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N.E.R.P.S. Edge Runners
by Gurth
Meet The Editors
Erik S. Jameson
“On tonights episode of 30-30, we will be talking to Erik S. Jameson, a rising star in the land of cyberspace. How are you tonight Erik?”
“Mr. Jameson please. And I’m doing quite well, thank you.”
“Why is it that you are becoming such a hot item in cyberspace?”
“I personally loathe the free usage of the word cyberspace, but I’ll answer your question anyway. I am rather fond of the game Shadowrun, and have been writing ‘new’ material for it, unofficially of course, for several years now. Not until recently have I started posting these writings onto the Internet. I started with America Online, and I am currently branching out to the real Internet.”
“Hmmm. But is there a correlation to the real world?”
“Not likely. I am a graduate of the University of Arizona, I am a lifeguard and an Emergency Medical Technician Basic. I lift weights and hold political aspirations. Not exactly what you normals might expect from someone active on the Internet.”
“Not entirely. You earned a reputation for a while as list.member.grumpy; would you explain that for us?”
“We wouldn’t mind at all. One of the features of the Internet is that it is so wide open. This leads to people asking the same question, giving the same answers, and in general, not reading the manuals. After a time, this becomes rather tiresome.
“Add upon this the stress of making sure I graduated from Arizona, and you can see why I became grumpy. That phase is largely past me however.”
“I see. And if you were to be reincarnated as an animal, what would it be? And why?”
“I must agree with a past guest of yours, Count von Doom, that this is a pedantic, even moronic, question. And since I must limit myself to real animals, the answer is easy.”
“And that would be?”
“A cat. Because they just don’t give a damn.”
Gurth
“Contestant number one, please tell us something about yourself!”
“Well, I’m 21 years old…”
“You come from Zoutelande, don’t you? Could you explain where that is exactly, for the viewers who’ve never heard of it?”
“It’s a small town in the south-west of the Netherlands. I was coming to that just before you interrupted, you know.”
“Sorry.”
“Look, do you want me to tell you about myself or not?”
“Well, yes. We want to meet our contestants, of course.”
“Anyways, I’m pretty active on the ShadowRN mailing list, and got made NERPS Project Leader on 21 August 1995.”
“Isn’t that your birthday as well? And talking about that, I’m pretty sure ‘Gurth’ isn’t the name your parents gave you, is it?”
“YES, it is my birthday-that was my twenty-first to be exact, in case you wondered. I picked that name myself, yes. While playing Wing Commander, if you must know. And no, I’m not going to tell you my real name. Now can I get on with it?”
“We wouldn’t want you to think we’re not interested, you know!”
“Right. That’s it. I’ve had enough of this nonsense, I have a NERPS book to finish, so I’ll be off. Goodbye and don’t bother calling me again.”
“But… But…“
Shadowrun is a registered trademark of FASA Corporation. The game sells pretty good, I understand.
The articles in this book are copyright © 1995/1996 by the original authors. The copyright to this compilation is held by Gurth, © 1996. Feel free to give a copy of the file to anyone who wants one, just don’t charge any money for it apart from that needed to cover reproduction costs.
NERPS: Edge Runners
CREDITS
Design and Writing: Erik Jameson Gkoth2258@AOL.com
Original Editor: Erik Jameson (list.member.grumpy)
NERPS Editor: Gurth Gurth@xs4all.nl
Editorial and Writing Assistance from: Michael Ruane, Scott Harders
Additional Writing Assistance from: James Cueno
Special Technical Assistance: Jani Fikouras, J.D. Falk, Michael Ruane
Character Submissions from:
| Michael Ruane Nethicus@AOL.com | Scott Harders YUBM21a@prodigy.com |
| Dave Jordan dave_jordan@intuit.com | Brion Waters bdw@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu |
| Shadow diamant@jardin.ens-info.uvsq.fr | Brandon Riddle briddle@marsh.vinu.edu |
| James Cueno james-cueno@augustana.edu | James Prier PRIER@ubaclu.unibas.ch |
| Rin Parks GungaDon@aol.com | Paul E. Buchanan JVXNSYA@grove.iup.edu |
| Mike Goldberg m_goldberg@cc.colorado.edu | Jani Fikouras feanor@informatik.uni-bremen.de |
| Gurth Gurth@xs4all.nl |
Erik’s Notes: This is a catalogue of some of the real characters being played today in Shadowrun, by people all over the world. Many of these characters are also in use on the ShadowTK role-playing mailing list. With this in mind, when using these characters as NPCs in your own campaign, be as true as possible to their original intent. In other words, be nice.
These characters are intended to be very high powered players in the Sixth World. The increased Attributes x1.5 Optional Rule was used in a number of cases, and one character even has Delta-grade cyberware. There are also some “new” spells and a new house rule regarding how contacts get gear and information. This optional rules and spells will all be explained at the end of the chapter. In addition, all bonuses have all ready been added to statistics and skills, unless otherwise noted. If you still can’t find something, contact the individual who created the character via e-mail.
And again, a special thanks to all those who contributed to this catalogue. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you (obviously). Some of you people are very sick… ;-) I may have changed something about your character, but I tried to keep with the original spirit of the character. And in some case, I exaggerated the personality traits to try and make the character more interesting and different. Not to mention in almost every case I made the character stronger. In some cases, what seem like mistakes (such as a wrong birthplace) was deliberate deception. In other words, Counselor and friends got it wrong, and they don’t know any better. In almost all cases their “errors” have been addressed in the Notes: section.
A very special thanks to Mike, Dave, and Scott. We’ve burned a lot of karma on each other.
The people included in Edge Runners: A Corporate Guide to the Shadows represent some of the best, and the worst, running the shadows today. Not all are shadowrunners. Included are a number of fixers of various talents. But most indeed are what has come to be called “shadowrunners”. They are talented and diverse, and there is bound to be at least one ‘runner who will fit your blackest operation. Keep in mind that the information included was accurate at the time of publication, but may have changed as recently as today. Much of it was taken from messages on the illegal “Shadowland,” with our decryption computers working 24 hours a day for well over four months to break them open so we could bring them to you. So go ahead, sit back, have the butler bring in a scotch, and take a look at your secret weapons, before your enemies do.
-Counselor
In other words, some corp whores like Counselor got together and put together a catalogue of the best and brightest running the shadows today. Now, don’t get too upset. I think we all know there isn’t a truly safe data encryption invented yet. And it took them so long to crack the files open that most of what they found is out of date and obsolete by now. So don’t worry too much. All they did was take all the available corporate dossiers and files that exist on each and one of us, and added the Shadowland dirt. Counselor and friends just put a bunch of them together, into one compilation. Then we decided to crack their encryption (soooo easy!) and add some of our own dirt to this catalogue, and give it to you out there on Shadowland. Now, if some Mr. Johnson starts to read you like a book, you now know why. Because he has. So you have been warned. Information is Power.
St. Stan
Personally, I look at this thing as free advertising. I expect my business to increase by over 50% within the first month this is out. People will come to me…
Johnny Rotten
Yeah, and it may not be for business you slag.
Corsendonk
To get a copy of this fine NERPS book, just click here (A4) or here (Letter) for the ZIPped version (87Kb). There you will find a RTF (Rich Text Format) version readable from most word processors.
Enjoy