Hey all, I'm thinking about running a ganger game in the Orkland/Berkeley barrens soon. I know Saito's been ousted as the big Kahuna in San Fran, but I'm looking for more information on what frisco is like in the 2070s. I've read the wiki article on San Francisco already, and it's giving me a rough picture, but I'd like more to go on.

Is most of the Bay Area really still a bombed-out husk by 2074? Who are the major players in town these days? Has anyone stepped in to fill the power vacuum in Saito's absence?

Well it's been a few days and nobody has any ideas, so I'll use this thread as an idea space of my own.

Here's what Sixth World Almanac has to say about San Fran:


And here's the wiki entry on the city:
http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/San_Francisco

Blatant speculation in the last half of the wiki article aside, I kind of like the picture it paints. Now it's been ~5 years in current timeline since Saito's ouster, and I can't imagine the Big Ten would leave an established metroplex like SF a war zone like that for so long (then again, look at how slowly the US has rebuilt from Katrina or 9/11). I can see MCT and the other Japanacorps stepping in to rebuild SF proper and making it a corp hub again. Ares consolidates its holdings in Silicon Valley. But are Orkland and Berkeley still largely barrens areas? And are they still in ruins from the fighting? I'm inclined to think so.

Without the common enemy of General Saito to unite against, and without Ares propping them up anymore, MoM's alliance of the gangs likely splintered. So everybody's back to scrapping over turf in the Bay Area. Now geographically Oakland is pretty flat, but there are some hills there. I'm thinking that since most go-gangers operate without air support, there's likely a political hierarchy in Orkland that matches the topography. The more dominant gangs are the ones at the highest elevation, simply by virtue of the fact that it's harder to raid gang turf when you need to charge uphill to do it. It's not just gangs at the top either- maybe an upstart dragon moves into the area, clears out a hilltop and starts making demands!

What do y'all think?

Too many dragons these days. Otherwise nice. Ares does keep tabs on Silicon Valley still, though.

MCTs interest in SF is also mentioned in Storm Front. Also because of the new agreement between the Japancorps they would support each other outside the US, so you have 3 megas trying to oust Ares and take as much of SF as they can.

The US ...? Do you mean Imperial Japan?

Also, that's back to square one then, from the California Sourcebook - only there, it was Ares versus four AAA Japanocorps, since Yamatetsu (now Evo) was still one of them back then.

I really like this idea - it wouldn't have occurred to me to base gang territory on higher elevations, but in this context it absolutely makes sense.

A few other random facts rattling around that might apply: The Yakuza are the primary cartel in town as of Corporate Enclaves (no surprise with the MCT connection). With the whole Japanese unity thing from Storm Front, I could see SF being a staging point for Shiawase to take the fight to Horizon's backyard in LA. That could be an angle to make things interesting from a megacorp perspective.

Berkeley's also a great university town on top of all the technological research that the books have described, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some kind of magical hijinks attached to that. The last couple of things I can think of offhand are tensions with CalFree's pointy-eared neighbours to the north (or even just redneck residents of the Northern Crescent vs. the more diverse population closer to the Bay) and potentially some fallout from the Hestaby thing in Storm Front. In fact, I wouldn't rule out the cultural atmosphere in San Francisco alone as a source of tension; Saito might be gone, but there's still a lot of conservative Japanacorp culture there, in a city previously known for its liberal social attitudes. There might be a few members of the Metahuman People's Army that figure Ares didn't go far enough.

Of course Ares does. They'd be stupid not to. I'm thinking they're going to be especially interested now that the Japanacorps are presenting a united front in the region in the post-Storm Front metaplot. And I know people hate dragons and immortal elves, but I want an excuse to have gangers dealing with dragons. Maybe not right from the start, but it'll creep up slowly.


Yup, using this. Add the Japanacorps' alliance to Ares' recent woes with the Excalibur and Damien Knight has good reason to be nervous about losing Silicon Valley.



Thanks for the info about Berkeley! I had assumed it was just more Barrens territory after reading the wiki.

And yes, I'm planning for SF to become a crazy corp staging area for all kinds of stuff. MCT and Ares fighting over Silicon Valley. MCT and S-K racing north to claim Mt Shasta. Maybe a little old-fashioned Yakuza-Triad turf war over the drug trades in Orkland.

Yeah. Japan.
And no, it was more of a "2 am in the night" slip.

It could kind of go either way. I'd actually been bad and not done my research (i.e. reading the wiki) when I posted that, and forgotten about how much stuff went on in the Berkeley area during Saito's regime. After re-reading both the Wiki and some of the sourcebooks, here's my take on it:

Saito turned Oakland/Berkeley into a giant metahuman ghetto (complete with walls), including some of the dregs of the Triads after the Yakuza kicked them out of SF proper. The Triads would desperately want to get back into SF after Saito was gone, both for actual business/criminal purposes and because there's traditionally a huge Chinese population in the city. (SF has the largest Chinatown in the world in this universe.) Since college towns tend to be more diverse than the norm, I actually wonder if The Castro in SF wouldn't have rivals on the other side of the Bay, just by necessity.

There was also an earthquake in '61 as part of the greater Ring of Fire upheaval, which I think is where the Barrens image comes from; it apparently did quite a bit of damage and I doubt Saito would've cared about repairing it in meta-land. Now that he's gone, though, rehabilitating the area could provide a great focus for a campaign plot: the Triads and other syndicates funnelling money in so they can literally own the place, one or more corps offering to get UC Berkeley get back on its feet the way Horizon did with UCLA, lingering racial and ethnic tensions, and so on.

Just want to give you a heads up on the Wikia article. I moved its content to a setting guide: http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/San_Francisco/setting_guide because it is very different from the standard article format. Also there already was a San Francisco article that fell victim to spam and it seems that was not recognized by the editor who created the new article. I put the old article under http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/San_Francisco_(unofficial) because it's contains non-canon information. The current article is a stripped down version of the German Shadowhelix article on San Francisco.

To the topic: What the speculative part in the--now--setting guide doesn't say is that Mitsuhama has become the new power player in the metroplex post-Saito. As far as I can tell, everything is mostly back to pre-Saito San Francisco. Though I would think that the Imperial Marines should have been shipped back to Japan, unless the Tenno had a change of heart on this issue. (They probably are no longer needed for the '61 earthquake disaster relief and rebuilding effort). I don't think any sources have really dealt with the fallout from Saito's regime.

EDIT: One more thing, the author of the--now--setting guide material left a note here: http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:San_F...o/setting_guide saying the speculation is tailored to his gaming needs:

I've been a busy little bee and written a primer on the 2074 Bay Area for my players. Take a look:

http://pastebin.com/xiNv1i76