. The Shadowrun campaigns have been periodic since first edition – so there’s a lot of old files to convert and post. Currently we’re mostly using Shadowrun III, since quite a lot of the players have issues – whether mechanical, technical, or procedural – with Shadowrun IV. That doesn’t mean that you can’t use most of this with Shadowrun IV, it just means that some of it may need a little tweaking.
As usual, if you’re looking for something in particular, or need further explanations on something, just leave a comment or request.
. Character Creation includes the compiled character-creation handouts (including various new fields of magic, initiate powers, races, and so on in pdf form), the Penumbra Edges and Flaws (a rather large list of character-building modifiers. They’re included in the compiled character-creation handouts, but I was asked to break them out for easy reference), the Revised Skill List for the current campaign, and some information on Becoming A Shadowrunner (common origins and power levels).
. Sample Characters posted here include Shadowed Moon Lotus (an archmage-class sorcerer), Prodigicus Supreme (a giant “robot” “Transformer”), Khaibitu the Valkyrie (a free spirit), Fritz the Infinite (a cloned army of PC’s), Havoc (a dragon-PC), Kimiko Nelson (a british secret agent), Gar (a Troll Ronin), Gabrielle (an Amazon Warrior), Gar, Amnesiac Troll Ronin, Zheung Bao Shun (“The Ninja”), Ixian Astbiliancoatl (a.k.a “Mr Kitty”, a heavily cyborged neojaguar) and his Personal History, Eric Moore (another cyborg horror) and his Contacts, Copper the Bug-Hunter (a physical adept with a symbiotic spirit), Apollonius the AI (a playable artificial intelligence), Hitomi Gilespi, a young witchcraft-adept and communications specialist, Yseult Chaput, an information broker, Edward Cullen (yes, the movie vampire) as a shadowrunner, Pitcain Island and Hitoshi (a powerful magician and the most isolated country in the world), Alex Merriweather (a fox shapeshifter and Master of Enhancement and Conjuration), Akiko Anitoli (a knife-wielding yakuza boss),and Stalker, an Ace Otaku.
. Magical Information includes The Sparrowhawk Grimoire (a selection of eccentric spells for Shadowrun, online HERE and in a better-formatted PDF version HERE), Traditions and Initiations (expanded magical systems for Shadowrun. They’re included in the compiled character-creation handouts, but I was asked to break them out for easy reference), Primitive Magic Skills (intuitive magic for pre-totemistic shamans, witch doctors, and hunter-gatherers), the Spirit Imbuement rules (a research project of Satchel, a master conjurer. He never did manage to duplicate what happened to him, but he did get some useful results) Spirit Imbuement II (a follow-up discussion on the original Spirit Imbuement rules), Aces (Class-A Physical Adepts or Superheroes, take your choice), the Witchcraft Rules, The Douglas-Iuri Grimoire, Basic Magical Theory, revised rules for Designing and Learning Spells, Magical Weapons in Shadowrun, Magic from Earthdawn to Shadowrun, Principles of the Renraku Barrier (magic circle variants), Astral Experiments (with cyberware, transplants, power armor, flying saucers, magical circles and resonance), Astral Experiments II (Symbols, Circles, and Magical Resonance), Magical Circles as Weapons, Practical Thaumaturgy (a preliminary sheet on getting the Thaumaturgy rules updated), and Magic Pumps and Metaplanar Cascades.
. Advanced Metamagical Techniques for the General Abilities, Astral Access, Conjuration, Sorcery, Thaumaturgy, Enchantment, Enhancement, Magical Threats, and Witchcraft.
. Possible Contacts, including Fixers, Gangs and Gangers, Riggers, Medical Types, Free Spirits, The Little Guys (street level types), Technical Experts, Media, Free Spirits, Mage Contacts I, and Lone Star Officers.
. Modified Equipment includes the Modified Armor Rules (for specialized and enhanced armor), The Basic Optronic Deck (what can you install in one of these things and where can you hide it), Fursona Body Armor (usually simply an oddity, but important to Ixian).
. The Modular Cyberware Rules were broken down into specific subsystems, for design-your-own cyberware. So far, I’ve put up the sections for Neuralware, Holdouts, Cyberdisguises, Cyber-Replacements and Additions (as well as Cyberforms and Neuroborgs), Proware, and some information on Cyberlimb Construction. Here also is the information on reaction enhancement – Biological Basics, Design-Your-Own Enhancement Systems (breaking down the standard ones), and Exotic Enhancement Systems.
