Today, I've arrived at a point with this background story where the character might enter play.
In writing that story, it kind of took on a life of its own, so here are a few caveats:

First off, I am not a native speaker, so I took it as an opportunity to flex my English a bit. All comments pertaining to grammar, spelling and word order are very welcome. It's something I'm looking for feedback on, actually

Secondly, the goal was a background story to a character I created a few years back. Sam / Jazz was created with the old costs under Karma generation (New attribute x 3, not x 5) with free contact points based on charisma and free knowledge skill points as in BP generation. What's done is done, and I won't rebuild her, since obviously she has got some playtime now. Don't look too close at the stats, or your head might explode if you're a purist in that way.
Speaking of which, her character sheet is here: http://bannockburn1981.deviantart.com/art/...Sheet-311718725

The background was supposed to a) fit her stats and most equipment and b) provide a few pieces of information about the world Sam lives in, especially for new players. Comments are welcome here, too.

Finally, before posting links to the story itself:
It clocks in at around 25k words, currently wrapped into neat 5k word chunks. It's a lot to read, but I appreciate every reader and every constructive comment. Thanks in advance for taking the time.

A synopsis:
Samantha Hamilton SURGEd as a child and I took some liberties with how the CAS handled this 'disease', as I couldn't find official material on the matter. She mostly grows up in a few camps before fleeing and seeking her fortune on the streets. She works as a courier, skirting around the edges of the proper shadows and tries to deal with the curveballs life throws at her.
Her journey takes her from Memphis to Seattle, via Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington and Denver.

Part 1: http://bannockburn1981.deviantart.com/art/...art-1-309993651
Part 2: http://bannockburn1981.deviantart.com/art/...art-2-323598683
Part 3: http://bannockburn1981.deviantart.com/art/...art-3-362552977
Part 4: http://bannockburn1981.deviantart.com/art/...art-4-370693031
Part 5: http://bannockburn1981.deviantart.com/art/...art-5-377572163

A Portrait, made by me (Yes, I know she looks like a Draenei. The original inspiration was Disney's Gargoyles, but there are no functional wings in the game )
http://bannockburn1981.deviantart.com/art/...trait-347959573


Awesome gift art by a fellow dumpshocker (enlarge for funny details in the background, and internet cookies for people who can guess the handle)
http://tarynsgate.deviantart.com/art/Late-...t-Run-358763675

Can't read it the background. The 14 question + Character sheet were nice, she felt like a real person rather than a tool. Athletic specialization is cool because unusual (I might have gone the Adept; Athlete's Way if it was that central to the concept, though, but this is fine.

Nice portrait. I rather liked her even though on a personal level I strongly dislike the SURGE and have just pretended in did not happen in my campaigns for the past 10 years.

Is there a technical issue? Could it be that you can't access it because of mature content?
It's mostly violence and strong language, but deviantArt requires me to check a box. If that's it, I'll have to find a way around it and put it up on my blog or something.


Thanks. That's what I was aiming for


I disliked SURGE strongly at first, too. But I let it happen in the background in my game world. Things happened, the runners weren't affected, and during the Year of the Comet, other stuff was more important.

For now, I like the options. Mostly I see it used as a tool to build furry or MLP characters, but hey, who am I to judge? To each his own, I guess. Custom-tailoring a character generally gets my seal of approval.

Yeah. they want me to register and I've grown leery of registering. Old and cranky, I guess.



Many thingas annoy me about SURGE.

1 - It shows up in just about any min-maxed build. As a result, they are incredibly common in various gaming group. And yet...

2 - ...it feels like a throw in, an excuse to fill splat books like the Runner's companion because it was never embraced by the setting. When I decided SURGE did not happen and I'd just retcon any official characters I ran accross in my campaigns to be normal, do you know how often I had to do it? Not once. 80% of what I play is official and I have a hard time thinking of a single official SURGE character featured in an adventure or campaign sourcebook. But if you allow it, you'll probably end up with more SURGE characters in your team than there are official SURGE NPCs in the entire SR canon outside of The Year of The Comet sourcebook! I think that the authors are either like me in their dislike of the SURGE or it has slipped their mind altogether.

3 - For shadowrunners, some of the more drastic changes seem ludicrously impractical and hurts my suspension of disbelief. For example, your character looks cool but...

-''Captain, we've been hit by a team and they stole the prototype. But if we act fast, maybe we can get it back before they unload it.''
-''What do we know about the runners?''
-''Well, the group includes a 6'8'' tall blue girl with horns, human or elf.''
-''You mean THE 6'8'' tall blue human girl with horns. There is only one in Seattle. In the UCAS too, for that matter.''
-''Oh. Wel'll let's track her down.''

In many games, standing out that much is no problem (and that's fine), but for my part, it hurts my suspension of disbelief.

So yeah, I'm not fond of them, but to each his own.

Simon Andrews from the one of SR Missions series would fit the bill for a canon Changeling. He was a full Lizardman working for S-K out of a bar.

Though to the point, I've had a distaste for SURGE since I've come across it. I don't mind a few concepts of it, but I've never seen it actually used for a role-play purpose beyond a gimmick. Never seen much played except Catgirls or some flimsy excuse to get a +3 bonus to social rolls for cheap.

Even when the GM's authorize SURGE characters for a game, I won't use them. They just seem silly for anything outside pure pink mohawk.

And I'm not big on the mohawk.

Thank you for your comments. They are appreciated and I knew beforehand that the tone wouldn't fit everyone's taste.
Still, thanks for the time and criticism.

For everyone who's interested but can't read the stories on dA, here's a link to them on my blog page. Most of it is in German, but the stories are posted in English.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Are you going to keep updating this thread when you got new chapters?

Hmmm probably
I might forget, but I usually try to hog attention because I crave feedback