It's a new year, so the dozens of products we released last year are old news--time to build a legacy for the current year. That starts with Street Legends Supplemental (Battleshop, DriveThru), which contains ten more profiles of the kind of people that people like telling stories about. Here's the rundown:

UNUSUAL SUSPECTS

Ten people. Ten very different people. A pirate who has made himself into one of the most wanted men in the world. A datathief whose skill is only matched by his flair and panache. Two corporate giants whose personalities—and actual physical makeup—couldn’t be more different. A troll whose name has a history much older than herself. And other individuals with stories and secrets of their own.

Some of them are people you want on your side, and some of them are people who could be very dangerous enemies if you aren’t careful. All of them are people you should know, because all of them have something—money, power, knowledge, or all three—that you can use.

Street Legends Supplemental follows the format of the Street Legends book by presenting information on ten characters from the Shadowrun universe, sharing stories about their activities in the Sixth World and also offering complete game information and statistics for them. Each character also comes with plot information gamemasters can use as they develop their campaigns. While it is a companion to Street Legends, Street Legends Supplemental can be enjoyed entirely on its own.

Street Legends Supplemental is for use with Shadowrun, Twentieth Anniversary Edition.

And, for those who don't want to check out the pdf preview for the full list of characters...

Street Rage
Hard Exit
Kane
Mihoshi Oni
The Smiling Bandit
Slamm-0!
Buttercup
Damien Knight
Anne Ravenheart
Harlequin

Heh, Bandit and Slamm-o are classics from the matrix books.

half of those date back to 2nd edition, at least.

And 1st, in several instances.

Quite possible, but both Bandit and Slamm-o had a writeup about them in target:matrix i think, or perhaps even earlier books.

Hmmm. I am actually interested in several of those people. Can it be? Heh, thanks for the update! I am looking forward to reading it.

Mark the calendar, folks!!

The "Incoming" was interesting too.

"Another Rainy Night" for a city other than Seattle?

"Magical Societies" looks interesting too.

The reference to Kane being hunted.. then the news service of an AZ ship that sank and 300 dead sailors...... Connected maybe? lol

Enhanced fiction, about 10k words long plus the game info. Should be out later this month.

Possibly. Not necessarily, though.

Of course, it has to be, I mean, there's no any other groups out there actively at war with Atzlan.

Heh, with the Azzies the first question should be if they did it themselves

no no... There were these trees, see...?



Bull

Alright...

Some first impressions (trying to stay away from spoilers, as usual):

Interesting cast of characters, to say the least! As I read the least, I felt myself both exited and apprehensive, and then I saw the last one...Harlequin...and thought 'oh no...'

The 'Incoming...' section has me intrigued! Looking forward to all of it.

Resisting the urge to scroll forward and take a peek, I went over the people one by one.

Street Rage - this one seems to have slipped my right by; I can't remember the character from anywhere at all - but I really liked him and the bio. This one will be quite useful to me in the future...

Hard Exit - another one that's passed me by. Seems nice, but not immediately engaging.

Kane - Oh, I'm loving this write-up on so many levels! Loved the stats on Kane, as well as the vehicles.

Mihoshi Oni - Thos character was really well-done i think.

The Smiling Bandit - An old-time favorite of mine, and I really liked that Clockwork did the write-up. I would've expected a bit more in the way of knowledge skills on this one, though, so that was a disappointment. The rest of the stats work well, I think. I haven't read the entire bio carefully, so maybe it's in there, but I was surprised that there was no note regarding his Essence score...

Slamm-O! - The art feels kinda off...not what I expected for him. It kind of makes sense though, but I'm not sure...it might grow on me. I was expecting Netcat to do the right up, but Clockwork has an interesting voice for this one. Well done!

Buttercup - Not liking the art here at all. It doesn't have much of what I've come to associate with Buttercup, but I guess she can take any form, so...*shrug* The write-up gives some much -needed updates to her goings-on, I think. Stat-wise this was a bit of a surprise, and I'm not sure if there's an error here or if I'm just foggy on the rules. Will have to look into that one...

Damien Knight - Great stuff here, though nothing surprising I think. Stat -wise I think he works, but I haven't analyzed it closely yet.

Anne Ravenheart - To be honest, I skimmed this part very briefly. Plan 9 writing her up could be good; it could be bad. I'm not a great fan of Plan 9. I did see some great stuff in here, though - things that really peaked my interest, but it doesn't really have much to do with her. Gona go back and read it more closely later.

Harlequin - MacCallister talking, and we all know how he feels about the Laughing Man... I like Saint James making an appearance here, and I like most of the talk between them. Then came the parts I didn't like...

