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Chrome Flesh now available for PDF purchase and print pre-order!

The Sixth World is, of course, a horribly dystopian place, but it also is a place where people face the wondrous possibilities of making entirely new versions of themselves. Any part of the metahuman body can be replaced, and the new augmentations sourcebook Chrome Flesh (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG) is your guide to all the possibilities. With cyberware, bioware, nanotech, genetech, and a host of new chemicals, this book gives runners dozens of ways to amp up their game–and see just how much of their humanity they’re willing to fritter away. It also comes with full tables listing all Shadowrun, Fifth Edition augmentations to this point! Here’s more info:

The Edge of the Possible

Shadowrunners cannot be limited by what their bodies can—or cannot—do. They have to do more, stretch farther, surpass any limits, and accomplish the impossible. Some runners can rely on magic; for everyone else, there are augmentations. From shiny chrome that makes your body into a humanoid semi-truck to genetech that alters you at the most fundamental level to drugs and chemicals that give you a quick and dirty boost, Chrome Flesh provides dozens of new ways to alter Shadowrun characters and make them better, stronger, faster, and altogether readier to kick ass and take names on the streets.

Along with the gear and a compiled table of all cyberware, bioware, genetech, and nanotech currently available in Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, Chrome Flesh covers how runners break down and what resources can help fix them up, and where augmentation tech might go in the future. It’s paydata every shadowrunner needs if they want to overcome everything the Sixth World is going to throw at them.

Chrome Flesh is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

Data Trails out! And a new novel! Shadowrun awesomeness explodes!

Do you like hacking the Matrix? Do you feel the need for new programs? Qualities aimed specifically at deckers and technomancers? Advice on playing and running the Matrix? A two-column example of how Matrix play proceeds? Information on artificial intelligences, Dissonance pools, and other deeply weird parts of the Matrix? All this, and art that springs from the most deeply deranged art notes we’ve ever assembled? Then you should know about Data Trails, the new core Matrix sourcebook for Shadowrun, Fifth Edition. It is now available for PDF purchase and print pre-order (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG), including various bundle configurations that also offer a sweet limited edition. Need more details? Scan this:

The Infinite Frontier

The last great undiscovered country is vast, wild, and weirder than you can possibly imagine. And it’s nearby, waiting, accessible by the press of a button, or a simple gesture, or even just a thought. The Matrix holds a whole lot more than selfies and cat videos—it has artificial intelligences, electronic ghosts of people formerly alive (or perhaps still living), and deep wells of pure data that can swallow you whole. Oh, and a copy of every secret ever recorded electronically. The possible rewards of exploration are great, and the dangers are greater.

Data Trails is the Matrix sourcebook for Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, offering more options for decker and technomancer characters, including qualities, programs, gear and more. With detailed examinations of hacker culture, information on diving deep into immersive hosts, and briefings on the strange sites hidden in dark corners of the Matrix, Data Trails is a vital resource for any Shadowrun players involved in the omnipresent flow of information. Non-Matrix specialists have chances to get in on the adventures as well, with game details explaining how their skills and expertise translate into the wild virtual world.

Data Trails is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

Also, we have a new novel for you! The Shadowrun novel line continues to march forward with Borrowed Time by R.L. King (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG, Amazon link coming soon!). You’ve seen King’s work in Shadowrun, Fifth Edition and the anthology that accompanied the Shadowrun Returns video game, and now you get a full-length novel, featuring her signature character, Winterhawk! If you need details, you can read the summary below, or you can check out the full review that has already been posted on Diehard GameFan. But whatever you do, make sure you check out the creepy cover art below.

Out of Time, Out of Options

JackPointer mage Winterhawk left the shadows at the top of his game: these days he indulges his curiosity about all things mysterious and magical on his own terms. But he’s about to discover that the shadows are hard to leave behind, and old enemies have their ways of drawing him back in.

Dosed with an exotic arcane poison that will kill him in days unless he retrieves a powerful magical artifact, ‘Hawk has to assemble a team fast and think even faster, because he’s not the only one tracking down the prize. His team is hardly the well-oiled machine he’s accustomed to: an old friend with major trust issues, an old rival who hates everything ‘Hawk stands for, a decker who annoys everyone he meets, a samurai who’s only in it for the money, and a gunslinger who may have her own agenda.

With his life on the line and the clock ticking fast, ‘Hawk must survive the mean streets of Los Angeles and the magical hellscape of the Australian Outback while keeping his mismatched team from imploding before they finish the job. But when the artifact is revealed to be far more than it seems, Winterhawk is forced to make a choice that could affect the lives of millions—to say nothing of his own.

New Shadowrun campaigns out for PDF purchase, print pre-order!

We’ve just released two new campaigns for a variety of fantastic action within the Sixth World.

First up is Shadowrun: Lockdown, now available for print-pre-order and PDF purchase (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG). This crossover plot book covers a slew of details of what’s going down in Boston and ties into the action of Shadowrun: Chronicles.

