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> Local Guides/Sourcebooks., Your area, your way.
Synner667
post May 19 2010, 06:59 AM
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Someone mentioned setting up a thread for local guides/threads, so here it is...

The official SR sourcebooks are lacking in the areas that they cover [some surprisingly so], or provide only sketchy info...
...But many of you have filled in those gaps, making the world a richer, more interesting, more exciting place to explore and enjoy SR in.

So, here's a place to share your information, or collaborate with others to bring your local guides to the masses, or provide links to where your info already exists.

You know the kind of stuff...
...Streetgossip, locals companies, people worth mentioning, gangs, locations, town guides, etc.

If there's enough info, maybe it's worth me putting together some PDFs of what's posted here and I'll even set some space aside for hosting.


Enjoy...
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toturi
post May 19 2010, 07:07 AM
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Might be interesting.

I'll see if I can squeeze some time to cover South East Asia.
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Whipstitch
post May 19 2010, 07:17 AM
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I've often been tempted to write up a whole mess of stuff about the MSP 'plex, but since I live where people are even more familiar with the area than I am or have hardly any had any game experience at all and thus get up to speed quicker if I stick with the iconic SR places like Seattle. Lately I've been sticking with Hong Kong where I can butcher things without so much fuss. ; )
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nemafow
post May 19 2010, 08:42 AM
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I think the only thing you need to know about my area is, dropbears.
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Megu
post May 19 2010, 07:04 PM
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OK, I put Minneapolis-St. Paul up on rapidshare.

http://rapidshare.com/files/389265739/MSPMetroplexD2.pdf
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Synner667
post May 19 2010, 07:13 PM
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QUOTE (Megu @ May 19 2010, 08:04 PM) *
OK, I put Minneapolis-St. Paul up on rapidshare.

http://rapidshare.com/files/389265739/MSPMetroplexD2.pdf

Lookin' good...
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Aristotle
post May 20 2010, 01:45 AM
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Neat! I had a website I was going to build called "Target: Hometown" to host this exact sort of writeup. I wasn't sure it would generate any interest. Guess I was wrong. I'll have to see if I can find my writeup of Hanover, PA.
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kigmatzomat
post May 20 2010, 02:11 AM
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I got a jones about that a few years ago, so here's my completely unofficial and not really canon version of Louisville setting. That's in thread form but I've got it on my Google site in MS Word, which has some maps and images.
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BookWyrm
post May 20 2010, 04:49 AM
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Reminds me of a project I tried to start back before the novel Steel Rain came out. I wanted to get a few fellow SR players together, try to co-ordinate a sourcebook about Long Island in 2050. I initially imagined it a kind of almost-ghost town, mostly with warehouses and barely-operational businesses (most of them subsidiaries of subsidiaries of--ad infinitum), making it a good breeding ground for gang activity, potential shadowrunners and plenty of R&D espionage.
Then Steel Rain came out, and made everything beyond the Queens/Nassau border into the East Coast version of the Tokyo suburbs.
The few players I got interested into the project, a lot of other things cropped up and the timing just killed it. It never made it to paper.
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hermit
post May 20 2010, 11:35 AM
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Hm. I have some files containing most what I found on Philadelphia and New York and the surrounding places - novels, though, and likely as not dated with the Rotten Apple 2 writeup (though I'll check and may merge them if they mesh okay).

And am working on a Venice writeup that offers more than 1,5 pages in Shadows of Europe. Nothing local though, as that has both been extensively covered in publications AND totally fucked up.
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Daddy's Litt...
post May 20 2010, 06:11 PM
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I live outside Philly and grew up outside NYC and went to school in Brooklyn. If you want send the file to me to look through. Philly actually could be really cool. Include Camden NJ and you've got barrens. Go north of the city only a few miles and it gets very green very quick and for spirits there are all sorts of historical sites.
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alltheraz
post May 20 2010, 08:17 PM
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QUOTE (Megu @ May 19 2010, 02:04 PM) *
OK, I put Minneapolis-St. Paul up on rapidshare.

http://rapidshare.com/files/389265739/MSPMetroplexD2.pdf


Long time lurker, first time poster.

Got to say, though, very nice job on this Megu. The gangs are...interesting, but colorful. It seems very well researched overall.

Maybe the only thing I would have added was something about Mankato. Its a bit south of the cities, but I can't imagine, given its history as the location of the largest public mass execution in U.S. history (of Sioux prisoners, actually) that its astral effects wouldn't be notable (and likely problematic).
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Whipstitch
post May 20 2010, 08:37 PM
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Yeah, my only potential gripe would be that it's a pinch Hmong centric, but since the is a somewhat unique quality of the area I suppose I could see why emphasizing it would be a good way of injecting some flavor even if hispanics and blacks are still the faster growing minorities. I like that someone remembers Dapper Danny.
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Megu
post May 21 2010, 12:39 AM
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QUOTE (alltheraz @ May 20 2010, 03:17 PM) *
Long time lurker, first time poster.