. Campaign Logs include Dust of Ages (Shadowrun-Earthdawn crossover) Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Mapping Interlude, Part IX, Part X, and Part XI – Aftermath. The Gang Wars (a short street-gang campaign), Iuri’s Tale (a character diary/campaign log a cross-dimensional setting. It’s still underway, albeit on an occasional basis. His Colonization Progress sheet is a record of what’s been done in setting up his domain so far), Vanishing Shadows (The current PC’s and the disappearances they’re investigating), and Gates of Shadow Part I. A much more condensed version for new players can be found here – Current Campaign Summary: Part I, and Part II.
. Technical Research efforts include Accelerated Learning and Conditioning Methods. Experiments in Cyberware and Elsewhere (a player article).
. Campaign Background: Project Ushus (a very dangerous experiment), Background Realities (how reality varies from the books), Corporate Strengths and Weaknesses (how the various corps strategies differ), Running the Numbers (how anonymous are Shadowrunners anyway? And how many are there?), The Renissiance Society: How to Initiate Mundanes – and how it actually turned out, Shadowfelons (crime rates and statistics on Seattle), Revised Timeline, and introductions to the Renraku Arcology and Seattle, Corporations-at-a-Glance (for some of the major players around), and an Overview of Seattle (neighborhoods and major features). Gangs: Reality and Fantasy Part I and Part II (types of gangs), along with a Players Prospective on Gangs. Here we have the Revised Shadowrun-Earthdawn Prehistory Timeline. On Remaining Anonymous: Just how secretive can you expect to be? Ninjas and Ghosts. Interviewing a spirit from the fourth age. Pitcain Island and Hitoshi: A powerful magician and the most isolated country in the 2060’s. For Cybergeneration, which seems closely enough related, we have some Exotic Power Packages for “Sports”. We also have The End Times – a peculiar player submission. The Neo Skillsoft Store – the parties collection of stolen skill programs – probably isn’t of interest to anyone else, but it is useful to the party.
. Locations include the Renraku Arcology Level Eight (High-Energy Research),
. The one-page quick-reference rules sheet for SR III (PDF).
. Unclassified Items include: Technology and Magic in Fourth Edition Shadowrun (a review of sorts), along with a players Shadowrun 4 Review , New Technologies: Why you should always carefully examine new gadgets before turning them loose in your games, and Playing with Pixels: In search of a new Shadowrun video game.
. Ninja Crosslinks: Speculations from one of the players. These include: theories about Renraku’s Weird Magic Circle, Kyle Alexander (a simsense-store operator), Wesley Crispen (a necrorigger), Lucy Conroy (a Fixer), and Ben Jones (a mystic gardener), Relationships between the Magical Skills (contrasting with the basics of the magic system found HERE), using Gates for long-range travel, his Spell Design to-do List, “The Ninja” (a secretive organization), some Modified Armor Rules (these led to the current Armor Rules), some of Zheung Bao Shuns Contacts and the original Character Setup for comparison with the version I created, the Final Version of his Edges and Flaws, the Final Version of his Magical Expenditures, the Final Version of his NY Expenditures, his Spreadsheet, Metamagics for Ninja, ideas for Expanded Spell Limitations, his Personal History, his Karma Tracking Sheet, Housing for Ninja, Magical Research with Mitsuhama, The Cabal of the Shining Horizon (the groups Initiatory Group), Magical Travel Realized II (a followup on the original post), speculations on the Ranraku Magical Circle (Part I and Part II), Comparative Jedi for Shadowrun Penumbra How to Build a “Lightsaber” (or at least something that might look like one), and Dissection of a Shadowrun Cyberlimb. Proposals for New Magical Advantages, Developments in Gamma Rays, New Cyberware to buy, making Magical Flying Saucers, Hulk Smash! (a confrontation with a Horror), Ninja Accounting, Magical Research for Mitsuhama on the Renraku Barrier, More Research on the Renraku Barrier, Magical Reflex Enhancement (a companion piece to the technological articles on Reaction Enhancement), and some Preliminary Spell Designs, Initiation Plans.
Emergence Campaign Weblog 
[…] Bishin is a aspected healing mage who went a little heavy on the cyber. He is not the greatest mage out there and certainly not the best street samurai. (Note: this layout was stolen from the Kimiko Nelson sheet on the Emergence campaign weblog and might have errors/incomplete sections still filled with that character’s info.Shadowrun) […]
[…] e-IR » Terrorism studies: theoretically under-developed?Shadowrun « Emergence Campaign Weblog […]
Hey paul;
when was the last edit date of the spirit imbuement stuff?
did you ever change the title?
the best I can tell, it has a Dec 10, 2008 edit date
Now let me see…
*The various exotic spirits – Animal, Darkness, Light, and Machine mostly – were originally for first edition, back in the first Shadowrun game I ran a few months after the first edition came out, some twenty years ago.