    Voices of Disaster

    The voices are getting louder. Strange voices, dissonant voices, sometimes babbling nonsense, sometimes telling stories too unbelievable to be true. People are falling prey to the voices, losing their identities as someone or something else slips into their skin. It’s affecting people at all levels of society, from squatters in burned-out warehouses to corporate CEOs. It’s spreading, and no one can figure out how to stop it. Boston-based NeoNET is at the center of this storm, and panic is spreading through the streets of the northeastern sprawl. People are scared and people are dying, which means that there are large sums of money to be made by any shadowrunner willing to brave those chaotic streets. Finding work won’t be the problem. Getting out of the sprawl, however, will be.

    Lockdown is a plot sourcebook for Shadowrun, Fifth Edition with plot hooks, setting details of Boston, character details, and surprising reveals that will keep characters on their toes and running for their lives. With rich plot information and game mechanics for a new breed of cognitive fragmentation disorder sufferers, Lockdown can play a vital role in enthralling Shadowrun campaigns while continuing the unfolding story of the Sixth World.

Next up is Bloody Business–also available for print-pre-order and PDF purchase (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG)–a campaign book in the style of Jet Set and Artifacts Unbound.

    Wounded Fury

    A scared megacorporation does not run and hide in the shadows. Instead it lashes out, swiping with sharp claws, not caring who is hit by the blows. Many of the megacorps are currently reeling, hit by multiple harsh wallops. NeoNET and Evo are dealing with the fallout of the CFD virus, Ares has powerful forces eating it away from inside, Horizon backed the losing side of the Aztlan-Amazonia war, and the Japanacorps are rearing back to take on the world—and each other. When the corps get aggressive, shadowrunners get called, and blood gets shed.

    Bloody Business is a campaign book giving players the chance to earn piles of money from the megacorps as they reel through troubles and crises. It’ll take a lot of good shadowrunning moves to earn that cash—and even better moves to survive long enough to collect it. With short adventure outlines that can be played independently or linked into a longer campaign, and NPC stats to suit a wide variety of situations, Bloody Business plunges Shadowrun teams in the middle of corporate chaos.

The dark side of Shadowrun stretches its legs with two new releases

We all know that Shadowrun is not the happiest of game universes, but for those of you who like to add a nice heaping of extra darkness to your games and reading–and who doesn’t?–we have two new releases for you today!

First up is a new e-book called 10 Terrorists (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG), and to get a sense of what’s going on in the book, we’re going to share a little behind-the-scenes exchange with you from when the drafts of art were coming through. Here’s how the author (who also wrote Nothing Personal and the Mr. Johnson chapter of Run Faster) reacted: “HOLY S***! … That’s some extreme art. Awfully violent, but it makes a statement.” And then the e-book developer explained it like this: “This is a dystopian universe and terrorists are generally considered the worst of the worst. To illustrate that in pictures we needed to reach into places the public doesn’t like to look.”

The point is, 10 Terrorists looks at some dark parts of human nature and how this can be used in your Shadowrun games. We understand that not everyone wants to go where this book goes (and for a glimpse of that, take a look at the cover on the linked pages), but for those who do, the book has some ways to throw new twists and dangers at shadowrunners while fleshing out the dangers of the Sixth World. Here’s a summary of the book:

Causes of Blood

There is no way to sugarcoat it—people in the Sixth World spend an awful lot of time coming up with reasons to kill each other. When it comes to moral codes, people don’t think they’re better than others because they don’t kill and others do—they compare the reasons for killing, ranking them, trying to justify the oft-unjustifiable. You can talk to a hundred people and get a hundred different opinions about what’s justified and what’s not, and about which motivations are worse than others, but consistently at the bottom of the list are those who would kill innocents for a cause, who would instill terror in people for political gain, because they see no other recourse.

10 Terrorists covers ten groups in the Shadowrun setting who add chaos and violence to an already chaotic and violent world to further their own twisted causes. From Seed, a Matrix terrorism group that split off Ex Pacis, to Logos, a group that combines environmental extremism with talislegging, these are groups that can add and danger and plot hooks to Shadowrun campaigns. Whether runners are infiltrating the groups, avoiding them, or dealing with the fallout from the chaos they cause, 10 Terrorists can increase the threat level of any Shadowrun game.

10 Terrorists is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

Want something slightly lighter? How about a vampire shadowrunner in the ruined sprawl of Chicago trying to catch up with a world that has only grown more dangerous and stranger while he has been out of action? Okay, that may not sound exactly “light,” but that’s what’s happening in the new Shadowrun novel Crimson (Battleshop, DriveThru–note that both of those have epub and Kindle copies in a zip file–Barnes & Noble, Amazon), and even if it’s not exactly sunshine and puppies, it’s plenty of fun. Here’s the summary, as well as the terminally cool cover:

Where No One Knows Your Name …

Thanksgiving, 2075. Shadowrunning vampire-mage Rick “Red” Lang used to make his living hunting dangerous insect spirits and twisted mages, but when he awakens after twelve years of involuntary hibernation, he finds the rest of the world has gotten even stranger.

