Italy and Rome in the Shadowrun world Options

[Noll]

What do we know apart those few informations in MitS?
What is of Italy in 2050? The church? Rome?

I didn't read as much as most of you have done, so I'm looking for knowledge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Thanks,

Noll.

[Kagetenshi]

To start with, there's probably information in Shadows of Europe. That's liber non grata, though, so someone else will have to fill you in.

According to Cyberpirates p122 the Mafia controls most of the smuggling into France, Spain, and Italy, but you probably could have guessed that. According to p137, Eurocar Westwinds are particularly expensive in Italy (for what that's worth).

Aztlan p119 makes reference to Italian city-states having different restrictions on travel to Aztlan; if Italy still exists as a country, it's clearly a very loose alliance. P34 describes how the Society of Jesus has (under the name "New Society of Jesus") branched out into paramilitary operations, and unconfirmed shadowtalk suggests the existence of crack Jesuitical deckers. They're suppressed by the Azzie government, note.

According to Tír na nÓg p14, airfare to the Tír from Rome costs 270¥. P54 describes the Elven government as having hostile relations with the Vatican, but elsewhere the citizenry is described as still holding loyalty to the Holy See.

You mention the stuff in MitS, so I'll skip that.

Finally, Threats 2 has stuff on a Vatican magical commando squad or somesuch, but I don't have that book handy right now so I can't give details.

~J

[Nath]

The Republic of Italy collapsed in 2036. The economy never had really recovered from the 2029 Crash, the Eurowars only keeping things together for a while. The Lega Nord political party, backed by corporations, won elections in 2036, but was welcomed with massive demonstrations and riots. The government called the army in, but six months without being paid slightly willing to shoot at people. As the now-powerless government finally resigned, the Republic of Italy was no more.

Quite expectedly, Mafia and corporations quickly and swiftly sent their troops in the streets to provide security "for the community". But the Vatican, not caught completely off-guard, also had assembled a pretty large mercenary force for the same purpose.
Local authorities managed to strengthen their hold, establishing about a dozen of "city-states" (the Papal States, Tuscany, Modene, Genoa-Milan-Turin, Valle d'Aosta Lombardia, Trentino Alto Adige, Venice, Carnia, Trieste, Ferrara, Emilia Romagnia, Mezzogornio, Sicily, and Sardignia, plus San Marino remaining). In 2044, they agreed to establish the Italian Confederation to deal with common issues, foreign affairs and the like.

[ravensmuse]

Shadows of Europe has the most information regarding Italy on the whole - including the Vatican and the Alta Commissione, the mafiosi "fellowship".

You'll find more about the various elements of Italy in other third edition books - Threats 2, Loose Alliances, Underworld Sourcebook, the SOTA books, for starts (and books I can recall off-hand). It was actually pretty well detailed...is there anything specific you're looking for?

[Noll]

Thanks for the info! Yes I am looking for general information and reference to wich books I should read if I want to GM a campaign in Italy.

[Wakshaani]

As a side note, the first two (three?) authors for Italy dropped out. They were all native Italians. I volunteered and did a bit of work for it, until my system crashed and I lost internet access for a while. By the time I came back, they'd moved on and the project had went from fanmade to official. Lost my big break, which still makes me sad. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) If yo ever wonder why that chapter's so short, it's due to writers dropping like flies when it got handed to them.

One of these days, I'll dig the hard drive out of the dead system and see if I can't recover my original notes. It has a lot of potential for use as a setting!

[ravensmuse]

Wasn't most of Shadows of Europe written by natives? I think that's part of the reason it's so good (but a little dry).

[Wakshaani]

The idea was that each section would be written by natives, yes, but after Italy had lostso many, they didn't mine an American taking a whack at it.

And then my part was cursed. D'oh.

IIRC, the prject lead wound up writing it himself, under a serious time pressure, which is why it's so much shorter than the other chapters.

[Noll]

That definitely sucks. And I'm Italian too.

In Italy Shadowrun never had much luck, they just printed 2nd edition corebook, limited copies (only 1000) and then stopped publishing anything Shadowrun related.

Thanks to internet nowadays it's easier to get this game. But it is not well known there (That's also why I insisted on an Italian localization of Shadowrun: Returns, just to make the franchise known here).

This is really unfortunate, 'cause Shadowrun is really the only RPG that I like.