After the Awakening, many former battlefields and sites of carnage from Europe's many wars became haunted by ghosts. Even the recent Euro Wars left their mark, as witnessed by the specters lingering in the battlefields of Pustynia near Warsaw-Lodz. But the most haunted and spiritually corrupt areas by far are those where great massacres occurred, particularly former Nazi concentration camps and the Warsaw ghetto.
The city of Oswiecim stands right next to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis' largest concentration camp. For over twenty years after the Awakening, the ghosts of this camp's victims drove all life from this region, occasionally haunting nearby areas and even Krakow as well. The Sylvestrines erected a massive spirit barrier (Force 8 ) around the area in 2035, and maintain it to this day along with patrols of watchers.
Within the barrier, thousands of apparitions, specters, and unique ghosts (see pp. 120-2, MitS) are contained, waiting to unleash their pain, misery, and wrath on any metahumans foolish enough to venture within. The camp itself has a Background Count of 5 (petering down to 3 in Oswiecim and 2 or 1 a few kilometers out), and the gas chambers and other buildings razed by the Nazis to hide their atrocities appear as (sometimes materialized) astral constructs (see pp. 100-2, T: AL).
Now this I don't have a problem with...unless there's more to the text than what was presented here. This basically just says that it's there and it's a horrible place. If the Shadowrun world was real, and there were really people who could sense such things, then this seems like a fitting description. It seems honest, and not disrespectful.
But, unlike the text from War!, the above text isn't set up as an adventure hook, nor does it include a related item that can be achieved as some reward for defeating, subverting, or avoiding the spirits.
To me, that makes all the difference.
Pretending it's not there, especially in a game representation of our real world, I agree would be very awkward and unrealistic. So the only course left open is to represent it in a respectful, or at least a brutally honest, manner.
For example, I wouldn't have a problem with something like this: (changes in italics)
WORK BRINGS FREEDOM
Oswiecim was under a spiritual barrier for a number of years. Oswiecim was home to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most well known of the Nazi party’s concentration camps. During the Holocaust, 1.1 million people died within its walls. This led it to become one of the most haunted places on the planet. Ghosts of all shapes and sizes dwelled within, causing all the residents of Oswiecim to flee in fear of their lives. Due to the sheer magnitude and horror of the spiritual energy and emotions in the area, Auschwitz-Birkenau has become home to a great number of other things, and is almost certain death for anyone sensitive to such things.
The town proper is effectively still a town, albeit a town inhabited by the angry and tortured dead. They don’t take kindly to the living, but aren’t necessarily hostile unless provoked. Though for someone sensitive, merely being within their vicinity or presence is almost always overwhelming, and likely fatal. Many are simply living out echoes of their past existences as harmless villagers. The real problem comes from the concentration camps proper. The three main campuses are surrounded by about fifty smaller camps. Each of the smaller camps is a hotbed of supernatural activity, but nothing compared to the magnitude of the central collective.
In particular, Auschwitz II has the strongest concentration of these presences. It was the source of the vast majority of deaths—it’s what most people think of when referencing Auschwitz. It’s nightmare made flesh, almost a living organism unto itself. The halls audibly scream and cry, the ghosts beg for release so much that most people couldn’t even hear themselves speak. For your average runner, Auschwitz II is suicide. Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip, and should only be attempted due to great need. Contact can be made and answers sought, but there are no rewards here...only sadness, death, and lessons to be remembered.
(all remaining text deleted)
But, as soon as this is made a part of it:
...For the inclined occult investigator, Auschwitz-Birkenau is a treasure trove. It’s also a remarkably dangerous trap. Earlier this year, an entrepreneur named Tetsuo Shuumatsu hired a cabal of sorcerers, charging them with the removal of the barrier. He’s an arms dealer, one who specializes in the weapons necessary to take down ghosts. With such an infestation of ghosts, only a silly buyer would hesitate to pay top dollar for his wares. His greed opened this treasure trove to the public, allowing those without a sense of self-preservation to have a unique opportunity to drudge for necromantic artifacts.
...Only the most enterprising groups will survive the trip. But such a trip can result in great rewards (see The Fleshfinder, below).
THE FLESHFINDER
Deep within the bowels of Auschwitz II during WWII, Dr. Eduard Wirths conducted and supervised thousands of odd experiments on the human body. He tested mustard gas on innocents. He mutilated twins. He held people in tanks of ice water for hours or until dead. He exposed prisoners to malaria. He forced them to drink seawater. One particular implement from his experiments, a rusted old scalpel, was left in the labs. Over many years, it was energized by the various ghosts passing by it, feeding off their death energies. At this point, it’s taken on a life of its own.
The rusty old scalpel craves death. It only finds itself at home when flush with warm blood. Although this makes it a remarkably effective weapon, anyone holding it is subject to the sounds of its past victims. As a function of this, when the weapon is in hand, the character is considered distracted and su ffers a –4 dice pool modi fier to all Perception Tests. If she attempts to Observe in Detail as a Simple Action, she only suffers a –2 dice pool modifier.
Reach: 0, Damage: (Str/2+4)P, AP: –2, Availability: N/A (unique item), Market Value: 10,000¥
...then this entry becomes an adventure hook. Even if the form and structure of adventures are different in Shadowrun than from D&D, it's still an adventure hook. I think that an adventure hook is a fairly universal concept from system to system. The text from War! is significantly different in flavor, treatment, and intended purpose, than the text from that older description.
Creating an adventure hook based on the real world suffering of millions of people, for the purpose of entertainment (as opposed to the purpose of promoting awareness of these events, or highlighting the courage of the victims and those that supported them, or simply including and describing it because it exists and can't be ignored)...then for me it exceeds the bounds of good taste.
To each their own, but as for me...I've never bought any Shadowrun material before (though I did own and play the Shadowrun videogame for Sega Genesis back in the 90's
), but it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that I might someday be interested in doing so. But now, because of this supplement, I most assuredly will not buy a Shadowrun product.
I would however, still play a Shadowrun campaign if invited to...but not if the GM or players included material like the text this thread is concerned with, and/or in a manner intended/implied by that text, or even in a game run with homebrew material of the same flavor. I wouldn't play a game with anyone, in any system or campaign, that included such material or flavor (specifically, such portrayals of real world atrocities). And, I'm fairly certain I would have elicited appalled looks from any of the people I game with or have gamed with, if I had used such material or presented it in a similar way in my own games.
