Game: Shadowrun (third edition – FASA, 1998)
My Experience: My claim to playing Shadowrun‘s first edition hinges on the barest of technicalities. It was my second-ever play-by-post game (first honors go to Polis). I made a character and participated until the GM got so tired of our circular planning arguments that hostile NPCs rolled up and fired a rocket launcher into our not-so-safe safehouse. I spent much more time in a long-running campaign that Little Sister ran, starting with the Harlequin published adventure and continuing into the insect spirit outbreak; we started that one in second edition and converted into third about two-thirds of the way through the run. I also got some play time in a campaign Paladin ran before real-life commitments killed that one off. I’ve run a few one-shots and played in a couple more, and I’m always up for going back to the dawn of the Sixth Age.
I don’t typically get involved in edition wars, but for me, there were no editions of Shadowrun after third. The mechanical changes, the massive shifts in the setting, and the movement from cyberpunk to transhumanism all made the later games unrecognizable and unenjoyable for me.
Julien Yoshioka (“Harbinger”), Nocturnal Predator
Julien was twelve when he underwent three major changes in rapid succession. First, his Awakened genotype expressed with sudden violence, transforming him from human to ork over three agonizing days. Second, his horrified parents turned him over to their Renraku corporate masters, who promptly erased all evidence of his existence and citizenship and dumped him on the street in Redmond. But third, as he lay face-down in the gutter, Owl spoke to him for the first time.
Julien was lucky – or perhaps, guided by his newfound totem, he made his own. Whatever the case, he managed to stagger just far enough to pass out at the front door of an elder ork street shaman. Old Filch was a long-standing partner of Raccoon, but he could tell quite well what had just washed up on his doorstep, and he took Julien in. Julien learned soon enough that there was no charity in the Barrens, though: every lesson in magic and every bowl of food added to his tab, and Old Filch expected him to pay with interest. Less than a year later, Julien was running with the Rose Hill Regulators, the youth gang which owed fealty to his mentor, providing coverage for robberies, raids, and other indiscretions. Old Filch’s appetite exceeded the power of his pawns, though, and when he finally went too far, the Octagon Triad took swift and bloody exception. In the sudden absence of Old Filch and most of the gang’s youth leadership, the survivors scattered to the four winds.
Today, after several changes of fortune, Julien has finally established himself enough that at least one fixer will put him forward as an entry-level shadowrunner. At seventeen, he’s halfway through his life, and he intends to spend at least the last few years in relative comfort. That means an aggressive push to feather his nest now, while he’s still young and healthy enough to do the only work he knows how to do. His relationship with Owl has evolved over the years, and, despite his youth, he’s grown comfortable with being the voice of careful planning (if not entirely reason) in the teams on which he’s placed.
Traits
Metatype: Ork
Magic: Full magician – shaman, Owl totem
Attributes
Body 6
Quickness 4
Strength 5
Intelligence 4
Willpower 6
Charisma 5
Essence 6
Magic 6
Reaction 4
Active Skills
Athletics 2
Aura Reading 3
Conjuring 5
Etiquette (Street) 3 (5)
Leadership 3
Pistols 4
Sorcery 6
Stealth 4
Unarmed Combat 3
Knowledge/Language Skills
Corporate Culture (Renraku) 1 (3)
English (Cityspeak) 3 (5)
Forensic Science (Evidence Eradication) 2 (4)
Japanese 3
Magical Theory 4
Ornithology (Strigiformes) 2 (4)
Paramilitary Tactics (Raiding) 2 (4)
Redmond Barrens 4
Spells
Analyze Truth 3
Magic Fingers 3
Physical Mask 3
Powerbolt 5
Stealth 1
Stunbolt 5
Treat 5
Equipment
armor jacket
Browning Max-Power w/ concealable holster and 3 magazines regular ammo
pocket secretary
survival kit
Low lifestyle, 1 month prepaid
¥390
Contacts
Lucian Ferhan, fixer (level 1)
Calfuray, talismonger (level 1)
Notes and Afterthoughts
While I do own the second edition core book, I went with third for this build because it’s a better-tuned version and I’m more familiar and comfortable with it.
I slept on shamans for a long, long time because the aesthetic just didn’t align with my teenage through twentysomething sense of cyberpunk cool. I finally warmed up to them during a one-on-one campaign that Little Sister ran during my later undergraduate years. The core book has a sadly limited selection of totems, but I’ve never written up an Owl shaman, so I figured I’d take a swing at it.
Harbinger is only of average physical prowess for an Ork, which still puts him in the upper quartile of normal human development. Shadowrun‘s default character build system is a priority selection, and I chose to max his innate capabilities as much as possible. That meant his starting funds were his dump stat, so his gear list is rather abbreviated compared to what I usually do when a game system offers me a big ol’ shopping catalog. OTOH, in most Shadowrun campaigns, it’s easier to accrue cash than karma (XP), so I’d rather start strong but underequipped and pick up the tools I need along the way. But in Harbinger’s case, he’s got a lot of gearing up to do – his pocket secretary is the most valuable thing he owns.
Lucian Ferhan is a frequently-recurring NPC who spans multiple game lines. LGM, IYKYK.