Glad I could be of service.
This is Shadowrun!
Glad I could be of service.
You are right on both accounts, but they work a bit different than planes in D&D.
When you brain goes on holiday
Lets face it, the world of Shadowrun is a a dreadful place. Widespread oppression, pollution and violence. And your job of Shadowrunner doesn't leave much room for a holiday except visiting the slum of the city next door which looks pretty much the same as your slum except that the dirt has some different shades of greybrown.
Now for the normal person there are only "the usual" ways of escape. Drugs, TV, sex or religion (bring bug spray, just in case). Now mages have one more option as they have a build in vacation hotspot, the Astral Plane.
A quick pointer about mana and magic in Shadowrun, mana, the stuff needed to do magic, is generated by life. Now the astral plane is not a different place than boring reality, but actually the same just with a filter on it. The brick buildings fade into the shadows while the few plants growing on it shine light bright beacons, as do the rats rushing past it and the people living inside the building. But you are not actually seeing the peoples bodies (they are still there, but muted), but their astral auras or souls if you swing that way. And like real bodies the auras can be inspected more closely. While you are in the real world you can see details that the someones hair is dyed and that he should really do some more dental hygiene while his auras can tell you things like if he is troubled, angry or in reality a huge dragon who just shapeshifted to look like a cute dwarfen hooker. And while you think such details (at least the last part) are obvious, no they are not. The astral does not work that way as that the difference between dwarf or dragon is obvious. You have to learn to look for this stuff and other mages (and only them + whatever critter has magical abilities) can learn to hide their true aura.
So how does the mage access the Astral? There are two way. Perception and Projection.
Through the looking glass
Perception is the easier method of accessing the astral plane and is something most mages can do and even adepts can learn. When you perceive the Astral you see both the real world and the astral world at the same time, seeing both the physical form of a person and his aura. You are still bound by your normal vision though, but you can sorta use information from one vision mode to fill in for the other. While you have trouble to see through smoke in the real world, the astral is not troubled by it and you can see the auras of living things behind it. Its not easy to aim a gun according to what you see on the astral, but doable. Creatures who permanently live in this state have no problems with that obviously.
Another thing which lights up on the astral are magic spells and items so you know when someone decked out with this stuff approaches (unless he hides it). So why not always perceive the astral? Because you are also vulnerable to things on the astral. While your buddies can walk through a magic barrier only existing on the astral just fine you are stopped by it. Granted you simply can turn your astral perception off and walk through, but spirits which currently reside only on the astral can attack you while you perceive it and your buddies can't help you. Sure, you can fight back as you exist on both planes at the same time when you perceive, but for the others it will look as if you are fighting air as your real body moves together with your astral one. And it can kinda hurt when the spirit hides in a wall (they can do that when they exists only on the astral plane) and you try to punch it. Punch? Yes, because spirits and other things on the astral plane are not really hurt by physical objects, but by the will behind the attack. And last time I checked the bullets do not possess that much willpower. So it is usually a better idea to use a melee weapon on them.
If you are not awakened but really want to try, certain drugs the Ghost Cartels used to fence (before they went boom) gave you the ability to perceive even when you were mundane with some nasty side effects.
I am packing my suitcase and take with me ... nothing, really
The second way of accessing the astral plane is only open to full mages and powerful entities. You detach your mind completely from your body and go free floating . You are existing completely on the astral now and are not bound by physical limitations (As the title suggest, you can't really take stuff with you). The physical world looks muted and you only see the auras of living beings (note, the planet counts as alive). You can fly at the speed of thought and pass through nonmagical and nonliving objects without problems. Of course seeing where you are going is a bit hard as you can neither read or even look through windows as their physical quality of being transparent doesn't matter on the astral. You can always fly through, though. So, projecting is a good way of scouting ahead (unless the enemies uses drones. As they are not alive they are very hard to spot) or enjoy a free porn show somewhere in the neighborhood. Also, being detached from your body makes fighting things on the astral much more easy as you are faster than when dragging a meat body with you. Speaking of your meat body, it still exists in the real world (currently unconscious) and can still be hurt or killed. So before going out make sure it sits comfortably. You also can't stay out forever. You have to come back after some hours or sort of dissolve. For some giggles, you can manifest in the real world. When you do people can see you like a ghost from stories. You can't affect anything in the real world (unless it is also active on the astral) and the real world can't affect you, but you can talk to people and hear what they are saying.
So the next time you find your groups mage in the bed unmovingly he either had a great time at the club last night or is projecting. If you want to play a game with him hide the body. Mages love to having to search their body to get back in before they dissolve.
To infinity ... and beyond!
There are other planes of existence out there, collectively called metaplanes. While for a mage visiting the astral plane is like driving to the next city block, a visit to the metaplanes is the intercontinental flight including applying for a visa.
Not every run of the mill mage can even visit them. To do that he had to initate first. Initiation for a mage means increasing his magical power beyond the ordinary level for your species through an epiphany like experience. If you are such a mage you have to make preparations as like when projecting your body is out cold, only that a trip to the metaplanes can take days. So make sure your body is fed and "other needs" are taken care off. Then you have to get past the bouncer, or more scientifically the Dweller in the Darkness (Yay science!). No one really knows who or what that thing is, a real spirit or a manifestation of your subconscious mind or both and neither. Anyway this guy makes it hard for you to get to a metaplane and challenges you with overcoming your personal flaws in whatever way he pleases. He can create entire worlds in your mind and send you on an epic quest to do so or just play some riddles with you.
Either way, when you make it past him you arrive at the metaplane of your choice (pro tip: pick your destination before starting to travel). What metaplanes are there? No one knows. Very likely there are an infinite amount of them. They are the homes of spirits and other weird things and they can look like earth or something really bizzar like a world made out of flesh tunnels inhabited by man sized bugs (Your life expectancy just dropped below 1 second). What you can do there? You can go on a quest to gain knowledge no mortal knows or you can destroy a spirit for real instead of banishing it if you know its true name (see the knowledge part).