Red begins piecing together what had happened during his lost time—and who put him under in the first place. But as he journeys through the neon-drenched ruins of Chicago and its augmented facades, Red uncovers an even larger plot involving eldritch forces seeking to invade from beyond our reality. He teams up with the few allies he can trust—Pretty, a beautiful ghoul, and Slim, a hacker extraordinaire—as they head into the middle of multiple schemes and power plays surrounding a dangerous new conflict threatening to shatter the uneasy peace into all-consuming chaos.

New adventure continues Shadowrun’s exploration of the Sioux Nation

The Shadows in Focus: Sioux Nation series continues forward! With previous books focusing on the Sioux Nation as a whole and the city of Cheyenne, we now have a new adventure that will plunge runners into a tumultuous family and political feud that could have repercussions for millions of Sioux Nation residents–and plenty of people beyond those borders. The adventure is called Starving the Masses (Battlecorps, DriveThruRPG)–here’s the full summary:

A Half-Step from Chaos

If there’s anything shadowrunners have learned over and over again, it’s that the veneer of civilization coating much of the world is extremely thin (in the Barrens, of course, it’s non-existent). There are so many tensions in the Sixth World that altering the delicate balances just a hair or two can bring chaos and conflict to areas that had previously managed to scrape together a peaceful appearance.

If you want to cause that chaos, all that’s needed is a little gentle pressure on one of the essential arteries that keeps civilization alive. And no artery is as susceptible to this pressure as the food supply.

Stripped of a lucrative position and exiled from his family, Theo Two-Hearts has a score to settle, and he’s going to take it out on the entire Sioux Nation. Like many vengeance-minded people before him, he’s turned to shadowrunners to do his dirty work. If they sign on to his plan, they’re going to confront some of the toughest forces the Sioux Nation can throw at them. The first bit of chaos they create will rain down on them—if they survive, much more will follow.

Starving the Masses is an adventure that is part of the Shadows in Focus: Sioux Nation series for Shadowrun, Fifth Edition. It can be played alone, or the Sioux Nation and Cheyenne books can be used to add more richness and details to a challenging run!

New free Shadowrun adventure released! Line developer assumed drunk

[Note that this blog post is being dictated, as Mr. Hardy felt typing posed too great a challenge.]

I don’t … I just can’t … there’s ponies. Ponies and Amish. And they’re all thrown together and statted out. Statted! Stats for ponies!

The world used to make sense to me. Mr. Johnson … he wore a suit.  And he screwed you over good, and you took it! And yeah, there was gunfire and grenades and spells raining down all over, but it all worked! But now, now you kids with your Tumbles and your Instant Grahams and your, and your …

[unintelligible]

… couldn’t hold a candle to even one of Betty Grable’s legs! What was I talking about?

This adventure. Yeah. Did you see the cover? I didn’t know hallucinogens that strong even existed. Holy freakin’ cow dung on skateboard. You should see it. Gaze upon the madness. Gaze!

And here’s where it gets horrible, where my reality and my nightmares twist into some terrible pretzel of madness. I have that horse! On the cover. She’s in my house!

It’s just … I can’t … I can’t think about this. So take it. Take your adventure with the ponies and Amish and war buggies, and you go play it. It’s a Mission, they tell me! It’s real, they tell me! Do what you want with it. I gotta lie down.

SMH2015-01 Friendship Is Tragic

Shadowrun release-a-palooza! All sorts of Shadowrun goodness now available!

I had a convention to attend and other business keeping me busy this week, which meant I didn’t keep up with the full pace of Shadowrun releases this week. But with all the stuff coming out, how could I? Let’s run it down.

First, for you Shadowrun fiction fans, we have a new novella by acclaimed author Jennifer Brozek. Among her many credits include writing some of the much-praised dialogue for Shadowrun Returns as well stories in Shadowrun, Fifth Edition and Seattle 2072, so she is an experienced Shadowrun hand. Her new work is called DocWagon 19 (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG, Amazon), and here’s the rundown:

The Life of a Lifesaver

DocWagon—saviors of the needy, rescuers of the desperate. Willing to go anywhere, rescue anyone, as long as that “anyone” has forked out enough advance cash to justify the effort.

Reporter Amelia Hart has embedded herself with a DocWagon team to see what their life is really like, and she’s in for a wild ride. From an OD’ing celebrity to an aggressive team of hackers, from pesky gangs to an extremely rich and powerful client teetering at death’s door, this night will give the team all they can handle. But will they survive long enough to remember that in the Sixth World, nothing is truly random?

Full of memorable characters and rich Sixth World flavor, DocWagon 19 is a thrilling ride with the people struggling to save lives in a sprawl with a million ways to make people dead. Strap in, hold on, crank up the siren, and get ready for a crazy ride-along through the full chaos of the Shadowrun setting.

We also have a new Mission for you! The latest in the Chicago-set Missions, SRM 05-05: While the City Sleeps is now on sale and ready to take all comers (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG)! Here’s the story:

All the Rage

One of the things the Sixth World excels at is inventing millions of ways to piss people off. Chicago, particularly the Containment Zone, has a special gift for inciting tempers, with its pockmarked roads, feral gangs, bad-tempered thugs, drugged-out vagrants, and many other elements that are irritating at best, fatal at worst.

