Online Shadowrun by Excalibur

Playing by the rules

To catch up on the latest happenings in the shadows, check out the Story Page.

Table of Contents

• Character creation guidelines
  • The first steps in creating a character
  • Attribute modifiers for Meta-humans
  • Character templates - the different professions and occupations
  • Guidelines for folks that already know how to create a character
• The Shadowrun timeline
  • The end of the 20th century
  • The beginning of a new century
  • From 2010 - 2019
  • From 2020 - 2029
  • From 2030 - 2039
  • From 2040 - 2049
  • From 2050 - the present

What kind of Character are you???

Are you an Elf, a dwarf, or maybe a 12 foot tall troll...

Do you walk around with a BIG gun? or maybe you delve into magic. Maybe you're the driver, you plug your brain directly into the vehicle, and you feel the road beneath your tires. Maybe you like to stay in your dos, and plug your brain into your cyberdeck unit and surf the virtual reality of the matrix...

Well, here are some choices for you to make. First off, this is to help those who have never played the game before. If you really think that you like it, I wholeheartedly suggest that you go buy the main rule book. That'll set you back about $25.00. I also suggest, that if this is the first time you've ever played, you play a Street Samurai. This is basically your muscle/fighter type person. They are the easiest to create.
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You start out with a matrix, and from this matrix you will choose how many points to allocate to your body attributes and your skills. The matrix is below:

The extra number beside of the amount in Resources is the number of magic points a magician takes for his beginning spells.

If you play any race other than human, you must take Race at priority A. If you are playing a Human Magician, you must take Magic at priority A. If you are playing a Metahuman Magician, you take Race at A, and Magic at B. Here's an example:

An elf magician:

• A Race
• B Magic
• C Resources 90,000 nuyen, and 25 magic points.
• D Skills 20 points
• E Attributes 15 points

*An exception... There is an optional rule called more metahumans. This rule allows you to play a metahuman and take race at priority C instead of having to take it at A. I allow this rule.

Your resources are what you buy beginning gear with, nuyen is the monetary denomination. The magic points are the total number of points you have to start up your beginning spells. Remember, all money from Resources must be spent prior to beginning the game. Characters start the game with 3D6 X 1,000 Nuyen (That's roll a 6 sided dice three times and multiply by 1000). That money may be in any form the character chooses, and he may use some of it to purchase additional equipment. Any money left over from resources you can keep 1/10 of. See additional notes on money at end of the file.

Skills, are things like your firearms skills, street etiquette, athletics, etc. Your attributes are your body, intelligence, charisma, quickness, strength, and willpower. You take the 15 points for attributes and split it up between the six attributes. You take the 20 points for skills and get things like driving a car, firing gun, demolitions, or computers. So, was that as clear as mud? In addition to the six attributes, you have essence, and your reaction. Your essence starts at 6 and is reduced by putting cyberware into your body. Your essence can not go below zero, or you are dead. Your reaction is the average of your intelligence and your quickness.

Now, what race are you going to play. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Ork, or Troll
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Metahuman characters have modifications to their attributes as follows:

• Dwarf +1 Body, -1 Quickness, +2 Strength, +1 Willpower, and also Thermographic vision and Resistance (+2 Body) to disease only.
• Elf +1 Quickness, +2 Charisma, and Low Light Vision.
• Ork +3 Body, +2 Strength, -1 Charisma, -1 Intelligence, and Low Light Vision.
• Troll +5 Body, -1 Quickness, +4 Strength, -2 Intelligence, -1 Willpower, -2 Charisma, and Thermographic Vision, +1 Reach for Armed/Unarmed Combat, Dermal Armor (+1 Body).

Now, what do you do for a living?
Street Samurai, Hermetic Mage, Shaman, Combat Mage, Street Shaman, Decker, Rigger, Body Guard, or Mercenary. If you are going to play a magician of any sort, be careful of cyberware, because your magic rating goes down with your essence. And your magic rating is the highest level that you can throw a spell without taking physical damage. Combat magi will sometimes use a small amount of cyberware, like enhanced vision types, but not much. Others will stay away from it all together.

Street Samurai, Body Guard, Mercenary, or a Detective are basically the same, a fighter, there are just differences in the kind of skills you choose.

Magicians, Combat Mage, Hermetic mage, Tribal Shaman, Street Shaman. Once again, subtle differences. A Mage (meaning Hermetic) believes in a formula or design of a spell to bring forth the mana and shape it to create the spell. A Shaman chooses a totem (or more correctly, the totem chooses the shaman). The totem gives the shaman power. A totem may be Wolf, Dog, Rat, Crow, Cat, etc.. If you don't know anything about the totems and need to know, let me know. Some totems give bonuses in different situations.

