Imagine a world much like ours. All the same news events happened (but maybe not in exactly the way they were presented), all the same people are around (or seem to be), reality is almost exactly as it is today (on the surface anyway), and then in 2010 the world changes in a few subtle ways.
Technology suddenly starts to break barriers, and there seems to be less and less public or governmental resistance to trying new technologies out before they are fully tested. Bio-technologies and genetic manipulation become MUCH more common place than they are today. Quantum Computers become possible and Fusion energy solves half the worlds energy problems in less than a decade. We begin to reach out into the solar system and discover, in the words of one NASA scientist, that “out there it’s raining soup� and the nearly limitless resources of the other worlds and satellites become more and more accessible. Myco-Proteins and “Pharming� solve the food problem, or solve it for those who fall in line with the strangely empowered UN’s policies. Peace begins to become the standard as the First and Second World countries become more powerful and more stable and the hand is held out to any Third World nation who wants this as well, if they play by the UN rules. Too, the Welfare State is now an almost universal concept among the more powerful nations, with all basic needs provided for by the governments and all the time in the world for a VR/computer driven leisure society to develop among the poor and/or unemployed.
But the world is no Utopia…far from it.
More and more world governments begin to use scare tactics (usually centering around disease or racial/nationalist/religious disharmony) on their people in an effort to better control them… the gap between the haves and the have nots widens, but the ability to provide creature comforts expands and their cost lessens, so people are resistant to “rock the boat�. Does it really matter as much what happens to your meat body when you spend less than half your time in it, instead of in an idealized Matrix Persona of yourself?
Yes, this is a dim view future hiding under the guise of plenty. It isn’t terribly different sociologically from Shadowrun except in that there is no magic (that any but a very select few know about) and there are no exotic races, except one…
Clonal technologies have burgeoned. In point of fact, they have exploded. It isn’t quite as common as presented by PK Dick, with street corner vendors, but non-sapient clonal beings that have been engineered for a wide variety of tasks are readily available to those who have the money for them, while even the better off have nots can afford cheap and healthy and long lived clonal pets that are smarter, more affectionate and more docile than the real thing. Then there are the others.
They are called Bio-roids; Biological Androids. Especially as part of the planning for long range space exploration/exploitation these genetically tailored and advanced beings explode on to the world scene. Life, human(oid) life, created by man, not God, becomes the cutting edge and the bottom line for many of the worlds most powerful corporations and governments.
Bio-roids can be conditioned in their “infancy� to an exactitude that nearly rivals computer programming in many ways. They are force matured to very late puberty and then conditioned over a period of usually three years to be obedient, loyal, and highly productive “people� in categories where most people don’t want to work or can’t work safely. More than forty two percent of the UN Peace Force (a multi-national and very, very high tech “Peace Keeping� force) is made up of “physically superior� bioroids created to be the perfect soldiers. And yep, these boys and girls are scary efficient. Other applications included astronautics and exploratory uses as well as dangerous civilian jobs in power management, fire fighting and in police work.
Now add to all of the above a few more things.
One of these is that we are not alone. There are others, unknown to the general public, but well known to the most powerful of the many national governments; living among us, harvesting something from us, something nebulous, and the governments of all of the powerful nations work together to hide their existence. Of course even in the government most people have no idea of their schemes or even of their existence, but the powers that be, both behind the thrones of power and/or seated in them, they know, ohh how they know.
This hidden thing may (or may not) be magic, as some people (read here, the PCs) are capable of learning to use it in a limited manner, but one that seemingly contravenes many of the laws of physics. The government completely hides all evidence of magic use by anyone, and does so well. There are many Matrix Entertainment programs about people being able to utilize magi, but any real usage is passed off as falsified and the governmental “proofs� are extremely convincing. So any claims of it as reality are laughed off and thought of as a sort of stage magic.
The second is that especially in the more powerful first and second world nations, class differences are becoming extremely pronounced in what is even possible for people. Starting in 2009 wealthy enough parents were able to have their children gene-fixed and even, for a healthy enough fee, gene-enhanced, so that they are smarter, or stronger, or more charismatic than is even possible for non-genetically enhanced human beings. By the late 2020s this was already becoming felt, as the enhanced folks were getting the better jobs, because they really were more qualified as for them. And the gap grows larger every year.
It’s an alternate Shadowrun world entirely, closer to our own and less hopeless…on the surface, but darker beneath the glitz and the comforts. In it there are a few powerful and rich people who are in the know and are resisting the actions of the various power groups, who believe that humanity is being lead down someone else’s primrose path…to eventual slavery or slaughter.
Are these others classical aliens, extra dimensional demons, something else entirely? That you won’t know…yet.
In this game the PCs are also in the know, because they can see the others for what they are, sometimes, if they are relaxed enough or intent enough or trained enough. They too then can “See in Shadows� and will discover what the few richese fear…and have the opportunity to work with these powerful people and to be augmented by them or helped to discover the magic within themselves by them.
For the most part you live a normal life, either of squalor (as some folks just outright refuse the corporate/governmental hand outs) or of indolence and fantasy (about 35% of the population in most developed nations who all but live in the Matrix in conditions far superior to what their meat bodies experience) or of wealth and influence, or somewhere in between, but when you are “tapped� you live a ragged and dangerous life on the edge of sanity and continuance. In many ways you are super secret heroes…but no one must ever know or the government WILL get you and THAT will be all she wrote. These people play rough and they play for keeps. In many ways you are the Men in Black, but you also need to hide from the aliens/demons/whatever and from the governments and do it effectively, or you’ll simply disappear, without a trace and without hope.
Building your characters (125 point build): I use the Shadowrun Companion point cost system for attributes, skills and resources (but remember to convert from NuYen to whatever your country uses at the proper rate, with Dollars and Euros being about four to one and Pounds being about two and a half to one, for example), but I do magic and race differently, of course.
There are a few Templates for Genetically Enhanced types and even for “freed bioroids� replacing race and Magic is now a purchasable trait, at the rate of seven points per point of Magic Attribute rating to a maximum of your Willpower if spent on Adept powers or of your averaged Charisma/Intelligence/Willpower for spell casters. There is very little Conjuration as breaching the planar barriers around the Earth ALWAYS attracts the attention of “the Others� and their governmental allies, likewise Astral Travel is also extremely noticeable, but on the other hand Warding can actually make such areas completely un-noticeable to the others as well as having their normal effects and IT is done entirely over the Conjuration skill, so it’s not one for budding magi to ignore.
Most people in the world will have a 1, 2 or 3 in all stats with 1s being much less common than 3s but with 2s as by far the most common stat. A dock worker might well have a strength rating of 3, or even 4 if he’s also a serious muscle head in the gym, but that’s about it. In actual usage figure that the standard person has 25 points spent on stats. And about half as many to fully as many spent on skills with the rest, totaling up to 50, spent on resources.
On top of all of this, every PC can use the Aura Reading skill to use assensing, even if they have a magic Attribute of 0. It is this peculiarity that allowed them to “see in shadows� in the first place. Now, using this skill without a positive magic attribute adds +6 to the TN, and it still defaults to Intelligence with the normal default penalties and “the Others� are not so common that one might see them any day, which is why so few ever do, but it seems that with enough training it is something that anyone can be taught to do.
Isshia