*The expanded Initiate Power listing was for first edition, got expanded for second edition (since the official list was rather disappointing) and got its final editing for third edition. I’ve found fourth edition rather unsatisfactory, so I’ve never bothered to downgrade anything to that.
*A few notes on spirit imbuement had been kicking around since first edition (mostly as an explanation for weird opposition), but the character Satchel was the first to really experiment with the effect back around 2001-2002 – which was when most of the rules were actually written up. Satchel had to retire when his player moved to the west coast; I think that was about 2003.
*The rules file I’d made for Satchel (there’s a nostalgic comment or two from his player Charles around here) got pulled up, annotated, and posted for a later campaign since a player was asking about using the same basic effect (as shown in the conversation-notes below it) and as a part of my semi-random (and ongoing) “put up stuff from the old files” project back on Nov 7, 2007.
*Dec 10 2008 is probably quite right for the online version here; while WordPress seems to update that date whenever I look at the page properties, I never changed the title, and edits after posting were to fix spelling typos.
Hm… Now why it would matter if the title has been changed? Ah, I think I will run a search! There was one lunatic who was quoting material from the Shadowrun Spirit Imbuement page on a forum… I’d guess the I may have to reply to him again.
…And there he is, now busily violating his own religious beliefs by Bearing False Witness and Stealing…
There are a couple of guys on a music forum I read sometime —
one guy is this really out there fundamentalist who claims God bent a fork for him and put a triangle of light in a photograph as some kind of revelation.
He used your Shadowrun stuff to rag on Harpur style transcendentalism –
The fundy guy claims that the title was changed. So I thought I’d check
On another note : I’m more of a traditionalist. I just got the new basic D&D edition for my nephews, but I really didn’t like the presentation (I had so much of a problem getting beyond that, I couldn’t even comment on the actual rules revisions)
Could you recommend a “Basic” level RPG? they are into Harry potter, so something swords and sorcery would probably get em going…They are just about ready for Tolkien so I though it might be kind of a mood setter
Oh yes: I turned him – and his fairly blatant irrationality – up on a quick search. When he cuts and pasts large parts of a page, it makes him pretty easy to locate.
Fourth edition does have some problems, especially with younger players, since it’s more of a tactical battle game than a role-playing game. An awful lot of the modern games are either so rules-heavy that they’re nigh-impossible or so rules-lite that there’s almost nothing to use to run the game with.
Now, I’ve written a series of posts on using d20 with young players over here –
Part I: basics, world laws, and sample characters – a mystic warrior and a healer.
Part II: Setting up for party unity and sample characters – a blademaster and a knight of flame
Part III: Fostering and a sample character – a skillmaster and lesser magician
Part IV: Advantages for the game master and sample characters – a superheroic archer
Those are using the Eclipse d20 mechanics, but Eclipse and the basic d20 System Reference Document is available as free downloads, so it doesn’t cost anything to experiment with it.
For other systems… most of what’s good for kids in my collection is long out of print. The d6 system can be boiled down, but it’s a LOT of books or PDF files, even if the PDF’s are (or at least were for awhile) free. There’s a fair list of stuff for kids over here, but personally – the last few times I wanted to run something kids-to-young-adults I used my own Baba Yaga rules. If you’re interested in those, the PDF is available on RPGNow (where you can find quite a few games aimed at kids) and in print over here.
Dare I ask what Harpur-style Trancendentalism is? (Presumably opposed to egular Anglo-American Transcendentalism.) I’m almost afraid to check.
As far as Shadowrun goes, it probably doesn’t matter much.
Some great extrapolation here, but it seems incomplete. For example, the character creation PDF gives some sample character magic talents, but nowhere in the pages listed do I see a full list or at least a description of how to derive/limit those talents. Is there a bunch still offline and if so, is there any way to convince you et al to put it online, or at least files I could find somewhere?
Well, the character creation PDF is a pretty compressed version of things.
I shall take a look in the files; there should be one in there with a few more sample talents and perhaps some notes. The players rarely went in for them all that much though; if they wanted magic at all they tended to want more of it than a talent would provide.
Some of that may go back to first edition of course, but it should be readily adaptable.
i’d still like to see whatever’s offline, but i found the magic talent edge in Shadowrun_Character_Setup.pdf. thanks for replying!
I’m glad you found what you needed there – and I’ll try to get back to some of the offline shadowrun stuff. Sadly, due to life, the blog here had to be put on hold for awhile.