Now if you are not a mage, there is a substitution to an astral holiday.
The Matrix Now with 100% less Keanu Reeves
First, there was the Internet which went down when some hardware frying supervirus got lose. Then there was the first matrix, a huge highway of cables with regular jackpoints all over the place which also went down when an AI decided to play god and was stopped by another nasty virus and several nukes on certain data centers. Now we have the second Matrix and this one is wireless.
Actually we are already in the Matrix 2.5. Previously in the 2.0 version the Matrix was a very free and open place so everyone was happy. Except the Megacorps as they don't like people being happy without paying them first and everyone being treated equal, even virtually, also isn't their cup of tea. So they updated the Matrix to what we have now. One thing before I continue, while the Astral plane is exclusive for mages and other awakened, the Matrix, no matter how is it accessed is for everyone. So even when you are not a Hacker you can surf it with your mind with the right equipment which by now is cheap, available everywhere and can be considered mandatory for normal social interactions by now. There is just one exception which I will address later.
Processors have become so small and cheap that pretty much everything has one these days even if just in the form of RFID chip. Even the candy bar you just ate had one, scratch that, multiple ones. The packaging had one and the bar itself. Don't worry, for the most part, they are edible.
Now every one of those processors sends and receives wireless signals, routing them to the next device and so on. All this forms a world wide net of devices which make up the Matrix. The only cables still used are for security reasons, outdated hardware and to cross the oceans (and satellites can also help with that).
What you can do is to hop along the devices to reach whatever you want in the world. You always start from your Comlink (or Deck, or from yourself if you are a technomancer), then maybe hop to your TV, then to your neighbors smartwatch then to the car parked in front of your house and so on till you reach your favorite restaurant on the other side of the city to check todays special. But with the new user friendly Matrix you do not see any of this, you just activate your Comlink and open the menu of the restaurant. Everything is automatic and done so well that even Hackers don't care any more how their signal is bounced (the authorities will find them anyway).
Like the Astral plane there are two (and 3 quarter) ways to use the Matrix.
Would you like a bit more reality?
The first is Augmented Reality. Like astral perception you overlay the real world with informations from the Matrix. When you look at a shop window you don't just see clothing, you actually see yourself in that clothing in your current pose. Are you visiting a car dealership and look at a car there? A window pops up next to it showing this models sales trailer and consumer ratings. And the adverts do not just stand there, they scream at you (while being of course personally designed for you according to your spending habits and interests). You can even create objects called AROs in Augmented Reality. Want to meet up with your friend? Simply draw a line to your location only he will see. Looking for a date? Log into your favorite dating portal and have it mark all compatible persons in your field of view. See some guys running around the street with their hands formed like guns saying "pew"? They are either on drugs or playing Miracle Shooter which creates Augmented Reality monsters they have to shoot in order to score.
How do you see all this information? The easiest and most outdated way which gets you laughed at by 140 year old grandparents is by looking at the display of your Comlink. Instead and a lot more modern, you could simply send this information to your cybereyes and have it overlap your normal vision. Are you one of those hippies who do not trade away perfectly functioning body parts and some of their humanity for machine replacements? You can get glasses, goggles or even lenses to wear for Augmented Reality. Add in some earbuds and a AR gloves so you can touch Augmented Reality objects and you are fully equipped to not feel quite as embarrassed when people see you. But to be really part of this decade you need an DNI, a direct neural interface. You can get one by drilling a hole into your brain and installing a datajack or, for the hippies, wearing a trode net on your head which connects to your brain by ultrasonic. That way images, sound and more get transmitted to your brain directly without having to stop at your eyes first. Add a simsense module to your comlink and even more information can be send into your brain than just AR objects and sound. Want to try out a new place to eat? Try a virtual bite first before you decide. The simsense module makes it possible to transmit taste over the matrix. Isn't it great? Imagine the fun you can have when you hack the taste information.
You also do not have to manually type in commands into Augmented Reality windows (windows which simply float in the air which only you can see). Simply think of the command and it will happen. Neat, or?
Hot brains and Cold data
You can go a step further than just having an AR interface and immerse your mind into the matrix. Like a projecting mage you detach your mind from your body and let it wander. Here a simsense module is a must instead of just an addition like in AR. With it you perceive the Matrix like you do the real world with all senses you have available. What you will see when you jack into the Matrix is a black plane with a lot of Icons on it. Every processor I mentioned above is represented by an icon in the Matrix (most of which are filtered out as they are pretty uninteresting). When you look up you will see hosts floating above you. A host is like a building with stuff going on inside it, but more on that later. Generally, the more important the host the bigger and higher up it is. How does a host look like? That is entirely up to its owner. Same for the Icon. The only rule is every host and Icon must relate in some way to its real function. So the Matrix icon of a gun can be any weapon, from a knife to a laser cannon and a car can be represented by anything with wheels. And your persona can be anything living with some size restrictions (Griffons are currently popular).
Also, the exact details of what you see depends on your grid. Different providers display the Matrix differently. You will still see all the content, but the colors will be different and adverts will favor the owner of the grid and so on. The megacorps of course have world wide grids. Then there are local grids which you can only access when you are physically in the area. People from the rest of the world can still see and interact with you but working across grids is slow. Or you could use the free, public grid which is also world wide. But that is even slower and many hosts don't accept users from it as they use the simple equation of "Free grid = no money= no customer = get out".
