EVEN MODIFIERS ADJUSTMENT FOR ODD MODIFIERS

1 –1 —

2 –1 –1

3 No change –1

4 No change No change

5 +1 No change

6 +1 +1

7 +2 +1

8 +2 +2

9 +3 +2

10 +3 +3

11 +4 +3

12 +4 +4

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historical introduction of invasive species rather than an intelligent force establishing new operations.

Now that we are over half a century into the Sixth World, we also have metaplanar tourists and transients coming to check what the fuss is about. Others find it’s another waystation to pass through. What’s worse are those who come first to visit, then decide to stay. They are squatters who believe they have the right to stay.

Finally, the absolute worse of the lot are those from the Seelie and Unseelie courts, who not only stay but at-tempt to meddle in our affairs, even subvert metahu-man nations. The Seelie Court is known to have influ-ence within Tír na nÓg, but the Unseelie Court is more mysterious—what we think we know about it is mostly rumors and anecdotes. Many people do not believe that the court is even real, thinking that it’s just propa-ganda created by opponents of the Seelie Court (or an ongoing false flag operation by supporters). This is still debated to this day, even after my work on Aetherology.

So while proof of the court’s existence would be hard to come by, I can tell you of a few of the kind of spirits that are present there. And in other metaplanes, and in our world. Beware.

>

Magister—or G-Nome—has been watching too many

B-movies.

>

The Smiling Bandit

ANARCH

After ny first encounter with a blackjack, my view of the world and the runners who I teamed up with was always tinged with a little extra suspicion. Knowing that there were astral visitors out there who were coming to our metaplane and meddling in our shadows, I put my extra attention toward blackjack types. I might have missed several anarchs, since these astral vacationers seem to find my ops quite often, especially since I started paying attention to them.

Anarchs bring a lot more chaos to a run than black-jacks. While blackjacks look to make precision strikes against the corporations, anarchs seem to favor a “shake the pillars of heaven” methodology. They also have a tendency to expose runners with too many corporate connections, often at the time that creates the most possible drama with the other members of the team.

They’re the twisted embodiment of the “pink mohawk”

runner mentality.

Like the blackjacks, they’re from Zecorporatum, where they take the fight to the streets and try to bring down the order of the corporations by undermining them with chaos. Their efforts do little on their home metaplane and so, like the blackjacks, they come to ours, claiming that our world is the root cause of the trouble in theirs.

Skills Assensing, Automatics, Blades, Clubs, Con, Demolitions, Disguise, Forgery, Gymnastics, Impersonation, Locksmith, Palming, Perception, Pistols, Sneaking, Throwing Weapons, Unarmed Combat Powers Accident, Aura Masking, Banishing Resistance,

Materialization, Natural Weapon (Fist: DV [Force + 2]P, AP —), Realistic Form, Sapience

Notes *As worn

ARBOREAL

In the beginning of the Sixth World, one of the first unusual things that happened was the spontaneous growth of forests and jungles. Many assumed it was caused by druids, or perhaps it was a spontaneous spell effect. What people didn’t think about was that it could have been spirits manifesting. An arboreal manifests as a tangle of vines, thorns, and leaves that hangs suspended for many meters between trees, feeling and listening to the patterns of its forest or jungle home.

Arboreals are hard to understand, as they have only the most basic visual and verbal cues that metahumans can interpret. No one truly understands their motiva-tions, which often leads to conflict.

>

People often mistake their “want to shake your hand”

move with “going to strangle you,” often with deadly results

>

^Slamm-0!

The only organization to establish anything like an alliance with the arboreals is the Primeira Vaga. Under their influence, the arboreals are environmental terror-ists who chew through a city’s infrastructure, animating trees and plants like a slow-moving army.