Riggers interface directly with their vehicle through the use of a cybernetic vehicle control rig. Not only do they control their cars, boats, or aircraft. But they typically will control several types of drones. These drones may be for surveillance, or they may be armed for combat, or both.

Deckers ride the matrix. They plug their cyberdecks directly into their heads. Then, they travel the virtual world of the matrix, a worldwide network of computers.

If you don't have any idea of how to set up your character, and what kind of equipment you need, then what I would like each of you to do is to tell me what kind of character you would like. Describe to me what kinds of things (skills) you'd like the person to have. Give me some sort of a beginning of a background for him/her and I'll work up specifics, get it to you, and then we'll see where we are.
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For those who do know how to make up your own character, here are a couple things you need to know.

1. All brand new characters get 30 Karma points to start with, which may be used to increase your skills or attributes. No beginning character may start with abilities above racial maximums. (Except by purchasing Cyberware or Bioware.) Only 12 points of the 30 may be used to increase attributes. I expect to see how those 30 karma points are used. Give me a listing of all beginning attributes and skills, then the ending list after spending the 30 karma points. Remember that general skills cost 2X the new level, concentrations cost 1.5X the new level, and Specializations cost 1X the new level.
2. All pre-existing characters must be submitted to me for review. If applicable, extra Karma points will be given to bring you up to par with other characters.
3. NO character my start with resources in priority A. Sorry, I'm not going to let you start out with 1,000,000 nuyen, and there is a reason, read on.
4. All new characters begin the game with an additional 500,000 nuyen to equip your character, in addition to the amount given by the priority you take resources at. This 500,000 must also all be spent prior to the beginning of the game. Rigger characters submit to me a list of your equipment, and a wish list for drones if you don't have enough cash to get what you want. I will review it and see if there is reason to give you extra beginning cash, but don't count on it.
5. Absolutely! NO SECURITY OR MILITARY GRADE EQUIPMENT.
6. Contacts. Every new character starts out with two free contacts as per the main rule book. You may purchase additional contacts per the rule book. A contact will cost you 5000 nuyen, and a buddy will cost you 10,000 nuyen. Existing characters, I will review your contact list. You may get to keep them all, you may not. It depends on what they all look like when I get them together. I may actually use your contacts in the game. After the game starts, you can not "buy" a contact (although a bribe might get you somewhere) you must earn contacts through role-playing.

   Also, I don't expect your characters to know each other in the beginning of the game. If for some reason, you want your character to be a contact or buddy with another player character, give me a good reason, and I will decide.

7. Lifestyles. I expect you will purchase a lifestyle. You don't want to live on the street, do you? Living on the street doesn't cost you anything, but if you choose that, it will be hard on you, count on it.
   • Squatters pay 100 nuyen per month
   • Low Lifestyle pay 1,000 nuyen per month
   • Middle Lifestyle pay 5,000 nuyen per month
   • High Lifestyle pay 10,000 nuyen per month
   • Luxury Lifestyle pay 100,000 nuyen per month

   Low lifestyle will get you an apartment, not much else. Middle lifestyles get you a decent apartment and a commuter type car or bike. High lifestyle gets you a real nice apartment with security and such, and a luxury class car or sports car. I expect you to keep up these payments. If you fall behind by more than two months, your landlord will come looking for you. (And yes, I will keep track.)

8. I allow the use of the optional allergy rule for metahuman characters. If you are new and don't understand this, you may receive benefits (additional points to body, etc.) for taking an allergy to something. The severity can be anywhere from mild, to deadly. If you want more specifics and don't have access to the rules let me know. Be aware, if you choose this, I probably will not go out of my way to "hit" you with it, but if it comes up, you chose it.
9. I want each player to come up with some kind of background for the character, and a description. What color hair and eyes, how long is the hair, how does he/she dress? What are their mannerisms? Is your character a corporate employee, does he/she have a System Identification Number (SIN) or not? Why is this person running the shadows? This doesn't have to be long, just give me some idea of "who" the character is. After all, even though this is being done by e-mail, it IS STILL A ROLE-PLAYING GAME.
10. Languages - You get your native language as a skill at your Intelligence + 2, and another language that you may pick at half your intelligence (round down). These do not cost you any skill points or karma initially.
11. The final rule (for now). These rules may change, or be expanded upon at any time as the game progresses and I see how I'm doing :-) Errr.. I've already made some changes :-)

