadowrunners from doing anything that will reduce the company’s stock price (at least, until the runners manage to sell the stock). Runners without the time or patience to deal with alternate forms of payment can exchange them for nuyen through a fixer.
Non-tangible payment can take the form of information (where the runner’s friend is being held, the passcode to a datacrèche with material to blackmail the local district attorney, the schedule of the next shipment of Ares weapons coming in on the docks, etc.), a valid SIN, a six-month DocWagon contract, or an introduction to a potential contact.

The Paymaster
In most Shadowrun campaigns, the player characters will be employed and paid by a Mr. Johnson. Some campaigns may have someone else footing the bill for the characters: government and megacorporate agents will receive steady paychecks and be issued (or able to check out) equipment as needed; a group of syndicate enforcers may be given a piece of territory to run as a reward for proving themselves; and legitimate private investigators, mercenaries, and security consultants have standardized rates for their customers.
If the character receives a regular stipend of paycheck, it should be a monthly allotment suitable to maintain the characters at a given lifestyle, or a lifestyle will be provided (on a megacorporate or government installation, for example); the higher they get in the ranks, the higher the lifestyle, the more perks, and the better quality of toys, training, and equipment they have access to. Player characters that work for syndicates are usually initiated members (“Made” members of the Mafia, Yazuka kobun, etc.) and are “taken care of” by the syndicate; most or all of their lifestyle costs will be paid for through favors and services owed to the syndicate. Additionally, syndicate members typically receive a cut of the take in any robbery or illegal operation they take part in. Private investigator and mercenary campaigns operate much like shadowruns, but all negotiations are legal and the players will need to sign formal contracts to seal the deal.

Bonuses and Penalties
At the end of a shadowrun, when the players meet with Mr. Johnson again to settle up, it’s common for the players to be assessed bonuses and penalties based on their performance. If the players have done well and accomplished all the aspects of their mission within the parameters, Mr. Johnson may give them a small (5-10% of payment for the run) bonus. A tip, basically. It is also typical that a Mr. Johnson may purchase any useful paydata or items of interest to his employer at this time, which saves the runners from going to their fence. Runners who fail to complete one or more parts of the mission, or who act in an unprofessional matter and cause needless secondary damage will find their Mr. Johnson unwilling to pay the full amount (–5-10% per infraction, to a maximum of 50% unless the runners totally bollix things up).
It is a fact of life in the shadows that most runners end their careers dead or maimed. If negotiated ahead of time, a Mr. Johnson may pay a set amount toward hospital fees or to the fallen runner’s family. Mr. Johnsons who have not agreed to this obligation will pay the original amount to the team, to be split as they desire, or even pay each living runner their share and pocket the change.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is the absolute minimum payment professional runners should expect to receive for different services. The table below is included as a reference for gamemasters to use in their games. Gamemasters are recommended to use the table as a guide when adjusting payments to fit their campaigns.
If the shadowrunners ever need to hire anyone else to do something for them, these are the minimum prices they can expect to pay for their fellow shadowrunners’ services.

CODE
BASELINE SHADOWRUN PAYMENT TABLE
Assassination    5,000¥
Bodyguard/Security Duty    200¥ per day
Burglary    2,000¥
Courier Run    1,000¥
Datasteal    20% value of data
Distraction    1,000¥
Destruction    5,000¥
Enforcement    1,000¥
Encryption/Decryption    200¥ x Encryption Rating
Extraction    20,000¥
Hacking    1,000¥ x Firewall
Investigation    200¥ per day
Smuggling Run    5,000¥


___________________


[1] 15th century iron dagger from Benin, used for ritual sacrifice to summon and bind Vodu gods into service

[2] The Grand Grimoire, claimed to date from 1522 but probably written in the 19th century. The book is called "Le Veritable Dragon Rouge" ("The Red Dragon") in Haiti, where it is revered among many practitioners of Vodou and Santeria.

[3] The Great Book of Saint Cyprian, many consider it a sin to possess it or even to touch it. Some owners of book shops keep it chained inside a box.

[4] Mojo bag with a bone from a black cat, the left hind foot of a rabbit killed in a gravyard at midnight with a silver bullet, a lodestone and a John the Conqueror Root

[5] Yoruba drum

[6] Bleached metahuman skull

[7] Fetish made from a chickenfoot on a leather thong to be worn around the neck.