B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M

F+2 F F F+1 F F F F F F-2 F

Initiative (F x 2) + 2D6 Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6 Condition Monitor

(for Force 4) 11/10 Movement x2/x4/+2

Armor 0

Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, Close Combat skill group, Exotic Ranged Weapon (Thorns), Perception Powers Astral Form, Aura Masking, Banishing Resistance,

Compulsion, Engulf, Fear, Materialization, Natural Weapon (Thorns: DV (Force + 2)P, AP —), Possession, Regeneration, Sapience, Spirit Pact

Optional Powers Guard

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BLACKJACK

My first encounter with a blackjack was during a run against MCT. The blackjack wasn’t part of MCT’s secu-rity, though—it was one of the runners on the team. I was brought in to help them deal with the barghests that MCT had patrolling the perimeter, and Jack (that was the name the blackjack went by) was muscle. He was fast, and when I first assensed him, I got a mun-dane aura and didn’t pick up any wires, so I figured he was an adept with some serious talent. Which is always good to have on your side. He wasn’t all zen, like most of the adepts I know, though. He played the calm pro-fessional, always ready for the fight, always in the right gear, and always keen on making sure MCT paid for what it had done. While runners talking about extract-ing revenge from a corp don’t usually put me on edge, something about him did.

When we hit the place, Jack was a consummate pro.

He neutralized guards non-lethally, made sure to avoid collateral damage in terms of staff on site, and made all the classic moves that a precision runner would make.

Then, when it was time to get out, he broke off from the team. We called him back and warned him we’d leave without him, and he came back with a calm, “That’s what I’d do. Get rolling.” Our rigger kept tabs on the building while we left and sent a feed to all of us that we couldn’t believe. It was a view of Jack in one of the upper floor penthouses, and by upper floor I mean 87th floor. This was under a minute since he’d broken off. No way he could have covered that distance and bypassed security so quickly, but there he was, stand-ing over the sleepstand-ing form of some MCT exec. Then he reached down and lifted the exec up out of the bed with one hand, and we watched as the exec’s body blanched white and went limp. Jack dropped the body, looked right at the camera, and vanished.

Curiosity piqued.

Jack was just one of many blackjacks that have start-ed to visit our plane. I’ve met a few since and they aren’t very talkative. From what I’ve gathered, they are an em-bodiment of the shadowrunner spirit, the “black trench-coat” variety that always feels the need to be profes-sional and treat running as a business, but they always have some other agenda when they’re here. A target of some kind. It’s not always an executive or even a per-son. Sometimes it’s data, and they get some help from a hacker. Sometimes it’s just to leave a message. A lit-tle way of saying, “Hey, your security can be breached.”

They always use regular means, though. They get in with a runner team. They don’t just pull a spirit Houdini move and pop in for the prize.

Where they’re from was a mystery I didn’t wait long to solve. Especially after I discovered their fellow astral vacationers, the anarchs and stabbers. All three origi-nate from a metaplane I call Zecorporatum. The place is an urban landscape much like many of ours, filled with

seemingly mindless workers toiling away at jobs to make the place run for pseudo-corporations with disturbing-ly familiar names like Mars Macrotechnology, AzCorp, Mitsudaishi Corporate Technologies, and more. There is one for each of our Big Ten. It’s obviously a metaphor for our world, but twisted and rather surreal.

This is where the few rare blackjacks, anarchs, and stabbers that arise come in. They journey to our meta-plane to fight the megacorporations that have appar-ently created this twisted mirror of our own world. The problem is, they don’t think of our world as real. Rath-er, they consider it to be a shadow realm of their home.

While they seem understandable because they some-times act in ways with which we are familiar, they still have a mentality that is truly alien to ours.

B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M

Skills Assensing, Automatics, Blades, Clubs, Computer, First Aid, Gymnastics, Intimidation, Locksmith, Longarms, Perception, Pilot Ground Craft, Pistols, Sneaking, Throwing Weapons, Unarmed Combat

Powers Aura Masking, Banishing Resistance, Guard, Natural Weapon (Fist: DV F+2 AP —), Realistic Form, Sapience

Notes *As worn

BOGGLE

While there are spirits who go for violence, chaos, and mass destruction, boggles enjoy the small things of en-tropy and decay. Metahumans might think this is tied to a hatred of living beings like the shedim have, but this is far from the truth. Boggles are simply fascinated by these processes. They will watch mold grow or listen to termites eat through a fence. The destruction of bigger things through their hobby is just an afterthought—and also the reason why more powerful and/or evil spirits keep them around.

>

Put a boggle under a bridge and watch it collapse after a

few months. Put it in the sewers, and before long pipes will burst and sinkholes will form. Forget about allowing them near a power plant!

