Hey guys, just been looking through the books and i was thinking that it would be pretty awesome to make an artic campiagn, plus its winter so it seemed like a good idea.

Any tips or ideas? Im currently looking for maps and trying to find where creatures i could use are, if i cant find any im going to try and stat some out though.

Ive been thinking of trying to chance the setting a tiny bit, worlds getting plunged into an ice age pretty much and the team needs to find some way to stop it. I was thinking maybe air/water spirits were messing with the weather and need to be killed, or placated(not sure if thats the right word, but meh). Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Do you have Arsenal? If not, get it. Lots of arctic style stuff, both in the Running Gear and More Ways to Die chapters.

You can turn Hell Hounds from the Core into Ice Wolves just by changing the description and changing any reference to fire into cold.

For a reason, there could also be ley lines assigned to each of the six kinds of spirits, and the line attributed to Fire is broken or weakened, causing a rapid chill. Maybe some wizard is tapping it and stealing all the power of it and that guy needs to be stopped.

Just remember that whatever you do, don't make people obsolete. You can say that the wireless Matrix goes down due to the cold, but don't do so if you have a hacker or a technomancer because you make that character useless.

I hope that helps.

Remind your players just how remote and dangerous the arctic can be. Simple things like medical attention, food, and ammo can be days or hours away. The players should have to carry most of their gear with them. They'll want to take everything, but limit them to essentials. If you allow them a base camp, make sure they know that they only have access to limited supplies.

Even if they have ready resources, a good old fashioned blizzard (magical or mundane) can cut players off from help and force them to handle situations on their own. Just don't use that trick too often or it will get old fast.

There are plenty of evil magical groups that want to destroy/conquer/eat the world. Winternight comes to mind. But you could just as easily make it an ancient artifact/spirit/toxic shamans. Pretty much anybody with enough power and a motive could give world domination/destruction a try. Or they could just be out to make a buck by holding the world hostage. Imagine for a moment the leverage you would have if you could selectively freeze out parts of the Earth, or even just reliably claim you could.

Do have a mission plan yet?

I had a team's fixer send them after a guy who had ripped him off. Their pay was 25% of what he owed, plus half street index (down to one) for one year on purchases through fixer.

After some lengthy legwork they discovered the man had family in northwest Alaska, and set off after him. They picked up his trail, but found he was not living in the little town. More legwork led them to believe he was in league with a rogue group of NA mercenaries. Then the winter survival fun began, as they had to track the group down well into the wild.

Also, I ran Knowledge from Survival of the Fittest (3rd Edition) with my own story tweaks here on dumpshock. The team had to climb Mount Shasta in the middle of winter.

Here is the table I used for Target Numbers, taken from Target: Wasteland. I highlighted in bold yellow the one's that were applicable to the team at the above links.

Hey, sorry it took so long to respond, tons of stuffs been happening and i just got my driver permit, woo!

But everything looks cool. The idea i had was kinda the ley line thing, but it hasnt gotten bad yet, parts of the world would still be relatively ok, but the ice is spreading and people are freaking out. The plan i had was that theres a biological test facility for a corp way out in what was just a arctic area, now its practically a deathtrap, fissurs in the ice, massive snow storms, some free spirits that roam around and tons of jacked up snow beasties( havent seen many but im likely just going to tweak some ive seen, thanks for the hellhound idea, that sounds like it would be cool) on the way to the place. The compound would be heavily guarded and if something goes wrong its pretty much GG unless they think fast. I think the teams gonna be a infiltrator, maybe a mage or adept, and the troll. troll pretty much explains himself, the guy who plays it is insane, just packs so much stuff into his dude and prepares for so much, i think he should really like this. Oh, i nearly forgot. ill list my books.

arsenal
augmentation
contacts and adventures
core
corporate enclaves
emergence
loose alliances
on the run
runners haven
runners companion
street magic
unwired

hope that should help, thanks guys

Grats!!! Stay off my lawn!