First, Bull explaining what his problem with H is - for us old-timers, that differs with the events as they happened in our games, but that part I can overlook.
Second, Frosty's comments - I'm sure there's a 'plan' of sorts here (or at least I hope there is) but whatever it is, it needs more explanation. While this could just be a 'natural' continuation of Frosty's personal development, I find her comments a bit...out of character. Not liking that.
I really liked the reference to the first Harlequin run, though - that part was perfectly written IMO.

Then we come to the kicker...current events - this has me really intrigued, because it suggests there are concrete plans for H in the future, and I for one would love a third massive H-related adventure.

Stats - surprisingly well-done, I must say. Some 'holes', possibly - but everyone will have their own views of a character like this. Overall, it's quite useable, and I'll use it as my 'base stats' for him, with some small additions.

I was pleasently surprised by the write-up on Harlequin!

It raises some questions, though:

1 - Who did the write-up on this character? Well done!

2 - The run referenced by Saint James - is it (or will it be) an existsing adventure (like a Convention Mission, a Prime Mission, Tournament?) and if so, where can I get it???

P.S. Oh, and forget what I might've said in the past about not liking /dev/grrl - she's definately caught my attention now: well done! I'm sure this will rub some people the wrong way though... both in-game and out!

Heya! gad you liked it, snow!

I wrote up Kane, so I'm glad you enjoyed it. He was a lot of fun to play with, as was the character writing up the bio.

Street Rage is a new character created by one of the freelancers for this book. Don't recall off-hand who wrote him.

Lets I get called out for it, Bull posts a LOT in this book. However, I'm only responsible for Kane's write up, and Bull only posts a single line in it. Sort of. The rest was all other people.

Harlequin was written up by Devon Oratz.

Buttercup is a bit unique, even for a Free Spirit. I don't think that spirits can normally get the conjuring skills, so she's exceptional in that regard.

Bull
Slamm-0! was Brandie Tarvin, and I think that one was great too, especially coming from Clockwork. I LOVE the art myself. Slamm-0! is the quintessential nerd/geek and looks the part. I'm also glad he was able to get some measure of revenge on Bull for the original Street Legends. I'm just glad I don't have to experience a "Diaper Bomb" in RL

There's was a fair bit of discussion regarding Bandit and his essence backstage. the short form is that Bandit doesn't like having augmentations. It used to be pretty much necessary to have a bunch of headware during the gold old decking days, if you wanted to be competitive. These days, it's much less necessary. So while the write up doesn't go into it, effectively he had that stuff ripped out once he didn't need it.

Really. Interesting! I always thought he was way up on the SOTA edge (notice him hacking his time / date sigs in the old books). Hm. Did he go for some of that Essence rejuvenation stuff?

Yeah. So did a lot of us.

Being up on the SOTA doesn't mean you have to have it installed in you. Just access to it, or knowledge of it.

It's possible he did some rejuv stuff. But as a decker, you didn't need more than a point or two of essence for all the headware, unless you decided to pack on a lot of extra storage or if you were going with a Cranial Cyberdeck. go with Alpha and Betaware for this, and it's even less essence.

- dusts off his old profile, solely to commend this release -



Kane: It's been a long time I've laughed so much due to the actions of a character, so, nice work with /dev/grrl, Bull, she just entered my top 20 SR-personalities.

Regard. Slamm-0!'s artwork: Wasn't he already depicted as of SR 20th Anniv.'s Matrix Intro-fic? There is quite the jump from the lean, angular gent we see in 20A, and the overweight techno-hippie we see in the Street Legends Suppl.
Is it supposed to be Clockwork's graphic depiction to further kick him in the ego-sack, or has fatherhood really done a number on the poor sap?

*Coughs*Speaking from experience, it doesn't take long to fall apart, from lean and muscled to fat and techno-hippie.

He's also likely doing more Hacker jobs rather than insertions in order to look after the sprat better. He knows he can deal with IC no problem, it just takes a security guard with one lucky 9mm to the dome to make him a vegetable.

I've personally learned the hard way...it don't take much. I don't think I was this...doughy...before I had children.

Interesting note, to those that care, this one reads a bit funny on the Ipad. The artwork is 'dark' and some of the stat blocks are 'behind' the artwork, not offset 'infront' of the art on yellow boxes.

And may I say.. I've always liked Dev... but now.. lol awesome.

Trying to go the other way myself. I figure that 52 pounds in 52 weeks is a reasonable goal.

Of course, I also said that the past ten years running. D'oh.

Plus, Netcat LOVES to cook. And when she was prenant, she craved lots and lots of junk food. And if she was eating it, so was he.

<grin>

(Non canon answer there, but I like it.)

Bull

Cooking? In Shadowrun? They can afford real food?

Ol Fastjack coming in to back up a death threat on one of the Jackpointers was interesting.

I can actually see him carrying it off too.

IRL or on the Matrix, if you can see FastJack, you are already dead...