>

^Ethernaut

Boggles can’t hide their presence for very long. Their homes are influenced by their aura, always require main-tenance, and are plagued with rust, mold, and devices that are unreliable. This is how they like it. Once the place collapses, they’ll move on to someplace new. Boggles can be attracted to a place if trash hasn’t been picked

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117

up in a while and food starts to spoil. Their favorite dish is chòu dòufu, so odds are you can find a boggle or two dining on the stinky tofu in an Asian marketplace. Many would presume that boggles are ugly sinister creatures, but they are, in fact, rather pleasant in appearance. Bog-gles appear as pretty pixies, but they grow small thorns along their arms and legs, and their head is wreathed in a crowning ring of thorns that tangles their hair.

>

Getting rid of a boggle from your house may be a

challenge, even if you clean the place, as their powers just cause new problems. The mundane and expensive way to get rid of them is to find durian fruit and create a trail out of your house, leading them to become somebody else’s problem.

>

^G-Nome

B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M

F-2 F-1 F-1 F-2 F+2 F F F F/2 F F

Initiative [(F x 2) – 1] + 2D6 Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6 Condition Monitor

(for Force 4) 9/11 Movement x2/x4/+2

Armor 0

Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, Close Combat skill group, Gymnastics, Perception

Powers Astral Form, Aura Masking, Banishing Resistance, Entropic Aura, Flight, Materialization, Natural Weapon (Thorns: DV (Force + 2)P, AP —), Sapience

BUGUL

Bugul are ugly, toad-shaped creatures with a large, prominent nose that takes up much of their face. They are cousins to leprechauns, but you can hardly tell by their looks. Odd enough for fae, they hate magic. Or rather, the manipulation of elements and illusions irri-tate them to no end. They believe in a structured and static world. This hatred manifests in a resistance to magic. Combined with high intellect and love of rules, this makes them ideal arbitrators and lawyers. Many types of spirits and fae dislike the bugul, as they cannot be magically influenced or even magically assassinat-ed—unless you’re especially skilled and dedicated

>

Tír na nÓg still has stewards for metahuman disputes.

When it starts getting complex like adding spirit involvement, then a bugul might be retained.

>

^Ethernaut

>

Some court systems will allow a bugul, but it’s on the

client’s head to supply any payment required.

>

^Haze

>

Can they stop the Wild Hunt? Sure, but the bugul are like

lawful neutral—if you’re being legally chased, they won’t stop them.

>

^G-Nome

While I said they love rules, I meant they are ob-sessed with laws and will obey them to the letter. They won’t cross the street unless the light tells them to. On the flip side, if they have a goal in mind, they will pur-posefully work through all the red tape. So after the days or weeks they took to perform research and obtain the needed permits, no one can tell them they can’t do what they want to do—legally speaking, at least.

B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M

F F-1 F-1 F-2 F+1 F+2 F F F/2 F F Initiative [(F x 2) – 1] + 2D6

Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6 Condition Monitor

(for Force 4) 10/11 Movement x2/x4/+2

Armor 0

Skills Artisan, Assensing, Astral Combat, Con, Counterspelling, Disenchanting, Gymnastics, Negotiation, Perception, Unarmed Combat Powers Astral Form, Aura Masking, Improved Sense (Smell,

Thermal), Materialization, Sapience, Spell Resistance (4), Spirit Pact

CHINDI

The world changed with the Awakening. The shatter-ing of the once mighty U.S.A. and the rise of the Na-tive American Nations changed not only the politi-cal landscape of North America but also the physipoliti-cal landscape, and more so the mental landscape. A lot of years have passed, and while those early years held a flood of successes and growth for America’s first resi-dents, the years since have been a struggle.

The first account of a chindi encounter that I uncov-ered was in 2041. It was the harrowing tale of the slow road to insanity taken by Edward Davenport, a lab tech-nician at Shiawase Atomics. The site Davenport worked at was an R&D post focused on byproduct disposal.

Problem is, the location was falsifying most of their re-search studies in order to maintain funding, and the tox-ic byproducts they were in charge of were simply stored in an underground bunker. The bunker was not nearly as sound as they thought it was, and leakage from it dam-aged the local environment, including a small town’s water supply. The chindi uncovered the truth and then chose Davenport as their target for revenge. Davenport managed to arrange removal in hopes of appeasing the astral visitor, but they decided on a sentence of death for him and abruptly carried it out.