So, hosts. A host is as said above a building. You can enter a host (with access, often paid or hacked) and use its services. What you see in the inside of a host is completely up to the owner as are the simulated rules of physics. A dance club owner can sell access to his host which looks like a copy of the real club with "real" physics, so you can spend the night there, dancing, interacting with others and even drinking as if you where there when in reality your body is thousand of miles away. You can even get virtually drunk. There is of course no alcohol in your body, but your brain will react like there is until you leave the host or filter the signal out. Some clubs even exist only in the Matrix and have no real world counterpart.
Other hosts can look like you are walking on the ocean floor and the employee can be a squid in uniform. All that is decided by the host who can also restrict how your avatar looks like to fit the theme (which can be hacked of course).
Now about the 3/4 ways of accessing the matrix which are left. There are some different ways to immerse yourself into the matrix. Hot Sim, Cold Sim and the Technomancer way.
The difference between Hot Sim and Cold Sim is how safe you set your filters. In Cold Sim your Comlink or Deck will filter all incoming signals to a safe amount. Nice for keeping you not dieing but when a Decker is in a pitched battle with some ICEs (Intrusion Countermeasures, programs to defend against hackers) it can slow his reaction. So there is the possibility to remove those filters and go Hot Sim, providing greater speed at the danger of your head exploding.
Technomancers have the strange ability to not need technology to access the Matrix, their brain can simply process wireless signals. They even have strange abilities in the Matrix like "summoning" programs to help them.
One thing about hacking and the problems you face, the Matrix is watched over by the Grid Overwatch Division (Yes, GOD). They are really good in what they do and with the help of the new matrix protocols they will find everyone who does something illegal on the Matrix within minutes (or hours when he is good or inactive). When they do they kick him out, likely fry his Deck and send the police at him as they know exactly where he is in the real world. At least that happens when the Hacker is outside of a host. When he is inside he is the host's owner problem. Just do not leave the host when you have been discovered and become their problem. Simply jack out form the Matrix. As your mind only travels virtually you do not have to travel back to your body like a projecting mage does. Just pull the plug. As soon as you do that GOD leaves you alone the next time you jack in until you again do something illegal.
Brave New World
Ok, now it gets a bit strange.
The Matrix has its own version of metaplanes called resonance realms. They are only open to Technomancers. Deckers do not need to apply. No one really knows what they are. Are they magical? Are they are strange side effects of technology? Beats me.
They do work a bit like magical metaplanes in a way as Technomancers who want to visit them get to meet their own version of the Watcher in the Dark. Same rules, you shall not pass unless you play a round of high stakes Truth or Dare.
What do you find on the metaplanes? AIs, both sentient and ferals, lost programs and according to rumors even e-ghosts, the mind of people who have died while connected to the matrix. There are also many different resonance realms with different purposes out there (but no human did create them as far as we know). For example there is a big archive out there which contains all information which had been saved on the Matrix at one point in time, even when the original and all its copies have already been DELETED (In capital letters. With gasoline and fire). Of course to be able to take a copy of those information with you, you have to offer something in return, for example information which was not yet saved in the Matrix.
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The changing faces of the shadows
Ever since the Awakening humans don't have to look at small details to be racist about (not that they don't still do). Instead there are several variants of the Homo Sapiens and some other sentient species on the planet (and from beyond).
Homo Sapient Something
The most prominent new arrivals (at least when it comes to quantity) are the human variants. Because of them "humans" doesn't really cut it any more as catch all term. Thats why it got extended to metahumanity, or as I call it the Tolkien races. You see, what humans became came directly from the Lord of the Rings novel. Fun Fact about Tolkien, he is one of the most hated persons in History as a lot of superstition metahumans faced and still face came from his books.
From a game system point of view, all of them are playable right now with the core book.
The UGE club
Even though metahumans are Homo Sapient, there was a difference in how they came back to the world. UGE stands for Unexplained Genetic Expression and was the diagnosis when newborn babies didn't look quite human. They were in reality one of the races listed below, but at that point even magic had not appeared yet and people were uncomfortable thinking of their babies as of something out of a fantasy novel. Another world about racism, it all depends on the locations where you are. The elven nations of course do not discriminate against elves. Instead, humans are rather low on the ladder, lower than most other metatypes. In Japan on the other hand, everything besides humans are the lowest of the low, even elves. When I talk about racism I usually use the UCAS/Seattle as basis unless noted otherwise.
Elves
Elves probably fared best from all metahumans as many people think of them as attractive. They are also the most similar to humans with only slight details (ears) being different. They are a bit more agile but can't take as much of a beating (except when cybered of course). Because of their "attractiveness" they were even sought out for certain jobs (PR for example) while all other metahumans had a hard time finding a job at all.
What the public (including elves) don't know is that there is a "immortal" mutation for elves and several of them survived from the 4th World (which are now among the most powerful beings of the world rivaling great dragons). This explains why elves had such a good start with now 2 elven countries and their own language from the 4th world.
Dwarves
Your stereotypical short guy. Dwarves are short, stocky and yes they do have a resistance against posions, so they can drink more than people with comparable body mass. The racism against dwarves still stay at a managable level and they can get worker jobs no problem (here their fantasy image as hard worker actually helps them). They still have to deal with the world even now still not being build for their size.
Goblinization Now!
While Elves and Dwarves entered the world quietly and peacefully as newborns, Orks and Trolls did so with a big bang. Instead of being born one day 25% of all humans mutated, quite painfully, into them. People were of course scared as hell by that and Orks&Trolls were rounded up and quarantined, it could have been a disease after all, if not killed outright.
By now people know better, still that wasn't a good start for them.
Orks
Most "victims" of goblinization turned into Orks. And when you now think of the LotR movies let me assure you, the Shadowrun Orks look a lot more human than in the movie. Their face is still recognizable as human, they just have two very visible tusks and their skin is only slightly tinted instead of being green.
Orks suffered and still suffer a lot of discrimination and it doesn't help that their average IQ tends to be lower than the one of humans. They are a bit more robust though and thus often (and most of the time only) find work in lower paying jobs not yet replaced by drones. As a bonus for the companies, they do not have to pay as much retirement pay as Orks don't live that long.