Again, I would recommend Target: Wasteland. It has a plethora of good information, including arkoblocks/arcologies and aquologies (completely self sustaining facilities/colonies), hazardous environments that include toxic lands, deserts, arctic, antarctic, underwater and space! Love sending shadowrunners to space. "Go ahead... shoot him with your Panther Cannon. Why don't you toss some grenades for effect, too."

It is third edition (which I use), but the information is still viable. You can find it used at Amazon.

I should get paid by FanPro.

I'd go for an antarctic (south pole) rather than arctic (north pole) campaign. The south pole has a continent under the ice, which means posible ressources (oil, coal, ores, whatever). Which in turns means a reason to have something worth sending shadowrunners around the place.

It will also keep at bay yhe 'shadowrunners save the world' issue. Most shadowrunners, whne confronted with a world-scale issue, will take the sensible option and bug out (though they will probably spill the bean as wide and loud as possible) rather than risk their skins for glory and the general good of mankind.

Target wastland sounds pretty good, but unfortunately i have no money..... heck, i only have pdfs atm, once i get a job i plan to actually buy all the copies of the books i need, but for now im stuck with pdfs. on that note, would anyone happen to know if there would be a pdf for target wastelands?

As for the setting, i have a idea i think would be pretty cool, but i dont really know how to work out the specifics. The idea is that the team needs to break into a facility and steal what essetially is a shot that would boost peoples resistance to the cold. my plan was to make them think it was what i said, and have it be a virus that triggers mutation kind of like surge or kills people, bout 50/50 chance of each. It wouldnt take effect until a week or two after being administered, but it would cause hell. im not sure if thats a good idea or what to do after if i do that, maybe some way to reverse it

Wastelands stresses that the biggest threat is the environment, you can probably get lots of details form RL on lime research baout artic survival, alaska and that sort of thing.

I'm going to stress go antartic though. as has been pointed out already that's a continent so there is some stability, the pr0oblem with the north pole type artic is that is is just ice, it shifts and changes and breaks. any 'perminant' structures will have to be boat like ready to float or lfex WHEN the ice moves under it. Not if, when. Sure you can do it but if you're tsarting out as a GM try to reduce your variables a little.

That new book.. running wild? has a bunch of critters in it that you can throw at your players when out in the wild. Wouldn't do it all that often, but it can add a nice change from goons and hell hounds and blue hell hounds.

As everyone has said, simply surviving the environment is going to be as big of or more of an issue than what they are actually set out to do. Food comes in one verity: What you've brought with you. Water has to be melted from the ice which requires heat which is an issue all on its own. Simply staying warm is going to be a challenge. Don't feel you have to pull punches from the environment. Despite how harsh something might seem, the fact is that it likely isn't harsh enough to equal real life.

He's already said he's got no funds. but yeah like I and others said, the environment is going to be more dangerous than a hemeroidal vampire troll with maxedo ut cyber and a silvergun. Another source would be one of those survival shows on Discovery like man vs wild when he's in the arctic, siberia or even the alps.

Don't forget survivor-man. I don't know if he has any arctic episodes, but I wouldn't doubt that he does. I think there is also survivor-woman now? Maybe I'm imagining things but I though I remembered seeing something about that.

Antarctica is also good for the magic route. As a quick idea - check out the Piri Reis map (there is an article on wikipedia if nothing else). It's a map from the 1500s that is supposedly a copied from even earlier maps. It shows (somewhat) accurate geography of several continents including antarctica*. Keep in mind we didn't know that antartica was a continent with real land under it until the 20th century. You could easily say it is a copy of an ancient map that also shows the magic sites you want the PCs to explore. You could even arrange a run where the PCs have to find and steal the map from one organization or another.

*Weather on not it really shows antarctica has been disputed by some researchers, but don't let that ruin a good story.

Isn't that the plotline from one of the printed missions? Dusk of the Artifacts?

I know the first part has us trying to 'reclaim' the map from someone.

Really? I haven't read through Artifacts yet. I try not to run a set of modules until the entire series has been published - they're easier to customize if you've already got the big picture.

Well, I guess this opens up another possibility for the OP - you can tack your own ideas on as an extra step in that campaign or as a sequel/alternate whatever the endgame is from Artifacts.