As we know and probably love, Shadowrun is a dystopian setting where urban sprawl has taken over much of the old King county in Washington state. I can't remember reading much about nature or parks in most sourcebooks detailing Seattle, although there are supposed to be a lot of nature in NAN-country.

So what has happened to the beautiful area "we" have today? RL seattle is full of parks and nature reserves, and especially wealthy people want access to these also in the future. Certain eccological disasters will have taken it's toll, such as the acidic rain, the mt. rainer erruption, gaetronics plant blowing up - but still there should be some nature left. There might even be more untouched nature in the poorer areas, as urban development would be slower there, while the AAA areas will probably only have golf courses, preserved reserves with a high degree of human intervention etc.

Ok maybe all I'm really interested in is, how far do nature shamans need to go to obtain Reagents in Seattle? Is a common park area enough to get a little, or do they need to go to the larger reserves or even into the Salish-Sidhe council lands?

Also, would it be different if the setting is 2042 instead of 2075?

To my recollection Fort Lewis is mostly wilderness (for training purposes) and Snohomish is rural (but in the farming sense, not the woods everywhere sense). Other districts have nature-y portions, excepting Downtown and Puyallup, the former due to urbanization and the latter due to lava and ash.

nother thing to keep in mind is SR's Seattle is actually Seattle and several surrounding areas. Outside downtown, it isn't what we'd consider Seattle. Essentially, places like Renton or Bellevue are suburbs.

About half is left. Shadowrun's Auburn district is paved over with industry and worker housing for about 50% of its surface, the rest varying degrees of rural or suburbian hell. Cougar mountain (exempting the top, which is a Horizon-owned reserve) and half of the neighboring mountain park have been converted into huge projects to house Ghost Dance War refugees. Seattle's Puyallup is all urbanized from Puyallup down to Silver Lake - high-density urban chaos, no suburbs. Shadowrun Puyallup has half a million (!) denizens, at a quarter of today's Puyallup county's size. The rural parts of shadowrun's Everett district have been paved over, and Redmond's (always talking about the Shadowrun districts here, sorry) borderside parts are either urban ghettos or a huge mega landfill (think Elysium). Oh, and the Point Definace park? Where Fort Nisqually is? It has been paved over for a gated community. Kobe Park still exists though, as does Denny Park.

Fort Lewis is still pretty quaint. Snohomish is rather rural, though with more covered fields and agridomes and whatnot, because the future, but supposedly it's still fairly rural. Bellevue and surrounding areas is pretty much as it is today. Mercer/Council Island and the Outremer Islands (Vashon, Bainbridge, Fox, Blake, McNeil and Anderson Islands, plus smaller Islands), which also belong to the UCAS, are also pretty much like today.


No further than the nearest Mysticks & Magicks, Ying&Yang, or Pyramid Arcane Supplies retail partner. It's probably in your local mall! Oh yeah, there hardly is any Seattle area mall that isn't covered and at least 5 stories high. Lots and lots of mall space.

Oh yeah, don't try to sneak out into tribal lands to pick your stuff on the cheap. You'll regret your stringyness while you're burned alive. Yes, that is what the NAN do to non-Indian poachers, as per the Sioux Nation book. Burned. Alive.


Probably not that much, since the major change in Shadowrun Seattle happened with the treaty of Denver and during the following decade.

Half isn't too shabby, but the idea of puyallup and redmon becoming urban like new york urban is kind of weird. So it seems at least that pollution alone has not ruined all the nature. I guess a field trip to Outremer is possible.

As for reagens, didn't know the "indjuns" were THAT touchy about some feathers and nature stuff. I guess their border is also highly guarded and almost impossible for even Seattle Sinners to cross, without great costs. Too bad, I was thinking they wanted tourism from Seattle.
Getting them from a shop kind of defeats the purpose, as the runners are poor as mice and need to spend time getting reagens to actually craft something worthwhile.

I suppose that'S a matter of principle. Given their history, it's also not entirely unrealistic.

What the border with the SSC lookslike is inconsistent at best. My personal guess is a double fence (troll safe, so 10 meters high) that is electrified and regular drone patrols, with a concrete wall in some places, kind of like the West Bank wall (or that Wall of Trump, though that seems inconsistent at best, too). Not quite the Korean DMZ, but getting there. Keeps all the mad, well-armed city people (gangers, go-gangers, PCs) from pillaging their small towns. Border crossing requires visa, which you have to ask for at one of the tribal lodges on Council (Mercer) Island, which actually belongs to the SSC as an enclave-within-an-enclave. I don't remember anything clear about their Visa policies though.

In fact, most SSC tribes are rather isolationist. The Squamish and Spokane Salish tribes are more open and interested in commerce (and transit tariffs!) and have their own Vancouver-based corporation that sells Seattle energy and raw materials, Cascade Orks do decent smuggling into Seattle, but others like Nuu-chah-nulth (usually referred to as Nookta), Cascade Crow (displaced Montana Crow, IIRC, though I don't remember why), and the elven Sinsearach have just had it with White people and city people in general. Tourism is about the last thing they want.

Hmm, alright. Ill probably delay any forays into salish territory until the runners are.. actually shadowrunner then.

You'll probably see more about this when the new Seattle box drops.

In the meanwhile, don't forget that reagants aren't all freshly-grown from virgin forrest stuff... critterparts are there and the urban environment can create urban shamans, which is a whole other kettle than the "Back to the trees" type. Coyote laughs at the idea that you can't find spiritual energy inside the concrete canyons.