In recent years Orks became quite popular in the underground music business and its target group. That reached its height when the orkish language from the 4th World was rediscovered leading to some people implanting fake tusks to pose as Ork.
Trolls
The rarest and most inhuman of the metahumans. They are huge (as in 3 meters/9 feet or more), have tusks, horns, huge muscles, armor plates as skin and their arms as even longer than they should be considering their body size. And as if the universe balances such things out, they are also not all that smart. A genius troll would rate as a smart human. All this makes them a prime target for discrimination (as long as you do not stand inside the rather impressive punching range of a troll) and they have a hard time getting a legitimate job at all. Shadowrunners though value them as heavy weapon platform and "meat shield" as a human with very expensive cyberware would only be slightly better than a troll in his natural state.
We are not done yet
The awakening did not just bring back the Tolkien races, it brought back regional variants of them (and humans), too.
Examples include one eyed trolls found around Greece (Cyclops variant) or Shivan humans with four arms in India. I won't list all of them, especially as they are not playabel in 5E yet. If it works like the previous editions they will be in the rules compendium book, this time called "Run faster".
But regional variants is not all.
Pasteur's worst nightmare
One thing has to be said about nature, its very thorough. When the awakening hit not only got humans and animals mutated and some of them became able to use magic, but also Viruses. Born was the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus. What this virus does is that it transforms its victim into a different species, depending on the strain of the virus and the victims original race. The one thing people who get infected by this (incurable) virus have in common is that they loose essence (your life force so to speak) and can only survive by taking the life force of others which is symbolically represented by drinking their blood or eating their flesh. This only works with sentient victims, though.
Not surprisingly, the victims of the virus are called ghouls, vampires or equally terror inspiring names. Again I won't list them all as with regional variants they are not playable yet and likely will be with Run Faster. Ghouls are statted as enemy in the core book, though.
A different kind of Surge
When the Halley's Comet passed by earth the magic level increased by a lot which brought forth even more variants of metahumans. The magic level has receded by now but those races stayed. As with the other above, they will likely be made playable with Run Faster if the last edition was any indication.
Surged
Surged are not really a race but rather the victims of a second goblinization. During the 5th world where magic was inactive and everyone was a human people had a lot of time to inbreed. That resulted in many persons having the genes of several different metahuman variants and god knows hat else in them. Most of the time nature has a way of sorting that mess out and you only become a ork or troll. But during the Surge the garbled mess of DNA fragments inside some persons activated and he mutated into some sort of chimera. No surged looks the same as everyone had a different pile of DNA garbage inside them. Also, they do not only have traits from other metatypes but often also from animals (hinting that there might still be undiscovered metahuman races out there, maybe only appearing with higher magic levels). The changes can range from unusual hair colors to being a mixture of 5 different animals with a bit of troll thrown in for good measure.
As expected, heavily surged people are the outcasts of the outcasts. Unless of course they hit the jackpot and just grew some cat ears and a tail while in Japan (they love their cat girls) or grew a elephant head in India and are now worshiped as gods.
Drakes
Drakes appeared at the same time as the Surge, but their transformation is not the result of garbage DNA. They are intended to be drakes and only needed higher magic levels to express themselves.
Drakes do not look different than their original metarace. What sets them apart is that they can transform themselves into a small dragon and back at will. The type of dragon is fixed and most of the time, western. They are highly sought after by great dragons as slaves. After all, they created them in the 4th world and one some of them figured out how to make them fertile so they just have to pick up the descendants of their servants instead of creating new ones.
They did WHAT????
By now we covered all the natural (Drakes being a bit stretching that) occuring variants of humans, but humanity always liked to mess with things and there are some unnatural variants, too.
A slight warning, it does get a bit distasteful here.
Cyberzombie
When the reappearence of magic, science got a completely now understanding of life and what makes our bodies tick and even the soul was not detectable and measurable. Of course it didn't take long for people to experiment with it and a result is a cyberzombie.
A cyberzombie is a dead person who's soul, through technological and magical means can't leave the body and thus it continues to live. There is a reason why this field of study is called cybernecromancy.
Creating a cyberzombie is very expensive, requiring heavy implantation with cyberware with simultaneous ritual spellcasting and it is debatable if the life of a cyberzombie is worth living.
The advantage of cyberzombies are that they use a lot more cyberware than a normal person as they can't die from too much technology in their body. Thats why most cyberzombies are used as walking tanks in war or in black ops teams.
Cyborg
Even more invasive than the Cyberzombie, a Cyborg is just a brain inside a container which can be plugged into any robot designed to hold it. While Cyberzombies can also be just a brain and some spinal column surrounded by metal, the big difference is that Cyberzombies are still the same person they were in life, in a horrible inhuman way. Cyborgs on the other hand are not intended to be persons. The brain is just there to give robots human advantages like intuition. The brain in the casing does not remember who he was, or even that it had a live before becoming a Cyborg. Although sometimes they do have flashbacks which impede their functions and can lead to suicide. Thats why the brain of adult persons are bad cyborg material. Cloned brains fresh from the tank do not have this problem, but don't work really well either, lacking "life experience". The brains of children are a commonly used compromise. Remember that I said it gets distasteful?
Both rules for Cyborgs and Cyberzombies might appear in the cyberware book.
True Drakes
Remember the Drake entry from above? Those are the original. The same rules apply, metahuman who can turn into a small dragon, but this guys were not born that way, they were created by Great Dragons. True drakes tend to be stronger, faster and a lot more magically powerful than normal drakes, but the creation of one is very taxing for a great dragon and so far they are content with enslaving the already existing drakes.
