RPGnet - User contributions [en]

Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

2023-12-22T07:18:43Z

Rifleavenger: /* Icarus */

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

==Notable Places==
Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the '''Landsblood Artery''', a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

'''The Wall''' is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-syndicalist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The '''Working Class''' is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House''' is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

'''Three Block Park''' is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

'''The Cinders''' are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

'''Market Square''' is 4 blocks of solid brownstone townhouse/apartments with a central courtyard, another result of the attempts at post-volcanic revitalization. The courtyard between the rows of houses is locally known as 'The Goblin Market,' with an ever-shifting assortment of peddlers, dingy stalls, and carts hawking things from handcrafts to handguns. The ashfalls regularly force the merchants to scatter, and it's never quite the same assortment after they return. There are a few long-time regulars, such as Sam Liberty the ironmonger (a norm who is trying, with middling success, to look like Sam Adams as he appears in portraits) and Melinda Beasley, an elf who sells kitschy antiques and has a knack for knowing everyone at the market no matter how new they are.

'''Sideras Repair and Body''', which started as an auto garage about a century ago and has since expanded into all kinds of repair work.

''[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]''

==Notable Groups==
===Icarus===
Icarus are a faction of green neoanarchists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization mostly focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.

In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms. This enclave is rigorously patrolled and defended by militarized security; non-members are not allowed inside without invitation, and even then are closely supervised during their visit.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

===The Reality Hackers===
This gang of runaway corp kids and barrens techno-geeks is largely responsible for much of Ashbarrow having wireless Matrix connectivity at all. Spread over Ashbarrow, Loveland, Puyallup City, and even parts of Tarislar, they consider the AR and VR net of Puyallup district their territory more than any piece of tangible real estate. The Reality Hackers are perhaps best known for dropping cheap wireless relays around the Puyallup barrens. Though the devices are often snatched up by scrappers or whatever passes for local security, the Reality Hackers routinely make it "rain toasters" throughout Puyallup to replace losses. They also search for, refurbish, and maintain the remnants of the 30s - 60s wired Matrix network wound through the city. This is not an act of charity: the Reality Hackers largely fund themselves via piracy and other cybercrime, and most rely on the Matrix in one way or another to defend themselves.

The Reality Hackers began as a small time collective of small time hackers, but their ability to punch above their weight class against corpro cybersecurity (often owing to members being runaways from said corps) drew Yakuza attention. The Reality Hackers were captured and groomed as a weapon by the Watada-''rengo'' for a time, until Hanzo Shotozumi usurped control from the Watada family - at which point the presumed disloyal Reality Hackers were repeatedly sent on suicide missions. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the surviving Hackers escaped deeper into the barrens, rebuilt, and never forgot. The Reality Hackers ''hate'' the Yaks, and readily team up with anyone looking to take a bite out of the Shotozumi-''rengo''. The gang is also a haven for Japanese and Japanese-corporate exiles.

The Reality Hackers' colors are gold and chrome. Most are as cybered as the individual member can afford, electing for sleek and "electronic" aesthetics prominently displayed. Those who cannot adopt the gang's "fashion" in reality apply it in the Matrix instead.

Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

2023-12-22T07:16:42Z

Rifleavenger: /* Icarus */

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

==Notable Places==
Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the '''Landsblood Artery''', a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

'''The Wall''' is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-syndicalist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The '''Working Class''' is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House''' is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

'''Three Block Park''' is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

'''The Cinders''' are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

'''Market Square''' is 4 blocks of solid brownstone townhouse/apartments with a central courtyard, another result of the attempts at post-volcanic revitalization. The courtyard between the rows of houses is locally known as 'The Goblin Market,' with an ever-shifting assortment of peddlers, dingy stalls, and carts hawking things from handcrafts to handguns. The ashfalls regularly force the merchants to scatter, and it's never quite the same assortment after they return. There are a few long-time regulars, such as Sam Liberty the ironmonger (a norm who is trying, with middling success, to look like Sam Adams as he appears in portraits) and Melinda Beasley, an elf who sells kitschy antiques and has a knack for knowing everyone at the market no matter how new they are.

'''Sideras Repair and Body''', which started as an auto garage about a century ago and has since expanded into all kinds of repair work.

''[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]''

==Notable Groups==
===Icarus===
Icarus are a faction of green neoanarchists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization mostly focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.

In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

===The Reality Hackers===
This gang of runaway corp kids and barrens techno-geeks is largely responsible for much of Ashbarrow having wireless Matrix connectivity at all. Spread over Ashbarrow, Loveland, Puyallup City, and even parts of Tarislar, they consider the AR and VR net of Puyallup district their territory more than any piece of tangible real estate. The Reality Hackers are perhaps best known for dropping cheap wireless relays around the Puyallup barrens. Though the devices are often snatched up by scrappers or whatever passes for local security, the Reality Hackers routinely make it "rain toasters" throughout Puyallup to replace losses. They also search for, refurbish, and maintain the remnants of the 30s - 60s wired Matrix network wound through the city. This is not an act of charity: the Reality Hackers largely fund themselves via piracy and other cybercrime, and most rely on the Matrix in one way or another to defend themselves.

The Reality Hackers began as a small time collective of small time hackers, but their ability to punch above their weight class against corpro cybersecurity (often owing to members being runaways from said corps) drew Yakuza attention. The Reality Hackers were captured and groomed as a weapon by the Watada-''rengo'' for a time, until Hanzo Shotozumi usurped control from the Watada family - at which point the presumed disloyal Reality Hackers were repeatedly sent on suicide missions. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the surviving Hackers escaped deeper into the barrens, rebuilt, and never forgot. The Reality Hackers ''hate'' the Yaks, and readily team up with anyone looking to take a bite out of the Shotozumi-''rengo''. The gang is also a haven for Japanese and Japanese-corporate exiles.

The Reality Hackers' colors are gold and chrome. Most are as cybered as the individual member can afford, electing for sleek and "electronic" aesthetics prominently displayed. Those who cannot adopt the gang's "fashion" in reality apply it in the Matrix instead.

Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk:Zhenis

2022-11-27T17:19:59Z

Rifleavenger:

''Human Fighter 1 psion 3 Soul Knife 3 Soul Bow 1''
[[File:Error.jpg|right|400px|]]

{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;
|+ Ability Scores
|'''Ability'''|| Score || Bonus || Notes
|colspan="10"|
|-
|'''Strength'''|| 8 || -2 ||
|-
|'''Dexterity''' || 14 || +2 ||
|-
|'''Constitution''' || 10 || +0 ||
|-
|'''Intelligence'''|| 14 || +2 ||
|-
|'''Wisdom'''|| 18+2 || +5 || ''Periapt of Wisdom +2''
|-
|'''Charisma'''|| 10 || +0 ||
|-
|}

'''Basic Statistics'''

*'''Armor Class:''' 19 (+4 armor, +2 enhancement, +2 Dexterity, +1 deflection)
*'''Hit Dice:''' 5d10+3d4+8 (39(.5) hp)
*'''Move:''' 30'
*'''Initiative''' +2
*'''Melee Attack:'''
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name
! Type
! style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Attack
! Damage
|-
| Dagger
| Piercing or slashing
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | +3
| 1d4-1
|-
| Mind Blade
| Piercing
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | +4
| 1d6-1 +(+1d8 move actions)
|-
| unarmed
| Bludgeoning
| +3
| 1d3-1
|}

*'''Ranged Attack:'''

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Name
! Type
! Range
! style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Attack
! Damage
|-
| Dagger
| Piercing or slashing
| 10ft
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | +9
| 1d4-1
|-
| Mind Blade
| Piercing
| 30ft
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | +10
| 1d6 +(+1d8 move actions)
|-
| Mind Arrow
| Piercing
| 110
| +11 +(+1 w/in 30ft)
| 1d8+5+(+1d8 move action + 2d6 Psifocus +1 w/in 30ft )
|}

* 16 Power Points/Day: 2 hidden talent, 11 psion, 3 int

'''Class Abilities'''
*Bonus feat X 3
*Discipline: Egoist (Psychometabolism)
*Mind blade, Weapon Focus (mind blade)
*Throw mind blade
*Psychic strike +1d8
*Mind Arrow

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:left;"
|+ Saving Throws
|'''Saving Throw'''|| '''Total Bonus''' || Base || Ability || Other
|colspan="10"|
|-
|Fortitude || '''+5''' || +4 || +0 || +1 resistance
|-
|Reflex || '''+9''' || +6 || +2 || +1 resistance
|-
|Willpower || '''+14''' || +8 || +5 || +1 resistance

|-
|}

{| class="wikitable" style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;"
|- style="font-style:italic;"
! Skill Name
! Key Ability
! Skill Modifier
! Ability Modifier
! Magic
! Ranks
! Misc. Modifier
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Appraise
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Int
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Balance
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Dex*
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Bluff
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Cha
| style="text-align:right;" | 0 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +0
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Climb
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Str*
| style="text-align:right;" | 3 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | -1
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +4
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Concentration
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Con
| style="text-align:right;" | 11 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +0
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +11
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Diplomacy
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Cha
| style="text-align:right;" | 0 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +0
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Disguise
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Cha
| style="text-align:right;" | 0 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +0
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Escape Artist
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Dex*
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Forgery
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Int
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Gather Information
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Cha
| style="text-align:right;" | 0 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +0
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Heal
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Wis
| style="text-align:right;" | 5 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Hide
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Dex*
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Intimidate
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Cha
| style="text-align:right;" | 0 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +0
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Jump
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Str*
| style="text-align:right;" | 4 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | -1
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Knowledge (nature)
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Int
| style="text-align:right;" | 6 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +4
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Listen
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Wis
| style="text-align:right;" | 5 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Move Silently
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Dex*
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Ride
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Dex
| style="text-align:right;" | 7 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Search
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Int
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Sense Motive
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Wis
| style="text-align:right;" | 5 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Spot
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Wis
| style="text-align:right;" | 5 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Survival
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Wis
| style="text-align:right;" | 9 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +4
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Swim
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Str**
| style="text-align:right;" | -1 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | -1
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Use Rope
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Dex
| style="text-align:right;" | 2 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Autohypnosis
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Wis
| style="text-align:right;" | 18 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +5
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +11
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2 [concentration]
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Knowledge (psionics)
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Int
| style="text-align:right;" | 15 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +11
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2 [autohypnosis]
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Psicraft
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | Int
| style="text-align:right;" | 8 =
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2
| style="vertical-align:middle;" |
| +4
| style="vertical-align:middle;" | +2 [know psi]
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|- style="font-weight:bold; text-align:center;"
! style="vertical-align:middle; font-style:italic; background-color:#EAECF0; color:#222;" | Feat
! style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#EAECF0; color:#222;" | Gained At
! style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#EAECF0; color:#222;" | Effect
! style="font-weight:normal; text-align:left;" |
! style="font-weight:normal; text-align:left;" |
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Zen archery
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | 1st
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | You can use your Wisdom modifier instead of your Dexterity modifier when making a ranged attack roll
|
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Point blank shot
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | 1st (human bonus)
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | You get a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at ranges of up to 30 feet.
|
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Rapid Shot
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | 1st (Fighter Bonus)
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | You can get one extra attack per round with a ranged weapon. The attack is at your highest base attack bonus, but each attack you make in that round (the extra one and the normal ones) takes a -2 penalty. You must use the full attack action to use this feat.
|
|
|-
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | Psionic Meditation
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | Psion
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | You can take a move action to become psionically focused
|
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Precise Shot
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | 3rd
| style="vertical-align:middle; background-color:#F8F9FA; color:#222;" | You can shoot or throw ranged weapons at an opponent engaged in melee without taking the standard -4 penalty on your attack roll.
|
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Two Weapon Fighting
| 8th
| Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced. Off-hand weapon is light and Two-Weapon Fighting feat -2 -2
| -2
| -2
|-
| Psionic Shot
| Soulbow
| To use this feat, you must expend your psionic focus. Your ranged attack deals +2d6 points of damage. You must decide whether or not to use this feat prior to making an attack. If your attack misses, you still expend your psionic focus.
|
|
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Level
! Name
! descriptionlink
|- style="font-weight:bold;"
| style="text-align:right; font-style:italic; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 1
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Empathy
| style="font-weight:normal;" | https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/empathy.htm
|-
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 1
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Catfall
| https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/catfall.htm
|-
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 1
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Far Hand
| https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/farHand.htm
|-
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 1
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Skate
| https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/skate.htm
|-
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 2
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Animal Affinity
| https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/animalAffinity.htm
|-
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 2
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Empathic Transfer
| https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/empathicTransfer.htm
|-
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 2
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Chameleon
| https://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/chameleon.htm
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! magic item
! cost gp
! effect
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | mithral chain shirt +2
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 5100
| Chain shirt, lighter weight, max DEX bonus +6 total, ACP reduced to 0, +2 enhancement bonus to AC
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | lessor arm bracers of archer
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 5000
| +1 to attack with bows Zhenis is proficient with, including mind arrow attacks. Proficient with all bows (but not crossbows) Zhenis is not natively proficient with.
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | peridot of wisdom
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 4000
| +2 wisdom
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | cloak of resistance
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 4000
| +1 to saves
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | bag of holding
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 2500
| Larger storage
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | ring of protection +1
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 2000
| + 1 Deflection to AC
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Dorjes of force screen
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 750
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Dorjes of missive
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 750
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Dorjes of entangling ectoplasm
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 750
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Dorjes of control light
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 750
|
|-
| style="background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | Dorjes of matter agitation
| style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;" | 750
|
|}

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:right; background-color:#FEFEFE; color:#141414;"
|- style="text-align:left;"
! Mundane gear
! Price
! Weight
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Total
| 207.7
| 208.5
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | explorers outfit
| 10
| 8
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Climber’s Kit
| 80
| 5
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Lamp, Common
| 0.1
| 1
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | rope silken
| 10
| 5
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 8 water skins
| 8
| 32
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | bed roll
| 0.1
| 5
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | blanket
| 0.5
| 3
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | tent
| 10
| 20
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | Longbow
| 75
| 3
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 100 arrows
| 5
| 15
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | dagger
| 2
| 1
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 100 rations
| 5
| 100
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 10 pints oil
| 1
| 10
|-
| style="text-align:left;" | 2 pouch belt
| 2
| 1
|}

441.30 GP

Beovar Dwursen

2022-11-14T22:55:12Z

Rifleavenger: /* Character Sheet */

== Character Sheet ==

'''Beovar Dwursen''': [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T-bv4FzGd0FCIFgINbfWTJnYwMwt_Xgc/edit#gid=425184510 Human Warblade 5/Anointed Knight 3]

In campaign: [[Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk]]

== Background ==

Beovar Dwursen was born under a different name to wizard parents in the city of Rel Astra. Beovar cannot recall much about them, save for being driven to learn magic from a very early age and their deaths resulting from a magely dispute. Taken in by members of the Hemnehr clan in payment to debt owed to his late birth mother, Beovar moved to and was raised in the Free City of Roland. Raised with no more leniency than allowed the Hemnehr's own children, Beovar's studies shifted to chemistry, merchanting, and self-defense, but he found the work gratifying. Nor was the magical tutorship from his prior life in vain, for Beovar's latent magical talent manifested in a gift for alchemy.

Still, Beovar's childhood was short, by dwarven standards, and when grown he found himself still viewed askance by his adoptive people. Despite feeling loved by his adoptive parents, Beovar felt hollow at only being granted the title of "dwarf friend" rather than membership among the Hemnehr. Hoping to prove himself an adult and a dwarf in spirit, Beovar shipped off to one of his parents' clan's embattled strongholds in the Blemu Hills to serve in the military. There, Beovar gathered experience over several minor campaigns against the orcs of the Bone March. The alchemist-warrior served behind the lines as often as on them, making chemical weapons and medicines. A turning point, however, was when Beovar was granted permission to try and restore an ancestral weapon of the clan - a greatsword said to house the experience of its greatest warriors. Beovar's studies led him to rediscover a magical method of enhancing holy oils said to channel the aspects of the dwarven pantheon, a technique he applied to both himself and the sword. These treatments not only restored the sword to useablility, but began to stir the gestalt spirit within - currently the weapon is able to instinctively move around, change size, and defend its user, but it is not yet truly sapient.

Since the clan leaders are intrigued by the dawning intelligence of the weapon, they have allowed it to remain in Beovar's possession until his task is complete. Beovar gained acclaim for his military service and work on the relic, but still was not granted full recognition as a member of the clan. Though disappointed, Beovar remains determined, reassuring himself that the effort is its own reward and will one day be recognized. Following the teachings of Muamman Duathal and his adoptive parents, Beovar seeks to develop mutualistic relationships and protect the meek, but per Moradin's teachings and his own experience in war Beovar knows sometimes force is needed to ensure peace. Beovar may be in Greyhawk on behalf of the Hemnehr, alongside dwarven PCs, on some odd urging from the incipient will or the sword, or anything else that makes sense and works best for the game.

Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk

2022-11-14T22:54:21Z

Rifleavenger:

== The Flanaess ==

[https://i.redd.it/mafu3l69zkx11.png Map of the Flanaess]

== PCs ==

* '''[[Beovar Dwursen]]''': [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T-bv4FzGd0FCIFgINbfWTJnYwMwt_Xgc/edit#gid=425184510 Human Warblade 5/Anointed Knight 3]
* '''Syvis''': [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12gidB-7B4falykE0SJ0ZW_ekJoHAVrA95vF0dXcspOE/edit#gid=0 Human Dread Necromancer 8]
* '''Zhenis''': [[Expedition_to_the_Ruins_of_Greyhawk:Zhenis| Human Fighter 1 psion 3 Soul Knife 3 Soul Bow 1]]
* '''Nember''': [[Nember| Human Binder 8]]
* '''Oonagh''': [https://www.dropbox.com/s/d5mw8ffm947mfbx/Oonagh-3.pdf?dl=0 Human Sorcerer 8]

Beovar Dwursen

2022-11-14T22:53:05Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "== Character Sheet == '''Beovar Dwursen''': [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T-bv4FzGd0FCIFgINbfWTJnYwMwt_Xgc/edit#gid=425184510 Human Warblade 5/Anointed Knight 3]..."

== Character Sheet ==

'''Beovar Dwursen''': [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T-bv4FzGd0FCIFgINbfWTJnYwMwt_Xgc/edit#gid=425184510 Human Warblade 5/Anointed Knight 3]

== Background ==

Beovar Dwursen was born under a different name to wizard parents in the city of Rel Astra. Beovar cannot recall much about them, save for being driven to learn magic from a very early age and their deaths resulting from a magely dispute. Taken in by members of the Hemnehr clan in payment to debt owed to his late birth mother, Beovar moved to and was raised in the Free City of Roland. Raised with no more leniency than allowed the Hemnehr's own children, Beovar's studies shifted to chemistry, merchanting, and self-defense, but he found the work gratifying. Nor was the magical tutorship from his prior life in vain, for Beovar's latent magical talent manifested in a gift for alchemy.

Still, Beovar's childhood was short, by dwarven standards, and when grown he found himself still viewed askance by his adoptive people. Despite feeling loved by his adoptive parents, Beovar felt hollow at only being granted the title of "dwarf friend" rather than membership among the Hemnehr. Hoping to prove himself an adult and a dwarf in spirit, Beovar shipped off to one of his parents' clan's embattled strongholds in the Blemu Hills to serve in the military. There, Beovar gathered experience over several minor campaigns against the orcs of the Bone March. The alchemist-warrior served behind the lines as often as on them, making chemical weapons and medicines. A turning point, however, was when Beovar was granted permission to try and restore an ancestral weapon of the clan - a greatsword said to house the experience of its greatest warriors. Beovar's studies led him to rediscover a magical method of enhancing holy oils said to channel the aspects of the dwarven pantheon, a technique he applied to both himself and the sword. These treatments not only restored the sword to useablility, but began to stir the gestalt spirit within - currently the weapon is able to instinctively move around, change size, and defend its user, but it is not yet truly sapient.

Since the clan leaders are intrigued by the dawning intelligence of the weapon, they have allowed it to remain in Beovar's possession until his task is complete. Beovar gained acclaim for his military service and work on the relic, but still was not granted full recognition as a member of the clan. Though disappointed, Beovar remains determined, reassuring himself that the effort is its own reward and will one day be recognized. Following the teachings of Muamman Duathal and his adoptive parents, Beovar seeks to develop mutualistic relationships and protect the meek, but per Moradin's teachings and his own experience in war Beovar knows sometimes force is needed to ensure peace. Beovar may be in Greyhawk on behalf of the Hemnehr, alongside dwarven PCs, on some odd urging from the incipient will or the sword, or anything else that makes sense and works best for the game.

Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

2022-10-17T12:31:28Z

Rifleavenger:

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

==Notable Places==
Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the '''Landsblood Artery''', a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

'''The Wall''' is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-syndicalist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The '''Working Class''' is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House''' is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

'''Three Block Park''' is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

'''The Cinders''' are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

'''Market Square''' is 4 blocks of solid brownstone townhouse/apartments with a central courtyard, another result of the attempts at post-volcanic revitalization. The courtyard between the rows of houses is locally known as 'The Goblin Market,' with an ever-shifting assortment of peddlers, dingy stalls, and carts hawking things from handcrafts to handguns. The ashfalls regularly force the merchants to scatter, and it's never quite the same assortment after they return. There are a few long-time regulars, such as Sam Liberty the ironmonger (a norm who is trying, with middling success, to look like Sam Adams as he appears in portraits) and Melinda Beasley, an elf who sells kitschy antiques and has a knack for knowing everyone at the market no matter how new they are.