The chindi are Native American spirits of revenge, but they aren’t traditional spirits. They all come from a

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metaplane I have dubbed the Hunting Grounds. The place has a very traditional Native American vibe, but some areas seem to reflect some modern concepts, while others reflect the corruption of our natural world.

The occupants—beings with the looks, traditions, and languages of the various Native American tribes, often with animalistic features—live peaceful lives until the

“corruptions,” by which they mean the modern touch-es and pollution, disrupt their livtouch-es. Chindi come from places in the Hunting Grounds twisted by that corrup-tion; they seek out paths to our metaplane, often locat-ed within those corruptlocat-ed areas, further deepening their twisted state.

The physical appearance of the chindi reflects the nature of their corruption. They come to our plane with modern touches in the appearance of their clothing and physical deformities from exposure to pollutants that they cannot change once they arrive. Chindi with animal-istic features are sometimes confused with changelings.

>

Shamans among many of the tribes have known of the

Hunting Grounds for a long time. They’ve traveled to speak with spirits there and seek out chindi. The number of chindi has risen drastically in recent years, especially with what MCT did to the AMC.

>

^Mika

Skills Archery, Blades, Clubs, First Aid, Gymnastics, Intimidation, Perception, Sneaking, Throwing Weapons, Unarmed Combat

Powers Accident, Astral Form, Aura Masking, Banishing Resistance, Elemental Attack (Electricity), Enhanced Senses (Low-Light Vision, Thermographic Vision), Guard, Influence, Materialization, Natural Weapon (Fist:

DV (F+1)P, AP —), Realistic Form, Sapience, Search Notes Shamans should add Assensing, Banishing,

Counterspelling, and Spellcasting skills

CORPSELIGHT

This being is likely the reason for hundreds, if not thou-sands, of years of legends regarding lights floating in the swamps and forests, luring people to their deaths.

Before the Awakening, these lights were blamed on pockets of natural gas, but extensive study seems to indicate that corpselights were likely active during the downcycle of mana. They sustained themselves on the life force of their victims in the same manner they do now, though during the low cycle their feeding periods would have been far more frequent.

My initial research started when Patterson wasn’t able to get solid information and I wanted to discover the facts for myself. I didn’t find much more than anyone else early on.

The corpselight is a small glowing ball with about the same brightness as a torch. It floats anywhere from a few centime-ters to two mecentime-ters above the ground. On rare occasions it floats higher, and a few have been spotted in trees.

When hunting, they have historically used their move-ment power to slow prey. This was exclusively done with-in their natural habitat—swamps and marshes—because it was secluded, and slow-moving, frequently lost beings were commonplace. In recent years they have expanded their hunting range to urban environments, where their movement-inhibiting powers represent wrong turns or tripping unexpectedly.

Corpselight feeding is a euphoric experience. As they drain life, they excite the pleasure centers of the brain and flood the victim’s system with dopamine. Death is an un-matched pleasure.

The ball of light is eerie but not frightening. The true horror of the corpselight is only visible to those with as-tral sight. On the asas-tral plane, the corpselight looks like a twenty-tentacled cephalopod that latches onto its vic-tims and drains the life from them.

As a species (though they lack a clear taxonomy due to their astral nature), corpselights are solitary, though groups hunt together in fertile territory. Though they have previously been identified as nocturnal, extensive re-search indicates the creatures are in fact active during the day, but they only glow at night. During daylight hours, their presence on the physical plane resembles a small cloud of dust or particulate matter blowing in the wind.

>

G-Nome, how the hell did you do this research?

>

^Lyran

>

I have my ways.

>

^G-Nome

>

And here we have an excellent example of the pot calling

the kettle black. Which corporation did you raid for this? I bet it was from early Ares work.

>

^Ethernaut

>

^{Frag you!}

>

^G-Nome

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B A R S W L I C EDG ESS M

Limits Physical 6, Mental 5, Social 4

Armor 12H

Skills Assensing 4, Counterspelling 6, Intimidation 3, Sneaking 7, Tracking 5

Powers Essence Drain, Immunity (Normal Weapons),

Powers Essence Drain, Immunity (Normal Weapons),

In document Shadowrun_5E_Howling_Shadows.pdf (Page 116-124)