To answer ravensmuse request, I made a short review of Shadowrun French-only releases (quite faster to do than for German products). Not sure it'll interest a lot of people, but feel free to ask for further details. I do not list Shadows of Europe (as it is not a French-only product), but knowing its content would probably help understand some things.

FRANCE
144 pages
ISBN: 2-7408-0147-5
Release: September, 1997
Date: May, 2057
Early in the process, Descartes Editeur submitted a list of the major highlights to FASA to be approved. As far as I understood, the project took a lot more time than planned, with some part being heavily reworked several times (hence some bizarreness like a Royal Army without having an actual king or queen). Major features are:
- France new regime is the Oligarchy (yes, it is the official name). Four families gets to sit on the Oligarchic council to rule the country. The country is divided into duchies, with one or several dukes gets to rule. Widely considered silly.
- Brittany is entirely covered by the Mist. By the rules, you can stay inside the Mist for twelve turn in the best case. After that, you cease to exist. Fluff has Lofwyr trying to enter and after being wounded by something in the astral. It is suggested the Mist is a cocoon for something nasty (read: Horror).
- A massive volcanic eruption destroyed Clermont-Ferrand and most of Auvergne. The largest dragon in the world is sleeping at the bottom of a caldera.
- The French Matrix is the most advanced grid in the world. French programmers designed the Corporate court system security. Foreign megacorporations just beg to work with them. They avoided the 2029 virus thanks to a kill-switch. La Passerelle ("The Gateway") is a single Red-10 node that segregates the French Matrix from the rest of the world (security tally has it cascading into an AI at 27).
- Monsieur de Fontainebleau is the richest man in France. He is a friend of both Damien Knight and M. Darke (sic). Owns a copy of the Book of Harrows. It is suggested he is working for the Horrors.
All the French authors working on Shadows of Europe knew and read the book. We willingly choose to rework or ignore its contents.

CAPITALES DES OMBRES
160 pages
ISBN: 978-2-915847-222
Release: March, 2008
Date: February, 2070
French version of Runner Havens. It features an additional chapter on Marseille, which is 16 pages long (thus quite shorter than Seattle and Hong Kong).
In France, Marseille was a fully independent city. In Shadows of Europe, its status got a passing mention, but it was practicaly described as under full control of Saeder-Krupp. Capital des Ombres retcons the autonomy status as mere political gesture with almost no practical effects (but it doesn't explain if and how law enforcement is affected), and Saeder-Krupp domination is also made a thing of the past. I must admit I was not fond of the move.
Otherwise, you get the classical elements of Marseille setting: shipping, various Mediterranean and Asian ethnic communities, the mob, hip hop and the allmighty football, plus urban brawl (a sport born in France according to Shadowbeat). It also provides small update to the French setting at large (Yohann de Kervelec as the new president, the death of Charles de Rohan, a possible alliance of ESUS and Index-Axa).

SOX
168 pages
ISBN: 978-2-915847-55-0
Release: July, 2009
Date: October, 2070 / April, 2071
The SOX book is a French-German joint project. The first 68 pages feature the description of the SOX area and is the same in both the French and German version. SOX is a walled radioactive area created after a nuclear accident in the French power plan in Cattenom in 2009, covering a part of France, a part of Germany and all of Luxembourg. I found the book to be sometimes unclear for instance on what is the exact level of security MET2000 enforce on the wall or inside the zone, how much exchange there is between the zone and the outside, or the zone and the corporations' arcologies, how important is the zone to corporations and smugglers, and so on. But so can every GM adjust the background the way he wants it. You can have a team of rookies sent with armored chemsuit and fully loaded weapons to fight against a gang using crossbows and rusted XXth Century firearms in an area where there are no police and SIN check to bother them, or experienced runners with a single knife and half a bottle of water, trying to get into an enclosed arcology, hunted by corporate forces, with toxic spirits geting in the way, knowing they're going to die from radiation poisoning anyway.
The last 96 pages is a French-only campaign titled Mauvais Présage (Bad Omen). The German version features another campaign, titled Hoffnungsstrahlen ("Beacon of Hope" ?). The original plan was to have the French and German campaigns connected, with each group triggering events that affect the other. That probably was a bit too ambitious. There still are a few links (but also some inconsistencies).

ENCLAVES CORPORATISTES
168 pages
ISBN: 978-2-915847-56-7
Release: August, 2009
Date: February, 2071 / March, 2072 / October, 2072
French version of (you guessed it) Corporate Enclaves. It included the Manhattan PDF Only product as an additional chapter, and a few pages about Lille, in northern France (set in March, 2072). After the events of Mauvais Présage and the corporate economic sanctions, the French government offered them control of the Lille sprawl. And so you get a corp council and private police services.