''[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]''

==Notable Groups==
===Icarus===
Icarus are a faction of green syndicalists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization mostly focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.

In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

===The Reality Hackers===
This gang of runaway corp kids and barrens techno-geeks is largely responsible for much of Ashbarrow having wireless Matrix connectivity at all. Spread over Ashbarrow, Loveland, Puyallup City, and even parts of Tarislar, they consider the AR and VR net of Puyallup district their territory more than any piece of tangible real estate. The Reality Hackers are perhaps best known for dropping cheap wireless relays around the Puyallup barrens. Though the devices are often snatched up by scrappers or whatever passes for local security, the Reality Hackers routinely make it "rain toasters" throughout Puyallup to replace losses. They also search for, refurbish, and maintain the remnants of the 30s - 60s wired Matrix network wound through the city. This is not an act of charity: the Reality Hackers largely fund themselves via piracy and other cybercrime, and most rely on the Matrix in one way or another to defend themselves.

The Reality Hackers began as a small time collective of small time hackers, but their ability to punch above their weight class against corpro cybersecurity (often owing to members being runaways from said corps) drew Yakuza attention. The Reality Hackers were captured and groomed as a weapon by the Watada-''rengo'' for a time, until Hanzo Shotozumi usurped control from the Watada family - at which point the presumed disloyal Reality Hackers were repeatedly sent on suicide missions. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the surviving Hackers escaped deeper into the barrens, rebuilt, and never forgot. The Reality Hackers ''hate'' the Yaks, and readily team up with anyone looking to take a bite out of the Shotozumi-''rengo''. The gang is also a haven for Japanese and Japanese-corporate exiles.

The Reality Hackers' colors are gold and chrome. Most are as cybered as the individual member can afford, electing for sleek and "electronic" aesthetics prominently displayed. Those who cannot adopt the gang's "fashion" in reality apply it in the Matrix instead.

Rivers in the Barrens:Main Page

2022-10-17T06:45:59Z

Rifleavenger:

''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality — the city, town, and village — where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy."'' - Murray Bookchin

''"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better."'' — Albert Camus

==Characters==
[[Sunflower]]

[[Ushitara]]

[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Twilight Twilight]

[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Amber Amber]

[[Pyrus]]

* Players - please add your characters, and pages for them, here!

==Contacts==

'''Joe Jones, AKA Double J [Sunflower]:''' He's a 30ish orc man, who dabbled as a shadowrunner for awhile, but got out of it, because "that shit is bad for your karma, you know?" Cool and laid back, he now works as a bouncer at The Wall, where he's good at talking down rowdy customers before violence happens. Owns a customized Evo Falcon off-road bike, which he occasionally lets Sunflower borrow ("..., but I'm charging you for every new dent I find in her, understand?")

'''Lizzy McDonald [Sunflower]:''' A human woman, aged 24. She's a comparative religions grad student at the University of Washington who is particularly interested in new religious movements (NRM), which includes cults like the one Sunflower grew up in. She's been occasionally interviewing Sunflower about his experiences. She's a fast talker who fixates on the task at hand, often to the exclusion of everything else. She sometimes slums it at The Wall, which is how she met Sunflower.

'''"Crazy Ivan" [Ushitara/Sunflower/Twilight/Amber]:''' Operator of The Wall, a dive bar in northeastern Ashbarrow, who claims to be a retired member of Black Star. This grizzled anarcho-syndicalist dwarven fixer is not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?" Behind the bar's façade, Ivan moves civilian goods, information, and shadowrunner/revolutionary essentials through Ashbarrow and beyond; the notion that he's "retired" is probably more unbelievable than the claims of being ex-Black Star. Ivan has a complicated relationship with Tylr Mikell, owner of the Working Class - Ashbarrow's *other* leftist bar.

'''Victor Nguyen [Ushitara]:''' A "fisherman" who technically lives up in Everett, but frequently comes down the Puyallup River into Ashbarrow. Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

'''Abigail Petrowski [Twilight]:''' A member of the Petrowski family of farmers. Twilight met Abby at Petrowski Farms and befriended her over a mutual love for animals. Abigail knows a lot about what goes on around the farm, but not about that occurs off of it.

'''Kenna Dahl [Amber]:''' Amber's older sister, who works as a bartender at [LOCATION].

'''Gillian Higurashi [Amber]:''' A Horizon News Network investigative reporter willing to brave the barrens for a scoop. Amber suspects Gillian is actually corporate spy, but is willing make trade for the high-level information Gillian is privy too. Of course, that information is filtered through Horizon's interests. Always keep in mind: you are not immune to propaganda.

'''Karli Svensdottir [Amber]:''' A talismonger of Norse magical paradigm whose services Amber makes use of, based out of [REGION]. Markedly amoral, Karli sells her wares to Odinists associated with Humanis and more old-school fascists without hesitation. Her craftsmanship is trustworthy, that's about it.

'''Ahamkara [Pyrus]:''' [WIP]

'''Kseniya Kuznetsov [Pyrus]:''' [WIP]

==Important People==
'''Alarota (He/Him?):''' The founder and presumed leader of Icarus. Doesn't leave the group's headquarters, if he's even still alive. Witnesses consistently describe him as a thin, Latino, human male with dark brown skin and long, greying, black hair. Presumed to be awakened due to the deeds ascribed to him, though separating truth from urban legend is difficult.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana (She/Her):''' A humanitarian street doc in Ashbarrow, and an open member of the Anarchist Black Crescent (essentially a decentralized, anarchist version of Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Sultana runs the only medical clinic in Ashbarrow worthy of the name, treating those most in need for free.

'''Duane Petrowski (He/Him):''' Patriarch of the Petrowski family, whose farming complex in Puyallup district has defied volcanos, economic collapses, and hordes of go-gangers. Employment on Petrowski's farm is one of the few legitimate paying jobs available to inhabitants of the Puyallup barrens, but his family isn't a charity - they sell their crop for profit.

'''Kenneth Brackhaven (He/Him):''' Governor of Seattle Territory, Brackhaven is a member of the Archconservative Party. Brackhaven's policy focus seems to be advancing his barely veiled human (and white) supremacist agenda. Pounding the old "law and order" canard, many fear Brackhaven will repeat the bad old days of the late 30s under Governor Allison. Brackhaven's economic platform is blatantly pro-corp, with tax cuts and "business friendly" policies exchanged for the assistance of corporate security in the "war on crime."

'''Lon Campa (He/Him):''' Mayor of Puyallup district, and the city's only orcish mayor. Mayor Campa gets his strongest support from Carbonado, but works hard for all inhabitants of the district. Lon is also the first Puyallup mayor in years who isn't a puppet for organized crime, possibly explaining the two attempts on his life since he was elected.

'''Tylr Mikell (They/Them):''' Owner of the Working Class restaurant in "The Weeds" between Puyallup City and Ashbarrow. A democratic socialist, Tylr alternatively cooperates or clashes with the more anarchist elements in the Ashbarrow, while developing strong connections with mainstream center-left Seattle politicians and worker's unions. Their strained relationship with "Crazy Ivan" is renowned in Ashbarrow and the subject of much idle speculation.

'''Vök Rútsson (She/Her):''' Local head of the Rútsson family, who operate the unauthorized Landsblood Artery power plant in Hell's Kitchen. Vök handles the business and community side of the Artery's operations, leaving engineering and maintenance to her sister Voney, Voney's husband August Kresinger, and their employees. Widely believed to have connections to the Stonecutter's Guild.

==Major Concepts==
'''The Blights:''' Local name applied to the sudden slew of widescale problems facing Ashbarrow since early 2072.
* Concrete and brick edifices fracture and crumble as though suddenly exposed to a fierce freeze-thaw or unfelt earthquake. This first type of degradation heavily stems from existing structural weaknesses, but even slight dent and cracks suddenly expand over the course of days to hours rather than months to years.
* Metal tarnishes and rusts at an enhanced pace. Especially worrisome accounts claim even metals that are painted, kept in dry areas, or oiled can begin to oxidize.
* Weeds, ivies, moss, and other encrusting plants grow quickly and spread aggressively - akin to bamboo or kudzu. Anyone with botanical knowledge can tell this isn't entirely natural.
* A new respiratory illness that causes patients to cough up thickening, rust-colored phlegm. Uncreatively called "Rust Throat" by Ashbarrow inhabitants, this illness results in progressive inflammation of the throat and eventually the lungs. Rust Throat is particularly dangerous when combined with inhaling volcanic ash. There are untested claims the disease also causes behavioral alterations.

==Shadowruns==
[[Rivers in the Barrens:BTL Warehouse Run]]

==Setting Information==
'''Year:''' Summer 2072

===Country: UCAS (Seattle Territory)===

The United American and Canadian States is the remnants of the United States and Canada after the Ghost War, the secession of the California Free State, the Confederation of American States, Quebec, and Florida joining the Caribbean League.

While still one of the wealthiest nations in the world on paper and a nuclear power, the UCAS is by and large a hollowed-out shell propped up by the megacorporations. The megacorporations find the continued existence of the UCAS convenient, because they rely on the economic scaffolding and laws laid out by the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

===City: Seattle===

Seattle is a territory of the United American and Canadian States, and the nation’s only remaining port on the west coast of North America. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe for at least 10000 years before being colonized by Europeans in 1851. The city was retained by the USA, soon-to-be UCAS, following the Treaty of Denver in 2018. Since then, Seattle has existed as UCAS territory while completely enveloped by the Salish-Sidhe Council on all sides. Within the borders of the territory, Seattle expanded into and merged with several satellite cities, including Everett, Redmond, and Tacoma.

The city’s peculiar political position is the product of conflict avoidance, corporate convenience, and mutual benefit between the Salish-Sidhe Council, Tír Tairngire, and the UCAS. The city allows UCAS to maintain a presence on the west coast, gives corporations a port free of the NAN’s strict customs and environmental policies, supports Salish-Sidhe’s tourism industry, grants Tír Tairngire a trade window to the world without completely opening itself up, and gives all three nations around the Emerald City a way to exchange cultural and political dissidents. These competing interests, and the city’s premier placement near national borders by land and by sea, makes Seattle a haven for smugglers and shadowrunners.

The Emerald City is home to over 3,000,000 people in 2072. Seattle is home to a diverse and multifaceted culture, arising from the unique crossroads where people from the UCAS, NAN, Tír Tairngire, many Asian nations, and other international travelers and immigrants meet. Seattle’s original culture is strongly rooted in the old United States, but time, isolation from the main body of the UCAS, and elements from foreign cultures have led to many changes in Seattle’s social character. This social character is further granularized by the metroplex’s division into 1 consular and 11 municipal districts.

===District: Puyallup===

Puyallup is the second major barrens district in Seattle – bigger than Redmond in area, but with less than half the population density. Prior to the Ghost War of 2017, Puyallup was comprised of various Seattle suburbs grading into parks and fertile farmland. Then, in deterrence against the United States’ and Canada's genocidal Resolution Act, Daniel Howling Coyote and allied magicians detonated the Cascade Range in 2017. Puyallup took the collateral damage head-on, as pyroclastic flows and lahars swept down from Mt. Rainier into the southeast Seattle suburbs. The survivors of the eruption were soon joined by exiles fleeing the formation of the Salish-Sidhe Council and the other Native American Nations, unwilling to abide by NAN laws or believe assurances of peaceful co-existence*. Seattle and the megacorporations initially tried to rebuild the Puyallup region, some seeking to exploit lava fields for geothermal energy, but Crash 1.0 derailed those ambitions. Abandoned thereafter, what was left of Puyallup slid into becoming what is now known as a “barren.”

''>* In contrast to the default ''Shadowrun'' lore, in my version of things the NAN reasserted their ancestral rights to the land and attained self-determination without exiling every non-indigenous person. The goal of the NAN was to create a harmonious, culturally diverse, and sustainable society - results since 2018 have varied, but the fears of the refugees who flooded into Seattle never came to pass.

The district’s reputation as one giant refugee camp was cemented in 2039 under the human-supremacist regime of Governor Victor Allison, who rounded up all the city's meta-humans into a series of warehouses for “deportation.” The situation exploded when the Metroplex Guard began opening fire on the trapped masses, with the ensuing slaughter and desperate escape resulting in countless deaths. Protests and riots erupted in a "Night of Rage" as the escapees fled and new of the atrocity broke, some led by metahumans and their progressive human supporters, others led by fascists trying to “finish the job." A large number of metahuman refugees fled to Puyallup in the wake of the Night of Rage and never returned to their former homes. A second Puyallup revitalization effort was subsequently begun, and swiftly abandoned, in the 2040s.

In the three decades since, Mountain Rainer erupted again, several more humanitarian crises ensued, and the SINner population of Puyallup contracted towards Tacoma as the barrens expanded. Throughout it all, a steady stream of debris — both ash and people — trickles into the Puyallup Barrens.

Puyallup district is informally divided into further sub-districts or neighborhoods, most of which are not officially recognized by the metroplex government. The most important of these are:

* '''[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Ashbarrow Ashbarrow]:''' A neighborhood nestled within the rotting shell of abandoned urban sprawl, which experiences regular and severe ashfalls from Mt. Rainier. ''Your neighborhood''.
* '''Carbonado:''' A collection of mining and timber ghost towns re-inhabited by refugees and squatters. The majority demographic is orcs, many of whose families fled here after the Night of Rage, but outcasts of all sorts are welcome in Carbonado’s derelict company apartments and mines. The residents have attempted to salvage from, or even revive, several of the mines.
* '''Hell’s Kitchen:''' An almost uninhabited field of lava flows, geysers, and boiling mudpots left in the wake of Mt. Rainer’s 2017 eruptions. The landscape is largely barren, save for the occasional rusting hulk of a derelict geothermal plant. Tourists and mages on pilgrimage are about the only people who come here, and never for very long.
* '''Loveland:''' The largest sub-district of the Puyallup barrens, Loveland covers the northwest of the region. Loveland is the most densely populated and violent region of Puyallup, with the crime rate driven by competing efforts to control the local vice industry, black market, and smuggling routes. The primary players are the Shotozumi-rengo and the Commissione, but both sides mostly use lesser street gangs as pawns. Despite all that, Loveland actually has (spotty) matrix-linked municipal services, facilities, stores, and restaurants, unlike the rest of the barrens. As a result, it is a popular, if dangerous, destination for tourists looking to slum in the local nightlife.
* '''Petrowski Farms:''' The Petrowski family has stood tall against economic collapse, bandits, and volcanic eruptions for the entire duration of the Sixth World. They still proudly sell their organic produce at the Pike Place Farmer’s Market as they have for more than a century now. That said, some things have changed since the Fifth World, like the triple layered barbed wire and electric fences, or the armed guard towers, or the land spirits said to enrich and defend the place.
* '''Puyallup City:''' Sitting between Auburn and Tacoma, Puyallup City is the district’s seat of governance and where most “legitimate” businesses are located. The residents of this relatively middle class, clean, and safe neighborhood put much political effort into fighting perceptions that Puyallup is a lost cause. The dirty little secret of the “Light in the Ashes” is that Puyallup City is propped up almost entirely by organized crime. Administrations sink or swim (sometimes literally) by their ability to judge if the wind is blowing towards the mafia or the yakuza.
* '''Tarislar:''' The name of this neighborhood means “Remembrance” in Sperethiel. Home to a large population of elvish refugees displaced by the Night of Rage, as well as exiles and thrillseekers from Tír Tairngire, visitors to this neighborhood receive chilly receptions. Completely abandoned by the metroplex government, Tarislar residents only have access to goods and services they can create, gather, or steal. Security is mostly provided by the Laésa, a Tírian crime syndicate.

Pyrus

2022-10-16T04:10:17Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "== Info == Street Name: Pyrus Name: Adam Winters Movement: 10/25, Swim: 6 Karma: 0 Street Cred: 0 Notoriety: 0 Public Awareness: 0 Elf Male Age 25 +/-5 Height 5'9 Weig..."

== Info ==
Street Name: Pyrus

Name: Adam Winters

Movement: 10/25, Swim: 6

Karma: 0

Street Cred: 0

Notoriety: 0

Public Awareness: 0

Elf Male Age 25 +/-5

Height 5'9 Weight 115

Composure: 7

Judge Intentions: 7

Lift/Carry: 5 (30 kg/20 kg)

Memory: 6

Nuyen: 0

== Attributes ==
BOD: 3

AGI: 6 (8)

REA: 5 (9)

STR: 2

CHA: 3

INT: 4

LOG: 2

WIL: 4

EDG: 1

== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 0.06

Initiative: 9 (13)

IP: 1 (4)

Matrix Initiative: 5

Matrix IP: 1

Physical Damage Track: 10

Stun Damage Track: 10

== Active Skills ==
Archery : 0 Pool: 7

Armorer : 0 Pool: 1

Artisan : 0 Pool: 3

Automatics : 0 Pool: 7

Blades : 0 Pool: 7

Climbing : 0 Pool: 1

Clubs : 0 Pool: 7

Computer : 0 Pool: 1

Con : 1 [Fast Talk] Pool: 4 (6)

Cybercombat : 0 Pool: 1

Data Search : 0 Pool: 1

Demolitions : 0 Pool: 1

Disguise : 0 Pool: 3

Diving : 0 Pool: 2

Dodge : 3 Pool: 12

Escape Artist : 0 Pool: 7

Etiquette : 1 Pool: 4

Exotic Melee Weapon : 5 [Monofilament Whip] Pool: 13

First Aid : 0 Pool: 1

Flight : 0 Pool: 1

Forgery : 0 Pool: 7

Gunnery : 0 Pool: 7

Gymnastics : 4 Pool: 12

Hacking : 0 Pool: 1

Heavy Weapons : 0 Pool: 7

Infiltration : 2 [Urban] Pool: 11 (13)

Instruction : 0 Pool: 2

Intimidation : 0 Pool: 2

Leadership : 0 Pool: 2

Locksmith : 0 Pool: 7

Longarms : 0 Pool: 7

Navigation : 0 Pool: 3

Negotiation : 0 Pool: 2

Palming : 1 [Pickpocket] Pool: 9 (11)

Parachuting : 0 Pool: 2

Perception : 3 [Visual] Pool: 7 (9)

Pilot Ground Craft : 0 Pool: 8

Pilot Watercraft : 0 Pool: 8

Pistols : 0 Pool: 7

Running : 4 Pool: 6

Shadowing : 3 Pool: 8

Survival : 0 Pool: 3

Swimming : 0 Pool: 1

Throwing Weapons : 1 [Lobbed] Pool: 9 (11)

Tracking : 0 Pool: 3

Unarmed Combat : 3 Pool: 11

== Knowledge Skills ==
Area Knowledge: Seattle : 3 [Barrens] Pool: 7 (9)

English : N Pool: 0

Radical Transmetahumanism : 3 Pool: 5

Russian : 3 Pool: 7

Security Design : 4 Pool: 8

Underworld : 3 [Fencing] Pool: 7 (9)

== Contacts ==
Ahamkara (2, 6)

Kseniya Kuznetsov (4, 4)

== Qualities ==
Albinism

Augmentation Addict

Biocompatability (Cyberware)

Catlike

In Debt (5,000¥)

Low-Light Vision

Poor Self Control (Combat Monster)

Restricted Gear (Rating 1)

== Lifestyles ==
Low 1 months

== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Balance Tail

Cybereyes Basic System Rating 2
+Eye Recording Unit
+Image Link
+Vision Magnification
+Thermographic Vision
+Low-Light Vision
+Flare Compensation

Fiberoptic Hair

Fingertip Compartment

Muscle Toner Rating 2

Reaction Enhancers Rating 2

Wired Reflexes Rating 3

== Armor ==
Armor Clothing 4/0

Chameleon Suit 6/4
+Nonconductivity 6

== Weapons ==
Ares Light Fire 70
Pool: 7 DV: 4P AP: - RC: 0

Grenade: Thermal Smoke (Aerodynamic)
Pool: 9 DV: (10m Radius) AP: - RC: 0

Monofilament Whip
Pool: 13 DV: 8P AP: -4 RC: 0

Shock Glove
Pool: 11 DV: 5S(e) AP: -half RC: 0

Unarmed Attack
Pool: 11 DV: 1S AP: - RC: 0

== Martial Arts ==
Carromeleg
++1 die on Surprise Tests when initiating an attack
++1 die on Surprise Tests when initiating an attack

Finishing Move

== Commlink ==
Meta Link (1, 0, 0, 2)

== Gear ==
Ammo: Regular Ammo (Light Pistols) x30

Fake SIN (Jimmy Smythe) Rating 4

Grenade: Thermal Smoke (Aerodynamic) x10

Keycard Copier Rating 6

Lockpick Set

Maglock Passkey Rating 4

Maglock Sequencer Rating 4

Micro-Transceiver Rating 1

Wire Clippers

== Vehicles ==
Yamaha Growler (Off-Road Bike)
+Off-Road Suspension
+Vehicle Sensor

== Description ==
WIP

== Background ==
WIP

== Concept ==
WIP

Rivers in the Barrens:Amber

2022-10-16T04:03:57Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "== Info == Street Name: Amber Name: Heidi Dahl Movement: 10/25, Swim: 6 Karma: 0 Street Cred: 0 Notoriety: 1 Public Awareness: 0 Elf F Composure: 12 Judge Intentions..."