Got to say, though, very nice job on this Megu. The gangs are...interesting, but colorful. It seems very well researched overall.

Maybe the only thing I would have added was something about Mankato. Its a bit south of the cities, but I can't imagine, given its history as the location of the largest public mass execution in U.S. history (of Sioux prisoners, actually) that its astral effects wouldn't be notable (and likely problematic).


Honestly, I'm such a city kid that I feared my players knew much more about Mankato than I would. I was more worried about the astral effects of the big nasty concrete plant, actually.

Anyways, glad you mostly liked it. ^-^
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Megu
post May 21 2010, 12:48 AM
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QUOTE (Whipstitch @ May 20 2010, 03:37 PM) *
Yeah, my only potential gripe would be that it's a pinch Hmong centric, but since the is a somewhat unique quality of the area I suppose I could see why emphasizing it would be a good way of injecting some flavor even if hispanics and blacks are still the faster growing minorities. I like that someone remembers Dapper Danny.


Part of it was to give it a unique flavor, for sure, but it's also the fact that I'm majoring in Linguistics with a focus on Hmong language, so it's kind of what I'm interested in and know about. I would have had a really hard time adding it in there if I'd had to do all of it as outside research on the culture. So at the end of the day, maybe it is too much and is just me showing off; I don't know. I tried to justify it in-universe with the mention of another wave of migration from South China after the People's Republic breaks up, to reinforce the demographics, but that may step on toes with canon's Asia. And I've been figuring a lot of the Latino population would have joined or would be immigrating to the NAN rather than the UCAS, so that explains why that's a little toned down, aside from the West Side segment.

And yeah, I kind of wanted to dabble in the flavor of Prohibition St. Paul a bit, hence the Mafia presence and the Wabasha Caves, and things like that.
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Whipstitch
post May 21 2010, 12:51 AM
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I probably only noticed because I'm part hispanic and the time I lived in Minneapolis ended up with me surrounded by black people. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Like I said, good work in any case.
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ClemulusRex
post May 21 2010, 01:19 AM
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We've been covered as a whole extensively before, but let me take the opportunity to rant on how it seems like Cal Free can't catch a break! What, we kick the Japanese out of SF, but then the Golden Gate gets nuked, the Central Valley ends up knee-deep in water, and the Pueblos and Azzies invade the south? Sure there's a lot of "NorCal" (ugh) pride/inferiority complex up in my direction (Sacramento) and even I get weary of the "Sunny California" stereotype that we all live by the beach and surf to work, but when it comes down to it, it's sort of that "no one beats up on my brother except me" thing. As a friend of mine put it, you don't just "take" L.A., for Ghost's sake! I'm no expert, and to be fair I've spent maybe all of 100 hours in L.A. in my life, but we imagined that you'd most likely end up fighting a protracted, albeit disorganized, insurgency/guerrilla war with many of the street gangs down there. Not to mention all of the personal security/mercenary forces that the Beverly Hills types could afford...

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I can say that here in Sacramento much of the running would probably be for or against the government, it being the capital and all. There's enough office parks tucked away in outlying areas for the more traditional stuff, as well. The U.C. Davis Med Center is pretty cutting-edge by my understanding, providing some interesting Biotech targets.

Plenty of street gangs in the south and other outlying areas. Recent Russian and other Eastern European immigration has brought associated syndicate-type stuff in the north-eastern outlying areas. The Chinese community has deep roots here (Transcontinental Railroad and all) and there have been a lot of Hmong and other Asian immigrants over the last couple of decades, so the Triads and other Asian syndicates could be a significant factor by 2070. Lots of meth trade/production around here, too. Hell, you might even say that, having worked at a retail store that bought and sold "used" CDs, DVDs, and video games, that I was in some small way involved in what you might call the "grey" market around here!

There's also a racist skinhead population that was huge in the late '80s/early '90s that's never completely gone away. That might translate into a significant Humanis presence in the Sixth world. There's definitely a good deal of religious/social conservatism in certain pockets that could translate into similar PoliClub activity. Goodness knows I get hassled enough when I go out looking even halfway like a London Batcave reject, but maybe that's just plain old, ignorant machismo everywhere. Likewise, there's enough punk/vegan/hippie types to carry the banner for the other side.