CARTELS FANTÔMES
192 pages
ISBN: 78-2-915847-85-7
Release: September, 2010
Date: February-November, 2071
French version of Ghost Cartels. Written by a French-German team, it adds a chapter between The Source and The Final Cut, with five adventures in Europe (it should actually be played between Neo-Tokyo and Los Angeles). They take place in Rotterdam, Lille, Marseille, Genoa and Lisbon, as the PC follows the Olaya cartel envoy in Europe. The book first chapter also includes some news item linked to the European events.
There are two minor ties with SOX campaign Mauvais Présage first chapter: a minor NPC (who actually had significant chances of dying when she first appeared) returns in a more prominent position in Lille, and the PC may already have visited the night club in Marseille where some action will take place.
I took a part in writing that one (I reworked a bit the Genoa adventure to fix some issues) but never actually played it, so I can't really comment. I have the impression inserting a whole new chapter kinda "break the flow" of the original GC campaign. The adventures themselves are closer to First Taste than The Source, as the adventures are a lot more connected: though the team moves, the events in most cities have later consequences, and the relationships between the Olaya delegation members play a big role.

Wow, that first France book is one long 'anything you can do, I can do better.'

Literally "Rays of Hope".




Kinda like the old FanPro germany stuff. "The Americans got an elf state? We're gonna have an elf state and a troll state!" (And a dwarf state, but they are constantly overlooked.)

So what? Trolls don't deserve a state?

Sure, it's called 4chan.
*Bazinga*

I'm talking OOG about the seeming tendency of the old FP germany sourcebooks to cram more "stuff" than the North America setting has into the AGS setting, an area about 1/70th the size of North America. Like the German writers felt they had to have an elf state (because the American writers had written one) and one-up them with two other meta states.

It's in part of what used to be Germany. It's a whole kingdom, in fact!

Nath, about pure gameplay you forgot mentionning that french books have german stuff in it (Aug/Ars).


Germany have a little more than 1/4 of USA total population (81M/312M). If you add France (65M), Italy (61M), Great Britain with Ireland (58M) and Spain (47M), you have exact USA's population in a lot less smaller state. Now when you consider current Europe territory, that makes 737M habitants for 10.4M square km vs USA's 312M habitants for 9.6M square kilometers (same size). The density of population is twice USA's for the same size.

And still, we have only 1 AAA, same for China 1, South America 1, India 0 (!!!), Russia 0.5 (evo), USA 2.5 (NeoNet), Japan 3+0.5+0.5.
Europe could have +1, India+1.5, China +0.5/Africa+0.5, Russia +0.5, Japan -2. That would make 12 AAA corps (+2).

No wonder there's twice the ammount of troll in Europe than in USA. And since all these meta comes from germanic tales, they had to do something about dwarves, elves and trolls. I'm not that shocked.

I just regret they did it like that to little britanny, I'd rather have "little people" in little britanny/Tir Nan Nog/Scotland than this stupid magic forbidden fog.

Instead of Horrors (because in fact nobody knows since nobody can go there), there's a few "could be" that have my magical interest for little britany :
- Arthurian myths (Brocéliande's forest is were the lady of the lake should live, where Merlin is still trapped by Vivian the Fey (not the same fey as Morgan the Fey))
- the Island of Ys that should emerge (when Paris gets flooded by the legend. I'd really love a flooded dystopian Paris : it's even possible today, as it was in 1910 : have a look at this or at that. Imagine that + a dystopian setting. A submersible metro and ghost stations underwater. Flooded catacombs making ghouls and secret societies coming to/squatting higher caves. Anthropomorph means of transports in the streets. Diseases and antidots only for the richest people of Paris. Yummy.).
- Little britanny is where loads and loads of french folklore and magical myths comes from/are stored. It's kind of the part of the country were 80% of myths are dumped.
I think it was too heavy for the french authors at that time so they decided "too much magical to go there and not enough material in 1997 to write something canonic enough". It's a sacred place, why they made it some kind of astral vulcano I don't know.


I know, with that fog, "who knows about that". But still. 20 years, it's the moment for the childbirth, as we say in french.

And we don't even know how Paris looks...

Only worse

Any chance any of our French-speaking users could provide with a translation of these short exclusive bits, even a cursory one?
I'm not up to learning one more Indo-European language any time soon, unless I decide to move to Canada at least...