== Info ==
Street Name: Amber

Name: Heidi Dahl

Movement: 10/25, Swim: 6

Karma: 0

Street Cred: 0

Notoriety: 1

Public Awareness: 0

Elf F

Composure: 12

Judge Intentions: 11

Lift/Carry: 4 (15 kg/10 kg)

Memory: 7

Nuyen: 0

== Attributes ==
BOD: 3

AGI: 2

REA: 3

STR: 1

CHA: 7

INT: 4

LOG: 2

WIL: 5

EDG: 1

MAG: 5

== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 6

Initiative: 7

IP: 1

Astral Initiative: 8

Astral IP: 3

Matrix Initiative: 8

Matrix IP: 1

Physical Damage Track: 10

Stun Damage Track: 11

== Active Skills ==
Animal Handling : 0 Pool: 3

Animal Training : 0 Pool: 3

Arcana : 2 Pool: 4

Arcana, Artificing : 2 Pool: 7

Arcana, Metamagic : 2 Pool: 6

Archery : 0 Pool: 1

Armorer : 0 Pool: 1

Artisan : 0 Pool: 3

Assensing : 3 Pool: 7

Automatics : 0 Pool: 1

Blades : 0 Pool: 1

Clubs : 0 Pool: 1

Computer : 0 Pool: 1

Con : 3 Pool: 13

Counterspelling : 4 Pool: 9

Cybercombat : 0 Pool: 1

Data Search : 0 Pool: 1

Demolitions : 0 Pool: 1

Disguise : 0 Pool: 3

Diving : 0 Pool: 2

Dodge : 0 Pool: 2

Escape Artist : 0 Pool: 1

Etiquette : 3 Pool: 13

First Aid : 0 Pool: 1

Forgery : 0 Pool: 1

Gunnery : 0 Pool: 1

Gymnastics : 0 Pool: 1

Hacking : 0 Pool: 1

Heavy Weapons : 0 Pool: 1

Infiltration : 2 [Urban] Pool: 4 (6)

Instruction : 0 Pool: 6

Intimidation : 1 Pool: 11

Leadership : 3 Pool: 13

Leadership, Command : 3 Pool: 8

Leadership, Direct Fire : 3 Pool: 10

Locksmith : 0 Pool: 1

Longarms : 0 Pool: 1

Navigation : 0 Pool: 3

Negotiation : 3 Pool: 13

Palming : 0 Pool: 1

Parachuting : 0 Pool: 2

Perception : 1 Pool: 5

Pilot Ground Craft : 0 Pool: 2

Pilot Watercraft : 0 Pool: 2

Pistols : 0 Pool: 1

Riding : 0 Pool: 2

Shadowing : 0 Pool: 3

Spellcasting : 6 Pool: 11

Summoning : 4 Pool: 9

Survival : 0 Pool: 4

Throwing Weapons : 0 Pool: 1

Tracking : 0 Pool: 3

Unarmed Combat : 0 Pool: 1

== Knowledge Skills ==
TBD

== Contacts ==
Crazy Ivan (4, 4)
Serves as Amber's fixer. On sincerely friendly terms.

HNN Investigative Reporter Gillian Higurashi (4, 1)
Probably actually a corporate spy, but useful for high-level tidbits of info.

Kenna Dahl, Bartender (2, 5)
Heidi's older sister.

Talismonger Karli Svensdottir (2, 1)
More than a bit amoral; sells to Humanis and Nazi-aligned Odinists as readily as everyone else. Craftsmanship is trustworthy, but that's about it.

== Qualities ==
Geas (Sacrifice)

Low-Light Vision

Magician

Mentor Spirit (Dark Goddess)

Sensitive System

Spirit Bane (Plant)

== Spells ==
(Tradition: Norse, Resist Drain with WIL + CHA (12))

Detect Life, Extended DV: (F÷2)+2

Heal DV: (Damage Value)-2

Improved Invisibility DV: (F÷2)+1

Increase Reflexes DV: (F÷2)+2

Magic Fingers DV: (F÷2)+1

Mind Probe DV: (F÷2)+2

Powerbolt DV: (F÷2)+1

Stunball DV: (F÷2)+1

== Lifestyles ==
'Hel House' (Basement apartment in a loveland brownstone) 1 months
Comforts: Low
Entertainment: Middle
Necessities: Low
Neighborhood: Street
Security: Middle
Qualities: Concerned Neighbors [2LP]
Haunted [-4LP]

== Armor ==
Form-Fitting Half-Body Suit4/1

Vashon Island: Aces High Jacket Line3/3
+Chemical Protection 1
+Insulation 1

Zoé: Moonsilver Cocktail Dress3/1

Zoé: Moonsilver Scarf 1/0

== Weapons ==
Unarmed Attack
Pool: 1 DV: 3S AP: - RC: 0

== Commlink ==
Hermes Ikon (4, 3, 3, 3)
+Empathy Software Rating 3
+Iris Orb
+Skinlink
+Trodes
+AR Gloves
+MCT Bloodhound Rating 3

== Gear ==
Binoculars, Optical
+Vision Magnification

Contact Lenses Rating 3
+Image Link
+Flare Compensation
+Skinlink
+Vision Enhancement Rating 1

Earbuds Rating 3
+Select Sound Filter Rating 2
+Skinlink

Fake SIN (TBD) Rating 3

Magical Lodge Materials Rating 4

Stimulant Patch Rating 6 x4

Sustaining Focus (Health) (Bonded Foci) Rating 3

==Description==
WIP

==Background==
WIP

==Concept==
Ásatrú magic practitioner and summoner; support-focused magician.

Rivers in the Barrens:Twilight

2022-10-16T03:18:50Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "== Info == Street Name: Twilight Name: Twiligh t Movement: 10/25, Swim: 6 Karma: 0 Street Cred: 0 Notoriety: 0 Public Awareness: 0 Elf Female Age 36 Height 5'6" Weight..."

== Info ==
Street Name: Twilight

Name: Twiligh
t
Movement: 10/25, Swim: 6

Karma: 0

Street Cred: 0

Notoriety: 0

Public Awareness: 0

Elf Female Age 36

Height 5'6" Weight 118 lbs

Composure: 5

Judge Intentions: 7

Lift/Carry: 6 (45 kg/30 kg)

Memory: 4

Nuyen: 0

== Attributes ==
BOD: 3

AGI: 6 (8)

REA: 5 (7)

STR: 3

CHA: 3

INT: 4

LOG: 2

WIL: 2

EDG: 3

== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 2.46

Initiative: 9 (11)

IP: 1 (3)

Matrix Initiative: 6

Matrix IP: 1

Physical Damage Track: 10

Stun Damage Track: 9

== Active Skills ==
Animal Handling : 3 Pool: 9

Animal Training : 3 Pool: 9

Archery : 0 Pool: 7

Armorer : 0 Pool: 1

Artisan : 0 Pool: 3

Automatics : 0 Pool: 7

Blades : 0 Pool: 7

Climbing : 4 Pool: 7

Clubs : 0 Pool: 7

Computer : 0 Pool: 1

Con : 0 Pool: 2

Cybercombat : 0 Pool: 1

Data Search : 0 Pool: 1

Demolitions : 0 Pool: 1

Disguise : 0 Pool: 3

Diving : 0 Pool: 2

Dodge : 3 Pool: 10

Escape Artist : 0 Pool: 7

Etiquette : 0 Pool: 2

First Aid : 0 Pool: 1

Flight : 0 Pool: 2

Forgery : 0 Pool: 7

Gunnery : 0 Pool: 7

Gymnastics : 0 Pool: 7

Hacking : 0 Pool: 1

Hardware : 5 [Maglocks] Pool: 7 (9)

Heavy Weapons : 0 Pool: 7

Infiltration : 1 Pool: 9

Instruction : 0 Pool: 2

Intimidation : 0 Pool: 2

Leadership : 0 Pool: 2

Leadership, Command : 0 Pool: 1

Leadership, Direct Fire : 0 Pool: 3

Locksmith : 1 Pool: 9

Longarms : 5 Pool: 13

Navigation : 0 Pool: 3

Negotiation : 0 Pool: 2

Palming : 0 Pool: 7

Parachuting : 0 Pool: 2

Perception : 0 Pool: 3

Pilot Ground Craft : 1 [Bike] Pool: 8 (10)

Pilot Watercraft : 0 Pool: 6

Pistols : 3 Pool: 11

Riding : 3 Pool: 12

Running : 0 Pool: 2

Shadowing : 3 [Tailing] Pool: 7 (9)

Survival : 0 Pool: 1

Swimming : 0 Pool: 2

Throwing Weapons : 0 Pool: 7

Tracking : 2 Pool: 6

Unarmed Combat : 0 Pool: 7

VetTech : 3 Pool: 7

== Knowledge Skills ==
Agriculture : 2 Pool: 4

Area Knowledge: Seattle : 2 Pool: 6

English : 3 Pool: 7

Japanese : 2 Pool: 6

Parazoology : 4 Pool: 6

Security Design : 1 Pool: 3

Sperethiel : N Pool: 0

Trids : 1 Pool: 5

== Contacts ==
"Crazy Ivan" (4, 1)

Abigail Petrowski (1, 4)

== Qualities ==
Allergy (Common, Mild) (Sunlight)

Ambidextrous

Animal Empathy

Low-Light Vision

== Lifestyles ==
Low 1 months

== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Cybereyes Basic System Rating 2
+Eye Recording Unit
+Image Link
+Smartlink
+Flare Compensation
+Low-Light Vision
+Thermographic Vision

Datajack

Muscle Toner Rating 2

Wired Reflexes Rating 2

== Armor ==
Bike Racing Helmet 1/2
+Flare Compensation
+Image Link

Clothing 0/0

Lined Coat 6/4

== Weapons ==
Ares Predator IV
+Quick-Draw Holster
+Silencer
+Smartgun System
Pool: 13 DV: 7P AP: -1 RC: 0

Knife
Pool: 7 DV: 5P AP: - RC: 0

Remington 990
+Imaging Scope
+Shock Pad
+Stock
Pool: 13 DV: 9P AP: -1 RC: 0

Ruger 100
+Imaging Scope
+Shock Pad
+Stock
Pool: 13 DV: 9P AP: -1 RC: 0

Unarmed Attack
Pool: 7 DV: 4S AP: - RC: 0

== Commlink ==
Sony Emperor (2, 3, 3, 3)
+Iris Orb

== Gear ==
Ammo: Gel Rounds (Shotguns) x20

Ammo: Regular Ammo (Heavy Pistols) x100

Ammo: Regular Ammo (Shotguns) x90

Ammo: Regular Ammo (Sports Rifles) x50

Ammo: Stick-n-Shock (Heavy Pistols) x50

Autopicker Rating 2

Cat

Fake SIN (Twilight) Rating 2

Fake SIN (Amanda Thomas) Rating 3

Lockpick Set

Maglock Passkey Rating 2

Maglock Sequencer Rating 3

Mapsoft (Seattle) Rating 3

Medkit Rating 3

Micro-Transceiver Rating 3

Respirator Rating 4

Spare Clip (Ares Predator IV) x5

Spare Clip (Ruger 100) x5

Spare Clip (Remington 990) x5

Tag Eraser

Tool Kit (Electronics)

== Vehicles ==
Yamaha Growler (Off-Road Bike)
+Anti-Theft
+Off-Road Suspension
+Off-Road Tires Rating 2
+Vehicle Sensor

== Description ==
As a night one, Twilight's purple skin and hair make her stand out amongst other elves. Her outfits display her obsession with the Wild West.

== Background ==
Twilight was already a minority amongst the elves as a night one, but her obsession with the Wild West also didn't fit in with the Tir's refined sensibilities. Wanting to escape people, she concentrated on agriculture and animal husbandry in school. However, with her lack of status, there wasn't much chance for land ownership for her in the Tir.

While Seattle ain't exactly known for it's cattle drives and ranches, and needing nuyen, Twilight knew her other cowgirl skills would be in demand. Already an excellent shot before moving north a couple of years ago, she gradually learned less-than-legal entrance methods from teammates, hired tutors, and datasofts. Twilight also got hired on the Petrowski farm as a regular means of work.

She met Abby at the farm and befriended her over a mutual love for animals. Twilight's also a regular at the Wall, where she can often be seen nursing a bottle of whisky and smoking hand rolled cigarettes while rolling her eyes at Ivan's more "speculative" societal theories.

== Concept ==
Urban cowgirl that's decent at getting into places she's not wanted.

Ushitara

2022-10-16T03:01:05Z

Rifleavenger:

== Info ==
Street Name: Ushitara

Name: Jamie Butler

Movement: 15/35, Swim: 7

Karma: 0

Street Cred: 0

Notoriety: 0

Public Awareness: 0

Troll Female Age 38

Height 8'2 Weight 490 lbs

Composure: 6

Judge Intentions: 4

Lift/Carry: 17 (135 kg/90 kg)

Memory: 8

Nuyen: 0

== Attributes ==
BOD: 8

AGI: 4

REA: 4 (8)

STR: 8 (9)

CHA: 1

INT: 3

LOG: 3

WIL: 5

EDG: 1

== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 0.20

Initiative: 7 (11)

IP: 1 (3)

Matrix Initiative: 5

Matrix IP: 1

Physical Damage Track: 12

Stun Damage Track: 11

== Active Skills ==
Archery : 0 Pool: 3

Armorer : 0 Pool: 2

Artisan : 0 Pool: 2

Automatics : 0 Pool: 3

Automotive Mechanic : 3 [Wheeled] Pool: 6 (8)

Blades : 0 Pool: 3

Climbing : 1 Pool: 12

Clubs : 0 Pool: 3

Computer : 0 Pool: 2

Cybercombat : 0 Pool: 2

Data Search : 0 Pool: 2

Demolitions : 0 Pool: 2

Disguise : 0 Pool: 2

Diving : 0 Pool: 7

Dodge : 3 Pool: 12

Escape Artist : 0 Pool: 3

Etiquette : 1 Pool: 2

First Aid : 0 Pool: 2

Flight : 0 Pool: 8

Forgery : 0 Pool: 3

Gunnery : 0 Pool: 3

Gymnastics : 2 Pool: 6

Hacking : 0 Pool: 2

Heavy Weapons : 0 Pool: 3

Infiltration : 1 [Urban] Pool: 5 (7)

Locksmith : 0 Pool: 3

Longarms : 0 Pool: 3

Navigation : 0 Pool: 2

Palming : 0 Pool: 3

Parachuting : 0 Pool: 7

Perception : 2 Pool: 5

Pilot Ground Craft : 1 [Wheeled] Pool: 9 (11)

Pilot Watercraft : 0 Pool: 7

Pistols : 1 Pool: 5

Running : 2 [Urban] Pool: 11 (13)

Shadowing : 0 Pool: 2

Survival : 0 Pool: 4

Swimming : 1 Pool: 10

Throwing Weapons : 3 Pool: 7

Tracking : 0 Pool: 2

Unarmed Combat : 6 [Subdual Combat] Pool: 10 (12)

== Knowledge Skills ==
Archetecture : 3 Pool: 6

English : N Pool: 0

Fishing : 2 Pool: 5

Japanese : 4 Pool: 7

Or'zet : 1 Pool: 4

Security Systems : 3 Pool: 6

Syndicates : 5 Pool: 8

== Contacts ==
"Crazy Ivan", Ex Black Star Fixer (4, 4)
A dwarf, and not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?"

Victor Nguyen, "Fisherman". (2, 2)
Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

== Qualities ==
Distinctive Style (10 pts)

Pacifist (Minor)

Restricted Gear (Rating 1)

Thermographic Vision

Weak Immune System

== Lifestyles ==
Low 1 months

== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Bone Lacing (Aluminum)

Chemical Gland: Exhalation Spray

Datajack

Flare Compensation

Internal Air Tank

Move-by-Wire System Rating 2

Muscle Replacement Rating 1

Platelet Factories

Protective Covers

Retractable Climbing Claws

Skin Pigmentation + Biotattoos

== Armor ==
Armor Jacket 8/6

+Nonconductivity 6

+Shock Frills

Clothing 0/0

Form-Fitting Full-Body Suit 6/2

Helmet 1/2

Lined Coat 6/4

== Weapons ==
Aluminum Bone Lacing
Pool: 10 DV: 7P AP: - RC: 0

Colt America L36
+Laser Sight
+Spare Clips
Pool: 5 DV: 4P AP: - RC: 0

Grenade: Esprit Petite Brume
Pool: 7 DV: 5m Radius AP: - RC: 0

Grenade: Smoke (Aerodynamic)
Pool: 7 DV: (10m Radius) AP: - RC: 0

Retractable Climbing Claws
Pool: 3 DV: 5P AP: - RC: 0

Shock Glove
Pool: 10 DV: 5S(e) AP: -half RC: 0

Unarmed Attack
Pool: 10 DV: 5S AP: - RC: 0

== Martial Arts ==
Wrestling
++1 DV when inflicting damage to a subdued opponent

Clinch

Sweep

== Commlink ==
Sony Emperor (2, 0, 0, 3)

== Gear ==
Ammo: Stick-n-Shock (Light Pistols) x30

Chisel

DocWagon Contract: Basic

Fake SIN (Asuka Nadeshiko) Rating 4

Grapple Gun

Grenade: Esprit Petite Brume

Grenade: Smoke (Aerodynamic) x5

Micro-Transceiver Rating 1

Miniwelder

Monocle Rating 1
+Image Link

Pepper Punch x100

Standard Rope (100 m)

Stimulant Patch Rating 2

Tool Kit (Automotive)

Trauma Patch

Wire Clippers

== Vehicles ==
GAZ P-179 (Pickup Truck)
+Armor, Concealed Rating 2
+GridLink Override
+Metahuman Adjustment, Troll
+Morphing License Plate
+Multifuel Engine
+Run Flat Tires Rating 1
+Spoof Chip
+Vehicle Sensor

==Description==
A cybertroll even by cybertroll standards - a massive, hulking woman looking every bit like an oni out of myth, an image she takes great pains to spoil with dainty earrings and bright pink bands around her horns She habitually walks at a hunch to look most of metahumanity in the eye, when she's not going out of her way to be intimidating.

== Background ==
Jamie was born a troll, and was swiftly on track to inherit her mother's mechanic business the moment she finished out her education. Unfortunately for her, graduation night was a string of extremely poor decisions culminating in a bar crawl throughout most of the Barrens, which ended with her being shoved into a van and "recruited" into an underground bloodsport ring. She survived, mostly through sheer luck, long enough to become "favored" with increasingly heavy modifications.

The skilwires helped, but over the next five years, she needed them less and less. By the end, she had a fearsome reputation for breaking limbs as a matter of course, but this was more an indication of conscience than cruelty - how else do you end a deathmatch without death?

By this point she was occasionally used as a particularly intimidating bodyguard by her Yakuza "sponsor", and on the way from one of many meetings, their vehicle came under fire - first from rivals, then from an anarch cell that'd apparently been waiting for just such an opportunity to grab whatever heavy thing she laid in the trunk.

Forcibly unemployed twice, she's an old troll now. She had a SIN once, but Jamie Butler has long since been declared legally dead. She owes what she has left to the merry band of anarchists she's fallen in with, lending her hideous strength to them in thanks. She can often be seen with her arms crossed, staring into middle distance at Crazy Ivan's bar, The Wall.

== Concept ==
Ex-mechanic, Ex-fighter, current hammer in need of a nail.

Ushitara

2022-10-16T02:56:04Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "== Info == Street Name: Ushitara Name: Jamie Butler Movement: 15/35, Swim: 7 Karma: 0 Street Cred: 0 Notoriety: 0 Public Awareness: 0 Troll Female Age 38 Height 8'2 Weight 49..."