Rules for True Drakes as player characters appeared, but the background and powers makes them nearly unusable in normal play and it is questionable that we see player rules for them in the near future.
And the rest of them
While human variants take up the major part of the planet, they are not the only one changed by the awakening. A lot of plants and animal life got changes as well, some of them becoming sapient. And even though they come from animals they are not completely unwilling to join human society. Something the society even let them.
Many of them were playable in previous editions but rules vary wildly. Expect to see some or all of them in Run Faster
One oat beer please
First, centaurs.
I think everyone here knows what a centaur is. Horse with a human upper body. In Shadowrun they usually roam open plains (the few that exist) in nomadic groups and sell magical ingredients they find for equipment and weapons. Yes, they are not so stupid as to wander nature unarmed. Speaking of finding, centaurs have the innate ability to find whatever they are looking for. Ask one to find something for you and he instinctively goes of into the correct direction. That makes stealing among centaurs a lot less of an issue as even though their possession is gone, they know where it is. And as long as you return it when asked to all is well.
Several centaurs have joined human society and law enforcement seems to like having some of them around. Still, for better or worse, centaurs stick out and they have a lot of troubles entering buildings and vehicles which were not build for them.
Shapeshifters
Shapeshifters are animals who can take the form of (meta)humans. Several races of shapeshifters have been observed, (Sea) Lion, Bear, Fox, Wolf. But who knows what is out there?
Shapeshifters usually stick to themselves, only coming in contact with metahumanity by curiosity or by being forced into contact. Still, they recognize the need to be prepared for it and usually seek out ways to learn the basics about metahumans including a language. Some rare individuals have joined metahuman society and are found in the shadows.
Sasquatch
To all Bigfoot hunters, here is your chance. Except that a genuine recording of a Bigfoot isn't worth anything any more as their existence is by now a common knowledge. They were the second race recognized as sapient by the UN (still a rare occurrence thanks to politics even with overwhelming evidence). Sasquatches are as how people imagine Bigfoot. Big and furry. But even though they are close to 3 meters and can weight 500 pounds don't worry, they are very peaceful and usually stick to themselves in hard to access areas. If you meet some of them just don't expect much of a conversation as they can't talk at all except for sign language.
The most contact metahumans had with them was when a Sasquatch joined a rock band which instantly became famous. Although I think he had quit by now as he couldn't stand how fame changed the other band members (sellouts)
Naga
It took some time for people to realize that Naga are sapient and many places still do not acknowledge it. That might be because while the other races do at least have some human like features, nagas are intelligent pythons. They can learn to speak metahuman languages and unlike pythons they are venomous (and a quite potent venom it is). They are very rare outside their country Angkor Wat where they have fortified themselves in. Thats because they are hunted in many places of the world as their venom and body parts are quite requested by some people. Very often Nagas are mages which is lucky for them as otherwise they would have trouble interacting with the environment on a higher level as they do not have hands etc.
Some nagas managed to join society though and now hold normal jobs. Just getting into a country where they are recognized as sapient is quite a challenge for them.
Dracoforms
Dracoform is a catch all term for all things dragon. They were the first non-human species recognized as sapient by the UN, probably because dragons are filthy rich. All the legends of their gold filled hoards were true. But dragons quickly learned that a stock portfolio is even better and while there are some traditionalists among them most dragons have adapted to the modern world quite well many of them owning companies behind the scenes or otherwise pulling strings. But as always there are exceptions (I am looking at you Daemon, if you are indeed a dragon). One of them even was elected president of the UCAS (remnants of the USA and Canada).
There are several subtypes of dragons but I don't think I have to explain what a eastern or western dragon is. There are also feathered serpents (wyvern with feathern) and so far a single sea dragon (think Loch Ness monster). All dragons are, in addition to their impressive physical abilities, very good magicians.
After a long time and some other unknown requirements they can become "Greater". Great dragons are not only physically a lot bigger than normal ones, their magical abilities also increase by a lot. Great dragons also have a lot more to say in their society.
Obviously, dragons will not be playable. Although player stats were published for them as a 1st April joke and some users on the message board found those rules to be quite balanced.
AI's
AIs are the newest discovered sapient race. Although the sapient part is highly contested by the megacorps as they would rather see them as property so they can take them apart and see how they work. Only Horizon officially recognizes AIs as persons.
AIs have a bit of a history in the Shadows. During the first Matrix several AIs already existed and their abilities inside the Matrix were nothing less than godlike. Renraku discovered AIs and tried to replicate them which succeeded as they created the AI Deus which took over their arcology and slaughtered thousands of people before being deactivated. It managed to get its followers out, though and got recompiled. Its attempts to upgrade failed though and were the reason (together with the attempt to stop it) why the Matrix crashed in the first place.
But all this is unknown to the normal person. For them AIs appeared only a few years ago when a AI protested the experiments on it by aiming biological weapons at humanity and a other AI talking it out of it. Since then there was a huge PR drive by Horizon to get people to like AIs.
No one managed to explain how AIs come into being. Seemingly random programs spontaneously gain sapience, but no pattern or transformation has been observed yet. The current AIs are also far away from the god AIs of the last Matrix. Most of them are comparable to very, very good Deckers/Technomancer. Some AIs do not even reach human levels of intellect and behave more like animals. Such AIs are called feral or proto AIs and some deckers have them as pets.
AIs were playable in 4E and might come back in 5E, either in Run Faster or the Matrix book.
Spirits
Not much is really known about spirits. They inhabit the metaplanes and mages can call on them for services. Unlike astral projecting mages, they can manifest in the real world and interact with them. How many spirits exist and how they are created is completely unknown as is the rest of their life cycle. Researchers suspect spirits sustain themselves (or just enjoy it) by human emotion. That doesn't mean that they drain people of it, they just like to be in an area with the emotion they want. Most of the time a spirit is called by a mage and performs some services for him till sunrise/sunset when it disappears again. A spirit can be bound and forced to do services for a longer time. They do not like that but usually do not hold a grudge unless mistreated or forced to perform something lengthy and boring.