Fight promoter Sid Gambetti has a lot of pressures piling on him at once, including financial strain and a massive blackmail demand, and if he doesn’t get some relief, he’s likely to blow. Unfortunately, it seems like just about everyone who has become involved with Sid is just as pressured and just as irritated. Any shadowrunners who take on the job that Sid has for them are going to be walking through a minefield of hot-tempered, bulked-out, Sixth World crazies who are just looking for an excuse to put the hurt on someone. Yeah, there’s a pile of nuyen on the other side of the gauntlet, but it will take some quick thinking and fast moving to claim it without being on the receiving end of huge doses of pain.

The latest Shadowrun Mission set in Chicago, While the City Sleeps can be played as part of an ongoing Chicago-based campaign or all by itself, as an exciting night in one of the wildest cities of Shadowrun’s Sixth World setting.

SRM 05-05: While the City Sleeps is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

But wait, there’s more! For fans of classic Shadowrun books, we have some volumes that have been newly released to electronic sale! For anyone wanting more paydata on the Native American Nations, the profiles of those nations–both volume 1 (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG) and volume 2 (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG)–are now available! Get all the dirt on the people, places, and possible threats these territories have, with plot hooks, fascinating characters, political intrigue, and more!

And then we also have the electronic release of Corporate Shadowfiles (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG)! Go back for the earliest look at the most powerful megacorporations in the world–the people who make them go, the grudges they carry, and the work they need done!

That’s everything! Now go play!

 

New Shadowrun adventure out for PDF purchase, print pre-order!

It took a while, but the third adventure in the Boardroom Backstabs series, entitled The Battle of Manhattan, is now available for print-pre-order and PDF purchase (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG)! It can be part of a corporate-themed campaign, but it also stands alone as its own adventure. It’s a wild ride, with in-flight shenanigans, on-the-ground rolling combat, and more! Shadowrun teams will need to keep their wits about them and use every skill at their disposal to get through this one, but there’s plenty of fun and nuyen waiting for them if they can hold on. And it’s dual-statted, meaning it can be used by players of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition and Shadowrun, Twentieth Anniversary Edition. To whet your appetite a little more, here’s the book’s back-cover copy:

Marching Orders

TO: Willing recruits

FROM: The people who can pay you

Come to Manhattan. We will pay.

We won’t bother with appeals to patriotism, or to your best instincts, or to anything the least bit noble. Come to Manhattan because there is a fight breaking out. Fighting is what you are paid for. Fighting is what you were born for. Come because there is money to be made.

You don’t need to pick a side. Sides shift, sides change. In the end, the only consistent thing is that you are the only one you can count on. You fight for yourself. That is something you should be used to. That is how you live.

Come to Manhattan because the corporations are spoiling for a fight. Most of the time, we’re good at keeping our spats clean and civilized. We lie, we cheat, we steal, but we do not engage in anything as vulgar as open street fighting. Sometimes, though, we can’t help ourselves. Sometimes, the tension gets to be too much, and it breaks, and it bursts into the open.

That time is coming.

Bring your skills, bring your wits, and definitely bring your guns. You’ll need everything you got. We are anxious to take advantage of what you have.

Come to Manhattan. We’re waiting for you.

Battle of Manhattan is the third in the Boardroom Backstabs series of adventures for use with Shadowrun, Twentieth Anniversary Edition and Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

Shadows in Focus: Cheyenne now on sale! And oh, hey, Run Faster!

New Shadowrun PDF goodness awaits! Back in January we announced the new Shadows in Focus PDF series, where we pick a spot and use several PDF books to give it a detailed scrutiny. First up was the already-released Sioux Nation book, and now we have the next in the series–Cheyenne (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG)! Here’s what it’s got:

The Minefield of Opportunity

The number of ways you can step wrong in Cheyenne are higher than a lot of shadowrunners can count. There are political, ethnic, tribal, and racial divides, and stepping on the wrong side of them can not only end your job prospects, but it can put you in a hastily dug hole in the ground. Move quickly and be agile, though, and you can slip through the snares that trip up lesser runners, accumulating the street rep and nuyen that will put you at the top of the runner heap.

Cheyenne is the second book in the Shadows in Focus: Sioux Nation series, providing details about a Sixth World location steeped in tradition, conflict, and both technological and Awakened dangers. With location details, information on power players, and more, Cheyenne will help flesh out the Shadowrun setting for players and build adventures and campaigns for gamemasters.

Cheyenne is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

And while we’re talking Shadowrun, which we almost always are, remember that tomorrow, February 18th, is the street date for Run Faster–both in standard and limited editions–and the adventure compilation London Falling!

Catalyst February Shadowrun Street Dates

The following products have a Street Date of FEBRUARY 18, 2015:


Shadowrun Run Faster, Standard Edition ($49.99)
Every step, every advantage, every millisecond counts. The streets of the Sixth World are mean, and if they want to stay alive, shadowrunners need every advantage they can get to gain a step on the opposition. Fortunately, Run Faster is full of them. With it, you can learn about more metatypes for characters, including hobgoblins, giants, centaurs, and sasquatch; acquire new qualities, such as Disgraced, Hawk Eye, and Lightning Reflexes; and, if you dare, dabble with the dangerous and deadly Infected.


