So I just started a brand-new game, with two players that are old hands at Shadowrun, one player that played some 2nd edition games in the 90s and then played in my last (Ghost Cartels + Other Stuff) game, and the last player has never played a tabletop game in her life, but is a huge nerd. I'm thinking that I'd like to cover a lot of ground I haven't really tread before, and dig up a lot of stuff that'd be great easter eggs for old players and "ooh, ahh, shiny!" for the less-familiar two. There's a lot of awesome stuff in Shadowrun that I recall being perpetually set in the "plot hook that's been in limbo forever" category - stuff that was never explained or whatnot. For instance, in the Tir Tairngire book, there was all that talk about how the Tir military closed off Crater Lake and people reported seeing floating cubes over it, but... that plot hook never went anywhere. Or perhaps more accurately, it was never explained.

So I was wondering what kinds of things people can think of that were cool plot hooks that were just 'left hanging', so to speak. I'm discounting stuff in Portfolio of a Dragon, due to AH's collation of all that data.

My campaign involves the fact that SK has been building their Seattle Headquarters for a bajillion years and it's still just a hole in the ground. Well, at least it is to my knowledge still unbuilt.

There are enough plot hooks of random trails from Dunkelzahn's Will that were never ever resolved that make coming up with games amazingly simple. Looking at you, Mr. Lars J. Matthews.

I'm actually ignoring the re-negotiating of Denver (and all of the current crap coming out of CGL) and having my group help Ghostwalker establish himself. They're having a pretty good time of it.

The first "official" game I ran involved Jiffy Pop. I still have the prop from that game.

Can I ask what in the heck that is?

...for me it was the sweeping under the rug of Pendragon/LPO/People's Party plotline in the UK (SoE) when the timeline was advanced to 2070. True, this was a latecomer as SR plotlines go but it had a lot of potential for intrigue, particularly as running in the UK and London faces unique challenges due to the law of the land regarding the use of both weapons and magic, as well as the overly bureaucratic UK Matrix.

Coinciding with the the Pendragon was the appearance of the mysterious isle of Lyonesse in the Channel and a new major Ley line. This also shaped up to be a very interesting hook but again with the advancement of the timeline, it was pretty much handwaved into oblivion.

Jiffy Pop is a type of popcorn in a package designed to be used over a campfire or stove, pre-dating microwave popcorn (1958, according to the website.). It's still sold for campers and such, and it keeps practically forever, just being dried corn. It's part of my emergency stash of food for when the electricity is knocked out for a length of time.

Dunkie's will has him comment about hating microwave popcorn, constantly burning it, and figuring that the old style of package would be more effective for Dragons, who can generate their own flame.

Ok, how did camping snacks get involved in a run? this sounds like a real popcorn session.

The happenings at Crater Lake are explained more fully in the novel Worlds Without End. Some consider this the worst of the novels, while others think it's the bees' knees.

Essentially the Immortal elves Aina and Harlequin banished a Horror named Ysrthgrathe there, creating a mana spike through which other baddies could come through. So they closed it off and a bunch of Immortals built their houses there to keep an eye on things. Also, it's a pretty lake.

I don't know what happened to it after the revolution, though.

To make Critias cry: Tir Taingire.

It gets mentioned sort of in the Sixth World Almanac - though of course, they just kind of list it and don't go into specifics.

As far as Europe is concerned, 6WA just copied parts from SoE and added a few mistakes and typos.

Feh! If only it was that good.

Back to the OP... I'm plotting out a campaign for my players that begins at the end of 2070 and kicks off with the Tlaloc crisis. The pod that Sojourner shot into the Redmond Barrens landed in the remains of the Hope Relief Camp from Double Exposure.

My suggestion is to trawl the self-contained adventures published for 1st and 2nd ed. like Elven Fire or Dreamchipper. There are plenty of plot gems that could be polished into new story points and easter eggs for experienced players.

That's actually already covered, hence why I was thinking about Crater Lake. Not that there aren't ten bajillion other things left in limbo for that country...

Whatever the "Worlds Without End" connection may be, I don't personally count the novels as canon, and I have a special level of loathing reserved for Worlds Without End. So that's certainly not the explanation I want.



Alas, I think I've already mined out most of those over the years, due to repeat business in particular areas of the world. The only one I can think of offhand that I haven't gone back to - that I definitely AM going to address in this game - is "What the hell is going on in Hawaii?" Maybe I'm wierd, but I really liked Paradise Lost.

Some of the other specific ones I've marked down are:
1) The current state of Tir Na Nog, especially since the Veil went on the fritz back in 64, and shit.
2) Pendragon and LPO (Thanks for the tip, KK!), since god that HAS to have boiled over into something serious by 72.
3) I kinda wanna do something with New Dawn Environics as a call-back to Double Exposure, especially since that adventure *never explains who they're a subsidiary of*. I mean, they're explicitly not part of the Renraku backing, and Aztechnology is out, because there's that Aztech agent in the camps.

That's how camping snacks get involved in a run. 20,000,000 worth of Shadowrun!

Oh yeah, it got great coverage in the transition from 3rd to 4th edition.

