Pulp Shadowrun

[Shaft]

I posted these in the Fantasy Hero forum in response to a thread over there (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1815690&postcount=30), but I thought the Pulp Hero foum might enjoy seeing this. Enjoy:

 

These were some ideas I had for a Shadowrun game set in 1920s or 1930s. While there was no cyberware, I envioned the power level as being similar to Swords and Sorcery with mages generally having poorer attributes and combat abilities than their two fisted "warrior" companions.

 

1901- The Year of Chaos;

• magic returns to the world in full force; the first sign is the Great Dragon Ryumo, rising out of Mount Fuji
  
• Goblinization epidemic: millions of people undergo traumatic transformations (including Queen Victoria, if you believe the rumours about her death). Those that survive find that they have become orcs and trolls.
  
• Mayan people use magic to regain momentum in the 53 year ongoing Caste War of Yucatan.
  
• Boxer Rebellion takes a turn for the Chinese forces who are backed up by Chinese Wizards and Geomancers who find their power increasing. Magic helps drive out the round eye foreigners.
  
• Phillipine Insurrection takes a new turns as Phillipino mystics are able to use their magic to counter the American occupiers' superior technology;
  
• Faerie folk reveal themselves openly
  
• Plans to reinter Lincoln's body in a memorial are upset when his remains disappear, some say for nefarious purposes.
  
• Scotland Yard begins a fingerprint archive and a collection of criminals' fingernail clippings and hair samples as material links in rituals.
  
• Red Cloud leads Sioux from his reservation and begins the Second War named after him.
  
• Tehran destroyed by Aden, a dragon, after jihad is declared against metahumans.
  
• By the end of the year, Members of Torchwood and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn are consulted to form the Ministry of Magic in the UK. In the US, Congress and the Senate sanction the Freemasons to openly form the Department of Thaumaturgy.
  

1902

• Second Boer War ends. Sub-sharan colonization slows dramatically as African magic counters European expansion.
  
• Panama remains under Columbain control as US troops remain focused on Second Red Cloud war.
  
• Race riots become more frequent as orcs and trolls become targetted. The new breeds found their own communities.
  
• Many babies conceived in the previous year are observed to have Elven and Dwarven features.
  

1903

• Newly elected Pope Piux X issues an edict against magic.
  
• British invasion of Tibet fails as the Expeditionary Force discovers just how powerful the population's belief in the Dalai Lama is.
  
• Central Australian landscape becomes chaotic as manastorms from the Dreamtime spills over into reality. Accessible areas are only on the coastal regions.
  

1904

• Baltimore Fire destroys 1500 buildings in 30 hours: believed to have been set by mages for sinister ritual
  
• Japanese forces surprise Russian invaders with their strength in the Russo-Japanese war. Global community suspects that Japan may have some mystical secrets.
  

1905

• Westward expansion of North America is halted to a crawl by increasing powerful Native American tribes, who have accepted many outcast Orcs and Trolls seeking a new life for themselves. However, Utah seems immune to the wrath of the Native Americans, probably because of the populations' collective faith.
  
• Albert Einstein submits several papers, including "The Special Theory of Relativity" and some theories corelating thaumaturgical events and subatomic ones.
  

1906

• Red Cloud's forces order all non-Native Americans out of the West. When the order is refused, he brings the power of the Great Ghost Dance down upon San Francisco which undergoes an Earthquake that measures 7.8 on the Richter scale.
  
• Canada and the US sue for peace, agreeing to terms that has them cede the Western half of the continent back to the Native American nations. The Native American Nations (NAN) agree to a limited Canadian/American presence at certain outposts for trading purposes. Utah secedes from the US and keeps its borders as a standalone country.
  
• Charles Curtis wins Nobel peace prize for his role in negotiating the Treaty of Denver.
  

1908

• The Tunguska Event occurs in Siberia: the most powerful mystical event for the next thirty years
  
• Dorando Pietri is disqualified form the Olympics when it is discovered that his performance was enhanced with sorcery.
  

1909

• Japan annexes Korea, establishes a naval base in Hawaii
  

1911

• Magic is added as a category for the Nobel Prize
  
• Aztlan (the new name for Mexico) secedes from the NAN.
  
• Wuchang uprising leads to overthrow of Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China
  
• Lofwyr, a dragon, appointed Kaiser of Germany.
  

1912

• Magic is deemed inadmissible in legal proceedings by the US Supreme Court following its misuse in the Titanic investigation.
  

1913

• The Seelie Court takes over Ireland and renames it Tir Nan Og
  

1914

• The Great War breaks out, with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Aztlan and Turkey (the Central Powers) fighting the Allies (The Russian Empire, France, British Commonwealth, Italy, the United States and the Empire of Japan). In North America, Aztec forces invade Texas, with the US retaking Texas, New Mexico, Southern California and Cuba.
  
• MIT changes its name to MIT&M (Massacusets Institute of Technology and Magic) to reflect the importance of its Thaumaturgical research.
  

1917

• After Aztlan sues for a conditional peace, American troops were freed up and could be sent to Europe, shifting the balance of power overseas in the Allies' favour, and offsetting the loss of Russia, following their withdrawl from the War after the Russian Revolution.
  

1920

• A magical arms race ensues as Cops battle Organized Crime to control Prohibition.
  
• Influenza outbreak devastates populations of many nations.
  

1921

• Beer hall putsch and metahuman riots break out in the failing, post Great War Weimar Republic
  

1929

• A powerful spell disrupts earth's electromagnetic field. Radios, compasses and other technologies go haywire. The next few years find the mystical groups of the world cooperating in an unprecendented global ritual that restores the field. The widespread use of magical communication during the next two years forms the basis for the Magenet, a permanent network of scrying spells, crystal balls and magic mirrors that standardized global communications. However, the spirit of cooperation quickly fades as the various groups try using the Magenet to gain info on their rivals and advance their own causes.
  

[bubba smith]

Re: Pulp Shadowrun

 

Again good work

[Clonus]

Re: Pulp Shadowrun

 

It's a good idea, but maybe you are trying a little too hard to conform to history. Also government seems to be responding to the shift in the order of things with improbable speed.

[Shaft]

Re: Pulp Shadowrun

 

It's a good idea' date=' but maybe you are trying a little too hard to conform to history. Also government seems to be responding to the shift in the order of things with improbable speed.[/quote']

 

Well, the idea is that the secret societies already exist, so they can speed up the repsonse, but the response is not neccesarily effective.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Pulp Shadowrun

 

You have a strong theme of less technologically advanced societies defeating more advanced or numerous invaders through the advent of magic. Which is fair enough.

 

But I would bear in mind that as these aggressive, more technologically advanced or numerous societies learn to tap their own magical traditions the balance may well begin to tip back towards them.

 

Imagine the effect of hoards of press-ganged sorcerors fighting in the ranks of the Imperial Russian Army.

[Shaft]

Re: Pulp Shadowrun

 

But I would bear in mind that as these aggressive' date=' more technologically advanced or numerous societies learn to tap their own magical traditions the balance may well begin to tip back towards them.[/quote']

 

Agreed, and anticipated somewhat, as shown when I have the USA taking back Texas, New Mexico, and southern California from the Aztec. The primitive societies' advantange only last about a decade and a half. If I were to continue expanding on this timeline, it would have more detail about how WW I made the technologically advanced powers more proficient in the use of magic (I was going to draw some ideas from the Arrowsmith series).