Run Faster also has advice on fleshing out characters of different metatypes, expanded contact and lifestyle rules, and alternate character creation methods to help ensure that players can build exactly the character they want.

All these options make Run Faster a crucial companion to players who want to get the most out of their Shadowrun, Fifth Edition core rulebook.

Shadowrun Run Faster, Limited Edition ($74.99)
Run Faster Limited Edition book includes a bonded red leather cover with gold foil stamp and a de-bossed graphic.


London Falling ($19.99)
London—where the thick fog (sounds nicer than smog, doesn’t it) makes for some truly deep shadows. Every crooked street, every cramped building holds a secret or two, as well as a person or two who will go to great lengths to ensure those secrets are kept. There is, for instance, the dark secret of a minor noble who has not been seen in Parliament in months. And the researcher who has a startlingly large amount of people interested in his work. The courier who carries one secret in his head and another in his gut. And an explosive secret that has been festering in the West End Underplex for years or even decades.

Skilled runners have the chance to uncover these secrets and more, but they’d better be ready for the forces of the world that would prefer to keep things covered up. They are tenacious, dangerous, and, perhaps most surprising for England, not at all polite.

London Falling features four adventures for Shadowrun set in London. Initially designed especially for gaming conventions, these adventures are now available to all players who want to dive in and see if they can survive the challenges of the Big Smoke. London Falling has stats that allow it to be compatible for both Shadowrun, Fifth Edition and Shadowrun, Twentieth Anniversary Edition.

Sioux Nation PDF out now! Expand your Sixth World adventures!

It’s a big, big Sixth World out there, with lots of danger and weirdness and shadowruns waiting for the right team. At the august and elegant Shadowrun headquarters,we’ve been pondering the best way to give Shadowrun fans a chance to explore the various parts of the world, and the solution we’ve hit upon is the Shadows in Focus series. For this series, we will pick nations that have not been covered recently in Shadowrun products, or places that have not been covered at all, and get an in-depth look at that spot. For each location we pick, you’ll get a national overview, detailed looks at two large cities in that nation, two adventures set in the selected nation, and an Enhanced Fiction short story to help immerse you in that locale.

Up first: the Sioux Nation. The initial book in the series, called Sioux Nation of all things, is out now (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG), ready for you to explore! With information on major cities, corporations, law-enforcement entities, power sites, and more, this book has all you need to bring Shadowrun adventures to the Sioux Nation. Whatever type of run you specialize in, be it smuggling, corporate espionage, talislegging, high-level extractions, or what have you, the Sioux Nation is waiting to throw challenges your way!

More Shadowrun novel madness! Dark Resonance now available!

We’ve been working hard in Shadowrun-land to provide the dedicated Shadowrun public with the novels for which they’ve been clamoring, and we have great news on that front! Dark Resonance is now out (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG, Amazon, and print copies can be found in bookstores and game shops)! Written by Phaedra Weldon, contributor to the award-winning Spells & Chrome anthology as well as author of the Zoë Martinique series of novels, it tells a twisted, enthralling tail of technomancers, families, and deep-seated vendettas. Here’s the synopsis:

SOME SECRETS CAN KILL YOU…

Kazuma Tetsu is a technomancer—one of the rare people who can manipulate the Matrix without technology, using only the power of their mind. But he’s on a more personal mission—he’s searching for his missing sister, Hitori. Following her trail leads him into a tangled web of corp execs, mercenaries, and double-crossing rogues—usually just another day in the Sixth World.

But as Kazuma digs deeper, he uncovers a plot that could bring about the end of the world. Upon seeing a simulation of the Resonances Realms accessible to technomancers, an A.I. declares it will use the realms to ascend to a higher plane of consciousness. The intelligence’s goal seems impossible, until an imprisoned and manipulated group of technomancers accesses dissonance to open a gateway to a new realm—possibly the heaven the A.I. seeks. But opening this dissonant hole in the Matrix could trigger global disaster, and it’s up to a team of shadowrunners, including a couple of denizens of the fabled JackPoint, to free the trapped technomancers and stop the Dark Resonance before it destroys the entire Matrix—and worse …

 

And Hell on Water is out there as well and has recently been added to the Kindle shop in addition to the Battleshop and DriveThruRPG. So go and get your Shadowrun fiction fix in!

Shadowrun holiday magic continues! New novel, new Mission now available!

All right, we may be a little past the time of mass gift giving, but there is never a wrong time to play Shadowrun and to dig into the immersive Sixth World setting. With that in mind, we have a new novel called Hell on Water available; you can get electronic copies at the Battleshop or DriveThruRPG, while print copies can be found wherever fine gaming books are sold, including Barnes & Noble (they have a listing for it on their site here, though it currently sports the plot summary for the subsequent novel, Dark Resonance. We hope to have that fixed soon).