== Info ==
Street Name: Ushitara
Name: Jamie Butler
Movement: 15/35, Swim: 7
Karma: 0
Street Cred: 0
Notoriety: 0
Public Awareness: 0
Troll Female Age 38
Height 8'2 Weight 490 lbs
Composure: 6
Judge Intentions: 4
Lift/Carry: 17 (135 kg/90 kg)
Memory: 8
Nuyen: 0

== Attributes ==
BOD: 8
AGI: 4
REA: 4 (8)
STR: 8 (9)
CHA: 1
INT: 3
LOG: 3
WIL: 5
EDG: 1

== Derived Attributes ==
Essence: 0.20
Initiative: 7 (11)
IP: 1 (3)
Matrix Initiative: 5
Matrix IP: 1
Physical Damage Track: 12
Stun Damage Track: 11

== Active Skills ==
Archery : 0 Pool: 3
Armorer : 0 Pool: 2
Artisan : 0 Pool: 2
Automatics : 0 Pool: 3
Automotive Mechanic : 3 [Wheeled] Pool: 6 (8)
Blades : 0 Pool: 3
Climbing : 1 Pool: 12
Clubs : 0 Pool: 3
Computer : 0 Pool: 2
Cybercombat : 0 Pool: 2
Data Search : 0 Pool: 2
Demolitions : 0 Pool: 2
Disguise : 0 Pool: 2
Diving : 0 Pool: 7
Dodge : 3 Pool: 12
Escape Artist : 0 Pool: 3
Etiquette : 1 Pool: 2
First Aid : 0 Pool: 2
Flight : 0 Pool: 8
Forgery : 0 Pool: 3
Gunnery : 0 Pool: 3
Gymnastics : 2 Pool: 6
Hacking : 0 Pool: 2
Heavy Weapons : 0 Pool: 3
Infiltration : 1 [Urban] Pool: 5 (7)
Locksmith : 0 Pool: 3
Longarms : 0 Pool: 3
Navigation : 0 Pool: 2
Palming : 0 Pool: 3
Parachuting : 0 Pool: 7
Perception : 2 Pool: 5
Pilot Ground Craft : 1 [Wheeled] Pool: 9 (11)
Pilot Watercraft : 0 Pool: 7
Pistols : 1 Pool: 5
Running : 2 [Urban] Pool: 11 (13)
Shadowing : 0 Pool: 2
Survival : 0 Pool: 4
Swimming : 1 Pool: 10
Throwing Weapons : 3 Pool: 7
Tracking : 0 Pool: 2
Unarmed Combat : 6 [Subdual Combat] Pool: 10 (12)

== Knowledge Skills ==
Archetecture : 3 Pool: 6
English : N Pool: 0
Fishing : 2 Pool: 5
Japanese : 4 Pool: 7
Or'zet : 1 Pool: 4
Security Systems : 3 Pool: 6
Syndicates : 5 Pool: 8

== Contacts ==
"Crazy Ivan", Ex Black Star Fixer (4, 4)
A dwarf, and not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?"

Victor Nguyen, "Fisherman". (2, 2)
Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

== Qualities ==
Distinctive Style (10 pts)
Pacifist (Minor)
Restricted Gear (Rating 1)
Thermographic Vision
Weak Immune System

== Lifestyles ==
Low 1 months

== Cyberware/Bioware ==
Bone Lacing (Aluminum)
Chemical Gland: Exhalation Spray
Datajack
Flare Compensation
Internal Air Tank
Move-by-Wire System Rating 2
Muscle Replacement Rating 1
Platelet Factories
Protective Covers
Retractable Climbing Claws
Skin Pigmentation + Biotattoos

== Armor ==
Armor Jacket 8/6
+Nonconductivity 6
+Shock Frills
Clothing 0/0
Form-Fitting Full-Body Suit 6/2
Helmet 1/2
Lined Coat 6/4

== Weapons ==
Aluminum Bone Lacing
Pool: 10 DV: 7P AP: - RC: 0
Colt America L36
+Laser Sight
+Spare Clips
Pool: 5 DV: 4P AP: - RC: 0
Grenade: Esprit Petite Brume
Pool: 7 DV: 5m Radius AP: - RC: 0
Grenade: Smoke (Aerodynamic)
Pool: 7 DV: (10m Radius) AP: - RC: 0
Retractable Climbing Claws
Pool: 3 DV: 5P AP: - RC: 0
Shock Glove
Pool: 10 DV: 5S(e) AP: -half RC: 0
Unarmed Attack
Pool: 10 DV: 5S AP: - RC: 0

== Martial Arts ==
Wrestling
++1 DV when inflicting damage to a subdued opponent
Clinch
Sweep

== Commlink ==
Sony Emperor (2, 0, 0, 3)

== Gear ==
Ammo: Stick-n-Shock (Light Pistols) x30
Chisel
DocWagon Contract: Basic
Fake SIN (Asuka Nadeshiko) Rating 4
Grapple Gun
Grenade: Esprit Petite Brume
Grenade: Smoke (Aerodynamic) x5
Micro-Transceiver Rating 1
Miniwelder
Monocle Rating 1
+Image Link
Pepper Punch x100
Standard Rope (100 m)
Stimulant Patch Rating 2
Tool Kit (Automotive)
Trauma Patch
Wire Clippers

== Vehicles ==
GAZ P-179 (Pickup Truck)
+Armor, Concealed Rating 2
+GridLink Override
+Metahuman Adjustment, Troll
+Morphing License Plate
+Multifuel Engine
+Run Flat Tires Rating 1
+Spoof Chip
+Vehicle Sensor

==Description==
A cybertroll even by cybertroll standards - a massive, hulking woman looking every bit like an oni out of myth, an image she takes great pains to spoil with dainty earrings and bright pink bands around her horns She habitually walks at a hunch to look most of metahumanity in the eye, when she's not going out of her way to be intimidating.

== Background ==
Jamie was born a troll, and was swiftly on track to inherit her mother's mechanic business the moment she finished out her education. Unfortunately for her, graduation night was a string of extremely poor decisions culminating in a bar crawl throughout most of the Barrens, which ended with her being shoved into a van and "recruited" into an underground bloodsport ring. She survived, mostly through sheer luck, long enough to become "favored" with increasingly heavy modifications.

The skilwires helped, but over the next five years, she needed them less and less. By the end, she had a fearsome reputation for breaking limbs as a matter of course, but this was more an indication of conscience than cruelty - how else do you end a deathmatch without death?

By this point she was occasionally used as a particularly intimidating bodyguard by her Yakuza "sponsor", and on the way from one of many meetings, their vehicle came under fire - first from rivals, then from an anarch cell that'd apparently been waiting for just such an opportunity to grab whatever heavy thing she laid in the trunk.

Forcibly unemployed twice, she's an old troll now. She had a SIN once, but Jamie Butler has long since been declared legally dead. She owes what she has left to the merry band of anarchists she's fallen in with, lending her hideous strength to them in thanks. She can often be seen with her arms crossed, staring into middle distance at Crazy Ivan's bar, The Wall.

== Concept ==
Ex-mechanic, Ex-fighter, current hammer in need of a nail.

Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

2022-10-15T07:26:26Z

Rifleavenger:

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

==Notable Places==
Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the '''Landsblood Artery''', a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

'''The Wall''' is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-syndicalist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The '''Working Class''' is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House''' is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

'''Three Block Park''' is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

'''The Cinders''' are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

''[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]''

==Notable Groups==
===Icarus===
Icarus are a faction of green syndicalists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization mostly focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.

In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

===The Reality Hackers===
This gang of runaway corp kids and barrens techno-geeks is largely responsible for much of Ashbarrow having wireless Matrix connectivity at all. Spread over Ashbarrow, Loveland, Puyallup City, and even parts of Tarislar, they consider the AR and VR net of Puyallup district their territory more than any piece of tangible real estate. The Reality Hackers are perhaps best known for dropping cheap wireless relays around the Puyallup barrens. Though the devices are often snatched up by scrappers or whatever passes for local security, the Reality Hackers routinely make it "rain toasters" throughout Puyallup to replace losses. They also search for, refurbish, and maintain the remnants of the 30s - 60s wired Matrix network wound through the city. This is not an act of charity: the Reality Hackers largely fund themselves via piracy and other cybercrime, and most rely on the Matrix in one way or another to defend themselves.

The Reality Hackers began as a small time collective of small time hackers, but their ability to punch above their weight class against corpro cybersecurity (often owing to members being runaways from said corps) drew Yakuza attention. The Reality Hackers were captured and groomed as a weapon by the Watada-''rengo'' for a time, until Hanzo Shotozumi usurped control from the Watada family - at which point the presumed disloyal Reality Hackers were repeatedly sent on suicide missions. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the surviving Hackers escaped deeper into the barrens, rebuilt, and never forgot. The Reality Hackers ''hate'' the Yaks, and readily team up with anyone looking to take a bite out of the Shotozumi-''rengo''. The gang is also a haven for Japanese and Japanese-corporate exiles.

The Reality Hackers' colors are gold and chrome. Most are as cybered as the individual member can afford, electing for sleek and "electronic" aesthetics prominently displayed. Those who cannot adopt the gang's "fashion" in reality apply it in the Matrix instead.

Rivers in the Barrens:Main Page

2022-10-15T05:45:56Z

Rifleavenger:

''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality — the city, town, and village — where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy."'' - Murray Bookchin

==Characters==
[[Sunflower]]

[[Ushitara]]

[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Twilight Twilight]

[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Amber Amber]

[[Pyrus]]

* Players - please add your characters, and pages for them, here!

==Contacts==

'''Joe Jones, AKA Double J [Sunflower]:''' He's a 30ish orc man, who dabbled as a shadowrunner for awhile, but got out of it, because "that shit is bad for your karma, you know?" Cool and laid back, he now works as a bouncer at The Wall, where he's good at talking down rowdy customers before violence happens. Owns a customized Evo Falcon off-road bike, which he occasionally lets Sunflower borrow ("..., but I'm charging you for every new dent I find in her, understand?")

'''Lizzy McDonald [Sunflower]:''' A human woman, aged 24. She's a comparative religions grad student at the University of Washington who is particularly interested in new religious movements (NRM), which includes cults like the one Sunflower grew up in. She's been occasionally interviewing Sunflower about his experiences. She's a fast talker who fixates on the task at hand, often to the exclusion of everything else. She sometimes slums it at The Wall, which is how she met Sunflower.

'''"Crazy Ivan" [Ushitara/Sunflower/Twilight/Amber]:''' Operator of The Wall, a dive bar in northeastern Ashbarrow, who claims to be a retired member of Black Star. This grizzled anarcho-syndicalist dwarven fixer is not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?" Behind the bar's façade, Ivan moves civilian goods, information, and shadowrunner/revolutionary essentials through Ashbarrow and beyond; the notion that he's "retired" is probably more unbelievable than the claims of being ex-Black Star. Ivan has a complicated relationship with Tylr Mikell, owner of the Working Class - Ashbarrow's *other* leftist bar.

'''Victor Nguyen [Ushitara]:''' A "fisherman" who technically lives up in Everett, but frequently comes down the Puyallup River into Ashbarrow. Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

'''Abigail Petrowski [Twilight]:''' A member of the Petrowski family of farmers. Twilight met Abby at Petrowski Farms and befriended her over a mutual love for animals. Abigail knows a lot about what goes on around the farm, but not about that occurs off of it.

'''Kenna Dahl [Amber]:''' Amber's older sister, who works as a bartender at [LOCATION].

'''Gillian Higurashi [Amber]:''' A Horizon News Network investigative reporter willing to brave the barrens for a scoop. Amber suspects Gillian is actually corporate spy, but is willing make trade for the high-level information Gillian is privy too. Of course, that information is filtered through Horizon's interests. Always keep in mind: you are not immune to propaganda.

'''Karli Svensdottir [Amber]:''' A talismonger of Norse magical paradigm whose services Amber makes use of, based out of [REGION]. Markedly amoral, Karli sells her wares to Odinists associated with Humanis and more old-school fascists without hesitation. Her craftsmanship is trustworthy, that's about it.

'''Ahamkara [Pyrus]:''' [WIP]

'''Kseniya Kuznetsov [Pyrus]:''' [WIP]

==Important People==
'''Alarota (He/Him?):''' The founder and presumed leader of Icarus. Doesn't leave the group's headquarters, if he's even still alive. Witnesses consistently describe him as a thin, Latino, human male with dark brown skin and long, greying, black hair. Presumed to be awakened due to the deeds ascribed to him, though separating truth from urban legend is difficult.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana (She/Her):''' A humanitarian street doc in Ashbarrow, and an open member of the Anarchist Black Crescent (essentially a decentralized, anarchist version of Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Sultana runs the only medical clinic in Ashbarrow worthy of the name, treating those most in need for free.

'''Duane Petrowski (He/Him):''' Patriarch of the Petrowski family, whose farming complex in Puyallup district has defied volcanos, economic collapses, and hordes of go-gangers. Employment on Petrowski's farm is one of the few legitimate paying jobs available to inhabitants of the Puyallup barrens, but his family isn't a charity - they sell their crop for profit.

'''Kenneth Brackhaven (He/Him):''' Governor of Seattle Territory, Brackhaven is a member of the Archconservative Party. Brackhaven's policy focus seems to be advancing his barely veiled human (and white) supremacist agenda. Pounding the old "law and order" canard, many fear Brackhaven will repeat the bad old days of the late 30s under Governor Allison. Brackhaven's economic platform is blatantly pro-corp, with tax cuts and "business friendly" policies exchanged for the assistance of corporate security in the "war on crime."

'''Lon Campa (He/Him):''' Mayor of Puyallup district, and the city's only orcish mayor. Mayor Campa gets his strongest support from Carbonado, but works hard for all inhabitants of the district. Lon is also the first Puyallup mayor in years who isn't a puppet for organized crime, possibly explaining the two attempts on his life since he was elected.

'''Tylr Mikell (They/Them):''' Owner of the Working Class restaurant in "The Weeds" between Puyallup City and Ashbarrow. A democratic socialist, Tylr alternatively cooperates or clashes with the more anarchist elements in the Ashbarrow, while developing strong connections with mainstream center-left Seattle politicians and worker's unions. Their strained relationship with "Crazy Ivan" is renowned in Ashbarrow and the subject of much idle speculation.

'''Vök Rútsson (She/Her):''' Local head of the Rútsson family, who operate the unauthorized Landsblood Artery power plant in Hell's Kitchen. Vök handles the business and community side of the Artery's operations, leaving engineering and maintenance to her sister Voney, Voney's husband August Kresinger, and their employees. Widely believed to have connections to the Stonecutter's Guild.

==Major Concepts==
'''The Blights:''' Local name applied to the sudden slew of widescale problems facing Ashbarrow since early 2072.
* Concrete and brick edifices fracture and crumble as though suddenly exposed to a fierce freeze-thaw or unfelt earthquake. This first type of degradation heavily stems from existing structural weaknesses, but even slight dent and cracks suddenly expand over the course of days to hours rather than months to years.
* Metal tarnishes and rusts at an enhanced pace. Especially worrisome accounts claim even metals that are painted, kept in dry areas, or oiled can begin to oxidize.
* Weeds, ivies, moss, and other encrusting plants grow quickly and spread aggressively - akin to bamboo or kudzu. Anyone with botanical knowledge can tell this isn't entirely natural.
* A new respiratory illness that causes patients to cough up thickening, rust-colored phlegm. Uncreatively called "Rust Throat" by Ashbarrow inhabitants, this illness results in progressive inflammation of the throat and eventually the lungs. Rust Throat is particularly dangerous when combined with inhaling volcanic ash. There are untested claims the disease also causes behavioral alterations.

==Shadowruns==
[[Rivers in the Barrens:BTL Warehouse Run]]

==Setting Information==
'''Year:''' Summer 2072

===Country: UCAS (Seattle Territory)===

The United American and Canadian States is the remnants of the United States and Canada after the Ghost War, the secession of the California Free State, the Confederation of American States, Quebec, and Florida joining the Caribbean League.

While still one of the wealthiest nations in the world on paper and a nuclear power, the UCAS is by and large a hollowed-out shell propped up by the megacorporations. The megacorporations find the continued existence of the UCAS convenient, because they rely on the economic scaffolding and laws laid out by the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

===City: Seattle===

Seattle is a territory of the United American and Canadian States, and the nation’s only remaining port on the west coast of North America. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe for at least 10000 years before being colonized by Europeans in 1851. The city was retained by the USA, soon-to-be UCAS, following the Treaty of Denver in 2018. Since then, Seattle has existed as UCAS territory while completely enveloped by the Salish-Sidhe Council on all sides. Within the borders of the territory, Seattle expanded into and merged with several satellite cities, including Everett, Redmond, and Tacoma.

The city’s peculiar political position is the product of conflict avoidance, corporate convenience, and mutual benefit between the Salish-Sidhe Council, Tír Tairngire, and the UCAS. The city allows UCAS to maintain a presence on the west coast, gives corporations a port free of the NAN’s strict customs and environmental policies, supports Salish-Sidhe’s tourism industry, grants Tír Tairngire a trade window to the world without completely opening itself up, and gives all three nations around the Emerald City a way to exchange cultural and political dissidents. These competing interests, and the city’s premier placement near national borders by land and by sea, makes Seattle a haven for smugglers and shadowrunners.

The Emerald City is home to over 3,000,000 people in 2072. Seattle is home to a diverse and multifaceted culture, arising from the unique crossroads where people from the UCAS, NAN, Tír Tairngire, many Asian nations, and other international travelers and immigrants meet. Seattle’s original culture is strongly rooted in the old United States, but time, isolation from the main body of the UCAS, and elements from foreign cultures have led to many changes in Seattle’s social character. This social character is further granularized by the metroplex’s division into 1 consular and 11 municipal districts.

===District: Puyallup===

Puyallup is the second major barrens district in Seattle – bigger than Redmond in area, but with less than half the population density. Prior to the Ghost War of 2017, Puyallup was comprised of various Seattle suburbs grading into parks and fertile farmland. Then, in deterrence against the United States’ and Canada's genocidal Resolution Act, Daniel Howling Coyote and allied magicians detonated the Cascade Range in 2017. Puyallup took the collateral damage head-on, as pyroclastic flows and lahars swept down from Mt. Rainier into the southeast Seattle suburbs. The survivors of the eruption were soon joined by exiles fleeing the formation of the Salish-Sidhe Council and the other Native American Nations, unwilling to abide by NAN laws or believe assurances of peaceful co-existence*. Seattle and the megacorporations initially tried to rebuild the Puyallup region, some seeking to exploit lava fields for geothermal energy, but Crash 1.0 derailed those ambitions. Abandoned thereafter, what was left of Puyallup slid into becoming what is now known as a “barren.”

''>* In contrast to the default ''Shadowrun'' lore, in my version of things the NAN reasserted their ancestral rights to the land and attained self-determination without exiling every non-indigenous person. The goal of the NAN was to create a harmonious, culturally diverse, and sustainable society - results since 2018 have varied, but the fears of the refugees who flooded into Seattle never came to pass.

The district’s reputation as one giant refugee camp was cemented in 2039 under the human-supremacist regime of Governor Victor Allison, who rounded up all the city's meta-humans into a series of warehouses for “deportation.” The situation exploded when the Metroplex Guard began opening fire on the trapped masses, with the ensuing slaughter and desperate escape resulting in countless deaths. Protests and riots erupted in a "Night of Rage" as the escapees fled and new of the atrocity broke, some led by metahumans and their progressive human supporters, others led by fascists trying to “finish the job." A large number of metahuman refugees fled to Puyallup in the wake of the Night of Rage and never returned to their former homes. A second Puyallup revitalization effort was subsequently begun, and swiftly abandoned, in the 2040s.

In the three decades since, Mountain Rainer erupted again, several more humanitarian crises ensued, and the SINner population of Puyallup contracted towards Tacoma as the barrens expanded. Throughout it all, a steady stream of debris — both ash and people — trickles into the Puyallup Barrens.

Puyallup district is informally divided into further sub-districts or neighborhoods, most of which are not officially recognized by the metroplex government. The most important of these are:

* '''[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Ashbarrow Ashbarrow]:''' A neighborhood nestled within the rotting shell of abandoned urban sprawl, which experiences regular and severe ashfalls from Mt. Rainier. ''Your neighborhood''.
* '''Carbonado:''' A collection of mining and timber ghost towns re-inhabited by refugees and squatters. The majority demographic is orcs, many of whose families fled here after the Night of Rage, but outcasts of all sorts are welcome in Carbonado’s derelict company apartments and mines. The residents have attempted to salvage from, or even revive, several of the mines.
* '''Hell’s Kitchen:''' An almost uninhabited field of lava flows, geysers, and boiling mudpots left in the wake of Mt. Rainer’s 2017 eruptions. The landscape is largely barren, save for the occasional rusting hulk of a derelict geothermal plant. Tourists and mages on pilgrimage are about the only people who come here, and never for very long.
* '''Loveland:''' The largest sub-district of the Puyallup barrens, Loveland covers the northwest of the region. Loveland is the most densely populated and violent region of Puyallup, with the crime rate driven by competing efforts to control the local vice industry, black market, and smuggling routes. The primary players are the Shotozumi-rengo and the Commissione, but both sides mostly use lesser street gangs as pawns. Despite all that, Loveland actually has (spotty) matrix-linked municipal services, facilities, stores, and restaurants, unlike the rest of the barrens. As a result, it is a popular, if dangerous, destination for tourists looking to slum in the local nightlife.
* '''Petrowski Farms:''' The Petrowski family has stood tall against economic collapse, bandits, and volcanic eruptions for the entire duration of the Sixth World. They still proudly sell their organic produce at the Pike Place Farmer’s Market as they have for more than a century now. That said, some things have changed since the Fifth World, like the triple layered barbed wire and electric fences, or the armed guard towers, or the land spirits said to enrich and defend the place.
* '''Puyallup City:''' Sitting between Auburn and Tacoma, Puyallup City is the district’s seat of governance and where most “legitimate” businesses are located. The residents of this relatively middle class, clean, and safe neighborhood put much political effort into fighting perceptions that Puyallup is a lost cause. The dirty little secret of the “Light in the Ashes” is that Puyallup City is propped up almost entirely by organized crime. Administrations sink or swim (sometimes literally) by their ability to judge if the wind is blowing towards the mafia or the yakuza.
* '''Tarislar:''' The name of this neighborhood means “Remembrance” in Sperethiel. Home to a large population of elvish refugees displaced by the Night of Rage, as well as exiles and thrillseekers from Tír Tairngire, visitors to this neighborhood receive chilly receptions. Completely abandoned by the metroplex government, Tarislar residents only have access to goods and services they can create, gather, or steal. Security is mostly provided by the Laésa, a Tírian crime syndicate.