Ares Macrotechnology and Horizon are from North America.
Aztechnology is from North America, or Latin America (but not South America, which starts south of Panama isthmus)
Yamatetsu, now Evo, originally was from Japan and the Philippines. The Japanese ousted most of their Filipino counterparts. And later did Yamatetsu moved to Russia.
Mitsuhama Computer Technologies and Shiawase are from Japan.
Neonet is the merger of Novatech, from North America, with Erika and Transys Neuronet, from Europe. Novatech was not Fuchi ; Novatech Asian holdings were so important that Novatech Asia division head offices were in Seattle.
Renraku Computer Systems started with Japanese investors taking over a purely European corporation. Renraku sold a large part of its old European holdings in the late 2040ies. Renraku Asia became the heart of the company until the early 2050ies. Renraku Australian was then spun off as a separate division, while Renraku America grew more and more important. It's only after Renraku America lost the Seattle arcology and Renraku Asia absorbed Fuchi Asian holdings that the later could vie again for the top spot.
Wuxing is from China.

So the actual count should be Japan 3.5, North America 3.5, Europe 1.5, China 1, Russia 0.5.

The Britanny Mist was retconned in Shadows of Europe. The new canon is, the Mist never entirely covered Britanny. It appears randomly, usually in the less populated area. Getting lost in the Mist is not a pleasant experience, and sometimes people do disappear. And there's no mention of anything like an Horror.

The forest of Brocéliande remained free from the Mist in both the France and Shadows of Europe versions. In France, Brocéliande is actually full of Awakened places and creatures. Runner's Companion says France handed pixies control of Brocéliande (it is also the very few country in the world to issue them SIN).

Britanny folklore has only been better preserved, especially with the Arthurian cycle. Medieval authors actually considered "The Matter of Britain" and "The Matter of France" as separate. I know quite a few people rather complained France read like Britanny was the only region in France with a potential for Awakening. Afterall, the magical horse Bayard, Oberon, several slain dragons, including the original Tarasque and Gargoyle, or the Beast of Gévaudan, are also part of French folklore (well, the later may be more than just folklore).

Now see, this is the reason I asked for this in the previous thread. I don't know how many of my fellow American players know about this stuff, and "spreading the knowledge" can do nothing but good.

I would love to see fan translations of these products put out sometime. Just like I'd love to see some of the Japanese stuff get translated. From what I understand there's not much original material, but their art and such is different. Hell, if I'm in magical fantasy land I'd like to see the Sega-CD game get translated, but that's apparently a tough one to crack, programming wise.

Interesting.
I'm working on fleshing out Europort myself (the product of which you might see pop up on here one day) so find myself wondering: is there more than just a location or two of the sprawl included in this book? Any background information that builds further than Shadows of Europe or Corporate Enclaves did?

Information on Europort are less than a page long. There's a stat block, and a few paragraphs on the local underworld.

Population: 2,200,000+
- Human: 67%
- Elf: 11%
- Dwarf: 6%
- Ork: 13%
- Troll: 2%
Population Density: 3,400 per square kilometer
Per Capita Income: 33,000€
Population Below Poverty Level: 27%
Corporate-Affiliation: 62%
Hospitals: 29
Private Clinics: 16
Felonious Crime Rate: 16 per 1,000 per annum

The Penose holds the drugs market in the Europort. Aaron Van Hout, a Penose boss in his fifties, leads the talks with the Olaya cartel envoy on tempo (I would have expected the Sesmarias Amazonian ex-pat gang mentioned in Corporate Enclaves, but it doesn't).
The Tremaine-Guliyev Vory gang is still around (though nothing is said of Vory Michael Tremaine and Maksim Guliyev personal situation). They specialize in weapons, BTL and human trafficking, but are willing to get control of the drugs market. The Lille Vory, recently taken over by Tamara Minglov (the NPC I mentioned above as having a high chance of dying if the PC encounter her in SOX campaign), is getting more and more influence on the Tremaine-Guliyev operations. In the European arc first adventure, the Lille and Europort Vory steal three trucks carrying 500 kg of tempo the Olaya cartel was going to deliver to the Penose.
Europol has been operating in the Europort during the last decade. So far, they never were able to get anything solid on the shell companies and the money laundering schemes the smugglers use. The corporations ruling the Europort always made sure they was nothing left to find.

*sigh*

Thanks ^_^
Didn't have to go through the trouble of translating all that,but it's much appreciated. Every little bit helps, huh?

Nath didn't mention the "Vintage" collection, with older editions books (that weren't translated in French back then) updated for the SR4 rules. So far we have:
- Harlequin (with both Harlequin and Harlequin's Back)
- Esprits Insects (with parts of different books about the Insect Spirit/Chicago plot)
- Aztlan + Denver