The author of Hell on Water (me, Jason Hardy, the guy writing this post) has described it as “the craziest novel I’ve ever written.” Here’s what it’s about:

THE LONGEST JOURNEY

Six shadowrunners. Three mysterious packages. And twelve kilometers of a dangerous, dilapidated bridge across one of the wildest sprawls of the Sixth World.

It should be a simple job. Retrieve three sealed packages, then take them across the city of Lagos to their destination. All the runners’ skills will be tested—they’ll face ambushes, double-crosses, and more, and along the way they might be able to answer the question of just what’s in those packages, and why they’re so important.

The team has a lot on their side, including a street samurai who’s a legend on the streets, a hotshot rigger with a lot of enemies, a young shaman seeking justice, a decker with a dark secret, and a pair of pros from Seattle trying to keep up with everything the unfamiliar sprawl throws at them. But the deadly streets and sinister neighborhoods of Lagos contain their own unique dangers, and it’ll take every trick the runners know to complete their mission and escape the city in one piece…

Along with the novel, we have a new Mission called Liberation (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG) that features a seemingly simple run that gets complicated. In Chicago, so the complications go beyond a double-crossing Mr. Johnson and straight into the realm of the twisted and bizarre. Here are the details:

NOTHING COMES EASY

Every shadowrunner knows the fear that comes with the words “milk run.” Anytime something is supposed be easy in the Sixth World, it’s guaranteed to come with unexpected headaches and danger, and that holds especially true for Chicago. Lothan the Wise, an egotistical troll mage who is extra irritating because he has the skills to back up his braggadocio, says he has a simple job. There’s no question that things will get more complicated than he expects—the only question is how things will go wrong, and which of the dangerous denizens of the feral sprawl will leap up to cause trouble. Runners will have to be fast, flexible, and able to think on their feet—but isn’t that part of the basic job description anyway?

Liberation is the latest adventure in Shadowrun Missions’ fifth season, and it has everything needed to throw players into the wilds of the Chicago sprawl and see if they can come out on top. Whether players are at a convention, in a game store, or playing a home game, Liberation has the plot, the details, and the game mechanics needed for an exciting run.

SRM 05-04 Liberation is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

Run Faster now available for electronic purchase, print pre-order

Looking for a special gift for the Shadowrun fan in your life? We have plenty of options! You could head to your local bookstore/gamestore and buy copies of the new novels Hell on Water and Dark Resonance, or you could pick up the PDF and/or pre-order the print version of Run Faster (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG–don’t miss the limited edition pre-order available on the Battleshop!), the core rulebook that vastly expands the options available to Shadowrun characters! What’s in it? Glad you asked:

The Cost of Greatness

Every step, every advantage, every millisecond counts. The streets of the Sixth World are mean, and if they want to stay alive, shadowrunners need every advantage they can get to gain a step on the opposition. Fortunately, Run Faster is full of them. With it, you can learn about more metatypes for characters, including hobgoblins, giants, centaurs, and sasquatch; acquire new qualities, such as Disgraced, Hawk Eye, and Lightning Reflexes; and, if you dare, dabble with the dangerous and deadly Infected.

Run Faster also has advice on fleshing out characters of different metatypes, expanded contact and lifestyle rules, and alternate character creation methods to help ensure that players can build exactly the character they want.

All these options make Run Faster a crucial companion to players who want to get the most out of their Shadowrun, Fifth Edition core rulebook.

 

 

Update: Want to know what sort of print/PDF bundles are available for pre-orders? Check it out:

 

Holiday Shipping

Our shippers are closed for holidays December 18, 2014 until January 2nd, 2015. Your orders will continue to process but will not ship until their return.

Thanks for your orders and enjoy games through the holidays!

Catalyst

Two new Shadowrun books released while line developer sick and junk

All right, so last night I ran a game of Shadowrun at a con and came home and a fever slapped me hard and laid me out good. I meant to be awake, but my body instead insisted that I be horizontal and blanket-wrapped. So when our intrepid layout guy released two new books into the wilds of the internet last night, I was deep into fever dreams where text was coming alive and changing right before me, even though the book I was reading had already been printed. It was annoying.

But really, if we look at the parts of the headline to care about, the whole “two new Shadowrun books released” is a whole lot more interesting than the crap about the line developer having a little cold, so let’s get to the good stuff. The first of the two books is an e-book called Aetherology (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG), your guide to the wild and wacky metaplanes of the Sixth World. Seriously, I think reviewing this book totally got my brain in the right place for the aforementioned fever dreams to develop. Here’s the full rundown (and make sure you pay attention to the last part, where it says this book works with both Fifth and Fourth Editions!):

Stretch Your Reality

There are waking dreams, there are active hallucinations, there are feverish visions that cannot be classified. And then there are the metaplanes, an adrenaline-fused combination of all of these, and more. Everything you dream of, everything you fear, everything beautiful and everything grotesque can be found out there. If you travel to the planes, you may lose your life, lose your mind, or if you’re lucky, just lose your way. But you may find hidden secrets of magic and perhaps make powerful allies. It’ll be a change from everyday life in the sprawls of the Sixth World, but may well be worth it. Are you ready for something entirely different?