Rivers in the Barrens:Main Page

2022-10-15T05:44:26Z

Rifleavenger:

''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality — the city, town, and village — where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy."'' - Murray Bookchin

==Characters==
[[Sunflower]]

[[Ushitara]]

[[Twilight]]

[[Amber]]

[[Pyrus]]

* Players - please add your characters, and pages for them, here!

==Contacts==

'''Joe Jones, AKA Double J [Sunflower]:''' He's a 30ish orc man, who dabbled as a shadowrunner for awhile, but got out of it, because "that shit is bad for your karma, you know?" Cool and laid back, he now works as a bouncer at The Wall, where he's good at talking down rowdy customers before violence happens. Owns a customized Evo Falcon off-road bike, which he occasionally lets Sunflower borrow ("..., but I'm charging you for every new dent I find in her, understand?")

'''Lizzy McDonald [Sunflower]:''' A human woman, aged 24. She's a comparative religions grad student at the University of Washington who is particularly interested in new religious movements (NRM), which includes cults like the one Sunflower grew up in. She's been occasionally interviewing Sunflower about his experiences. She's a fast talker who fixates on the task at hand, often to the exclusion of everything else. She sometimes slums it at The Wall, which is how she met Sunflower.

'''"Crazy Ivan" [Ushitara/Sunflower/Twilight/Amber]:''' Operator of The Wall, a dive bar in northeastern Ashbarrow, who claims to be a retired member of Black Star. This grizzled anarcho-syndicalist dwarven fixer is not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?" Behind the bar's façade, Ivan moves civilian goods, information, and shadowrunner/revolutionary essentials through Ashbarrow and beyond; the notion that he's "retired" is probably more unbelievable than the claims of being ex-Black Star. Ivan has a complicated relationship with Tylr Mikell, owner of the Working Class - Ashbarrow's *other* leftist bar.

'''Victor Nguyen [Ushitara]:''' A "fisherman" who technically lives up in Everett, but frequently comes down the Puyallup River into Ashbarrow. Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

'''Abigail Petrowski [Twilight]:''' A member of the Petrowski family of farmers. Twilight met Abby at Petrowski Farms and befriended her over a mutual love for animals. Abigail knows a lot about what goes on around the farm, but not about that occurs off of it.

'''Kenna Dahl [Amber]:''' Amber's older sister, who works as a bartender at [LOCATION].

'''Gillian Higurashi [Amber]:''' A Horizon News Network investigative reporter willing to brave the barrens for a scoop. Amber suspects Gillian is actually corporate spy, but is willing make trade for the high-level information Gillian is privy too. Of course, that information is filtered through Horizon's interests. Always keep in mind: you are not immune to propaganda.

'''Karli Svensdottir [Amber]:''' A talismonger of Norse magical paradigm whose services Amber makes use of, based out of [REGION]. Markedly amoral, Karli sells her wares to Odinists associated with Humanis and more old-school fascists without hesitation. Her craftsmanship is trustworthy, that's about it.

'''Ahamkara [Pyrus]:''' [WIP]

'''Kseniya Kuznetsov [Pyrus]:''' [WIP]

==Important People==
'''Alarota (He/Him?):''' The founder and presumed leader of Icarus. Doesn't leave the group's headquarters, if he's even still alive. Witnesses consistently describe him as a thin, Latino, human male with dark brown skin and long, greying, black hair. Presumed to be awakened due to the deeds ascribed to him, though separating truth from urban legend is difficult.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana (She/Her):''' A humanitarian street doc in Ashbarrow, and an open member of the Anarchist Black Crescent (essentially a decentralized, anarchist version of Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Sultana runs the only medical clinic in Ashbarrow worthy of the name, treating those most in need for free.

'''Duane Petrowski (He/Him):''' Patriarch of the Petrowski family, whose farming complex in Puyallup district has defied volcanos, economic collapses, and hordes of go-gangers. Employment on Petrowski's farm is one of the few legitimate paying jobs available to inhabitants of the Puyallup barrens, but his family isn't a charity - they sell their crop for profit.

'''Kenneth Brackhaven (He/Him):''' Governor of Seattle Territory, Brackhaven is a member of the Archconservative Party. Brackhaven's policy focus seems to be advancing his barely veiled human (and white) supremacist agenda. Pounding the old "law and order" canard, many fear Brackhaven will repeat the bad old days of the late 30s under Governor Allison. Brackhaven's economic platform is blatantly pro-corp, with tax cuts and "business friendly" policies exchanged for the assistance of corporate security in the "war on crime."

'''Lon Campa (He/Him):''' Mayor of Puyallup district, and the city's only orcish mayor. Mayor Campa gets his strongest support from Carbonado, but works hard for all inhabitants of the district. Lon is also the first Puyallup mayor in years who isn't a puppet for organized crime, possibly explaining the two attempts on his life since he was elected.

'''Tylr Mikell (They/Them):''' Owner of the Working Class restaurant in "The Weeds" between Puyallup City and Ashbarrow. A democratic socialist, Tylr alternatively cooperates or clashes with the more anarchist elements in the Ashbarrow, while developing strong connections with mainstream center-left Seattle politicians and worker's unions. Their strained relationship with "Crazy Ivan" is renowned in Ashbarrow and the subject of much idle speculation.

'''Vök Rútsson (She/Her):''' Local head of the Rútsson family, who operate the unauthorized Landsblood Artery power plant in Hell's Kitchen. Vök handles the business and community side of the Artery's operations, leaving engineering and maintenance to her sister Voney, Voney's husband August Kresinger, and their employees. Widely believed to have connections to the Stonecutter's Guild.

==Major Concepts==
'''The Blights:''' Local name applied to the sudden slew of widescale problems facing Ashbarrow since early 2072.
* Concrete and brick edifices fracture and crumble as though suddenly exposed to a fierce freeze-thaw or unfelt earthquake. This first type of degradation heavily stems from existing structural weaknesses, but even slight dent and cracks suddenly expand over the course of days to hours rather than months to years.
* Metal tarnishes and rusts at an enhanced pace. Especially worrisome accounts claim even metals that are painted, kept in dry areas, or oiled can begin to oxidize.
* Weeds, ivies, moss, and other encrusting plants grow quickly and spread aggressively - akin to bamboo or kudzu. Anyone with botanical knowledge can tell this isn't entirely natural.
* A new respiratory illness that causes patients to cough up thickening, rust-colored phlegm. Uncreatively called "Rust Throat" by Ashbarrow inhabitants, this illness results in progressive inflammation of the throat and eventually the lungs. Rust Throat is particularly dangerous when combined with inhaling volcanic ash. There are untested claims the disease also causes behavioral alterations.

==Shadowruns==
[[Rivers in the Barrens:BTL Warehouse Run]]

==Setting Information==
'''Year:''' Summer 2072

===Country: UCAS (Seattle Territory)===

The United American and Canadian States is the remnants of the United States and Canada after the Ghost War, the secession of the California Free State, the Confederation of American States, Quebec, and Florida joining the Caribbean League.

While still one of the wealthiest nations in the world on paper and a nuclear power, the UCAS is by and large a hollowed-out shell propped up by the megacorporations. The megacorporations find the continued existence of the UCAS convenient, because they rely on the economic scaffolding and laws laid out by the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

===City: Seattle===

Seattle is a territory of the United American and Canadian States, and the nation’s only remaining port on the west coast of North America. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe for at least 10000 years before being colonized by Europeans in 1851. The city was retained by the USA, soon-to-be UCAS, following the Treaty of Denver in 2018. Since then, Seattle has existed as UCAS territory while completely enveloped by the Salish-Sidhe Council on all sides. Within the borders of the territory, Seattle expanded into and merged with several satellite cities, including Everett, Redmond, and Tacoma.

The city’s peculiar political position is the product of conflict avoidance, corporate convenience, and mutual benefit between the Salish-Sidhe Council, Tír Tairngire, and the UCAS. The city allows UCAS to maintain a presence on the west coast, gives corporations a port free of the NAN’s strict customs and environmental policies, supports Salish-Sidhe’s tourism industry, grants Tír Tairngire a trade window to the world without completely opening itself up, and gives all three nations around the Emerald City a way to exchange cultural and political dissidents. These competing interests, and the city’s premier placement near national borders by land and by sea, makes Seattle a haven for smugglers and shadowrunners.

The Emerald City is home to over 3,000,000 people in 2072. Seattle is home to a diverse and multifaceted culture, arising from the unique crossroads where people from the UCAS, NAN, Tír Tairngire, many Asian nations, and other international travelers and immigrants meet. Seattle’s original culture is strongly rooted in the old United States, but time, isolation from the main body of the UCAS, and elements from foreign cultures have led to many changes in Seattle’s social character. This social character is further granularized by the metroplex’s division into 1 consular and 11 municipal districts.

===District: Puyallup===

Puyallup is the second major barrens district in Seattle – bigger than Redmond in area, but with less than half the population density. Prior to the Ghost War of 2017, Puyallup was comprised of various Seattle suburbs grading into parks and fertile farmland. Then, in deterrence against the United States’ and Canada's genocidal Resolution Act, Daniel Howling Coyote and allied magicians detonated the Cascade Range in 2017. Puyallup took the collateral damage head-on, as pyroclastic flows and lahars swept down from Mt. Rainier into the southeast Seattle suburbs. The survivors of the eruption were soon joined by exiles fleeing the formation of the Salish-Sidhe Council and the other Native American Nations, unwilling to abide by NAN laws or believe assurances of peaceful co-existence*. Seattle and the megacorporations initially tried to rebuild the Puyallup region, some seeking to exploit lava fields for geothermal energy, but Crash 1.0 derailed those ambitions. Abandoned thereafter, what was left of Puyallup slid into becoming what is now known as a “barren.”

''>* In contrast to the default ''Shadowrun'' lore, in my version of things the NAN reasserted their ancestral rights to the land and attained self-determination without exiling every non-indigenous person. The goal of the NAN was to create a harmonious, culturally diverse, and sustainable society - results since 2018 have varied, but the fears of the refugees who flooded into Seattle never came to pass.

The district’s reputation as one giant refugee camp was cemented in 2039 under the human-supremacist regime of Governor Victor Allison, who rounded up all the city's meta-humans into a series of warehouses for “deportation.” The situation exploded when the Metroplex Guard began opening fire on the trapped masses, with the ensuing slaughter and desperate escape resulting in countless deaths. Protests and riots erupted in a "Night of Rage" as the escapees fled and new of the atrocity broke, some led by metahumans and their progressive human supporters, others led by fascists trying to “finish the job." A large number of metahuman refugees fled to Puyallup in the wake of the Night of Rage and never returned to their former homes. A second Puyallup revitalization effort was subsequently begun, and swiftly abandoned, in the 2040s.

In the three decades since, Mountain Rainer erupted again, several more humanitarian crises ensued, and the SINner population of Puyallup contracted towards Tacoma as the barrens expanded. Throughout it all, a steady stream of debris — both ash and people — trickles into the Puyallup Barrens.

Puyallup district is informally divided into further sub-districts or neighborhoods, most of which are not officially recognized by the metroplex government. The most important of these are:

* '''[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Ashbarrow Ashbarrow]:''' A neighborhood nestled within the rotting shell of abandoned urban sprawl, which experiences regular and severe ashfalls from Mt. Rainier. ''Your neighborhood''.
* '''Carbonado:''' A collection of mining and timber ghost towns re-inhabited by refugees and squatters. The majority demographic is orcs, many of whose families fled here after the Night of Rage, but outcasts of all sorts are welcome in Carbonado’s derelict company apartments and mines. The residents have attempted to salvage from, or even revive, several of the mines.
* '''Hell’s Kitchen:''' An almost uninhabited field of lava flows, geysers, and boiling mudpots left in the wake of Mt. Rainer’s 2017 eruptions. The landscape is largely barren, save for the occasional rusting hulk of a derelict geothermal plant. Tourists and mages on pilgrimage are about the only people who come here, and never for very long.
* '''Loveland:''' The largest sub-district of the Puyallup barrens, Loveland covers the northwest of the region. Loveland is the most densely populated and violent region of Puyallup, with the crime rate driven by competing efforts to control the local vice industry, black market, and smuggling routes. The primary players are the Shotozumi-rengo and the Commissione, but both sides mostly use lesser street gangs as pawns. Despite all that, Loveland actually has (spotty) matrix-linked municipal services, facilities, stores, and restaurants, unlike the rest of the barrens. As a result, it is a popular, if dangerous, destination for tourists looking to slum in the local nightlife.
* '''Petrowski Farms:''' The Petrowski family has stood tall against economic collapse, bandits, and volcanic eruptions for the entire duration of the Sixth World. They still proudly sell their organic produce at the Pike Place Farmer’s Market as they have for more than a century now. That said, some things have changed since the Fifth World, like the triple layered barbed wire and electric fences, or the armed guard towers, or the land spirits said to enrich and defend the place.
* '''Puyallup City:''' Sitting between Auburn and Tacoma, Puyallup City is the district’s seat of governance and where most “legitimate” businesses are located. The residents of this relatively middle class, clean, and safe neighborhood put much political effort into fighting perceptions that Puyallup is a lost cause. The dirty little secret of the “Light in the Ashes” is that Puyallup City is propped up almost entirely by organized crime. Administrations sink or swim (sometimes literally) by their ability to judge if the wind is blowing towards the mafia or the yakuza.
* '''Tarislar:''' The name of this neighborhood means “Remembrance” in Sperethiel. Home to a large population of elvish refugees displaced by the Night of Rage, as well as exiles and thrillseekers from Tír Tairngire, visitors to this neighborhood receive chilly receptions. Completely abandoned by the metroplex government, Tarislar residents only have access to goods and services they can create, gather, or steal. Security is mostly provided by the Laésa, a Tírian crime syndicate.

Rivers in the Barrens:BTL Warehouse Run

2022-10-07T08:23:44Z

Rifleavenger:

==Executive Summary==
Hit a Better-Than-Life chip warehouse being run by the Troll-Killers gang. Shut it down and grab any pay-data within.

==Objectives==
* Shut down the Troll Killers' BTL operation in Ashbarrow.
* Retrieve pay-data from a server node supposedly housed within the warehouse.
* [Optional] Avoid any casualties, especially deaths.
* [Optional] Rough up or kill some Troll Killers, in memory of Peter Scrupp.

==Johnson or Smith==
This 'run is unusual in that two different clients both put a request in to hit the BTL stockpile.

The first, our "Mr. Johnson", is an '''orcish woman''' who contacted Tylr Mikell at the Working Class. Her client's identity is the usual: unknown. Mr. Johnson took pains to look like a local, including wearing a scarf and clothes that have seen better days, but her nails and skin were too clean and undamaged. That's usually a sign of a corpro in sheep's clothing, but she had a legitimate concern in her voice regarding the metahuman victims in the community, even to the most cynical ears listening in. So our best guess is probably metahuman policlub or non-profit, with token bleeding heart or good actor as runners up. This Johnson wants the pay data from the warehouse, and also offered a bonus to avoid carnage.

The second, our "Ms. Smith," is '''Johann Scrupp''', '''local salvage collector''', whose troll son got cooked by one of those bad BTLs. Ms. Smith wants vengeance for his son and to prevent any other parents from suffering his grief. He wants the operation shut down and the Troll Killers run out of town, minimum. Sounded like he'd appreciate some spilt blood or cracked skulls too. While Ms. Smith's the only one that approached Crazy Ivan with the money to pay for a shadowrun, he's far from the only person in Ashbarrow to lose a friend or family member to this poison.

==Opposing Forces==
The '''Troll Killers''' are racist human gangsters whose idea of a good time is collecting orc tusks and troll horns as trophies. Spawned in the 2030s as a way for the angry kids of Humanis Policlub members to take 'direct action' against the "metahuman threat," the Troll Killers persisted as their own entity after the Night of Rage. Completely devoted to sating their hatreds, the Troll Killers have never moved beyond serving as shock troopers and useful idiots for Humanis and other human supremacists. They don't control any meaningful part of the city's economy, shadow or otherwise, and were largely beaten back to their stronghold in Lake Washington after their prey organized and began to fight back.

Lately, however, the Troll Killers have increasingly been seen roaming beyond their turf, better equipped and better trained than usual...

==Background Info==
'''Better-Than-Life chips''' have long been a vice targeted towards the wage-slave lower class and the pariah SINless. After all, they're the ultimate form of escapism from the dreadful conditions most people live in. That said, the neo-anarchists in the Ashbarrow understand that BTL use is a systematic issue, not a personal moral failure, and the community generally only intervenes when someone's habit is harming themself or others. Often this works, sometimes it doesn't. Four months ago, people started dying.

Horizon's various networks, clickbait, and other corporate news will often blast wage-slaves with scare stories about people dying from BTLs. "This is your brain on BTLs," B.A.R.E., you know the type. When in truth, BTL deaths are usually from something secondary - forgetting to care for oneself because you're not thirsty or hurting in the BTL, running in front of a car while high, that sort of thing. Overdoses of a type can happen with extremely persistent use, but they're typically much more gradual than overdosing on actual drugs, often taking the form of early-onset dementia. What began to happen in Ashbarrow was different. BTL users screaming in agony, convulsing, dying of cranial hemorrhage... The deaths were acute, awful, and occurred even in first time users. The conclusion of the Black Cross, Black Crescent, and local militias is that '''these chips are adulterated''', and the contents as described by survivors point toward malice rather than incompetence on behalf of the creators and distributors.

A conclusion supported when the Troll Killers, a human supremacist gang that revels in murdering "trogs" (a slur for orcs and trolls), were sighted distributing the tainted chips to BTL pushers in Ashbarrow. Further legwork traced the Troll Killers' operation back to '''a supposedly abandoned warehouse on the corner of Calistoga and Emmons''', facing the Puyallup River. More than a stockhouse, stakeouts and matrix traffic suggests some of the chips are actively being burnt on-site. Entrances to the warehouse are guarded at all hours by 3-5 belligerent and well armed gangers. Shipments come in via powerboat, while exports go directly or indirectly to unaffiliated small-time dealers - especially those that sell to blocks with high metahuman populations. Since the deadly effects have become known, the Troll Killers are beginning to change tactics, surreptitiously spiking shipments of normal BTLs with their poisoned chips and selling to dealers while hiding their colors.

==Heads-Up==
* The Troll Killers are normally a third-rate gang of jumped up racist manchildren. Operating a BTL ring is outside their usual capabilities, let alone modus operandi. Something stinks here, be careful.
* The BTLs in question are direct-input, physical medium, dream- and tripchip variants. They're often falsely labeled as popular strains. Survivors describe the chips as a nightmarish and entangled cross between sheer terror and a snuff film from the victim's POV. In addition to the traumatic contents, the chips rapidly cause fatal brain damage if not shut off.
* The Troll Killers have already violently repelled strikes from local antifas and militias. Don't let the light security detail outside fool you - they've got major reinforcements inside.
* The two clients' preferences on how to handle this op are at odds. Use your own discretion and follow your conscience. I certainly won't weep over a few dead fash. - Ivan
** Mr. Johnson is working on the bigger picture here - following that pay-data to the root and dragging it into the light. If you splatter the data with blood, it'll be a lot harder to use outside the shadows. - Tylr

Rivers in the Barrens:BTL Warehouse Run

2022-10-07T08:21:32Z

Rifleavenger:

==Executive Summary==
Hit a Better-Than-Life chip warehouse being run by the Troll-Killers gang. Shut it down and grab any pay-data within.

==Objectives==
* Shut down the Troll Killers' BTL operation in Ashbarrow.
* Retrieve pay-data from a server node supposedly housed within the warehouse.
* [Optional] Avoid any casualties, especially deaths.
* [Optional] Rough up or kill some Troll Killers, in memory of Peter Scrupp.

==Johnson or Smith==
This 'run is unusual in that two different clients both put a request in to hit the BTL stockpile.

The first, our "Mr. Johnson", is an '''orcish woman''' who contacted Tylr Mikell at the Working Class. Her client's identity is the usual: unknown. Mr. Johnson took pains to look like a local, including wearing a scarf and clothes that have seen better days, but her nails and skin were too clean and undamaged. That's usually a sign of a corpro in sheep's clothing, but she had a legitimate concern in her voice regarding the metahuman victims in the community, even to the most cynical ears listening in. So our best guess is probably metahuman policlub or non-profit, with token bleeding heart or good actor as runners up. This Johnson wants the pay data from the warehouse, and also offered a bonus to avoid carnage.