• Late 1990's: Civil unrest runs rampant. Corporations arm their security forces with the finest available equipment and hire professional mercenaries due to fear of indifferent or incompetent governments, starting with their holding in third world countries.
• 1999: Food Riots in New York City due to a truckers strike. Seretech Medical Research truck attacked by rioters. They dispatched their security forces to protect the truck and it became a bloody battle. Later, the Supreme Court ruled that corps had the right to protect their interest.
• 2001: NRC vs. Shiaawase Corp establishes extraterritoriality of multinational corporations.
• 2004: Lybia unleashed chemical weapons on Israel. Israel responds with a nuclear strike that destroys half of Lybia's cities.
• 2005: Major earthquake in New York City kills over 200,000 people and does over 200 billion in damages.
• 2006: Japan creates Japanese Imperial State, deploys fleet of solar collector satellites which beam microwave energy to receptors on Earth for relatively cheap power. Creates strong inroads with the third world.
• 2002-2008: Resource Rush. Government invokes its right of imminent domain again and again to take, then lease properties to corps to exploit the resources. Taking the brunt of this were Indian lands and federal park lands. Conservationist and Indian rights groups expressed shock and disgust, but corp influence and paramilitary power make it dangerous to object. More radical elements form Sovereign American Indian Movement (SAIM).
• 2009: United Oil Industries announces it has acquired rights to the petrochemical resources in 1/4 of remaining federal park lands and 1/10 of Indian lands which the government had just confiscated. SAIM reacted immediately. A small band entered the United States Air Force Shiloh Launch Facility in northwest Montana, capturing a missile silo. No one knows how they got inside past security patrols. They then met up with John Redbourne, a full-blooded Dakota Sioux. He knocked his partner unconscious and used his keys to lockout the fail-safes. They demanded the return of all Indian lands or they would launch the facilities missiles. After 10 days, a Delta team attacked the facility, all Indians were killed, but one missile was launched carrying four MIRVed 5 megaton warheads. NORAD could not stop the missile. President Garrety called Moscow and informed them. Moscow put all its forces on full alert. Russian President Nikolai Chenlenko informed Garrety that the warheads had been stopped. There were no recorded nuclear explosions, but there was fallout. Goaded by corp propagandist, the people blamed SAIM and all Native Americans.
• 2010:
  • Corporations pressure government to pass the Re-education and Relocation Act. This called for the confinement of anyone connected with SAIM, but spread because of hatred of the indians. Thousands of innocent Native Americans were sent to concentration camps, called "re-education centers." Daniel Coleman is shipped to the Abilene Camp. Congress soon contracts out management of camps to corporations. As camps drop from the media spotlight, conditions get worse.
  • Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS) breaks out in New Delhi, but soon spreads over the globe. The worst epidemic since the Black Plague left a significant percentage of the worlds population dead or dying by years end.
• 2011:
  • January, Violent dissolution of Mexican government. In the next five years, many more governments rise and fall, famine stalks the globe, civil protest lead to attacks on European nuclear plants, three of which have meltdowns and radiation spreads.
  • On the heel of the VITAS plague, Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE) occurred. All over the world, mutant and changeling children were being born to "normal" parents. They were dubbed "elves and dwarves". They are called metahumans. Miracles and calamities were being reported in every country, religions rose and died, prophets appeared proclaiming the end of the world. On December 24, at the same time that hundreds of Japanese witnessed the first appearance of the great dragon Ryumyo as they passed by Mt. Fuji on a bullet train, Daniel Coleman, ie. Daniel Howling Coyote, led his followers out of the Abilene Re-Education Center. Guards tried to stop them, and one repeated later that Coleman seemed to be glowing, and that he knew he had shot him three times, but he was never effected and kept right on walking into a storm. There was no search party that night because of the storm, but there was no trace of the indians to be found the next day. There was no question then that magic had returned to the world.
• 2014:
  • Daniel Coleman disappeared from public view for years after he left the Abilene center. He was no doubt proselytizing. Word spread among the remaining free indians, as well as those still incarcerated about a new prophet, a great shaman to whom the spirits had taught a powerful new dance. This inspired Native Americans to resist the tyranny of their existence. Many escaped the camps and fled into the wilderness. They started a guerrilla war against the army. In 2014, Daniel Coleman returns from the shadows. He called himself Howling Coyote and declared he was a shaman of the Ghost Dance. He announced the formation of the Native American Nations (NAN). They demanded the return of all land of North America to the Indians, and the removal of all European, Asian, and African descendants. It was of course taken as a joke, and everyone was having fun with it when they demonstrated their power. Redondo Peak erupted, burying Los Alamos, New Mexico in ash. Howling Coyote appeared on a vid show from a nearby Zu�i reservation and claimed credit for invoking Mother Earth to punish those who had forsaken her for so long. Within an hour of the broadcast a fast reaction team of Sixth Air Calvary from Fort Hood Texas responded, but never arrived at the reservation. The craft were destroyed by freak winds and tornados.
