Not sure if it should go here, move it if needs be, but here's my proposal. I'm writing up my own area, the Lancaster area of Pennsylvania, in 2063. Are there any folks on these boards from Harrisburg or York who can do likewise? Mayhaps it can be a cooperative project. I'll get you what specifics I have when/if I get takers.

One specific, though, Gettysburg is an extremely Awakened place.

I be from the Pittsburgh Area and I am working on that whole area in 2063. (Not had alot of time yet mind you, but I will get it done sooner or later.) Does that count at all?

I live in delaware, and have always wanted to see some project that would focus on medium to smaller towns and cities. There are alot of nasty little things that can be hidden in out of the way places, and if locals helped then you could ad alot of flavor to it!

I know these areas pretty well:

Delaware: South of the Canal
Dover, Dover AFB, Delaware Beachs, and a pretty big Ag infrastrucure in the southern end of the state. Not as familiar, but know Wilmington/New Castle Area

Maryland: Salisbury, Easton, St.Micheals( Rich Area NOw), Ocean City MD

Virginia's Eastern Shore: Wallops Island (Nasa, now Ares in YOTC), Bridge Tunnel to Norfolk, Many many many really small town....

If someone know Other parts of MD as well, id like to see maybe a DE/MD/PA online supplement.

Well, I was planning on making an SR webpage to host the Lancaster-area stuff, if others come up with things on MD/VA/PA, I'd be happy to post them.

I live outside Philly and love the Gettysburg area.

We can imagine this for ourelves the trick is to make it so other people can get it.

Just to be socratic here, why is Gettysburg awakened? It should have a massively high background check from being a major battle-badly haunted-whose aura is added to by decades of re-enactments and tourists whos thoughts are focused there, but why awakened?

Just to drift further to the east, there should be some toxic backwash from 3 mile islands- though the river around there looks good, and you should have a loto f really "untoxic" space because of the Amish, their social rules aside they have limited incroachment of suburbia.

They've limited it yes, but its still incredible the amount of encrochement there has been, with many of them moving up here to western ny and to other areas. I was in the Akron area for the first time in about 12 years last year, and the amount of sprawl that was new amazed me. The Amish view of the Awakening and metahumanity would be interesting too.

Pennsylvania Dutch in that area have a strong magical tradtion- "pow-wow" a mix of celtic/sctoish folklore and indian medicine magic but how far that extends to the amish I don't know. Shamans might far better than mages.

Obviously cyber is way out but a good simple person who just happens to be a meta might do just fine. I think elves might actually have a prejudice against them but orks and trolls would be welcomed.

it's as you get into the Berkshires you get more awakwned stuff. Charles Adams has made a career investigating paranormal stuff from Delaware to New York but he's put a huge amount of focus into Berks county, and at least 3 volumes of "Berks the bizarre" everything form ghosts to fey to ufo's. This is the same are for the setting of the gibson Film "Signs"

Because of the seclusion it could go either way. Since meta's are something that isn't introduced into a population but something that springs up if it does manifest in the Amish it will manifest alot. Interestingly enough I think that the Amish would have a higher than normal number of magically active people than many groups for the same reason I think they could have more meta's than normal.

As for magic it would depend on the prevailing thought of the time. Most groups would probably view magic similar to technology at which point it would only be limited the 'work environment.' Of course you would have more conservative and liberal views on it.

One big SR historical event for the South Western PA area that I have always thought about has been the shattering of the Unions that are so rooted in here that it isn't even funny.

The Megas wouldn't want a bunch of uppity Western PA'ers complaining that "IT'S NOT FAIR!" everytime they wanted to be despotic.

Do one better:

The unions decided to make a monopoly on manpower. Globally. So they all banded together and reached B corp status, sending representatives to countries all over the world to spread. As they were busy trying to force the AAAs into only hiring from them, Aztechnology upped their wages 15% (or more, depending on how you want to do the math) so that their entry level wages were 10% below the "absolute bottom rate" that the unions would accept. The actual workers ran for this opportunity of actually getting paid instead of staying on endless strike. Once on Aztlan land, each worker was given citizenship and work*. Other corps did similar in their own regions. With their one point of leverage elsewhere employed, the union bosses quickly lost their status and any chance of actually influencing major decisions. Once the UBL (Universal Brotherhood of Laborers) fell past the F rating, the corps restarted their process of optimizing the pay/performance ratio in their favor. Once that whole bug thing happened, the last unionites were accidentally killed by a group of somewhat uneducated do-gooder shadowrunners hired under the impression that UBL was just a spin off group from the UB. Their employer for that job remains unknown, since the only known record of the deal was a note in a half melted pocket secretary that somehow survived the explosion.


*for this part, they really should have read their contracts more carefully, the "full ownership of base components in all planes" clause wasn't such a nice benefit

For a good read on the history of labor in W PA pick up "Homestead". Can't remember authors' name. A good rule of thumb is that if it will make money, someone has already done it and written about how to do it.

Berks county is weird. There I said it. Actually I like Berks county and plan to attend Kutztown Uni, but its still a weird area. I don't want to think about what Reading will be like in 2060 let alone in an awakened world in 2060. Plus everything north of I78 will be so toxic from mining in a SR world it wouldn't be funny.

Run Idea:

You are hired by a group of Amish magicians to help them clear out Toxic Shaman(s) up in Schuylkill county. They don't have a problem disposing of spirits and in fact are quite good at it, but they draw the line at killing actual people (the shaman). It turns out that the Toxics have taken over Centrailia. While passing thru Pottsville you end up having to take care of the Haunting of Pottsville by the ghosts of the Molly Maguires. On the way back with the Amish you get jumped by a mega-corp crew that was on its way in to dispose of the Toxics and clear the area for strip mining for anthracite.

Another option would be to stick the runners in a situation similar to the movie Witness.

I wonder if the Centralia fire's STILL burning... there could be an wesome place for all sorts of free elementals and all that jazz.

I'll have to work on getting the Lancaster and southern Dauphin County stuff up on the web.

I thought they put it out. Is it still going in 2004?
If not, then they could probably put it out with fire elementals. draw them from the flames and then dismiss them.

That was a hypothetical explination of how the unions died. I don't remember reading anything in the books about how it happened, so I came up with a sequence that makes at least as much sense as some of the other events empowering the megacorps.

You'd also have to contend with Salamanders and maybe even Toxic Salamanders, Shamans, and terrorists reigniting the fires. I could see corps trying to utilize them as well, but how successful that might be I don't know.

I like the idea of amish hiring runners to deal with problems. they could be very rich selling real food, or they might set up a whole new run by paying the runners off in a few bushels of wheat

yeah, but we're talking about in community amish hiring runners.
It might turn out like the peasants in the Magnificent Seven.

Which, ironically, would lead to the shadowrunners becoming the Yakuza. Right?

Finally, some progress on this. Three new Pennsylvanian critters.

Albatwitch
Grindylow
Squonk

How about the Jersey Devil? It's been reported as far west as Delaware County.

You know, the legend doesn't always have to be appropriate when making it fit into Shadowrun.

Keep the legend around explaining the origin of the first one, and state that it has since become a new para-species. The first generation needing some... assistance... to reproduce, but the second generation included some viable fertile females.

Then, make rules for one as a player character just to tick off the GM when you get a chance to play.