The second, our "Ms. Smith," is '''Johann Scrupp''', '''local salvage collector''', whose troll son got cooked by one of those bad BTLs. Ms. Smith wants vengeance for his son and to prevent any other parents from suffering his grief. He wants the operation shut down and the Troll Killers run out of town, minimum. Sounded like he'd appreciate some spilt blood or cracked skulls too. While Ms. Smith's the only one that approached Crazy Ivan with the money to pay for a shadowrun, he's far from the only person in Ashbarrow to lose a friend or family member to this poison.

==Opposing Forces==
The '''Troll Killers''' are racist human gangsters whose idea of a good time is collecting orc tusks and troll horns as trophies. Spawned in the 2030s as a way for the angry kids of Humanis Policlub members to take 'direct action' against the "metahuman threat," the Troll Killers persisted as their own entity after the Night of Rage. Completely devoted to sating their hatreds, the Troll Killers have never moved beyond serving as shock troopers and useful idiots for Humanis and other human supremacists. They don't control any meaningful part of the city's economy, shadow or otherwise, and were largely beaten back to their stronghold in Lake Washington after their prey organized and began to fight back.

Lately, however, the Troll Killers have increasingly been seen roaming beyond their turf, better equipped and better trained than usual...

==Background Info==
'''Better-Than-Life chips''' have long been a vice targeted towards the wage-slave lower class and the pariah SINless. After all, they're the ultimate form of escapism from the dreadful conditions most people live in. That said, the neo-anarchists in the Ashbarrow understand that BTL use is a systematic issue, not a personal moral failure, and the community generally only intervenes when someone's habit is harming themself or others. Often this works, sometimes it doesn't. Four months ago, people started dying.

Horizon's various networks, clickbait, and other corporate news will often blast wage-slaves with scare stories about people dying from BTLs. "This is your brain on BTLs," B.A.R.E., you know the type. When in truth, BTL deaths are usually from something secondary - forgetting to care for oneself because you're not thirsty or hurting in the BTL, running in front of a car while high, that sort of thing. Overdoses of a type can happen with extremely persistent use, but they're typically much more gradual than overdosing on actual drugs, often taking the form of early-onset dementia. What began to happen in Ashbarrow was different. BTL users screaming in agony, convulsing, dying of cranial hemorrhage... The deaths were acute, awful, and occurred even in first time users. The conclusion of the Black Cross, Black Crescent, and local militias is that '''these chips are adulterated''', and the contents as described by survivors point toward malice rather than incompetence on behalf of the creators and distributors.

A conclusion supported when the Troll Killers, a human supremacist gang that revels in murdering "trogs" (a slur for orcs and trolls), were sighted distributing the tainted chips to BTL pushers in Ashbarrow. Further legwork traced the Troll Killers' operation back to '''a supposedly abandoned warehouse on the corner of Calistoga and Emmons''', facing the Puyallup River. More than a stockhouse, stakeouts and matrix traffic suggests some of the chips are actively being burnt on-site. Entrances to the warehouse are guarded at all hours by 3-5 belligerent and well armed gangers. Shipments in come by powerboat, while exports go directly or indirectly to unaffiliated small-time dealers - especially those that sell to blocks with high metahuman populations. Since the deadly effects have become known, the Troll Killers are beginning to change tactics, surreptitiously spiking shipments of normal BTLs with their poisoned chips and selling to dealers while hiding their colors.

==Heads-Up==
* The Troll Killers are normally a third-rate gang of jumped up racist manchildren. Operating a BTL ring is outside their usual capabilities, let alone modus operandi. Something stinks here, be careful.
* The BTLs in question are direct-input, physical medium, dream- and tripchip variants. They're often falsely labeled as popular strains. Survivors describe the chips as a nightmarish and entangled cross between sheer terror and a snuff film from the victim's POV. In addition to the traumatic contents, the chips rapidly cause fatal brain damage if not shut off.
* The Troll Killers have already violently repelled strikes from local antifas and militias. Don't let the light security detail outside fool you - they've got major reinforcements inside.
* The two clients' preferences on how to handle this op are at odds. Use your own discretion and follow your conscience. I certainly won't weep over a few dead fash. - Ivan
** Mr. Johnson is working on the bigger picture here - following that pay-data to the root and dragging it into the light. If you splatter the data with blood, it'll be a lot harder to use outside the shadows. - Tylr

Rivers in the Barrens:Main Page

2022-10-07T08:01:36Z

Rifleavenger:

''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality — the city, town, and village — where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy."'' - Murray Bookchin

==Characters==
[[Sunflower]]

[[Ushitara]]

* Players - please add your characters, and pages for them, here!

==Contacts==
'''Club Bouncer [Sunflower]:''' Owns a customized Evo Falcon off-road bike, which they occasionally let Sunflower borrow ("..., but I'm charging you for every new dent I find in her, understand?")

'''Comparative Religions Grad Student [Sunflower]:'''

'''Fixer [Sunflower]:'''

'''"Crazy Ivan" [Ushitara]:''' Operator of The Wall, a dive bar in northeastern Ashbarrow, who claims to be a retired member of Black Star. This grizzled anarcho-syndicalist dwarven fixer is not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?" Behind the bar's façade, Ivan moves civilian goods, information, and shadowrunner/revolutionary essentials through Ashbarrow and beyond; the notion that he's "retired" is probably more unbelievable than the claims of being ex-Black Star. Ivan has a complicated relationship with Tylr Mikell, owner of the Working Class - Ashbarrow's *other* leftist bar.

'''Victor Nguyen [Ushitara]:''' A "fisherman" who technically lives up in Everett, but frequently comes down the Puyallup River into Ashbarrow. Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

==Important People==
'''Alarota (He/Him?):''' The founder and presumed leader of Icarus. Doesn't leave the group's headquarters, if he's even still alive. Witnesses consistently describe him as a thin, Latino, human male with dark brown skin and long, greying, black hair. Presumed to be awakened due to the deeds ascribed to him, though separating truth from urban legend is difficult.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana (She/Her):''' A humanitarian street doc in Ashbarrow, and an open member of the Anarchist Black Crescent (essentially a decentralized, anarchist version of Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Sultana runs the only medical clinic in Ashbarrow worthy of the name, treating those most in need for free.

'''Duane Petrowski (He/Him):''' Patriarch of the Petrowski family, whose farming complex in Puyallup district has defied volcanos, economic collapses, and hordes of go-gangers. Employment on Petrowski's farm is one of the few legitimate paying jobs available to inhabitants of the Puyallup barrens, but his family isn't a charity - they sell their crop for profit.

'''Kenneth Brackhaven (He/Him):''' Governor of Seattle Territory, Brackhaven is a member of the Archconservative Party. Brackhaven's policy focus seems to be advancing his barely veiled human (and white) supremacist agenda. Pounding the old "law and order" canard, many fear Brackhaven will repeat the bad old days of the late 30s under Governor Allison. Brackhaven's economic platform is blatantly pro-corp, with tax cuts and "business friendly" policies exchanged for the assistance of corporate security in the "war on crime."

'''Lon Campa (He/Him):''' Mayor of Puyallup district, and the city's only orcish mayor. Mayor Campa gets his strongest support from Carbonado, but works hard for all inhabitants of the district. Lon is also the first Puyallup mayor in years who isn't a puppet for organized crime, possibly explaining the two attempts on his life since he was elected.

'''Tylr Mikell (They/Them):''' Owner of the Working Class restaurant in "The Weeds" between Puyallup City and Ashbarrow. A democratic socialist, Tylr alternatively cooperates or clashes with the more anarchist elements in the Ashbarrow, while developing strong connections with mainstream center-left Seattle politicians and worker's unions. Their strained relationship with "Crazy Ivan" is renowned in Ashbarrow and the subject of much idle speculation.

'''Vök Rútsson (She/Her):''' Local head of the Rútsson family, who operate the unauthorized Landsblood Artery power plant in Hell's Kitchen. Vök handles the business and community side of the Artery's operations, leaving engineering and maintenance to her sister Voney, Voney's husband August Kresinger, and their employees. Widely believed to have connections to the Stonecutter's Guild.

==Major Concepts==
'''The Blights:''' Local name applied to the sudden slew of widescale problems facing Ashbarrow since early 2072.
* Concrete and brick edifices fracture and crumble as though suddenly exposed to a fierce freeze-thaw or unfelt earthquake. This first type of degradation heavily stems from existing structural weaknesses, but even slight dent and cracks suddenly expand over the course of days to hours rather than months to years.
* Metal tarnishes and rusts at an enhanced pace. Especially worrisome accounts claim even metals that are painted, kept in dry areas, or oiled can begin to oxidize.
* Weeds, ivies, moss, and other encrusting plants grow quickly and spread aggressively - akin to bamboo or kudzu. Anyone with botanical knowledge can tell this isn't entirely natural.
* A new respiratory illness that causes patients to cough up thickening, rust-colored phlegm. Uncreatively called "Rust Throat" by Ashbarrow inhabitants, this illness results in progressive inflammation of the throat and eventually the lungs. Rust Throat is particularly dangerous when combined with inhaling volcanic ash. There are untested claims the disease also causes behavioral alterations.

==Shadowruns==
[[Rivers in the Barrens:BTL Warehouse Run]]

==Setting Information==
'''Year:''' Summer 2072

===Country: UCAS (Seattle Territory)===

The United American and Canadian States is the remnants of the United States and Canada after the Ghost War, the secession of the California Free State, the Confederation of American States, Quebec, and Florida joining the Caribbean League.

While still one of the wealthiest nations in the world on paper and a nuclear power, the UCAS is by and large a hollowed-out shell propped up by the megacorporations. The megacorporations find the continued existence of the UCAS convenient, because they rely on the economic scaffolding and laws laid out by the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

===City: Seattle===

Seattle is a territory of the United American and Canadian States, and the nation’s only remaining port on the west coast of North America. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe for at least 10000 years before being colonized by Europeans in 1851. The city was retained by the USA, soon-to-be UCAS, following the Treaty of Denver in 2018. Since then, Seattle has existed as UCAS territory while completely enveloped by the Salish-Sidhe Council on all sides. Within the borders of the territory, Seattle expanded into and merged with several satellite cities, including Everett, Redmond, and Tacoma.

The city’s peculiar political position is the product of conflict avoidance, corporate convenience, and mutual benefit between the Salish-Sidhe Council, Tír Tairngire, and the UCAS. The city allows UCAS to maintain a presence on the west coast, gives corporations a port free of the NAN’s strict customs and environmental policies, supports Salish-Sidhe’s tourism industry, grants Tír Tairngire a trade window to the world without completely opening itself up, and gives all three nations around the Emerald City a way to exchange cultural and political dissidents. These competing interests, and the city’s premier placement near national borders by land and by sea, makes Seattle a haven for smugglers and shadowrunners.

The Emerald City is home to over 3,000,000 people in 2072. Seattle is home to a diverse and multifaceted culture, arising from the unique crossroads where people from the UCAS, NAN, Tír Tairngire, many Asian nations, and other international travelers and immigrants meet. Seattle’s original culture is strongly rooted in the old United States, but time, isolation from the main body of the UCAS, and elements from foreign cultures have led to many changes in Seattle’s social character. This social character is further granularized by the metroplex’s division into 1 consular and 11 municipal districts.

===District: Puyallup===

Puyallup is the second major barrens district in Seattle – bigger than Redmond in area, but with less than half the population density. Prior to the Ghost War of 2017, Puyallup was comprised of various Seattle suburbs grading into parks and fertile farmland. Then, in deterrence against the United States’ and Canada's genocidal Resolution Act, Daniel Howling Coyote and allied magicians detonated the Cascade Range in 2017. Puyallup took the collateral damage head-on, as pyroclastic flows and lahars swept down from Mt. Rainier into the southeast Seattle suburbs. The survivors of the eruption were soon joined by exiles fleeing the formation of the Salish-Sidhe Council and the other Native American Nations, unwilling to abide by NAN laws or believe assurances of peaceful co-existence*. Seattle and the megacorporations initially tried to rebuild the Puyallup region, some seeking to exploit lava fields for geothermal energy, but Crash 1.0 derailed those ambitions. Abandoned thereafter, what was left of Puyallup slid into becoming what is now known as a “barren.”

''>* In contrast to the default ''Shadowrun'' lore, in my version of things the NAN reasserted their ancestral rights to the land and attained self-determination without exiling every non-indigenous person. The goal of the NAN was to create a harmonious, culturally diverse, and sustainable society - results since 2018 have varied, but the fears of the refugees who flooded into Seattle never came to pass.

The district’s reputation as one giant refugee camp was cemented in 2039 under the human-supremacist regime of Governor Victor Allison, who rounded up all the city's meta-humans into a series of warehouses for “deportation.” The situation exploded when the Metroplex Guard began opening fire on the trapped masses, with the ensuing slaughter and desperate escape resulting in countless deaths. Protests and riots erupted in a "Night of Rage" as the escapees fled and new of the atrocity broke, some led by metahumans and their progressive human supporters, others led by fascists trying to “finish the job." A large number of metahuman refugees fled to Puyallup in the wake of the Night of Rage and never returned to their former homes. A second Puyallup revitalization effort was subsequently begun, and swiftly abandoned, in the 2040s.

In the three decades since, Mountain Rainer erupted again, several more humanitarian crises ensued, and the SINner population of Puyallup contracted towards Tacoma as the barrens expanded. Throughout it all, a steady stream of debris — both ash and people — trickles into the Puyallup Barrens.

Puyallup district is informally divided into further sub-districts or neighborhoods, most of which are not officially recognized by the metroplex government. The most important of these are:

* '''[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Ashbarrow Ashbarrow]:''' A neighborhood nestled within the rotting shell of abandoned urban sprawl, which experiences regular and severe ashfalls from Mt. Rainier. ''Your neighborhood''.
* '''Carbonado:''' A collection of mining and timber ghost towns re-inhabited by refugees and squatters. The majority demographic is orcs, many of whose families fled here after the Night of Rage, but outcasts of all sorts are welcome in Carbonado’s derelict company apartments and mines. The residents have attempted to salvage from, or even revive, several of the mines.
* '''Hell’s Kitchen:''' An almost uninhabited field of lava flows, geysers, and boiling mudpots left in the wake of Mt. Rainer’s 2017 eruptions. The landscape is largely barren, save for the occasional rusting hulk of a derelict geothermal plant. Tourists and mages on pilgrimage are about the only people who come here, and never for very long.
* '''Loveland:''' The largest sub-district of the Puyallup barrens, Loveland covers the northwest of the region. Loveland is the most densely populated and violent region of Puyallup, with the crime rate driven by competing efforts to control the local vice industry, black market, and smuggling routes. The primary players are the Shotozumi-rengo and the Commissione, but both sides mostly use lesser street gangs as pawns. Despite all that, Loveland actually has (spotty) matrix-linked municipal services, facilities, stores, and restaurants, unlike the rest of the barrens. As a result, it is a popular, if dangerous, destination for tourists looking to slum in the local nightlife.
* '''Petrowski Farms:''' The Petrowski family has stood tall against economic collapse, bandits, and volcanic eruptions for the entire duration of the Sixth World. They still proudly sell their organic produce at the Pike Place Farmer’s Market as they have for more than a century now. That said, some things have changed since the Fifth World, like the triple layered barbed wire and electric fences, or the armed guard towers, or the land spirits said to enrich and defend the place.
* '''Puyallup City:''' Sitting between Auburn and Tacoma, Puyallup City is the district’s seat of governance and where most “legitimate” businesses are located. The residents of this relatively middle class, clean, and safe neighborhood put much political effort into fighting perceptions that Puyallup is a lost cause. The dirty little secret of the “Light in the Ashes” is that Puyallup City is propped up almost entirely by organized crime. Administrations sink or swim (sometimes literally) by their ability to judge if the wind is blowing towards the mafia or the yakuza.
* '''Tarislar:''' The name of this neighborhood means “Remembrance” in Sperethiel. Home to a large population of elvish refugees displaced by the Night of Rage, as well as exiles and thrillseekers from Tír Tairngire, visitors to this neighborhood receive chilly receptions. Completely abandoned by the metroplex government, Tarislar residents only have access to goods and services they can create, gather, or steal. Security is mostly provided by the Laésa, a Tírian crime syndicate.

Rivers in the Barrens:BTL Warehouse Run

2022-10-07T08:00:50Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "==Executive Summary== Hit a Better-Than-Life chip warehouse being run by the Troll-Killers gang. Shut it down and grab any pay-data within. ==Objectives== * Shut down the Tr..."

==Executive Summary==
Hit a Better-Than-Life chip warehouse being run by the Troll-Killers gang. Shut it down and grab any pay-data within.

==Objectives==
* Shut down the Troll Killers' BTL operation in Ashbarrow.
* Retrieve pay-data from a server node supposedly housed within the warehouse.
* [Optional] Avoid any casualties, especially deaths.
* [Optional] Rough up or kill some Troll Killers, in memory of Peter Scrupp.

==Johnson or Smith==
This 'run is unusual in that two different clients both put a request in to hit the BTL stockpile.

The first, our "Mr. Johnson", is an '''orcish woman''' who contacted Tylr Mikell at the Working Class. Her client's identity is the usual: unknown. Mr. Johnson took pains to look like a local, including wearing a scarf and clothes that have seen better days, but her nails and skin were too clean and undamaged. That's usually a sign of a corpro in sheep's clothing, but she had a legitimate concern in her voice regarding the metahuman victims in the community, even to the most cynical ears listening in. So our best guess is probably metahuman policlub or non-profit, with token bleeding heart or good actor as runners up. This Johnson wants the pay data from the warehouse, and also offered a bonus to avoid carnage.

The second, our "Ms. Smith," is '''Johann Scrupp''', '''local salvage collector''', whose troll son got cooked by one of those bad BTLs. Ms. Smith wants vengeance for his son and to prevent any other parents from suffering his grief. He wants the operation shut down and the Troll Killers run out of town, minimum. Sounded like he'd appreciate some spilt blood or cracked skulls too. While Ms. Smith's the only one that approached Crazy Ivan with the money to pay for a shadowrun, he's far from the only person in Ashbarrow to lose a friend or family member to this poison.

==Opposing Forces==
The '''Troll Killers''' are racist human gangsters whose idea of a good time is collecting orc tusks and troll horns as trophies. Spawned in the 2030s as a way for the angry kids of Humanis Policlub members to take 'direct action' against the "metahuman threat," the Troll Killers persisted as their own entity after the Night of Rage. Completely devoted to sating their hatreds, the Troll Killers have never moved beyond serving as shock troopers and useful idiots for Humanis and other human supremacists. They don't control any meaningful part of the city's economy, shadow or otherwise, and were largely beaten back to their stronghold in Lake Washington after their prey organized and began to fight back.

Lately, however, the Troll Killers have increasingly been seen roaming beyond their turf, better equipped and better trained than usual...

==Background Info==
'''Better-Than-Life chips''' have long been a vice targeted towards the wage-slave lower class and the pariah SINless. After all, they're the ultimate form of escapism from the dreadful conditions most people live in. That said, the neo-anarchists in the Ashbarrow understand that BTL use is a systematic issue, not a personal moral failure, and the community generally only intervenes when someone's habit is harming themself or others. Often this worked, sometimes it didn't; then, four months ago, people started dying.

Horizon's various networks and other corporate news will often blast wage-slaves with scare stories about people dying from BTLs. "This is your brain on BTLs," B.A.R.E., you know the type. When in truth, BTL deaths are usually from something secondary - forgetting to care for oneself because you're not thirsty or hurting in the BTL, running in front of a car while high, that sort of thing. Overdoses of a type can happen with extremely persistent use, but they're typically much more gradual than overdosing on actual drugs, often taking the form of early-onset dementia. What began to happen in Ashbarrow was different. BTL users screaming in agony, convulsing, dying of cranial hemorrhage... The deaths were acute, awful, and occurred even in first time users. The conclusion of the Black Cross, Black Crescent, and local militias is that '''these chips are adulterated''', and the contents as described by survivors point toward malice rather than incompetence on behalf of the creators and distributors.

A conclusion supported when the Troll Killers, a human supremacist gang that revels in murdering "trogs" (a slur for orcs and trolls), were sighted distributing the tainted chips to BTL pushers in Ashbarrow. Further legwork traced the Troll Killers' operation back to '''a supposedly abandoned warehouse on the corner of Calistoga and Emmons''', facing the Puyallup River. More than a stockhouse, stakeouts and matrix traffic suggests some of the chips are actively being burnt on-site. Entrances to the warehouse are guarded at all hours by 3-5 belligerent and well armed gangers. Shipments in come by powerboat, while exports go directly or indirectly to unaffiliated small-time dealers - especially those that sell to blocks with high metahuman populations. Since the deadly effects have become known, the Troll Killers are beginning to change tactics, surreptitiously spiking shipments of normal BTLs with their poisoned chips and selling to dealers while hiding their colors.