I'm not sure being liberally bathed in poo, counts as 'coverage'

Off to the east a bit: Sagan Zaba rebellion. 6WA mentions it, but the questions from SoA remain unanswered.

You're not. If my players hadn't decided that they were happy in Denver, thanks, we'd have made a brief stop in the Kingdom. They probably still will, at some point.

With my group now stating that they hate LA with the passion of ten-thousand suns, they might suggest Hawai'i next. *Headdesk*

On that notion: I want to GM a smuggler campaign some time so much :3

You ever get local to me, I'm in.

Haha, not in this edition's lifetime, no.
You could play with us over IRC, if I decide to try myself at GMing in English again, though.

i am running a plot at the moment from something that i stole from big D's will and then changed a bit for the feel of my game...

the idea i stole was the excalibur bit (cant find it at the moment), but i changed it to hottari hanzo's sword that he used back in the early 1500/1600 period of fedual japan, back when he was a shogun assassin. i then had it randomly pop up through out history, mentioned a few big players using it, then it dissapered into the shadows of history not to be seen for a long time. resently a yakuza boss found it and decided that it should be shown off to some people (the major players in seattle) to show his true strength, my group are still only "up and comers" so they we offered the job of grabbing it for someone else (another running team using them as meat shields)

i have loads more infomation on this run, if you want me to put it up i will

While that's cool, officially Excalibur was dealt with in Harlequin's Back. It was handed off to the Last Knight of the Crying Spire, big H himself.

Always knew that The Laughing Man was really crying on the inside.

There's some work going on, on this front. Nothing directly aimed at the Tir itself (yet!), but lots of the "loose end" former Princes, IEs, etc, are getting mentioned in a few upcoming products we're all hard at work on right now. Once some of those play out and the dust settles, I really do need to get a proposal put together for a "Land of Promise" e-book, or something, though.

But anyways...yeah! It's not entirely just all being left hanging, right now. A couple of us are cooking up some cool projects with some of the old big names.

...I had a lot of fun running that one. Having been there in RL, I was able to flesh out several locations. Afterward I did some additional development for a later campaign.

For the UK portion of my RiS campaign, I used a lot of the location and social fluff from the old London Sourcebook. I Was planning to do a follow-on that involved the whole Pendragon affair and political shifts within the nation but FanPro decided to abort the plotline when they moved on to 4th ed. At the time of SoE the Peoples' Party was beginning to gain momentum which was fueled even more by the Pendragon's appearances at rallies. Never quite knew if that sword he wielded was the true Excalibur. "Penny" was an enigma as he would appear and disappear seemingly at whim, thus leaving the Nats, Triple-O and Lord Marchemont scratching their collective noggins.

So much fertile ground there that was in a sense ploughed under and paved over.

Not sewn with salt, however...

You never know what might pop up at the strangest time.

That's what She said!

That aside, I would like some non-South American plot movement. The jungles just don't seem right for Running.

speaking as a native of what will be the Tir, I'd love to see more about it. Any tips for finding info on a more street level of what life in the Tir is like? Every bit I've found is Princely politics, but there's little about the average SINner or SINless would be up to.

I don't know, play some 'Nam music, drop them in a hell hole of a South American Village or City Hive of Scum and Villainy (Insect Spirits optional, but you know there'll be Mosquitoes around!)... I could make the Jungles work for Shadowrun.

Especially if Aztechnology and the other AAAs are bringing their game to play. Which they most certainly are.

Hell, recycle "The Magnificent Seven Samurai" or "Yojimbo" (Or their Western remakes.) and have a nice game.

Great news! You may admit by now that you only got into freelancing to work on all the TT-related stuff.

Mosquito Spirits, Nasty

Mosquitoes period. I bet there's some nasty magical versions of them with Kevlar-piercing noses and diseases that need gene therapy to be cured!

You could just spend a healing stirge

...now these are, scary li'l buggers.

lock n' load...tee hee

...and some in the Smoke think the gangs of hooligans are dangerous.

"Send in the clowns" line uttered by Villiers to Lannier in System Failure.
i know it's a reference to a really bad movie, but what, exactly, did this mean in the world of shadowrun?

I'd be very interested.

The Novatech IPO, I think.

?_?
it's too early, i don't follow, care to elaborate? <.<;,

Villiers despises stockholders because they messed up the smooth functioning of other companies he worked in. But he needs them in order to "save" Novatech. Hence sending in the clowns.

Ah, ok, thank you ^^

"All along the watchtower", "Simpathy for the Devil", "Gimme Shelter"...
I know I'm forgetting others, we could easily put 10 songs in a CD and let it play during the game in 'repeat all'.

Don't forget Surfin' Bird by the Garbage Men.

Paint It Black... Really, anything from The Rolling Stones in that era, really.

I have to try and find the "Good Morning Vietnam" soundtrack. Actually, do just that, should be pretty good.

Oh, and Alice In Chain's "The Rooster", which is about the songwriter's Father being in Vietnam!

And made damned sure you have Wagner ready for when the Panzers come soaring in and deploying soldiers. You know that even Aztlaners are going to love them some Wagner!

Everybody loves Wagner. The Pizza is delicious.

We're working on that.

Really will be happy if this comes out on PDF, BTW, guys! Looking forward to reading it more than the copy of War! I got.