Some folks around here like to spout how Sacramento is becoming a "world-class city" (whatever that means). It's definitely starting to sprawl, and I could even see Downtown becoming more of a cultural hub in the decades to come. I don't know if we'll ever crawl out from under the shadow of the "distant suburb of San Francisco" joke, though. If my understanding is correct, the area is one of the top places in the country to test-market products due to our highly diverse demographics (and apparently impressionable population...), so that could be an angle on some runs. We also have the furthest-inland harbor capable of docking sea-faring ships and we're a big railway and travel hub, so there's trade and smuggling opportunities. On the other side of things, having the Sierra Nevada mountains and three different national forests practically in our backyard leaves lots of opportunities for isolated research stations and paracritter encounters. I guess that's always been one of Sac's biggest assets and greatest hindrances--we're less than two hours away from all kinds of stuff but we don't actually have much here (to paraphrase another joke about the area.)

Overall, I'd think that the genuinely independent 'Runner population here would be pretty low, and maybe fairly specialized into different niches. Some towards government, some towards corporate, some towards wilderness. I could see a lot of runs just being straight-up heists for various criminal elements. Of course, the best would be prepared for anything.

Sorry if that kind of rambled, but hopefully it serves as a rough overview. If I can bring myself to organize and expand upon this, I will.
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Mantis
post Jul 12 2010, 07:28 AM
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Thanks Megu. I've grabbed it and will look it over. I'm always looking for stuff on the non standard areas in Shadowrun. Currently have my group roaming about Boston and environs. They occasionally become worried I'll send them to Chicago next. I don't know why.
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Snow_Fox
post Jul 12 2010, 02:53 PM
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MSP was actually covered in Kage, which I believe was considered cannonical. now of course finding a copy of that....
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emouse
post Jul 12 2010, 03:26 PM
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I did a campaign in Pittsburgh a while back, and considered doing some background stuff on the web.

The Great Ghost Dance raised the water level of the three rivers enough that most of downtown is swamped or worse when it rains. As a result, while the downtown area is still used, there's almost no vehicular traffic there. Corporations have ended up building a second city complex on top of the existing one, and the corp zone is heavily guarded. The resulting undercity and surrounding area has essentially been left to itself as a result, with a patchwork of gangs controlling the various areas. The downtown area is controlled by a single gang which is comparable to a mafia or yakuza organization. As you move outward from there the gangs step down in organization and strength. It corresponded to the local beltway, and gangs generally got referred to by the beltway color in their area. So Purple for downtown, Red on the fringes. Red gangs were mostly disorganized go-gangs.

It never really came up, but the University Zone was essentially a walled off area that covered most of Oakland to Squirrel Hill, and was the result of the universities there combining to form the Carnegie University of Pittsburgh. Heavily regulated again in order to protect students, personnel and research from the outside world.
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Red_Cap
post Jul 16 2010, 10:11 AM
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Alrighty then. I've finally put the finishing touches on my Kirkuk, Iraq file. It comes out as an 8-page word document, and can be found here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/407258481/Runn...s_--_Kirkuk.doc
http://rapidshare.com/files/407259474/Runn..._--_Kirkuk1.doc
http://rapidshare.com/files/407259883/Runn..._--_Kirkuk2.doc

It's on an anonymous account, so I posted it three times under slightly different names so it be downloaded 30 times instead of 10. If the links come up broken, someone shoot me a PM and I'll repost them.

It's written in-character from the PoV of my first-ever SR character who goes by Red Cap (thus the screen name) with some help from a Middle Eastern character who goes by Sand Snake that I wrote up for a game but not never got to play with. To enrich it further, I'd like for people to post (either here or shoot me a PM, though public posts make more sense so that you folks can play off each other) their own shadowtalk for the document. I'll include the best, most relevant stuff in an updated version of the document and then repost it for download. It'll help make this less of a me-thing and more of a community project.

Cheers, and happy reading! Hope you like it.
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Red_Cap
post Jul 17 2010, 07:46 AM
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Bump, because I know someone wants to read it.
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hermit
post Jul 17 2010, 10:33 PM
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Very nice. I especially like the eternal flame - does this really exist? - and it's implications not only in muslim but also Parsi mythology.

I would like some more sites - I'll admit I'm a sucker for the old books with 'places to visit' - and maybe a bit about life in Kirkuk in general - how's water and electricity, what do you usually eat there, where do people mainly work, how workable is the local matrix, that kinda stuff. Also, there are interesting synergies with the proposed Tehran setting Ancient posted a while back. I might get to write on them, even, if you don't mind me to I'll spend a surpremely boring sunday and have a few days off time ahead anyway.

Keep up the work, and please, flesh out the place. I'll use it soon in a run, and will bring my players' and my shadowtalk then.
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CanRay
post Jul 17 2010, 11:12 PM
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Shadows of Winnipeg post.
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Belvidere
post Jul 17 2010, 11:24 PM
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I'll start working on the The Big D. Haha. Im just having crazy thoughts as to how bad Detroit's gotten in 2072
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