Under some circumstances spirits can free themselves from mages and can freely wander the world without disappearing at sunset. What the spirits does depends on what type it is. Usually they correspond to the classical elements, earth, fire, etc. but there are also spirits of nature and men who seem to like to behave just like humans going so far as to take drugs even though they do not work on them and the spirits not even feeling something. There are also poltergeists who like to cause mischief (a lot more of them exist than people realize, but very often they do not specifically seek out humans and instead are chasing doves for hours) and many more.
On the darker side there are toxic spirits who have been corrupted by pollution, blood spirits brought into the world by human sacrifices, bug spirits who try to take over the world by implanting themselves into humans and shedim who hate all life and usually inhabit dead bodies which they reanimate (take note that the body of a mage who is currently projecting into the astral technically count as dead).
Ever since the Awakening humans don't have to look at small details to be racist about (not that they don't still do). Instead there are several variants of the Homo Sapiens and some other sentient species on the planet (and from beyond).
Homo Sapient Something
The most prominent new arrivals (at least when it comes to quantity) are the human variants. Because of them "humans" doesn't really cut it any more as catch all term. Thats why it got extended to metahumanity, or as I call it the Tolkien races. You see, what humans became came directly from the Lord of the Rings novel. Fun Fact about Tolkien, he is one of the most hated persons in History as a lot of superstition metahumans faced and still face came from his books.
From a game system point of view, all of them are playable right now with the core book.
The UGE club
Even though metahumans are Homo Sapient, there was a difference in how they came back to the world. UGE stands for Unexplained Genetic Expression and was the diagnosis when newborn babies didn't look quite human. They were in reality one of the races listed below, but at that point even magic had not appeared yet and people were uncomfortable thinking of their babies as of something out of a fantasy novel. Another world about racism, it all depends on the locations where you are. The elven nations of course do not discriminate against elves. Instead, humans are rather low on the ladder, lower than most other metatypes. In Japan on the other hand, everything besides humans are the lowest of the low, even elves. When I talk about racism I usually use the UCAS/Seattle as basis unless noted otherwise.
Elves
Elves probably fared best from all metahumans as many people think of them as attractive. They are also the most similar to humans with only slight details (ears) being different. They are a bit more agile but can't take as much of a beating (except when cybered of course). Because of their "attractiveness" they were even sought out for certain jobs (PR for example) while all other metahumans had a hard time finding a job at all.
What the public (including elves) don't know is that there is a "immortal" mutation for elves and several of them survived from the 4th World (which are now among the most powerful beings of the world rivaling great dragons). This explains why elves had such a good start with now 2 elven countries and their own language from the 4th world.
Dwarves
Your stereotypical short guy. Dwarves are short, stocky and yes they do have a resistance against posions, so they can drink more than people with comparable body mass. The racism against dwarves still stay at a managable level and they can get worker jobs no problem (here their fantasy image as hard worker actually helps them). They still have to deal with the world even now still not being build for their size.
Goblinization Now!
While Elves and Dwarves entered the world quietly and peacefully as newborns, Orks and Trolls did so with a big bang. Instead of being born one day 25% of all humans mutated, quite painfully, into them. People were of course scared as hell by that and Orks&Trolls were rounded up and quarantined, it could have been a disease after all, if not killed outright.
By now people know better, still that wasn't a good start for them.
Orks
Most "victims" of goblinization turned into Orks. And when you now think of the LotR movies let me assure you, the Shadowrun Orks look a lot more human than in the movie. Their face is still recognizable as human, they just have two very visible tusks and their skin is only slightly tinted instead of being green.
Orks suffered and still suffer a lot of discrimination and it doesn't help that their average IQ tends to be lower than the one of humans. They are a bit more robust though and thus often (and most of the time only) find work in lower paying jobs not yet replaced by drones. As a bonus for the companies, they do not have to pay as much retirement pay as Orks don't live that long.
In recent years Orks became quite popular in the underground music business and its target group. That reached its height when the orkish language from the 4th World was rediscovered leading to some people implanting fake tusks to pose as Ork.
Trolls
The rarest and most inhuman of the metahumans. They are huge (as in 3 meters/9 feet or more), have tusks, horns, huge muscles, armor plates as skin and their arms as even longer than they should be considering their body size. And as if the universe balances such things out, they are also not all that smart. A genius troll would rate as a smart human. All this makes them a prime target for discrimination (as long as you do not stand inside the rather impressive punching range of a troll) and they have a hard time getting a legitimate job at all. Shadowrunners though value them as heavy weapon platform and "meat shield" as a human with very expensive cyberware would only be slightly better than a troll in his natural state.
We are not done yet
The awakening did not just bring back the Tolkien races, it brought back regional variants of them (and humans), too.
Examples include one eyed trolls found around Greece (Cyclops variant) or Shivan humans with four arms in India. I won't list all of them, especially as they are not playabel in 5E yet. If it works like the previous editions they will be in the rules compendium book, this time called "Run faster".
But regional variants is not all.
Pasteur's worst nightmare
One thing has to be said about nature, its very thorough. When the awakening hit not only got humans and animals mutated and some of them became able to use magic, but also Viruses. Born was the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus. What this virus does is that it transforms its victim into a different species, depending on the strain of the virus and the victims original race. The one thing people who get infected by this (incurable) virus have in common is that they loose essence (your life force so to speak) and can only survive by taking the life force of others which is symbolically represented by drinking their blood or eating their flesh. This only works with sentient victims, though.
Not surprisingly, the victims of the virus are called ghouls, vampires or equally terror inspiring names. Again I won't list them all as with regional variants they are not playable yet and likely will be with Run Faster. Ghouls are statted as enemy in the core book, though.