[8] Black silk suitcoat, pants, and tophat with silver-handled black cane
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Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 02:14 AM
Post #2


Great Dragon
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Oops, missed one, an early thought experiment on what would be Ghost Cartels:

AMRITA (Dreamsnuff, InnerCense, RainBlow)
A handful of rainbow-colored crystals, Amrita is typically crushed and powdered before being snorted or absorbed in any bodily orifice; it may also be chewed or smoked, mixed into an oily, color-slicked pharmaceutical solution and injected, and is even available as clear gel tablets, rainbow-derms, and poppers for the rich-kids. Known on the streets as Dreamsnuff, InnerCense or RainBlow, Amrita is a potent hallucinogenic compound, increasing the sharpness and sensitivity of every being's innate psychic senses, even giving brief, maddening glances at the astral (usually no more than a few seconds at a time, with the astral visions occurring with greater frequency and duration as the user approaches the climax of their high).

The downside, undiscernable except over long periods of time, is that the user begins to develop a distinct haze of astral pollution around them. This pollution, mechanically similar to the karma hazing developed by cyberzombies, exacerbates the negative effects of the user's brief views of the astral, especially if several heavy addicts are gathered together. This astral cloud is always a reflection of the subject's negative emotions, and can trigger flashbacks or give others who assense the character information on their greatest sins or failings. For example, an abusive parent might have his aura stained with the repeated phrase "I beat my kids." Theoretical thaumaturges believe this "karmic pollution" is actually a side effect of some karma or energy being lost from the addicts, but there is no sign of actual Essence or Karma loss except in the worst cases, and that no different than in any other severe drug addicts.

The origins of the drug can be traced to the semi-successfuly bioengineering experiments run by the Ghost Cartels. Through selected breeding, cross-fertilization, and a bit of luck they have managed to breed several different varieties of strange and unusual coca plants-but nothing that can produce what they need in quantity. That changes when one of their prime plants is inhabited by a free spirit. The spirit can provide the raw material (in the form of radical reagents with its Wealth power and the unique biology of its merged body) for a new Awakened drug to be produced in bulk, and even cuttings that can grow into new plants.
(+3 to all Perception tests related to magic, including Assensing tests)

Negative Quality: Long time users, even without the drug, might experience a unique form of flashbacks where in periods of stress (determined by the gamemaster) they experience brief, hallucinogenic flashes of astral perception. Essentially, this means they gain a Magic of 1 that can never be increased. While astrally perceiving in this fashion, the subject also experiences headaches, convulsions, and is generally incapacitated and incapable of other activity. Characters that know that these episodes are actually instances of astral perception can try to make use of them, by means of learning the Assensing skill (the only magical skill they can learn), but they cannot control the timing or duration of the astral perception.

Prologue:
Dona Rowena O'Malley discusses the disturbing happenings on the street with Saturn, head of the Order of Merlyn.
Chapter 1:
Things begin in week 3. There are rumblings in the party scenes and on the streets of Hong Kong and Seattle. Something new, something wild. The flash drug of choice. Very small, very select, this is just another by-line item for this week's posting on latest nanosecond trends, right? Wrong. This one is weird.
Nephrine takes the stage, with Winterhawk doing back-up on the magic angle, to provide a short but detailed brief on Awakened drugs. This is the same chemical showing up in two sprawls, almost identical, with astounding effects. It cannot be coincidence-so the question is, who is dealing, and why?
The answers come from the runners on the street. In Seattle, Kay St. Irregular gives the dirty on the Ku'mongo Ring and the Dogmen. In Honk Kong, Jimmy No talks about the Black Crysanthemums.
Chapter 2:
This is week 12. Violence has begun to break out in Seattle and Hong Kong, and reports come in of the drug in Los Angeles and Neo-Tokyo as well. More about the drug comes out as user testimonials come in. The magical community begins to take an interest as well.
Overview by Mihoshi Oni on the Neo-Tokyo trade, let by the Mita-gumi (Jurojin's faction), and by Sticks on the Los Angeles trade (led by a local AmerInd gang-no Aztlaner connections). Sunshine and others attempt to trace the origins of the drug.
Chapter 3:
Week 24. This section opens with Lone Star and Interpol reports on the increasing gang and syndicate activity in many sprawls. Scattered reports of RainBlow being dealt in cities throughout the Ring of Fire. First hints of secondary effects.
Week 26. Nephrine publishes a shadow-account of the drug, its nature and effects, though he cannot pinpoint its origin. Knight Errant surprises many by announcing at a conference that the source of the drug is <insert name> of Latin America. The 'brujah' begin reinforcing the local distributors.
Week 27. A major breakthrough as Interpol seizes a large shipment (which can be stolen back in an adventure track), with some evidence that it was meant for a corporate buyer interested in other uses of the drug. Enforcement agencies interfere with the conflict.
Chapter 4:
Week 29. Led by the brujah, the conflict continues unabated. Several sprawls, notably Seattle and Neo-Tokyo, have resorted to limited military deployment to cease gang violence. Precision assassinations take out mundane warhawks while Ares Firewatch teams handle brujah and Awakened assets.
Week 30. First drug casaulties. Rumormongering of the origins of the drug, attempts to reverse engineer it or push similar products, warnings of what to look out for, addicts in cracked-down sprawls going through withdrawal (notable for Martyr's Tears, crying black or bloody fluids).
Week 33. Renewed violence. A breakaway sect of the Ghost Cartel has allied with the Mita-gumi.
Chapter 5:
Major showdown in Caracas. A massive joint task force of law enforcement and associated corporate and government agencies sweeps in to Caracas, capturing several key figures in the organization. In sprawls around the rim, distributors and chemists sell themselves into service to whichever gang or syndicate they feel can protect or pay them enough. The remnants of the Ghost Cartel fade away into the jungle, beyond the reach of the law.