Seeing as he's a father himself, he's not likely to take threats to kids lightly.

Egads. Who did he threaten? (My guess is the ever-hated CLockwork, but.)

Indeed,

Now.... when people on Jackpoint threaten each other, you usually take it as bluster or with a grain of salt.

When Fastjack does it.. you kinda STFU and back up. lol you know?

When FastJack does it, you're already on borrowed time.

Most likely the artist didn't know about it and anyone pointed him towards it.

I just bought it. It looks like it's the characters I wanted in Street Legends plus a few I didn't know I wanted. I'll look at it in the morning.

I'd like to note I'm even more sick of /dev/grrl now. Apparently, she is capable of doing research herself. That makes her previous "lol what's Bug City" questions all the more loathsome.
Oh, and people who have billions of bounties on their heads do not hang out in unsecured places without guards, so it's unbelievable, too.
UPD: but less unbelievable than that bit on DNA, admittedly.

Maybe we can bribe James Meiers to kill her off-screen too.

Yeah, I figured that was the explanation for Bandit, but it would've been nice to have an 'official' comment on it in the stat block (or write-up).

It's the moustache and red hair I have the biggest problems with on Slamm-O! Dunno why...it makes him look kinda like Obelix, and kind-of like a norwegian comedian, and I've always pictured him as blonde; even before the SR4A art. I like the pudginess, though - that fits, I think. He's getting older, and he's a nerd and hacker, and now a father.

That explains why I've never heard of Street Rage before - great stuff though!

If Devon Oratz is also responsible for the whole plot-thread there with Harlequin, I hope we'll get to see that developed by the same author (but preferrably without the same voice for Frosty...it went a bit far, I think - unless...hmm, maybe she's found out the truth? That could explain it...)

Well done with Kane, Bull - I've re-read it and I really, really like the whole thing. I guess it can be argued that Kane is 'too easy' to get to as decribed considering the bounty...but I do think it fits the character somehow.

All in all, this book fulfills everything I was hoping for with Street Legends. To everyone involved: well done! This is probably my favorite SR publication of the year, so far!

(jokes aside - it's about the best I've seen in a year or two. If things keep on a similar track, I for one will be a happy gm!)

Who's that Devon Oratz? Did he work on previous SR4 books?

Devon Oratz has written in Street Legends, Corporate Intrigue and Artifacts Unbound (possibly more? dunno...) That's the extent of my knowledge.

Oh, and I'm curious now - what did Devon write in Corp Intrigue and Artifacts?

What a oddly interesting pair of comparisons.

Who said he didn't have guards? Either that, or he just sold them out.

Anyhow, at least she finally grew a pair.

Uh, the whole story implies he wasn't guarded? You know, the whole walking-up-to-him-with-Ares-Alpha kind of deal?

The write-up for Kane was awesome. All measures of awesome.



I liked it, but the only thing that annoyed me was that the metamagic he taught Frosty wasn't placed in the write-up. I was hoping to see two or so new metamagics there. I've a character in my game currently going through a 'path' of sorts inspired by the tarot deck, which if he completes will require Harlequin mentoring him as a 'knight'.



She's... interesting.

Oh. I hate to do this, but I feel I must (not related to you, Bull).

Piqued interest. Not peaked. I've seen it enough times that it really really annoys me.

Never underestimate the cute little girl with the schoolgirl outfit.

Hell, the Ares Alpha was probably just more of a turn-on for him.

How did I miss that...?

That said, there were a couple of things I missed proofing Harlequin, and getting that metamagic inserted was one of them. Sorry about that.

I'm really, really interested in seeing what's coming down the pipe, just from the hints in this book.
And /dev/ is now one of my favourite characters. Mind you, I liked her earlier, now she's just coated in awesome.

Yeah, I was telling Bull during the development of this product that there probably were not going to be any neutral reactions to the piece on Kane. I thought it was old-school, second- and third-edition SR, candy-coated awesome, myself. I've read it a lot of times by now, from its earliest drafts to the final proof, and it just never got old for me. I knew there would be a lot of people like Fatum, for instance, who hated it...and that's cool, too. Kane and most people associated with him are pretty polarizing, I've found.

I'm really interested in how this all winds up shaking out.

I don't hate Kane as a character; I hate the believability of the setting ruined.

Yes, because nobody in real life ever makes a bone-headed mistake which can suddenly end their careers. Oh wait.

It's okay. Perhaps it can just be added to a future supplement - gathering metamagics and spells together from various sources and adding them to some new ones. Null sheen, as they say.

There's such a thing as believing your own Rep too much.

Also, he might have thought himself "Safe" due to arrangements with the CAS he just made (They talk about that in the file, BTW.). He just didn't expect the Spanish Inquis... Er... A NEONet Schoolgirl.