Hey so I'm new to dumpshock so um hi.

Anywho I'm looking for general shadowrunny stuff about portland OR and the nearby landscape. I'm starting a new game with players new to shadowrun who would like to start in a city that they all know and love, and I'd like to get some ideas of the important buildings and sites in and around portland in 2070.

So, thanks in advance for any info you guys can give me.

Checking the map in the back of the core book, Portland is now the capital of Tir Tairngire.

Tir Tairngire is the name of the Elven land in the Shadowrun RPG, and means Land of Promise.

Amazon has a book listed for this area, although one can reasonably assume that it's not 4e. However, it might give you more than enough of what you want to run a game if you can figure out how things would change from wireless.

Runner Havens (which is 4e) has this to say:

This predominately elven nation to the south of Seattle recently underwent a process of democratization. Formerly controlled by an elite elven aristocracy that enforced a strict caste system, the regime’s isolationist policies spurred massive social unrest, eventually leading to its downfall. The former Council of Princes is no more; in the face of overwhelming public pressure, the council stepped down, abdicating its position of power and handing the country over to the elected Star Chamber, now led by Chairman Larry Zincan, a former prince who—gasp!—also happens to be an ork. Though many of the former nobles have fled the country in the wake of this turmoil, other metahumans who previously suffered discrimination are now finding their voice. The nation is still struggling with economic woes, however, despite opening up its borders to megacorp investment.
Portland remains Seattle’s sister city to the south, with trade (and smuggling) between the two remaining brisk. Once Tir Tairngire’s only port of entry for the outside world, the new status quo was symbolized by dismantling the Wall that surrounded Portland, no longer separating outsiders from the Tir—or the rich from the poor. The residents of Royal Hill—where the princes resided just outside the Wall—have abandoned their massive estates. The exception is the great dragon Hestaby, who continues to play an active role in Tir politics.

That's not everything in that book, but it should be enough to either get you started, or push for you to check out everything in there.

I hope all that helps.

In other words... it sounds like it isn't the Portland, OR that you remember (Or me, I loved living there).

May want to stick to Seattle, as so much stuff is likely to have changed in Portland with the elves in charge that it wouldn't be nearly as recognizable as other cities in SR tend to be.

Alternatively, it's not canon, but you can change things around to make 2072 Portland be like whatever you want. That way everyone knows the basics of the area. You can then change things around to make poorer areas into the barrens, downtown into a major tech area similar to Downtown Seattle, and so on.

Remember, if you're new, focus more on having fun than learning all the rules straight off. Because there's a lot of them and it can get confusing if you don't have someone knowledgeable to explain it all.

Suddenly ideas are popping into my head for a campaign in the Tir....Upwards mobility!? How rare!!!

Also, I've never read the old book on the Tir, how drastically have they actually changed the city layout? If people want to play in their old hoods, it might still be recognizable (at least by street name). If the GM wants to put in the time and effort to learning Tir fluff and politics I could see it being alot of fun. Its not really an option for me tho, I grew up two blocks south of Ground Zero of the Cermak Blast

I'm sure it would be a very interesting crater to visit....

Anyway, I suppose you're right, the elves wouldn't have necessarily done all that much to change how most of the stuff looked, and you could still go visit your own hangouts and such. The biggest issue would be that the population is basically all elves to my understanding, and so other metahumans would have trouble doing runs there because they would really stick out.

Actually I'm just looking for interesting buildings and locals in p-tyown. I know the geography pretty well (maybe too well in some cases). And, my players know the geography pretty well too. I just don't know what clubs and locations have changed or stayed the same.

And, thanks for the replies.

I think it would be along the lines of Seattle. There are a few things that are the same, especially big landmarks and such, but most other things have either been destroyed and rebuilt, or left to decay over time.

AFAIK Portland is (was) basically Tir Tairngire's door to the world - with a rather mixed-race population, foreigners allowed to roam freely...

That's why Portland is (was) separated from the rest of the country by a Berlin-style wall.

As said before, the largest source is the Tir Tairngire book (7210) published by FASA. Out of print for a while, but Catalyst sells it in PDF format... http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/product.php?i=7210

This book is second edition, so it's only good up to 2054. As far as SR4 updates, Shadows of North America (10655) has some 2060s (SR3) info. http://www.shadowrun4.com/products/product.php?i=25015 And rumor has it there will be some more updates in the upcoming Almanac.

Portland's terrain & geography has changed little. The freeways are basically the same. The only major additions I can think of were Royal Hill (the residences of the Council of Princes, the Tir ruling government), which sprung up in the west past where Highway 26 and 217 meet, and the Telestrian arcology, in Eastside Portland around 15th and NE Sandy. Of course there is the Portland Wall, which fell into disuse sometime in the 2060s and is no longer patrolled or secured IFRC. The wall surrounds Portland, from the 217/I-5 interchange ("checkpoint charlie") across Lake Oswego to Gladstone, Up through Gresham to Troutdale on the eastside. On the westside, it skirts the west side of 217, up into Forest Park past the St. Johns area, excluding Sauvie Island & across the Columbia Slough (Jantzen Beach is outside the wall.)