A different kind of Surge
When the Halley's Comet passed by earth the magic level increased by a lot which brought forth even more variants of metahumans. The magic level has receded by now but those races stayed. As with the other above, they will likely be made playable with Run Faster if the last edition was any indication.
Surged
Surged are not really a race but rather the victims of a second goblinization. During the 5th world where magic was inactive and everyone was a human people had a lot of time to inbreed. That resulted in many persons having the genes of several different metahuman variants and god knows hat else in them. Most of the time nature has a way of sorting that mess out and you only become a ork or troll. But during the Surge the garbled mess of DNA fragments inside some persons activated and he mutated into some sort of chimera. No surged looks the same as everyone had a different pile of DNA garbage inside them. Also, they do not only have traits from other metatypes but often also from animals (hinting that there might still be undiscovered metahuman races out there, maybe only appearing with higher magic levels). The changes can range from unusual hair colors to being a mixture of 5 different animals with a bit of troll thrown in for good measure.
As expected, heavily surged people are the outcasts of the outcasts. Unless of course they hit the jackpot and just grew some cat ears and a tail while in Japan (they love their cat girls) or grew a elephant head in India and are now worshiped as gods.
Drakes
Drakes appeared at the same time as the Surge, but their transformation is not the result of garbage DNA. They are intended to be drakes and only needed higher magic levels to express themselves.
Drakes do not look different than their original metarace. What sets them apart is that they can transform themselves into a small dragon and back at will. The type of dragon is fixed and most of the time, western. They are highly sought after by great dragons as slaves. After all, they created them in the 4th world and one some of them figured out how to make them fertile so they just have to pick up the descendants of their servants instead of creating new ones.
They did WHAT????
By now we covered all the natural (Drakes being a bit stretching that) occuring variants of humans, but humanity always liked to mess with things and there are some unnatural variants, too.
A slight warning, it does get a bit distasteful here.
Cyberzombie
When the reappearence of magic, science got a completely now understanding of life and what makes our bodies tick and even the soul was not detectable and measurable. Of course it didn't take long for people to experiment with it and a result is a cyberzombie.
A cyberzombie is a dead person who's soul, through technological and magical means can't leave the body and thus it continues to live. There is a reason why this field of study is called cybernecromancy.
Creating a cyberzombie is very expensive, requiring heavy implantation with cyberware with simultaneous ritual spellcasting and it is debatable if the life of a cyberzombie is worth living.
The advantage of cyberzombies are that they use a lot more cyberware than a normal person as they can't die from too much technology in their body. Thats why most cyberzombies are used as walking tanks in war or in black ops teams.
Cyborg
Even more invasive than the Cyberzombie, a Cyborg is just a brain inside a container which can be plugged into any robot designed to hold it. While Cyberzombies can also be just a brain and some spinal column surrounded by metal, the big difference is that Cyberzombies are still the same person they were in life, in a horrible inhuman way. Cyborgs on the other hand are not intended to be persons. The brain is just there to give robots human advantages like intuition. The brain in the casing does not remember who he was, or even that it had a live before becoming a Cyborg. Although sometimes they do have flashbacks which impede their functions and can lead to suicide. Thats why the brain of adult persons are bad cyborg material. Cloned brains fresh from the tank do not have this problem, but don't work really well either, lacking "life experience". The brains of children are a commonly used compromise. Remember that I said it gets distasteful?
Both rules for Cyborgs and Cyberzombies might appear in the cyberware book.
True Drakes
Remember the Drake entry from above? Those are the original. The same rules apply, metahuman who can turn into a small dragon, but this guys were not born that way, they were created by Great Dragons. True drakes tend to be stronger, faster and a lot more magically powerful than normal drakes, but the creation of one is very taxing for a great dragon and so far they are content with enslaving the already existing drakes.
Rules for True Drakes as player characters appeared, but the background and powers makes them nearly unusable in normal play and it is questionable that we see player rules for them in the near future.
And the rest of them
While human variants take up the major part of the planet, they are not the only one changed by the awakening. A lot of plants and animal life got changes as well, some of them becoming sapient. And even though they come from animals they are not completely unwilling to join human society. Something the society even let them.
Many of them were playable in previous editions but rules vary wildly. Expect to see some or all of them in Run Faster
One oat beer please
First, centaurs.
I think everyone here knows what a centaur is. Horse with a human upper body. In Shadowrun they usually roam open plains (the few that exist) in nomadic groups and sell magical ingredients they find for equipment and weapons. Yes, they are not so stupid as to wander nature unarmed. Speaking of finding, centaurs have the innate ability to find whatever they are looking for. Ask one to find something for you and he instinctively goes of into the correct direction. That makes stealing among centaurs a lot less of an issue as even though their possession is gone, they know where it is. And as long as you return it when asked to all is well.
Several centaurs have joined human society and law enforcement seems to like having some of them around. Still, for better or worse, centaurs stick out and they have a lot of troubles entering buildings and vehicles which were not build for them.
Shapeshifters
Shapeshifters are animals who can take the form of (meta)humans. Several races of shapeshifters have been observed, (Sea) Lion, Bear, Fox, Wolf. But who knows what is out there?
Shapeshifters usually stick to themselves, only coming in contact with metahumanity by curiosity or by being forced into contact. Still, they recognize the need to be prepared for it and usually seek out ways to learn the basics about metahumans including a language. Some rare individuals have joined metahuman society and are found in the shadows.
Sasquatch
To all Bigfoot hunters, here is your chance. Except that a genuine recording of a Bigfoot isn't worth anything any more as their existence is by now a common knowledge. They were the second race recognized as sapient by the UN (still a rare occurrence thanks to politics even with overwhelming evidence). Sasquatches are as how people imagine Bigfoot. Big and furry. But even though they are close to 3 meters and can weight 500 pounds don't worry, they are very peaceful and usually stick to themselves in hard to access areas. If you meet some of them just don't expect much of a conversation as they can't talk at all except for sign language.