Aetherology offers a grand tour of many metaplanes—the wild, the weird, the dangerous, and the everything in between. Prepare for mind-bending journeys to alternate realms of existence and the opportunity to encounter a new host of dangerous spirits and creatures. With rules on astral phemonena and new powers for the critters detailed in the book, Aetherology offers a whole new twist to your Shadowrun games.

Aetherology is dual-statted, meaning the spirits and creatures inside can be used in both Shadowrun, Fifth Edition and Shadowrun, Twentieth Anniversary Edition.

Then we have London Falling (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG), the latest in the ongoing series of convention mission compilations. You can buy the e-book now, or pre-order the print book! Want four adventures that can be linked into a campaign, with all the dual-statted game information you need? Then look here:

Smoke & Shadows

London—where the thick fog (sounds nicer than smog, doesn’t it) makes for some truly deep shadows. Every crooked street, every cramped building holds a secret or two, as well as a person or two who will go to great lengths to ensure those secrets are kept. There is, for instance, the dark secret of a minor noble who has not been seen in Parliament in months. And the researcher who has a startlingly large amount of people interested in his work. The courier who carries one secret in his head and another in his gut. And an explosive secret that has been festering in the West End Underplex for years or even decades.

Skilled runners have the chance to uncover these secrets and more, but they’d better be ready for the forces of the world that would prefer to keep things covered up. They are tenacious, dangerous, and, perhaps most surprising for England, not at all polite.

London Falling features four adventures for Shadowrun set in London. Initially designed especially for gaming conventions, these adventures are now available to all players who want to dive in and see if they can survive the challenges of the Big Smoke. London Falling has stats that allow it to be compatible for both Shadowrun, Fifth Edition and Shadowrun, Twentieth Anniversary Edition.

 

So that’s what’s available, just in time for Cyber Monday! Enjoy!

Create A Shadowrun: Crossfire Mission Contest

Shadowrun: Crossfire is in the wilds, being played and enjoyed by thousands of gamers. Not only has it had great critical acclaim, but it’s rapidly selling out of its first print run; we’re already lining up a second printing, and the first Mission Pack!

With all of that excitement in mind—alongside the wonderful campaign nature of the game in earned karma and stickers—we’re announcing a Create a Shadowrun: Crossfire Mission Contest.

If you love the Shadowrun world and Shadowrun: Crossfire and have a story you’d like to tell, here’s your chance to get in on this action! Design your own mission to have a chance to win!


How do I design a Mission? Well, first of all, play and/or review the three Missions that come with the Crossfire game. Then check out the free Missions we’ve released as PDFs (at the bottom of that page): Ambulators, Close The Portal, and the just releasing now alongside this announcement Into The Ork Underground. All six demonstrate the wide range of experiences you can build for a Shadowrun: Crossfire Mission. And, of course, follow the rules outlined below.

Contest Details:

1. All submissions must use the Shadowrun: Crossfire Mission Template (download the template). All submissions become the exclusive property of Catalyst Game Labs.

2. Anyone can submit a Mission and you may submit any number of unique Missions. At shadowruntabletop.com, under the Shadowrun Play section of the forums, in the Shadowrun: Crossfire section, a new thread called Crossfire Mission Contest Submissions has been added for this contest.

3. There are three categories:

i. Fan Favorite
This will be voted on not by Catalyst, but by the community (see 7., below).

Voters should look at the mechanics, challenge, and storytelling of a Mission and select which one provides the most enjoyable overall experience.

ii. Wildest Ride
This will be voted on not by Catalyst, but by the community (see 7., below).

This category is all about the unexpected. The Mission still needs to be fun and challenging, of course, but it’s the sideways twists in the middle of the Mission taking people by surprise that’ll win this slot.

iii. Inclusion In Official Organized Play
That’s right, we’ll soon be announcing all the details of the Shadowrun: Crossfire Organized Play that we’ll be rolling out in 2015. And one or more of you could have your Mission published and mailed to participating stores as part of the Shadowrun: Crossfire Organized Play program!

The decision for these winners will be made by Catalyst Game Labs, as well as the game designer luminaries that created Crossfire: Mike Elliot, Gregory Marques, Rob Heinsoo and more!

If there are submitted Missions we choose to include in our Organized Play, the author(s) will be contacted by Catalyst Game Labs directly. The author(s) will be required to sign a standard Catalyst Game Labs author contract and will be paid for their work at our standard rate and payment terms; the author(s) will also receive a free copy of their Mission. The contract must be signed before we can include the work in the Organized Play standard development/editorial process, just as with any other written work published by Catalyst Game Labs.

While we’ll work directly with the winner(s) to ensure their vision remains as much as possible within the Mission, it also must meet our normal criteria and pass through our normal processes.

5. While we’d encourage submissions be posted directly to the forum thread noted above, we understand that may not be possible for some. Submissions will also be accepted at randall@catalystgamelabs.com, subject line: Create A Shadowrun: Crossfire Mission Contest.