  • The Free Republic of Ireland is formed.
  • The white-controlled government of South Africa finally dissolved completely.
• 2016: President Garrety is assassinated, followed shortly by Russian President Nikolai Chelenko, Prime Minister Lena Rodale of Great Britain, and Minister Chaim Schon of Israel. New U.S. President William Jarman issues Executive Order 17-321. Congress ratified it with the Resolution Act of 2016. This sanctioned Jarman's plan to resolve "the indian question": total extermination of all Native Americans. When the government started to gather their forces, several months of freak weather prevented them from gathering.
• 2017: On August 17th when the government forces left to execute the Resolution Act of 2016, at 10:32 AM Pacific time, Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Adams all erupted. Mother Earth had declared whose side she was on.
• 2018:
  • Treaty of Denver. Representatives from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico met with the Ghost Dancers in Denver. Within three months an agreement had been reached giving much of western North America back to NAN, recognizing the sovereignty of NAN.
  • Space plane America disintegrates in orbit, wreckage lands in Longreach Australia killing 300 people.
  • First generation ASIST (Artificial Sensory Induction System). Used for entertainment first, but researchers look at ways to handle data.
• 2021: April 30, all over world, one of every ten men and women suddenly metamorphosed into hideous humanoid shapes. This is called Goblinization and the resulting people are called Orks and Trolls. Ten percent of the population is effected. Some normal children change when they reach puberty.
• 2022:
  • Race riots wracked the globe on a scale never before seen.
  • Data magazine uses the term Awakened to describe metahumans and other life forms recently come into being.
  • Quebec becomes independent.
  • Caribbean League formed.
  • VITAS sweeps the globe again.
• 2024: First simsense entertainment system developed. (Like a sensory VCR)
• 2025: Magic becomes recognized and classes offered by universities.
• 2026: First cyberterminal built. A room sized isolation chamber with multiple contact point jacks and multiple hook-ups for the operator designed for military intelligence applications. The first volunteers went mad.
• 2027: First cold fusion power plant goes online.
• 2029:
  • Cyberterminals developed that allow user to interface with the world wide data network directly to his nervous system. In the U.S., the CIA, NSA, and IRS pool their resources and create Echo Mirage to work on development.
  • Feb. 8, computer systems around the world are attacked at random by a virus of unprecedented power. Data was lost, systems crashed, and hardware even burned up. Governments and the economy suffered. Presidential order brought Echo Mirage in to fight the virus. The "straight-arrow" agents were overwhelmed. Echo Mirage recruited the best "mavericks" they could. By August, they were finally ready to bring about a coordinated attack on the virus with much improved cyberterminals. Eighteen minutes after engaging the virus, four members of Echo Mirage were dead. Corporations are shocked at the ease with which the members of Echo Mirage penetrated their most secure data systems. Secret work begins on new security software and Intrusion Countermeasures (IC, or "ICE") is developed.
• 2030-2042: Euro-Wars
• 2030: Remaining United States and Canada merge to form United Canadian American States (UCAS).
• 2031: By late in the year, the last traces of the virus are removed from the Matrix.
• 2034: Ten southern states secede from UCAS, forming the Confederate American States (CAS).
• 2035: Elves announce the formation of Tir Tairngire and seceded the area of the old state of Oregon from NAN.
• 2036: Small rural town in Ohio is firebombed with napalm, 20 people are killed, almost all of them metahuman. A group calling itself Alamos 20,000 claims responsibility, starting off 15 years of terrorist activity against metahumans and sympathetic normals linked directly to this group.
• 2037: California secedes from the UCAS, forming California Free State.
• 2039: Night of Rage. Worldwide riots result in the deaths of thousands of metahumans and others cosmetically changed to look like metahumans.
• 2041:
  • Apparently in retaliation for Night of Rage and violence against metahumans EuroAir Flight 329 was destroyed. There were no survivors. While en route from London to Atlanta the plane was attacked by a dragon over the Atlantic. According to the last transmission from the plane, one heroic passenger held off the dragon's attack with sorcery for several minutes.
  • Birth of policlubs in Europe. Youth oriented and dedicated to promoting various political philosophies.
• 2044: Aztlan nationalized all foreign-owned businesses under heavy pressure from Aztechnology Corporation. Semi-open warfare broke out as some corps attempted to hold on to their property. Aztlan used this screen as an opportunity to annex the rest of what remained of Mexico except for the Yucatan, where Awakened forces foiled all takeover attempts.
• 2046: Policlub idea spreads to North America. Humanis Policlub is denounced as an arm of Alamos 20,000 by Mothers of Metahumans (MOM).
• 2050 - ?: Cyberdecks improve, and are now keyboard size. Improvements continue in cybertechnology and biotechnology.

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