Author Archives: jhardy

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.

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:

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!

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!