The most contact metahumans had with them was when a Sasquatch joined a rock band which instantly became famous. Although I think he had quit by now as he couldn't stand how fame changed the other band members (sellouts)
Naga
It took some time for people to realize that Naga are sapient and many places still do not acknowledge it. That might be because while the other races do at least have some human like features, nagas are intelligent pythons. They can learn to speak metahuman languages and unlike pythons they are venomous (and a quite potent venom it is). They are very rare outside their country Angkor Wat where they have fortified themselves in. Thats because they are hunted in many places of the world as their venom and body parts are quite requested by some people. Very often Nagas are mages which is lucky for them as otherwise they would have trouble interacting with the environment on a higher level as they do not have hands etc.
Some nagas managed to join society though and now hold normal jobs. Just getting into a country where they are recognized as sapient is quite a challenge for them.
Dracoforms
Dracoform is a catch all term for all things dragon. They were the first non-human species recognized as sapient by the UN, probably because dragons are filthy rich. All the legends of their gold filled hoards were true. But dragons quickly learned that a stock portfolio is even better and while there are some traditionalists among them most dragons have adapted to the modern world quite well many of them owning companies behind the scenes or otherwise pulling strings. But as always there are exceptions (I am looking at you Daemon, if you are indeed a dragon). One of them even was elected president of the UCAS (remnants of the USA and Canada).
There are several subtypes of dragons but I don't think I have to explain what a eastern or western dragon is. There are also feathered serpents (wyvern with feathern) and so far a single sea dragon (think Loch Ness monster). All dragons are, in addition to their impressive physical abilities, very good magicians.
After a long time and some other unknown requirements they can become "Greater". Great dragons are not only physically a lot bigger than normal ones, their magical abilities also increase by a lot. Great dragons also have a lot more to say in their society.
Obviously, dragons will not be playable. Although player stats were published for them as a 1st April joke and some users on the message board found those rules to be quite balanced.
AI's
AIs are the newest discovered sapient race. Although the sapient part is highly contested by the megacorps as they would rather see them as property so they can take them apart and see how they work. Only Horizon officially recognizes AIs as persons.
AIs have a bit of a history in the Shadows. During the first Matrix several AIs already existed and their abilities inside the Matrix were nothing less than godlike. Renraku discovered AIs and tried to replicate them which succeeded as they created the AI Deus which took over their arcology and slaughtered thousands of people before being deactivated. It managed to get its followers out, though and got recompiled. Its attempts to upgrade failed though and were the reason (together with the attempt to stop it) why the Matrix crashed in the first place.
But all this is unknown to the normal person. For them AIs appeared only a few years ago when a AI protested the experiments on it by aiming biological weapons at humanity and a other AI talking it out of it. Since then there was a huge PR drive by Horizon to get people to like AIs.
No one managed to explain how AIs come into being. Seemingly random programs spontaneously gain sapience, but no pattern or transformation has been observed yet. The current AIs are also far away from the god AIs of the last Matrix. Most of them are comparable to very, very good Deckers/Technomancer. Some AIs do not even reach human levels of intellect and behave more like animals. Such AIs are called feral or proto AIs and some deckers have them as pets.
AIs were playable in 4E and might come back in 5E, either in Run Faster or the Matrix book.
Spirits
Not much is really known about spirits. They inhabit the metaplanes and mages can call on them for services. Unlike astral projecting mages, they can manifest in the real world and interact with them. How many spirits exist and how they are created is completely unknown as is the rest of their life cycle. Researchers suspect spirits sustain themselves (or just enjoy it) by human emotion. That doesn't mean that they drain people of it, they just like to be in an area with the emotion they want. Most of the time a spirit is called by a mage and performs some services for him till sunrise/sunset when it disappears again. A spirit can be bound and forced to do services for a longer time. They do not like that but usually do not hold a grudge unless mistreated or forced to perform something lengthy and boring.
Under some circumstances spirits can free themselves from mages and can freely wander the world without disappearing at sunset. What the spirits does depends on what type it is. Usually they correspond to the classical elements, earth, fire, etc. but there are also spirits of nature and men who seem to like to behave just like humans going so far as to take drugs even though they do not work on them and the spirits not even feeling something. There are also poltergeists who like to cause mischief (a lot more of them exist than people realize, but very often they do not specifically seek out humans and instead are chasing doves for hours) and many more.
On the darker side there are toxic spirits who have been corrupted by pollution, blood spirits brought into the world by human sacrifices, bug spirits who try to take over the world by implanting themselves into humans and shedim who hate all life and usually inhabit dead bodies which they reanimate (take note that the body of a mage who is currently projecting into the astral technically count as dead).
Last edited:
Tanstaafl_au
Explorer
Loved reading the walls of textThanks.
No problem. I had a lot of fun writing all this stuff.
But now I have run out of things to write about, so unless someone has questions I am finished.
I'm looking to get back into shadowrun, having not played since i think 2nd edition.
I can see a new edition is about to come out, which would be a great point to get back on the shadowrun wagon. Does anyone know when this will be released? a quick search on the official site does not reveal a release date, though they do have preorder up.
I can see a new edition is about to come out, which would be a great point to get back on the shadowrun wagon. Does anyone know when this will be released? a quick search on the official site does not reveal a release date, though they do have preorder up.
CAFRedblade
Explorer
Amazon.com has a date for the hardcover at Aug. 28.
So around then I hope, if not sooner.
You can buy the pdf right now on Drivethrurpg.com or Battlecorps.com
So around then I hope, if not sooner.
You can buy the pdf right now on Drivethrurpg.com or Battlecorps.com
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