The key components of an Awakened drug are that they have a mineral or biological basis that cannot be synthesized, they can be mass-produced, and they provide a noticeably unique or stronger effect than other drugs. Generally speaking, this means cultivating a paracritter or Awakened plant, both of which are relatively rare and can be difficult or dangerous to manage, in large quantities. There are other options, but those tend to be more fantastic, such as mining a particular Awakened mineral or using the by-products of alchemical refining operations.

The ideal solution is an Awakened plant that can be hybridized with existing coca plants, either through grafts (cutting off a branch of an Awakened plant and attaching it to the coca plant), crosspollination (using pollen from one plant to fertilize another), genetic recombination (hit or miss, since the sequences you’re trying to transplant and probably metatraits, and the results are likely non-viable), or a combination of these techniques. There are other methods, such as particular environmental factors (grown under magical light, specific fertilizers, etc.), deliberate attempts at mutation (involving direct exposure to radiation or some toxic mutagen), or infection with a species-specific virus or bacterium, but these are generally out of the price range for a syndicate.
Assuming
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Mantis
post Apr 22 2010, 07:22 AM
Post #3


Running Target
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Cool ideas. I'll need to read over it more when I'm more awake. Thanks for posting this. I had to bump it so it would still be here in the morning (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
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Demonseed Elite
post Apr 22 2010, 12:19 PM
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This is going to make me want to dig up old proposals that I've long since buried. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
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Fuchs
post Apr 22 2010, 12:27 PM
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Tehran looks ready to be plugged in a campaign.
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Ascalaphus
post Apr 22 2010, 12:29 PM
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Teheran and Karlsruhe look pretty cool yeah.
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AngelisStorm
post Apr 22 2010, 12:44 PM
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That's some cool info. I'm specifically bummed that Desert Wars didn't get picked up; from reading the proposal it sounds interesting.
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Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 12:47 PM
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Desert Wars Extreme was actually going to tie in to this big Missions campaign...but it never panned out. <shrug>
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Bira
post Apr 22 2010, 12:59 PM
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Is the "baseline prices" table per runner, or per group?
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Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 01:48 PM
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Per individual, baseline minimums.

The damned thing is, I don't know when I wrote that article or why.
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Fuchs
post Apr 22 2010, 01:53 PM
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QUOTE (Ancient History @ Apr 22 2010, 03:48 PM) *
Per individual, baseline minimums.

The damned thing is, I don't know when I wrote that article or why.


Properties of the file doesn't state when it was created?
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Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 02:40 PM
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Sure, but that doesn't mean anything. When I create a file and when I actually get around to writing it are often completely different times.
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Dumori
post Apr 22 2010, 03:32 PM
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Last time edited?
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Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 03:34 PM
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Would be when I opened it to copy and paste here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
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kjones
post Apr 22 2010, 03:51 PM
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This is great stuff, AH! Thanks for posting. The Tehran info is fascinating - it makes me want to set my next game there.

However, you have provided me with a convenient excuse to vent about something that's been bugging me - you mention that Desert Wars would have started out with the usual 50 pages of shadowtalk. I find that I appreciate that stuff much more when it's distributed more liberally throughout the book - Ghost Cartels, in particular, suffers from this, although Emergence does it too.

I don't want to over-generalize and say "all shadowtalk is pointless natter", since I loved Renraku Arcology: Shutdown, which is full of that kind of stuff. It would be cool if there were some serious discussion among the writers as to whether or not that's a good way to format the campaign books, like GC.
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Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 04:00 PM
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Oh Jeebus, did we have format wars. Believe that. Nobody ever declared that Ghost Cartels or Emergence or System Failure was the one be-all, end-all format of our dreams. The problem of how to get the information across to the readers (players and gamemasters) has long been a point of contention.
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otakusensei
post Apr 22 2010, 05:25 PM
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I want to know what those damn Shedim are up to...
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Patrick Goodman
post Apr 22 2010, 05:33 PM
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QUOTE (Ancient History @ Apr 22 2010, 10:00 AM) *
Oh Jeebus, did we have format wars. Believe that. Nobody ever declared that Ghost Cartels or Emergence or System Failure was the one be-all, end-all format of our dreams. The problem of how to get the information across to the readers (players and gamemasters) has long been a point of contention.