In past Portland runs that I have GM'ed, I've basically kept well-known buildings, bridges (except for the Marquam Bridge, I blew that ugly sucker up), and institutions more or less intact (the Tir Tairngire book even mentions that Lloyd Center Mall is still around, albeit the ice rink has been used for more deadly pursuits. Does blood bounce on ice? hmmmmmm.) However, I've added a larger downtown area, more skyscrapers, and a bigger megacorp presence than noted in the TT book. I've even brought back the Shanghai Tunnels as kind of a nod to the Seattle Ork Underground. Portland's nice neighborhoods are NICE. Portland's not-so-nice neighborhoods are a one-way ticket to a boot to the head. The great thing about living in an area that is covered in the Shadowrun universe is you really can have fun making the game your own. Shadow spirits on Mt. Tabor? Why not? That place is creepy after dark. I've even used P-town's history as a springboard for interesting locales. Like the Willamette Stone, used as a starting point to survey and section the entire Pacific Northwest: while its location was chosen for mundane reasons, what if, in the Sixth World, it is a key intersection of ley lines? Portland nowadays is noted for beer, coffee, and indie rock bands, I've kept some of that flavor, too. Nothing like a cold pint of Tir Deschutes Porter after a run in P-town. Most sites and locales I invented, as the TT book contains some sites for flavor,... but you could borrow any club or restaurant from Seattle and plop it in Portland, which is kinda true in real-life 2009. Or keep "real" locations... maybe the Doug Fir Lounge is a great place to meet a Johnson... the adjacent Jupiter Hotel has private rooms to meet in.

Since there isn't much info (yet) on Portland in the 2070s, I have to imagine that it is a city in tremendous political upheaval, and the level of crime and chaos make it a great place to do runs. However, I really recommend you check out the TT book & SONA book, because the politics & society of the Elven nation can be strange and confusing, but has a profound effect on the city. Then have fun coming up with your own stories & locales based on your first-hand knowledge of the city in 2009. You can't mess it up.

Keep in mind also that the Tir itself has apparently gone though a recent political shakeup. From what little i've scanned, I believe that the council has largely been dissolved, a lot of the old guard elves are no longer in power (or maybe that's just what they want us to believe!) and the former rebels are now running the show. Given Portland's rep as the 'gateway city' within the Tir, it's likely that a number of political refugees would use the city to move goods and/or smuggle people out of the country. could be plenty there for smuggling teams to do, or for opportunistic runners to do a bit of treasure hunting/scavenging amongst the Tir's former rich people estates.

yeppers, chock full of fun possibilities.

Well, I'm hoping it will be a fun ride. This is most of my players first time playing shadowrun, and my first time running.

take it slow, remember to make note of any significant/funny event or player responses and expect the unexpected. and have fun!

Yep, if I recall, the council has been dissolved. Ehran's got a job with the Draco Foundation (though, he took off before the council was dissolved), Sean Laverty is in hiding somewhere, and I'm pretty sure all the other members of the former Council are keeping a low profile somewhere. The council headquarters were in Portland too, so the political shakeup certainly had a huge effect.

The best information I know of on Portland is in the Tir Tairngire book, but much of that is likely going to be outdated with the ouster of the Council. Most of the location information is going to be good, and from what I recall after the removal of the Council of Princes, the economy in the Tir has been getting better so there may be more money around. But certainly many of the locations concerned with the old government of the Tir will be different.

I was just re-reading the Tir Tairngire book the other day. y'know - given some of the major egos involved with the now deposed 'old guard', it would not surprise me to learn that some of them 'salted the earth' when they left/went into exile. destroyed records, hid precious resources, burned their estates, stole objects of interest, looted bank accounts..stuff like that.

all of which forces me to wonder how shadowrunners fit into that situation. hmm. well, certainly the OTHER Tir might be interested in hiring some runners to hit a few of the old locations up and root around for anything worth stealing. Atzlan/Aztechnology might also want to hire a couple runners to go poking around in a few select areas to see how the state of affairs is going. hell, the azzies were on the outs with Tir Tairngire from day one, so they have to be chomping at the bit to get into that previously protected marketplace. so they could be hiring runners to do all sorts of groundwork for them (bribes, digging up/creating blackmail material, B&E on opposing local corps, blah blah).

If I remember right, Portland was, as of 2063 one of the major hubs for Saeder-Krupp in North America, representing Lofwyr's continuing interests in the area. Plus it's got a huge magic economy. Hestaby's talismonger crew and all the local Tir mage consortium are some pro magic makers. And then there is the laels drug trade, which the Tir has a monopoly on. So, that's two great dragons with significant interests in the area and a magical drug which doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. A good bit of intrigue and interest to work with.

One thing to remember if you want to try and keep your adventures cannon, is that, societally, Tir Tairngire, as it was behind the wall, was a sort of sylvan fey-kingdom (the 2060 map had Salem listed as the capital, not Portland.) It was patrolled by creatures, spirits and dedicated servant/soldiers, and, to some extent, must remain so. And like the fey kingdoms of myth, interlopers would find themselves ejected with their memory erased, and, possibly, changed in some fundamental way. The Tir has a long history of brainwashing useful persons and putting them to use for their own purposes. Portland, as the diplomatic face of this mysterious kingdom, would surely have billed itself as a utopia of sorts. A clean, environmentally conscious prototype city where the elves would show the rest of the world how they were all supposed to live.

However, this utopia would have mirrored P-town's actual history. For example, in real world Portland, non-whites weren't allowed, by order of the Portland Realty Board, to buy property outside Northeast Portland until the latter half of the 20th century. Hell, until 1926 the Oregon constitution said that all black people were to be ejected from the state on sight - unless they paid a tax and got a license. A special negro license. And even today, modern Oregon has the highest concentration of white power and white national organizations in the world. Soooooo.. It shouldn't really be much of a stretch to depict the racist, segregationalist attitudes present in the Tir and spilling over into a pseudo-tolerant "enlightened" Portland recovering from decades of discriminatory social control and enforced conformity.

Well I have until the 17th to come up with a run. So far I got a Troll cybersam and an Ork sword adept, with a possible combat mage coming. It looks like I'm gonna run a pink mohawk campaign in p-town. So the idea of racism has some appeal since the characters are gonna be combative anyways I should give them reasons to want to kill every daisy eating, trog hating, wine drinking elf around . It's gonna be a ride for sure.