==Heads-Up==
* The Troll Killers are normally a third-rate gang of jumped up racist manchildren. Operating a BTL ring is outside their usual capabilities, let alone modus operandi. Something stinks here, be careful.
* The BTLs in question are direct-input, physical medium, dream- and tripchip variants. They're often falsely labeled as popular strains. Survivors describe the chips as a nightmarish and entangled cross between sheer terror and a snuff film from the victim's POV. In addition to the traumatic contents, the chips rapidly cause fatal brain damage if not shut off.
* The Troll Killers have already violently repelled strikes from local antifas and militias. Don't let the light security detail outside fool you - they've got major reinforcements inside.
* The two clients' preferences on how to handle this op are at odds. Use your own discretion and follow your conscience. I certainly won't weep over a few dead fash. - Ivan
** Mr. Johnson is working on the bigger picture here - following that pay-data to the root and dragging it into the light. If you splatter the data with blood, it'll be a lot harder to use outside the shadows. - Tylr

Rivers in the Barrens:Main Page

2022-10-03T19:15:40Z

Rifleavenger:

''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality — the city, town, and village — where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy."'' - Murray Bookchin

==Characters==
[[Sunflower]]

[[Ushitara]]

* Players - please add your characters, and pages for them, here!

==Contacts==
'''Club Bouncer [Sunflower]:''' Owns a customized Evo Falcon off-road bike, which they occasionally let Sunflower borrow ("..., but I'm charging you for every new dent I find in her, understand?")

'''Comparative Religions Grad Student [Sunflower]:'''

'''Fixer [Sunflower]:'''

'''"Crazy Ivan" [Ushitara]:''' Operator of The Wall, a dive bar in northeastern Ashbarrow, who claims to be a retired member of Black Star. This grizzled anarcho-syndicalist dwarven fixer is not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?" Behind the bar's façade, Ivan moves civilian goods, information, and shadowrunner/revolutionary essentials through Ashbarrow and beyond; the notion that he's "retired" is probably more unbelievable than the claims of being ex-Black Star. Ivan has a complicated relationship with Tylr Mikell, owner of the Working Class - Ashbarrow's *other* leftist bar.

'''Victor Nguyen [Ushitara]:''' A "fisherman" who technically lives up in Everett, but frequently comes down the Puyallup River into Ashbarrow. Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

==Important People==
'''Alarota (He/Him?):''' The founder and presumed leader of Icarus. Doesn't leave the group's headquarters, if he's even still alive. Witnesses consistently describe him as a thin, Latino, human male with dark brown skin and long, greying, black hair. Presumed to be awakened due to the deeds ascribed to him, though separating truth from urban legend is difficult.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana (She/Her):''' A humanitarian street doc in Ashbarrow, and an open member of the Anarchist Black Crescent (essentially a decentralized, anarchist version of Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Sultana runs the only medical clinic in Ashbarrow worthy of the name, treating those most in need for free.

'''Duane Petrowski (He/Him):''' Patriarch of the Petrowski family, whose farming complex in Puyallup district has defied volcanos, economic collapses, and hordes of go-gangers. Employment on Petrowski's farm is one of the few legitimate paying jobs available to inhabitants of the Puyallup barrens, but his family isn't a charity - they sell their crop for profit.

'''Kenneth Brackhaven (He/Him):''' Governor of Seattle Territory, Brackhaven is a member of the Archconservative Party. Brackhaven's policy focus seems to be advancing his barely veiled human (and white) supremacist agenda. Pounding the old "law and order" canard, many fear Brackhaven will repeat the bad old days of the late 30s under Governor Allison. Brackhaven's economic platform is blatantly pro-corp, with tax cuts and "business friendly" policies exchanged for the assistance of corporate security in the "war on crime."

'''Lon Campa (He/Him):''' Mayor of Puyallup district, and the city's only orcish mayor. Mayor Campa gets his strongest support from Carbonado, but works hard for all inhabitants of the district. Lon is also the first Puyallup mayor in years who isn't a puppet for organized crime, possibly explaining the two attempts on his life since he was elected.

'''Tylr Mikell (They/Them):''' Owner of the Working Class restaurant in "The Weeds" between Puyallup City and Ashbarrow. A democratic socialist, Tylr alternatively cooperates or clashes with the more anarchist elements in the Ashbarrow, while developing strong connections with mainstream center-left Seattle politicians and worker's unions. Their strained relationship with "Crazy Ivan" is renowned in Ashbarrow and the subject of much idle speculation.

'''Vök Rútsson (She/Her):''' Local head of the Rútsson family, who operate the unauthorized Landsblood Artery power plant in Hell's Kitchen. Vök handles the business and community side of the Artery's operations, leaving engineering and maintenance to her sister Voney, Voney's husband August Kresinger, and their employees. Widely believed to have connections to the Stonecutter's Guild.

==Major Concepts==
'''The Blights:''' Local name applied to the sudden slew of widescale problems facing Ashbarrow since early 2072.
* Concrete and brick edifices fracture and crumble as though suddenly exposed to a fierce freeze-thaw or unfelt earthquake. This first type of degradation heavily stems from existing structural weaknesses, but even slight dent and cracks suddenly expand over the course of days to hours rather than months to years.
* Metal tarnishes and rusts at an enhanced pace. Especially worrisome accounts claim even metals that are painted, kept in dry areas, or oiled can begin to oxidize.
* Weeds, ivies, moss, and other encrusting plants grow quickly and spread aggressively - akin to bamboo or kudzu. Anyone with botanical knowledge can tell this isn't entirely natural.
* A new respiratory illness that causes patients to cough up thickening, rust-colored phlegm. Uncreatively called "Rust Throat" by Ashbarrow inhabitants, this illness results in progressive inflammation of the throat and eventually the lungs. Rust Throat is particularly dangerous when combined with inhaling volcanic ash. There are untested claims the disease also causes behavioral alterations.

==Setting Information==
'''Year:''' Summer 2072

===Country: UCAS (Seattle Territory)===

The United American and Canadian States is the remnants of the United States and Canada after the Ghost War, the secession of the California Free State, the Confederation of American States, Quebec, and Florida joining the Caribbean League.

While still one of the wealthiest nations in the world on paper and a nuclear power, the UCAS is by and large a hollowed-out shell propped up by the megacorporations. The megacorporations find the continued existence of the UCAS convenient, because they rely on the economic scaffolding and laws laid out by the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

===City: Seattle===

Seattle is a territory of the United American and Canadian States, and the nation’s only remaining port on the west coast of North America. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe for at least 10000 years before being colonized by Europeans in 1851. The city was retained by the USA, soon-to-be UCAS, following the Treaty of Denver in 2018. Since then, Seattle has existed as UCAS territory while completely enveloped by the Salish-Sidhe Council on all sides. Within the borders of the territory, Seattle expanded into and merged with several satellite cities, including Everett, Redmond, and Tacoma.

The city’s peculiar political position is the product of conflict avoidance, corporate convenience, and mutual benefit between the Salish-Sidhe Council, Tír Tairngire, and the UCAS. The city allows UCAS to maintain a presence on the west coast, gives corporations a port free of the NAN’s strict customs and environmental policies, supports Salish-Sidhe’s tourism industry, grants Tír Tairngire a trade window to the world without completely opening itself up, and gives all three nations around the Emerald City a way to exchange cultural and political dissidents. These competing interests, and the city’s premier placement near national borders by land and by sea, makes Seattle a haven for smugglers and shadowrunners.

The Emerald City is home to over 3,000,000 people in 2072. Seattle is home to a diverse and multifaceted culture, arising from the unique crossroads where people from the UCAS, NAN, Tír Tairngire, many Asian nations, and other international travelers and immigrants meet. Seattle’s original culture is strongly rooted in the old United States, but time, isolation from the main body of the UCAS, and elements from foreign cultures have led to many changes in Seattle’s social character. This social character is further granularized by the metroplex’s division into 1 consular and 11 municipal districts.

===District: Puyallup===

Puyallup is the second major barrens district in Seattle – bigger than Redmond in area, but with less than half the population density. Prior to the Ghost War of 2017, Puyallup was comprised of various Seattle suburbs grading into parks and fertile farmland. Then, in deterrence against the United States’ and Canada's genocidal Resolution Act, Daniel Howling Coyote and allied magicians detonated the Cascade Range in 2017. Puyallup took the collateral damage head-on, as pyroclastic flows and lahars swept down from Mt. Rainier into the southeast Seattle suburbs. The survivors of the eruption were soon joined by exiles fleeing the formation of the Salish-Sidhe Council and the other Native American Nations, unwilling to abide by NAN laws or believe assurances of peaceful co-existence*. Seattle and the megacorporations initially tried to rebuild the Puyallup region, some seeking to exploit lava fields for geothermal energy, but Crash 1.0 derailed those ambitions. Abandoned thereafter, what was left of Puyallup slid into becoming what is now known as a “barren.”

''>* In contrast to the default ''Shadowrun'' lore, in my version of things the NAN reasserted their ancestral rights to the land and attained self-determination without exiling every non-indigenous person. The goal of the NAN was to create a harmonious, culturally diverse, and sustainable society - results since 2018 have varied, but the fears of the refugees who flooded into Seattle never came to pass.

The district’s reputation as one giant refugee camp was cemented in 2039 under the human-supremacist regime of Governor Victor Allison, who rounded up all the city's meta-humans into a series of warehouses for “deportation.” The situation exploded when the Metroplex Guard began opening fire on the trapped masses, with the ensuing slaughter and desperate escape resulting in countless deaths. Protests and riots erupted in a "Night of Rage" as the escapees fled and new of the atrocity broke, some led by metahumans and their progressive human supporters, others led by fascists trying to “finish the job." A large number of metahuman refugees fled to Puyallup in the wake of the Night of Rage and never returned to their former homes. A second Puyallup revitalization effort was subsequently begun, and swiftly abandoned, in the 2040s.

In the three decades since, Mountain Rainer erupted again, several more humanitarian crises ensued, and the SINner population of Puyallup contracted towards Tacoma as the barrens expanded. Throughout it all, a steady stream of debris — both ash and people — trickles into the Puyallup Barrens.

Puyallup district is informally divided into further sub-districts or neighborhoods, most of which are not officially recognized by the metroplex government. The most important of these are:

* '''[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Ashbarrow Ashbarrow]:''' A neighborhood nestled within the rotting shell of abandoned urban sprawl, which experiences regular and severe ashfalls from Mt. Rainier. ''Your neighborhood''.
* '''Carbonado:''' A collection of mining and timber ghost towns re-inhabited by refugees and squatters. The majority demographic is orcs, many of whose families fled here after the Night of Rage, but outcasts of all sorts are welcome in Carbonado’s derelict company apartments and mines. The residents have attempted to salvage from, or even revive, several of the mines.
* '''Hell’s Kitchen:''' An almost uninhabited field of lava flows, geysers, and boiling mudpots left in the wake of Mt. Rainer’s 2017 eruptions. The landscape is largely barren, save for the occasional rusting hulk of a derelict geothermal plant. Tourists and mages on pilgrimage are about the only people who come here, and never for very long.
* '''Loveland:''' The largest sub-district of the Puyallup barrens, Loveland covers the northwest of the region. Loveland is the most densely populated and violent region of Puyallup, with the crime rate driven by competing efforts to control the local vice industry, black market, and smuggling routes. The primary players are the Shotozumi-rengo and the Commissione, but both sides mostly use lesser street gangs as pawns. Despite all that, Loveland actually has (spotty) matrix-linked municipal services, facilities, stores, and restaurants, unlike the rest of the barrens. As a result, it is a popular, if dangerous, destination for tourists looking to slum in the local nightlife.
* '''Petrowski Farms:''' The Petrowski family has stood tall against economic collapse, bandits, and volcanic eruptions for the entire duration of the Sixth World. They still proudly sell their organic produce at the Pike Place Farmer’s Market as they have for more than a century now. That said, some things have changed since the Fifth World, like the triple layered barbed wire and electric fences, or the armed guard towers, or the land spirits said to enrich and defend the place.
* '''Puyallup City:''' Sitting between Auburn and Tacoma, Puyallup City is the district’s seat of governance and where most “legitimate” businesses are located. The residents of this relatively middle class, clean, and safe neighborhood put much political effort into fighting perceptions that Puyallup is a lost cause. The dirty little secret of the “Light in the Ashes” is that Puyallup City is propped up almost entirely by organized crime. Administrations sink or swim (sometimes literally) by their ability to judge if the wind is blowing towards the mafia or the yakuza.
* '''Tarislar:''' The name of this neighborhood means “Remembrance” in Sperethiel. Home to a large population of elvish refugees displaced by the Night of Rage, as well as exiles and thrillseekers from Tír Tairngire, visitors to this neighborhood receive chilly receptions. Completely abandoned by the metroplex government, Tarislar residents only have access to goods and services they can create, gather, or steal. Security is mostly provided by the Laésa, a Tírian crime syndicate.

Rivers in the Barrens:Main Page

2022-10-03T19:12:22Z

Rifleavenger:

''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality — the city, town, and village — where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy."'' - Murray Bookchin

==Characters==
[[Sunflower]]

* Players - please add your characters, and pages for them, here!

==Contacts==
'''Club Bouncer [Sunflower]:''' Owns a customized Evo Falcon off-road bike, which they occasionally let Sunflower borrow ("..., but I'm charging you for every new dent I find in her, understand?")

'''Comparative Religions Grad Student [Sunflower]:'''

'''Fixer [Sunflower]:'''

'''"Crazy Ivan" [Ushitara]:''' Operator of The Wall, a dive bar in northeastern Ashbarrow, who claims to be a retired member of Black Star. This grizzled anarcho-syndicalist dwarven fixer is not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?" Behind the bar's façade, Ivan moves civilian goods, information, and shadowrunner/revolutionary essentials through Ashbarrow and beyond; the notion that he's "retired" is probably more unbelievable than the claims of being ex-Black Star. Ivan has a complicated relationship with Tylr Mikell, owner of the Working Class - Ashbarrow's *other* leftist bar.

'''Victor Nguyen [Ushitara]:''' A "fisherman" who technically lives up in Everett, but frequently comes down the Puyallup River into Ashbarrow. Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

==Important People==
'''Alarota (He/Him?):''' The founder and presumed leader of Icarus. Doesn't leave the group's headquarters, if he's even still alive. Witnesses consistently describe him as a thin, Latino, human male with dark brown skin and long, greying, black hair. Presumed to be awakened due to the deeds ascribed to him, though separating truth from urban legend is difficult.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana (She/Her):''' A humanitarian street doc in Ashbarrow, and an open member of the Anarchist Black Crescent (essentially a decentralized, anarchist version of Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Sultana runs the only medical clinic in Ashbarrow worthy of the name, treating those most in need for free.

'''Duane Petrowski (He/Him):''' Patriarch of the Petrowski family, whose farming complex in Puyallup district has defied volcanos, economic collapses, and hordes of go-gangers. Employment on Petrowski's farm is one of the few legitimate paying jobs available to inhabitants of the Puyallup barrens, but his family isn't a charity - they sell their crop for profit.

'''Kenneth Brackhaven (He/Him):''' Governor of Seattle Territory, Brackhaven is a member of the Archconservative Party. Brackhaven's policy focus seems to be advancing his barely veiled human (and white) supremacist agenda. Pounding the old "law and order" canard, many fear Brackhaven will repeat the bad old days of the late 30s under Governor Allison. Brackhaven's economic platform is blatantly pro-corp, with tax cuts and "business friendly" policies exchanged for the assistance of corporate security in the "war on crime."

'''Lon Campa (He/Him):''' Mayor of Puyallup district, and the city's only orcish mayor. Mayor Campa gets his strongest support from Carbonado, but works hard for all inhabitants of the district. Lon is also the first Puyallup mayor in years who isn't a puppet for organized crime, possibly explaining the two attempts on his life since he was elected.

'''Tylr Mikell (They/Them):''' Owner of the Working Class restaurant in "The Weeds" between Puyallup City and Ashbarrow. A democratic socialist, Tylr alternatively cooperates or clashes with the more anarchist elements in the Ashbarrow, while developing strong connections with mainstream center-left Seattle politicians and worker's unions. Their strained relationship with "Crazy Ivan" is renowned in Ashbarrow and the subject of much idle speculation.

'''Vök Rútsson (She/Her):''' Local head of the Rútsson family, who operate the unauthorized Landsblood Artery power plant in Hell's Kitchen. Vök handles the business and community side of the Artery's operations, leaving engineering and maintenance to her sister Voney, Voney's husband August Kresinger, and their employees. Widely believed to have connections to the Stonecutter's Guild.

==Major Concepts==
'''The Blights:''' Local name applied to the sudden slew of widescale problems facing Ashbarrow since early 2072.
* Concrete and brick edifices fracture and crumble as though suddenly exposed to a fierce freeze-thaw or unfelt earthquake. This first type of degradation heavily stems from existing structural weaknesses, but even slight dent and cracks suddenly expand over the course of days to hours rather than months to years.
* Metal tarnishes and rusts at an enhanced pace. Especially worrisome accounts claim even metals that are painted, kept in dry areas, or oiled can begin to oxidize.
* Weeds, ivies, moss, and other encrusting plants grow quickly and spread aggressively - akin to bamboo or kudzu. Anyone with botanical knowledge can tell this isn't entirely natural.
* A new respiratory illness that causes patients to cough up thickening, rust-colored phlegm. Uncreatively called "Rust Throat" by Ashbarrow inhabitants, this illness results in progressive inflammation of the throat and eventually the lungs. Rust Throat is particularly dangerous when combined with inhaling volcanic ash. There are untested claims the disease also causes behavioral alterations.

==Setting Information==
'''Year:''' Summer 2072

===Country: UCAS (Seattle Territory)===

The United American and Canadian States is the remnants of the United States and Canada after the Ghost War, the secession of the California Free State, the Confederation of American States, Quebec, and Florida joining the Caribbean League.

While still one of the wealthiest nations in the world on paper and a nuclear power, the UCAS is by and large a hollowed-out shell propped up by the megacorporations. The megacorporations find the continued existence of the UCAS convenient, because they rely on the economic scaffolding and laws laid out by the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

===City: Seattle===

Seattle is a territory of the United American and Canadian States, and the nation’s only remaining port on the west coast of North America. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe for at least 10000 years before being colonized by Europeans in 1851. The city was retained by the USA, soon-to-be UCAS, following the Treaty of Denver in 2018. Since then, Seattle has existed as UCAS territory while completely enveloped by the Salish-Sidhe Council on all sides. Within the borders of the territory, Seattle expanded into and merged with several satellite cities, including Everett, Redmond, and Tacoma.

The city’s peculiar political position is the product of conflict avoidance, corporate convenience, and mutual benefit between the Salish-Sidhe Council, Tír Tairngire, and the UCAS. The city allows UCAS to maintain a presence on the west coast, gives corporations a port free of the NAN’s strict customs and environmental policies, supports Salish-Sidhe’s tourism industry, grants Tír Tairngire a trade window to the world without completely opening itself up, and gives all three nations around the Emerald City a way to exchange cultural and political dissidents. These competing interests, and the city’s premier placement near national borders by land and by sea, makes Seattle a haven for smugglers and shadowrunners.

The Emerald City is home to over 3,000,000 people in 2072. Seattle is home to a diverse and multifaceted culture, arising from the unique crossroads where people from the UCAS, NAN, Tír Tairngire, many Asian nations, and other international travelers and immigrants meet. Seattle’s original culture is strongly rooted in the old United States, but time, isolation from the main body of the UCAS, and elements from foreign cultures have led to many changes in Seattle’s social character. This social character is further granularized by the metroplex’s division into 1 consular and 11 municipal districts.

===District: Puyallup===

Puyallup is the second major barrens district in Seattle – bigger than Redmond in area, but with less than half the population density. Prior to the Ghost War of 2017, Puyallup was comprised of various Seattle suburbs grading into parks and fertile farmland. Then, in deterrence against the United States’ and Canada's genocidal Resolution Act, Daniel Howling Coyote and allied magicians detonated the Cascade Range in 2017. Puyallup took the collateral damage head-on, as pyroclastic flows and lahars swept down from Mt. Rainier into the southeast Seattle suburbs. The survivors of the eruption were soon joined by exiles fleeing the formation of the Salish-Sidhe Council and the other Native American Nations, unwilling to abide by NAN laws or believe assurances of peaceful co-existence*. Seattle and the megacorporations initially tried to rebuild the Puyallup region, some seeking to exploit lava fields for geothermal energy, but Crash 1.0 derailed those ambitions. Abandoned thereafter, what was left of Puyallup slid into becoming what is now known as a “barren.”

''>* In contrast to the default ''Shadowrun'' lore, in my version of things the NAN reasserted their ancestral rights to the land and attained self-determination without exiling every non-indigenous person. The goal of the NAN was to create a harmonious, culturally diverse, and sustainable society - results since 2018 have varied, but the fears of the refugees who flooded into Seattle never came to pass.

The district’s reputation as one giant refugee camp was cemented in 2039 under the human-supremacist regime of Governor Victor Allison, who rounded up all the city's meta-humans into a series of warehouses for “deportation.” The situation exploded when the Metroplex Guard began opening fire on the trapped masses, with the ensuing slaughter and desperate escape resulting in countless deaths. Protests and riots erupted in a "Night of Rage" as the escapees fled and new of the atrocity broke, some led by metahumans and their progressive human supporters, others led by fascists trying to “finish the job." A large number of metahuman refugees fled to Puyallup in the wake of the Night of Rage and never returned to their former homes. A second Puyallup revitalization effort was subsequently begun, and swiftly abandoned, in the 2040s.