6. This contest will run until November 30th. The community has until that time to post their submissions, at which time the thread will be locked.

7. While Catalyst Game Labs reserves the final say on those Missions accepted into the Organized Play, the community will choose the Fan Favorite and Wildest Ride categories, as noted above.

From November 30 to December 30th, the community can playtest all posted Missions and then post their choices for the Fan Favorite and Wildest Ride categories.

All questions surrounding this contest should be sent to randall@catalystgamelabs.com.

Those are the details…can’t wait to see what curve balls you runners throw!

Order The Shadowrun Beginner Box & Runner’s Toolkit: Alphaware Now!

The Shadowrun Beginner Box Set is the first-ever introductory box set for one of the most enduring and popular role-playing settings in history. The box provide hours of excitement and adventure on the mean streets of the Sixth World, giving players to chance to inhabit enthralling characters and show the world what they’ve got.

With pre-generated characters, a simplified ruleset, a ready-to-run adventure, a solo adventure for one character, adventure hooks, and non-player characters to throw into any situation, the Beginner Box Set has everything players need to dive into the fantasy-infused cyberpunk of Shadowrun. Including, of course, a handful of six-sided dice. Players can take on the role of a powerful street samurai, a spell-slinging shaman, a charismatic troll, and more as they struggle against the mighty powers of the world and look for ways to survive—or even thrive.

With details on the backstory and history that made the setting a legend, the Shadowrun Beginner Box Set is a complete tool for players looking to launch on new and extraordinary adventures. The nuyen and the glory are yours for the grabbing. Go get ’em!

Shadowrun Beginner Box Set (Buy From BattleShop)

Don’t forget, if you purchase the Shadowrun Digitals Tool Box, there’s a PDF contained in the files with a code for $5 off the print order!

If you already purchased the Shadowrun Digital Tools Box, we just uploaded corrected files (if you’ve not already received your email update, you will be shortly), so don’t forget to grab your code!

SCAN THIS, CHUMMERS

  • Have you tackled the Beginner Box Set and are ready to move up in the Sixth World?
  • Are you a game master easy to give Shadowrun a shot, and you want a few extra tools at your disposal from the first toss of your dice?
  • Do you play Shadowrun now, and are you looking for a set of tools that’ll allow you to easily introduce new gamers to your favorite RPG at your local game store or hangout?

Say yes to any of this? Then Runner’s Toolkit: Alphaware is the box set for you.

Designed as the perfect stepping-stone between the Shadowrun Beginner Box Set and Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, this box can fill a number of roles. Whether you’re looking for more adventures and options to move beyond the Beginner Box Set, laying the groundwork for your gaming group to move fully onto Shadowrun, Fifth Edition, or providing adventures, maps, and other tools to use in conjunction with the core rulebook, you’ll find this kit invaluable.

Runner’s Toolkit: Alphaware contains:

  • Fully detailed character booklets with statistics, background information, preferred tactics, and a solo adventure for each character;
  • Rules of the Street, a rulebook with spells, guns, combat options, and everything that makes Shadowrun great;
  • Plots and Paydata, a book with a collection of fully detailed adventures, a trove of non-player characters, and hooks for future adventures;
  • Eight double-sided maps to help players and gamemasters track the action;
  • A handful of six-sided dice;
  • And more tools to make playing and running the game easier!

Runner’s Toolkit: Alphaware (Buy From BattleShop)

Don’t forget, if you purchase the Shadowrun Digital Tools Box, there’s a PDF contained in the files with a code for $10 off the print order!

Or, if you order both the Beginner Box Set and Runner’s Toolkit: Alphaware, there’s a code in the Shadowrun Digital Tools Box for $20 off the print order!

Once again, if you already purchased the Shadowrun Digital Tools Box, we just uploaded corrected files (if you’ve not already received your email update, you will be shortly), so don’t forget to grab your codes!

Shadowrun Magic Thursday!

Good news for all shadowrunners who use or encounter magic in some form or another (which covers about all of you, right?)–we have new resources out to boost your magic power! Not only is the Street Grimoire errata now available, but we have released Shadow Spells (Battleshop, DriveThruRPG), a new PDF-only book with new spells, adept powers, magical traditions, magical societies and more. Here’s the rundown:

The Universe of Magic

Magic cannot be contained or easily defined. It can barely be controlled. It is large, omnipresent, and multi-faceted. It contains multitudes.

A few of those multitudes are in this book, such as Pierre Dubois, media personality and Psionist researcher; a band of fortune seekers known as Treasure Hunters, Inc.; strange crystalline entities who may be forming a dangerous alliance; a spell to turn an unfortunate victim’s blood into a sludgy mess; and an adept power that temporarily blanks out memory, making an individual immune to interrogation.

These and more are here—spells, adept powers, rituals, and a host of magical knowledge. It may be a single meter would compared to the nigh-infinite length of the full scroll of magical knowledge, but as any shadowrunner can tell you, in a pinch a meter can make all the difference in the world.

Shadow Spells is for use with Shadowrun, Fifth Edition.

So get out there and make magic happen!

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