I had a look in SR1 book about seattle and the tribes, and appearently they all (including Salish) has tourism as a major source of Income. That should mean it's quite possible for UCAS SINners who have the nuyen to visit and frolick in the forest or whatever. They may still be touchy about obvious gathering of reagents though - I assume someone accidentally picking up a piece of wood with a couple of drams won't be burned alive.



Well, I'm not really looking for changes, I'm looking for the oldschool stuff. Street Shamans have it easy, but the PC I am referring to wanted to be a nature shaman, so I'm trying to find ways to enable a little regant gathering not too far from Seattle.

Have him sneak into the woods around Fort Lewis. Or Snohomish could work as well, provided you accept that rural means farms, and farms aren't as naturey as woods are.

Fort Lewis seems a better bet, yes. He has wolf totem, and I doubt wolves are very popular around rural snohomish.
Also thinking Outremer (the big island just west of Roxbury) . Getting over the sound could be a cool trip the whole party could engage him, maybe as part of a low-paying mission or get-rich-quick scheme.

And cat laughs at others playing in the dirty outsides.
Also, technically, Metahumanity in the millions in the sprawls should make for a good chunk of nature in there as well.
If you are willing to work with that.
Also, it should, technically, blanket most every spot in the city in a rating 2 to 3 BGC, but i digress <.<

Well. Actually, it's the Salish and the Sinsearach. The Makah, Crow and Ork tribes don't have tourism listed under commercial activities. The Salish aren't such a big surprise, and the Sinsearach apparently are bristling with magic. You can, maybe, trade telesma with them, though, if you find an itch some Sinsearach needs scratched.


Because undocumented, possible convicts sneaking around what amounts to a single military base is such a good idea?


That's your best bet. Also, this is Vashon Island.

Keep in mind Fort Lewis is HUGE. It's an entire goddamn district. It's just not feasible to patrol that kind of land, especially seeing as there's not really anything of value there. It's not like military secrets are hidden in the shrubbery.

It's a risk, yes, but not a major one. A stealth roll with a single hit would probably do it, as would a simple Improved Invisibility spell.

You could buy them from Council Island, or any licensed Talismonger in the city, or the UNlicensed ones from teh Ork Underground, too.

Well, there's a lot more troops there than today, too - the division-strength JTF Seattle, together with an undisclosed but supposedly massive (para)military contingent of corporate troops and mercenaries. Plus, much of the old US West Coast research and military intelligence will have moved there, since the Seattle Metroplex is the last foothold the UCAS has on the American West Coast. Sure, it is possible to slip though that, the district isn't totally and flawlessly cntrolled, but I doubt it will be just easy, and I really doubt if it would be worth it when better options are available.

And actually, there are many plots and plot hooks about military secrets being hidden in the shrubbery.

Is the whole district off limits for law-abiding civillians?

Some parts are public, but large parts are military fenced-off territorry of some kind (whcih is where your telesma would be, in all likelyhood). Lots of training grounds there, too. The Boeing development labs. Policing is done entirely by military police, so you'Re entirely on military juristiction in the district.

Also note something:
- Unless I'm mistaken you don't need to be awakened to pick up reagents.
- Processed reagents sell at a much higher price.
- Due to the illegality of higher Force items, the price can be increased even more for some buyers.

Cheap cost + high price + illegality = criminal syndicate material

So depending on how desperate the local population is, this can lead to two situations:
1. Some local people make a living (enough to get by) by spending their days picking up reagents.
2. Some people are put to slavery and spend their days picking up reagents.
Children could be put to that kind of work, since it requires little strength, and the fact that they're children can help them get away with picking up stuff too close to a restricted area (unless you're in a very dystopian setting).

In any case, your runner can probably just buy these people the reagents for pretty cheap. At least as long as his not making a business out of it.

Alchemy is a magical skill, and thus requires a Magic rating, if I'm not mistaken. So you would need magic 1 to even have an idea what to pick, thus most of the population is unusable for this. I could see areas very high in reagens could be used by either professionals or organizations abusing others, but most areas would just be used by whatever magicians happen to be nearby. An average alchemist could get about 2 drams per hour, but would have to travel quite a lot to find new areas as the areas become spent... thats 50 nuyen an hour at best, assuming the pickers could sell at full market price, which is very unlikely - more like they would get a tiny portion of that. Just look at what farmers get for their produce compared to market price on those goods. And since reagens are quite legal, there is less incentive for syndicates to get involved when you have BTLs and drugs.

The whole point on this thread is to not buy reagens as a non-runner, so one could afford to craft low-force foci.

The reagent prices really don't make a lot of sense to me, with the gathering times and densities, when you consider that you need awakened people to do it. Unless there are a lot of people who are weak aspected alchemists, whose magic isn't useful enough to earn them a better living.

That said, I think there may be space for the small time gathering that you are looking for it just may take time. For example, imagine a burnt out factory in puyallup the rubble and holes aren't stable, so squatters haven't really occupied it, and it has become overgrown and a shelter for rabbits foxes, and birds. You might manage to gather a reagent there periodically, if you are willing to chance the danger. Not appealing to anyone doing it professionally, so maybe not a lot of competition.

I can picture some SINless picking up random stuff (nice looking bird's feather, random plants, etc.) and selling them on some street markets advertised as "magical goods". Most of them will be worthless but might still get bought by guillible mundanes and the few that are actually useful for enchanting can be bought by mages.