In the three decades since, Mountain Rainer erupted again, several more humanitarian crises ensued, and the SINner population of Puyallup contracted towards Tacoma as the barrens expanded. Throughout it all, a steady stream of debris — both ash and people — trickles into the Puyallup Barrens.

Puyallup district is informally divided into further sub-districts or neighborhoods, most of which are not officially recognized by the metroplex government. The most important of these are:

* '''[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Ashbarrow Ashbarrow]:''' A neighborhood nestled within the rotting shell of abandoned urban sprawl, which experiences regular and severe ashfalls from Mt. Rainier. ''Your neighborhood''.
* '''Carbonado:''' A collection of mining and timber ghost towns re-inhabited by refugees and squatters. The majority demographic is orcs, many of whose families fled here after the Night of Rage, but outcasts of all sorts are welcome in Carbonado’s derelict company apartments and mines. The residents have attempted to salvage from, or even revive, several of the mines.
* '''Hell’s Kitchen:''' An almost uninhabited field of lava flows, geysers, and boiling mudpots left in the wake of Mt. Rainer’s 2017 eruptions. The landscape is largely barren, save for the occasional rusting hulk of a derelict geothermal plant. Tourists and mages on pilgrimage are about the only people who come here, and never for very long.
* '''Loveland:''' The largest sub-district of the Puyallup barrens, Loveland covers the northwest of the region. Loveland is the most densely populated and violent region of Puyallup, with the crime rate driven by competing efforts to control the local vice industry, black market, and smuggling routes. The primary players are the Shotozumi-rengo and the Commissione, but both sides mostly use lesser street gangs as pawns. Despite all that, Loveland actually has (spotty) matrix-linked municipal services, facilities, stores, and restaurants, unlike the rest of the barrens. As a result, it is a popular, if dangerous, destination for tourists looking to slum in the local nightlife.
* '''Petrowski Farms:''' The Petrowski family has stood tall against economic collapse, bandits, and volcanic eruptions for the entire duration of the Sixth World. They still proudly sell their organic produce at the Pike Place Farmer’s Market as they have for more than a century now. That said, some things have changed since the Fifth World, like the triple layered barbed wire and electric fences, or the armed guard towers, or the land spirits said to enrich and defend the place.
* '''Puyallup City:''' Sitting between Auburn and Tacoma, Puyallup City is the district’s seat of governance and where most “legitimate” businesses are located. The residents of this relatively middle class, clean, and safe neighborhood put much political effort into fighting perceptions that Puyallup is a lost cause. The dirty little secret of the “Light in the Ashes” is that Puyallup City is propped up almost entirely by organized crime. Administrations sink or swim (sometimes literally) by their ability to judge if the wind is blowing towards the mafia or the yakuza.
* '''Tarislar:''' The name of this neighborhood means “Remembrance” in Sperethiel. Home to a large population of elvish refugees displaced by the Night of Rage, as well as exiles and thrillseekers from Tír Tairngire, visitors to this neighborhood receive chilly receptions. Completely abandoned by the metroplex government, Tarislar residents only have access to goods and services they can create, gather, or steal. Security is mostly provided by the Laésa, a Tírian crime syndicate.

Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

2022-10-03T19:04:40Z

Rifleavenger:

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

==Notable Places==
Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the '''Landsblood Artery''', a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

'''The Wall''' is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-syndicalist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The '''Working Class''' is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House''' is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

'''Three Block Park''' is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

'''The Cinders''' are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

''[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]''

==Notable Groups==
===Icarus===
Icarus are a faction of green syndicalists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization mostly focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.

In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

2022-10-03T19:01:26Z

Rifleavenger:

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

==Notable Places==
Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the '''Landsblood Artery''', a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

'''The Wall''' is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-syndicalist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The '''Working Class''' is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House''' is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

'''Three Block Park''' is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

'''The Cinders''' are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

''[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]''

==Notable Groups==
===Icarus===
Icarus are a faction of green syndicalists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization most focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.
In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

Rivers in the Barrens:Main Page

2022-10-03T03:48:28Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "Shadowrun: Rivers in the Barrens ''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality..."

[[Shadowrun: Rivers in the Barrens]]
''"The overriding problem is to change the structure of society so that people gain power. The best arena to do that is the municipality — the city, town, and village — where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy."'' - Murray Bookchin

==Characters==
[[Sunflower]]

* Players - please add your characters, and pages for them, here!

==Contacts==
'''Club Bouncer [Sunflower]:''' Owns a customized Evo Falcon off-road bike, which they occasionally let Sunflower borrow ("..., but I'm charging you for every new dent I find in her, understand?")

'''Comparative Religions Grad Student [Sunflower]:'''

'''Fixer [Sunflower]:'''

'''"Crazy Ivan" [Ushitara]:''' Operator of The Wall, a dive bar in northeastern Ashbarrow, who claims to be a retired member of Black Star. This grizzled anarcho-syndicalist dwarven fixer is not at all Russian, but he does speak the language and put on the accent, because "you would not be buyink Kalashnikov from Canadian, da?" Behind the bar's façade, Ivan moves civilian goods, information, and shadowrunner/revolutionary essentials through Ashbarrow and beyond; the notion that he's "retired" is probably more unbelievable than the claims of being ex-Black Star. Ivan has a complicated relationship with Tylr Mikell, owner of the Working Class - Ashbarrow's *other* leftist bar.

'''Victor Nguyen [Ushitara]:''' A "fisherman" who technically lives up in Everett, but frequently comes down the Puyallup River into Ashbarrow. Vic actually does fish, but he's *also* a smuggler and small-time coastal pirate, of the strictly inglorious variety. He's usually full of tales from friends in low places, even when the catch of the day isn't a net full of grenades.

==Important People==
'''Alarota:''' The founder and presumed leader of Icarus. Doesn't leave the group's headquarters, if he's even still alive. Witnesses consistently describe him as a thin, Latino, human male with dark brown skin and long, greying, black hair. Presumed to be awakened due to the deeds ascribed to him, though separating truth from urban legend is difficult.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana:''' A humanitarian street doc in Ashbarrow, and an open member of the Anarchist Black Crescent (essentially a decentralized, anarchist version of Doctors Without Borders). Dr. Sultana runs the only medical clinic in Ashbarrow worthy of the name, treating those most in need for free.

'''Duane Petrowski:''' Patriarch of the Petrowski family, whose farming complex in Puyallup district has defied volcanos, economic collapses, and hordes of go-gangers. Employment on Petrowski's farm is one of the few legitimate paying jobs available to inhabitants of the Puyallup barrens, but his family isn't a charity - they sell their crop for profit.

'''Kenneth Brackhaven:''' Governor of Seattle Territory, Brackhaven is a member of the Archconservative Party. Brackhaven's policy focus seems to be advancing his barely veiled human (and white) supremacist agenda. Pounding the old "law and order" canard, many fear Brackhaven will repeat the bad old days of the late 30s under Governor Allison. Brackhaven's economic platform is blatantly pro-corp, with tax cuts and "business friendly" policies exchanged for the assistance of corporate security in the "war on crime."

'''Lon Campa:''' Mayor of Puyallup district, and the city's only orcish mayor. Mayor Campa gets his strongest support from Carbonado, but works hard for all inhabitants of the district. Lon is also the first Puyallup mayor in years who isn't a puppet for organized crime, possibly explaining the two attempts on his life since he was elected.

'''Vök Rútsson:''' Local head of the Rútsson family, who operate the unauthorized Landsblood Artery power plant in Hell's Kitchen. Vök handles the business and community side of the Artery's operations, leaving engineering and maintenance to her sister Voney, Voney's husband August Kresinger, and their employees. Widely believed to have connections to the Stonecutter's Guild.

==Major Concepts==
'''The Blights:''' Local name applied to the sudden slew of widescale problems facing Ashbarrow.
* Concrete and brick edifices fracture and crumble as though suddenly exposed to a fierce freeze-thaw or unfelt earthquake. This first type of degradation heavily stems from existing structural weaknesses, but even slight dent and cracks suddenly expand over the course of days to hours rather than months to years.
* Metal tarnishes and rusts at an enhanced pace. Especially worrisome accounts claim even metals that are painted, kept in dry areas, or oiled can begin to oxidize.
* Weeds, ivies, moss, and other encrusting plants grow quickly and spread aggressively - akin to bamboo or kudzu. Anyone with botanical knowledge can tell this isn't entirely natural.
* A new respiratory illness that causes patients to cough up thickening, rust-colored phlegm. Uncreatively called "Rust Throat" by Ashbarrow inhabitants, this illness results in progressive inflammation of the throat and eventually the lungs. Rust Throat is particularly dangerous when combined with inhaling volcanic ash. There are untested claims the disease also causes behavioral alterations.

==Setting Information==
'''Year:''' Summer 2072

===Country: UCAS (Seattle Territory)===

The United American and Canadian States is the remnants of the United States and Canada after the Ghost War, the secession of the California Free State and the Confederation of American States, and Florida joining the Caribbean League.

While still one of the wealthiest nations in the world on paper and a nuclear power, the UCAS is by and large a hollowed-out shell propped up by the megacorporations. The megacorporations find the continued existence of the UCAS convenient, because they rely on the economic scaffolding and laws laid out by the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

===City: Seattle===

Seattle is a territory of the United American and Canadian States, and the nation’s only remaining port on the west coast of North America. The Seattle area was inhabited by Native Americans of the Duwamish tribe for at least 10000 years before being colonized by Europeans in 1851. The city was retained by the USA, soon-to-be UCAS, following the Treaty of Denver in 2018. Since then, Seattle has existed as UCAS territory while completely enveloped by the Salish-Sidhe Council on all sides. Within the borders of the territory, Seattle expanded into and merged with several satellite cities, including Everett, Redmond, and Tacoma.

The city’s peculiar political position is the product of conflict avoidance, corporate convenience, and mutual benefit between the Salish-Sidhe Council, Tír Tairngire, and the UCAS. The city allows UCAS to maintain a presence on the west coast, gives corporations a port free of the NAN’s strict customs and environmental policies, supports Salish-Sidhe’s tourism industry, grants Tír Tairngire a trade window to the world without completely opening itself up, and gives all three nations around the Emerald City a way to exchange cultural and political dissidents. These competing interests, and the city’s premier placement near national borders by land and by sea, makes Seattle a haven for smugglers and shadowrunners.

The Emerald City is home to over 3,000,000 people in 2072. Seattle is home to a diverse and multifaceted culture, arising from the unique crossroads where people from the UCAS, NAN, Tír Tairngire, many Asian nations, and other international travelers and immigrants meet. Seattle’s original culture is strongly rooted in the old United States, but time, isolation from the main body of the UCAS, and elements from foreign cultures have led to many changes in Seattle’s social character. This social character is further granularized by the metroplex’s division into 1 consular and 11 municipal districts.

===District: Puyallup===

Puyallup is the second major barrens district in Seattle – bigger than Redmond in area, but with less than half the population density. Prior to the Ghost War of 2017, Puyallup was comprised of various Seattle suburbs grading into parks and fertile farmland. Then, in deterrence against the United States’ and Canada's genocidal Resolution Act, Daniel Howling Coyote and allied magicians detonated the Cascade Range in 2017. Puyallup took the collateral damage head-on, as pyroclastic flows and lahars swept down from Mt. Rainier into the southeast Seattle suburbs. The survivors of the eruption were soon joined by exiles fleeing the formation of the Salish-Sidhe Council and the other Native American Nations, unwilling to abide by NAN laws or believe assurances of peaceful co-existence*. Seattle and the megacorporations initially tried to rebuild the Puyallup region, some seeking to exploit lava fields for geothermal energy, but Crash 1.0 derailed those ambitions. Abandoned thereafter, what was left of Puyallup slid into becoming what is now known as a “barren.”

''>* In contrast to the default ''Shadowrun'' lore, in my version of things the NAN reasserted their ancestral rights to the land and attained self-determination without exiling every non-indigenous person. The goal of the NAN was to create a harmonious, culturally diverse, and sustainable society - results since 2018 have varied, but the fears of the refugees who flooded into Seattle never came to pass.

The district’s reputation as one giant refugee camp was cemented in 2039 under the human-supremacist regime of Governor Victor Allison, who rounded up all the city's meta-humans into a series of warehouses for “deportation.” The situation exploded when the Metroplex Guard began opening fire on the trapped masses, with the ensuing slaughter and desperate escape resulting in countless deaths. Protests and riots erupted in a "Night of Rage" as the escapees fled and new of the atrocity broke, some led by metahumans and their progressive human supporters, others led by fascists trying to “finish the job." A large number of metahuman refugees fled to Puyallup in the wake of the Night of Rage and never returned to their former homes. A second Puyallup revitalization effort was subsequently begun, and swiftly abandoned, in the 2040s.

In the three decades since, Mountain Rainer erupted again, several more humanitarian crises ensued, and the SINner population of Puyallup contracted towards Tacoma as the barrens expanded. Throughout it all, a steady stream of debris — both ash and people — trickles into the Puyallup Barrens.

Puyallup district is informally divided into further sub-districts or neighborhoods, most of which are not officially recognized by the metroplex government. The most important of these are:

* '''[https://wiki.rpg.net/index.php?title=Rivers_in_the_Barrens:Ashbarrow Ashbarrow]:''' A neighborhood nestled within the rotting shell of abandoned urban sprawl, which experiences regular and severe ashfalls from Mt. Rainier. ''Your neighborhood''.
* '''Carbonado:''' A collection of mining and timber ghost towns re-inhabited by refugees and squatters. The majority demographic is orcs, many of whose families fled here after the Night of Rage, but outcasts of all sorts are welcome in Carbonado’s derelict company apartments and mines. The residents have attempted to salvage from, or even revive, several of the mines.
* '''Hell’s Kitchen:''' An almost uninhabited field of lava flows, geysers, and boiling mudpots left in the wake of Mt. Rainer’s 2017 eruptions. The landscape is largely barren, save for the occasional rusting hulk of a derelict geothermal plant. Tourists and mages on pilgrimage are about the only people who come here, and never for very long.
* '''Loveland:''' The largest sub-district of the Puyallup barrens, Loveland covers the northwest of the region. Loveland is the most densely populated and violent region of Puyallup, with the crime rate driven by competing efforts to control the local vice industry, black market, and smuggling routes. The primary players are the Shotozumi-rengo and the Commissione, but both sides mostly use lesser street gangs as pawns. Despite all that, Loveland actually has (spotty) matrix-linked municipal services, facilities, stores, and restaurants, unlike the rest of the barrens. As a result, it is a popular, if dangerous, destination for tourists looking to slum in the local nightlife.
* '''Petrowski Farms:''' The Petrowski family has stood tall against economic collapse, bandits, and volcanic eruptions for the entire duration of the Sixth World. They still proudly sell their organic produce at the Pike Place Farmer’s Market as they have for more than a century now. That said, some things have changed since the Fifth World, like the triple layered barbed wire and electric fences, or the armed guard towers, or the land spirits said to enrich and defend the place.
* '''Puyallup City:''' Sitting between Auburn and Tacoma, Puyallup City is the district’s seat of governance and where most “legitimate” businesses are located. The residents of this relatively middle class, clean, and safe neighborhood put much political effort into fighting perceptions that Puyallup is a lost cause. The dirty little secret of the “Light in the Ashes” is that Puyallup City is propped up almost entirely by organized crime. Administrations sink or swim (sometimes literally) by their ability to judge if the wind is blowing towards the mafia or the yakuza.
* '''Tarislar:''' The name of this neighborhood means “Remembrance” in Sperethiel. Home to a large population of elvish refugees displaced by the Night of Rage, as well as exiles and thrillseekers from Tír Tairngire, visitors to this neighborhood receive chilly receptions. Completely abandoned by the metroplex government, Tarislar residents only have access to goods and services they can create, gather, or steal. Security is mostly provided by the Laésa, a Tírian crime syndicate.

Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

2022-10-03T03:44:19Z

Rifleavenger: Created page with "Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of faile..."

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, '''Ashbarrow''' is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

==Notable Places==
Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the '''Landsblood Artery''', a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

'''The Wall''' is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-socialist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The '''Working Class''' is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

'''Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House''' is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

'''Three Block Park''' is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

'''The Cinders''' are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

''[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]''

==Notable Groups==
===Icarus===
Icarus are a faction of green syndicalists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization most focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.
In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

Adalbert Moonshine

2021-11-26T04:56:08Z

Rifleavenger:

[[Fornau_Chronicles]]

== Adalbert "Moonshine" Marsh ==
'''Attributes'''

''W'': 1 (4/4 HP)

''R'': 5 (5/5 Fate)

''M'': 4 (5/8 MP)

''Defense'': 10 (7 base + 3 armor)

''Skills'': Alchemy 6; Athletics 3; Herbalism 6

''Talents'': Armored Spellcaster; Enhanced Ability (Rogue); Hunter; Weak

''Spells Known'': 1st circle - Healing Hand Magic Light, Telekinesis; 2nd circle - Magic Armor

'''Equipment'''

''SP'': 1
* Daggers x5,
* Scale armor
* Flint & tinder, waterskin, blanket, bedroll, tent
* Backpack
* Lockpick
* Travel clothing
* 3-yard-pole
* 1 week of rations
* 10 yards of rope
* Leather-bound spellbook
* Packhorse
* Ox cart

== Background ==

At home in the Little Hills, Adalbert Marsh is a handy troubleshooter and a respected doctor. What began as a venture to obtain some rare medicine, however, gave him a taste for traveling. Now, under the alias of "Magnificent Mr. Moonshine," Adalbert roams roads far from home in order to scam the gullible out of goods and currency useful to the folk of the Little Hills. Though Adalbert knows how to make actual medicine, where possible he sells cheap placebos and snake oil to maximize profit. Sometimes the trickster doctor begins sales in a town with an actual cure (or a stealthy use of healing magic) as a hook. Just as often, his "jolly and sincere halfling" act is enough to build sufficient confidence to fleece marks. Adalbert is usually able to move on before the uselessness, or negative side effects, of his "panaceas" becomes evident, but he's maintained good cardio and a surprisingly long stride for a halfling in preparation for the times he cannot.

Adalbert currently is traveling across the Great Grass Sea to sell a bespoke load of both actual medicine and various "tonics" (projected profit = the pay in SP owed to the PCs serving as guards, refluffed). The halfling has a bad foreboding about the trip, and has spent a lot of time charming and carousing with the caravan guards; both to make some side sales and as insurance for when something goes down. This is how "Magnificent Mr. Moonshine" got acquainted with most of the caravan. The salesman has shared and asked the guards to use his real first name as a show of trust, but Adalbert never reveals his real family name or where he's actually from (he's got a lot of ever-changing stories on the subject, though).

This reticence also applies to Adalbert's newly acquired assistant, Caelan. The two met at the caravan's last major outset point. Caelan, intrigued by the halfling's knowledge of alchemy and herbalism, offered to take care of sundry tasks and defend the caravan in exchange for Adalbert's mentorship. Adalbert jumped at the opportunity to get the help of a thaumaturgical prodigy in creating magical concoctions. Whether Adalbert's view of their partnership will evolve beyond mere opportunism remains to be seen, though the peddler tells himself he'll live up to his side of the bargain.

'''Personal Appearance'''

Adalbert is a tan-skinned small humanoid about 3 feet and 4 inches tall, otherwise similar in appearance to a human male in his early forties. He has wavy blonde hair that he keeps cropped relatively short, and a squarish facial structure. When at home or in transit between locales he only bothers to shave once every few days, and not all that closely, meaning he currently has a near perpetual scruff. When making sales or running a con, however, he tries to cultivate his appearance to be in-line with local customs.

Adalbert's clothing alternates between: "social business," which is merchant-class formalwear; "dangerous business," which is an alchemically resistant green leather coat with a rubber lining, glass goggles with a leather strap, flexible fluid-proof long-gloves and heavy boots, and a suit of scalemail under that when violence is expected; and "pleasure" which is simple commoner's or traveler's garments. All his outfits have plenty of hidden pockets and hidey holes for storing and secreting away small objects.

'''Attitudes'''

Adalbert isn't heartless when away from home. The doctor has a soft spot for the truly sick, the humble, and the poor. To these individuals, he may give nearly altruistic aid, albeit with some token payment (he can't be seen giving away anything for free!) and a promise to recommend his services to better-heeled masters or acquaintances. Adalbert also knows to conduct more honest business in places he'll have to pass through again. Additionally, despite being a bit of a coward at heart and having no love of violence, Adalbert is keen enough to know when he needs to help a caravan or community fight back. If nothing else, folks back home are counting on him to return with goods and treasures unobtainable in the Little Hills, so it wouldn't do to lose is cart. Furthermore, out on a road like that through the Great Grass Sea, there's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Adalbert currently is: wary towards Longshadow; indifferent towards Taelia and Hud Twitchfinger (and most everyone else on the caravan); favorable towards Caelan and Mr. Portander; and friendly towards Dela.