And will be for some time to come, I'm sure.
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Ancient History
post Apr 22 2010, 07:56 PM
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Yeaaaah...
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outlawpoet
post Apr 22 2010, 09:45 PM
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Does anybody know if any upcoming books, War!, Almanac, etc, might touch on the Desert Wars? It's been hit tangentally in a few books, merc relations with it, etc, but none of the books I have actually seem to define what the Desert Wars really are.

They're clearly staged, major events, with most megacorps and MET2000 and so on participating, but are they blunted conflicts? computer-aided laser tag in the desert? Do they really try to kill each other? Are there "stars" in Desert Wars? points? a playoff bracket?

I really am fascinated by the idea of mass, major war in the Shadowrun universe, the RAW implications of combat on that scale are really interesting. Also, as a social phenomena, what a strange sideshow that must be. If they're really doing full combat, how do the troops going there to die feel about it? Is it a punishment? An honor? Is there side shadowbiz involved? Sabotage, rigging battles? I can't believe there hasn't been a whole book about it before now.
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BookWyrm
post Apr 22 2010, 10:01 PM
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AH, there are times when your genius is downright frightening but in a cool way......
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kjones
post Apr 22 2010, 10:13 PM
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QUOTE (outlawpoet @ Apr 22 2010, 04:45 PM) *
Does anybody know if any upcoming books, War!, Almanac, etc, might touch on the Desert Wars? It's been hit tangentally in a few books, merc relations with it, etc, but none of the books I have actually seem to define what the Desert Wars really are.

They're clearly staged, major events, with most megacorps and MET2000 and so on participating, but are they blunted conflicts? computer-aided laser tag in the desert? Do they really try to kill each other? Are there "stars" in Desert Wars? points? a playoff bracket?

I really am fascinated by the idea of mass, major war in the Shadowrun universe, the RAW implications of combat on that scale are really interesting. Also, as a social phenomena, what a strange sideshow that must be. If they're really doing full combat, how do the troops going there to die feel about it? Is it a punishment? An honor? Is there side shadowbiz involved? Sabotage, rigging battles? I can't believe there hasn't been a whole book about it before now.


I, too, think that an in-depth examination of full-scale war in the context of SR4 would be fascinating, but I think that the fact that the rules really, really don't support it might be what's holding it back.
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outlawpoet
post Apr 22 2010, 10:40 PM
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QUOTE (kjones @ Apr 22 2010, 05:13 PM) *
I, too, think that an in-depth examination of full-scale war in the context of SR4 would be fascinating, but I think that the fact that the rules really, really don't support it might be what's holding it back.


Yeah, the results of mass combat really depend on how you apply the rules, and what mix of people and technology you put into it. I can make a case for magicians and spirits owning all, for air power destroying everything, for cyberzombies ripping apart classic tank squadrons and infantry like paper, it's very confusing, in terms of what a 2070s military force would look like, at the high end. Hopefully War! will get into this a bit.

What I'm worried about is something like what happened in Rifts ten years ago, when they started publishing that War in Tolkeen series, where the antimagic Coalition basically stomps on a magic kingdom, when any application of combat rules I could find had Tolkeen massively favored, even at the numerical disadvantage there were in. How to resolve a metaplot that ignores combat rules?

It's maddening to my OCD mind. I can't even read novels set in RPG worlds usually because they ignore game system implications. Like Forgotten Realms novels that fall apart because everybody ignores say, spells over fourth level, or the existence of fucking clerics.
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Fuchs
post Apr 22 2010, 11:21 PM
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QUOTE (outlawpoet @ Apr 23 2010, 12:40 AM) *
It's maddening to my OCD mind. I can't even read novels set in RPG worlds usually because they ignore game system implications. Like Forgotten Realms novels that fall apart because everybody ignores say, spells over fourth level, or the existence of fucking clerics.


Yeah. Biggest problem with the novels is that 99% of them are not D&D, but some low-fantasy using the same names.

Greenwood at least gets closer to D&D, including the "and the final tally of the dead will be known once the ressurection spells are cast, and we know who did not come back" bit.
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Ascalaphus
post Apr 22 2010, 11:26 PM
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Er, could someone please explain what exactly Desert Wars are? They're mentioned everywhere, but explanations seem scarce..
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