Shadowrun

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Holostreets?

IT'S WHAT YOU KNOW

Powerful financiers have been sent to prison for sending inside information to investment bankers so they could trade based on things they weren’t supposed to know. Government officials have resigned because the answer to the question “What did they know and when did they know it” turned out to be bad for them.

Information is power, and lately the Sixth World has been full of juicy secrets. In this campaign, runners will be called to the corporate capital of Manhattan to uncover some hidden information and then see how to they can extract the most value out of them—without drawing too large of a target on their backs.

The Shadowrun Edge Zone kickstarter is live!

Grand Finale

You always get the most fireworks at the end of the show, and that’s the case for the Neo-Tokyo arc of Shadowrun Missions. The conflict between Yakuza factions comes to a head, and the PCs can play a key role in ending it—or escalating it. They’re given a list of names to take out. Do they do it? Who do they go after first? How far are they willing to go? These and other questions will change the face of Neo-Tokyo—and could alter the shadowrunners’ lives forever.

"Objective are what you need to collect to win the game, Challenges are obstacles your runners need to overcome to get the Objective."

"Deckers can hold any number of Programs, but can only use as many as they have Decking skill (The green icon)"

"Two infamous names, Aztechnology can allows you to sacrifice runners to take out opposing ones, while Harlquin just introduces complete chaos into the game!"

"Sammies and Cyber"

"So you get a sneak peek at a couple Challenge cards featuring those. These are the cards played to protect Objectives, and that your Runners will need to sneak by or defeat."

"The Mayhem set is focused on tech, especially Riggers, Deckers, and their gear. The Magic set likewise focuses on magic and is heavy on Mages, Shamans, and their gear."

----

"What makes #Shadowrun stand out from most other #cyberpunk? Magic! Shamans in #SREZ usually don't use Spells, but they can summon Spirits. Spirits act much like additional runners, and a Shaman can control up to their Conjuring skill (orange icon) each turn."

-----

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cgl/shadowrun-edge-zone

Going live September 20th

Well, chummers, it’s been a long time coming. 

For over thirty years, Shadowrun has captured the imaginations of millions around the world through tabletop RPGs, video games, board games, novels… and even a trading card game. 

Originally released in the ’90s, that game is coming out of retirement and is ready to run. 

Get ready for Shadowrun: Edge Zone—The Upgradable Card Game. We’ve updated the graphics, installed some new art, and tweaked a few game elements here and there, and we’re getting it ready for re-release!

NEVER STOP TRAINING...

Dashiell Red Clay's days on the field and at basic combat training might be behind him, but his life as a Salish Ranger has just begun...and there’s a lethal learning curve! Only life in The Sixth World can teach Dash what it means to be a member of the Salish Boat Service, what it means to serve your country, and what the word “country” even stands for in the fractured continents of Shadowrun's dark future.

Red Clay and his Rangers will clash with street gangs and elite soldiers alike, from the enigmatic, elven Ghosts to the legendary Wildcats of the NAN plains. Life will throw notorious mercenaries at him, cutthroat thrill-gangers, pride and shame, danger and love, and maybe even a street legend or two. From the barren mountains of Afghanistan to the filthy streets of Seattle, from the 2040s to the 2060s, from matters of the heart to tests of loyalty, Dash will face dangers Yakima never trained him for and threats “the book” never saw coming!

SHADOWRUN

Hack & Slash: Core Matrix Book

Shadow Cast: Character Resource

18-Month Calendar

Art Portfolio

New T-shirt

For more than thirty years, Shadowrun has produced some of the coolest cyberpunk art around, inspiring fans across the globe to create their own characters and campaigns within the game universe. Many Shadowrun artists and writers started off as fans, so we thought there was no  better way to encourage the creativity of the next wave of artists than with a friendly contest.

Catalyst Game Labs is seeking submissions for the 2022 Shadowrun Fan Art Competition. Multiple kinds of art are allowed, from illustration to cosplay!

To support your efforts, we’re releasing our Shadowrun Artist Handbook, which offers an overview of typical image contents, as well as tips and tricks for making a piece of art look more like Shadowrun. You can download the handbook and sample images here.

Sounds like fun—right, chummer? So get ready to bust out your pencils, paints, cameras, or Photoshop, and show us your stuff!

Contest Timeline

The contest will be open to submissions  from August 1 to September 1, 2022. Late submissions will still be viewed and enjoyed, but please get them to us before the deadline if you want to be considered for the prizes.

Catalyst reserves the right to alter the deadline without notice and for any reason.

Submission Requirements

All submissions should be sent via e-mail to [email protected] with the subject line “Shadowrun Art Competition.”

All submissions should include the following:

The artist or photographer’s legal name and primary e-mail address.

The artist’s handle or studio name (only if you prefer not to use your real name in the public gallery).

A link to your online portfolio if you’d like that displayed with your submission.

Image submission proofs at 100 DPI/PPI. (We highly recommend keeping your full-res version at 300+!)

Indicate whether you are under the age of 18.

Anything else you think we should know about you or the art!

Terms and Conditions

By submitting work to this contest, you accept the terms and conditions outlined below.

For purposes of this competition, “art” refers not only to grayscale or color illustrations but also to photography or sculpture. Cosplay photography is allowed and encouraged. Multimedia presentations, such as video, will not be considered as submissions, but feel free to share them with us anyway!

Submitted images must feature a Shadowrun scene, character, or setting. Please avoid including anything outside of Shadowrun canon, such as characters or logos from other franchises. Despite our love for them, character mashups, like Qui-Gon Harlequin or Darth Dunkelzahn, are heavily discouraged and may not be included in public materials.

Artists of all ages are welcome to submit, but applicants below the age of 18 should notify us when submitting. This is so we can make special arrangements if age-sensitive prizes are awarded.

All submitted artwork must be original works to which you own clear legal rights. This goes not only for the overall image, but also for any recognizable references or photobashed elements in it.

Artists who have worked for Shadowrun in the past are eligible to submit, but with a few caveats: (1) When submitting, you must let us know where you were previously published. (2) You cannot submit previous commissioned work for the contest. (3) Be aware that your submission may be isolated into its own separate category, which may or may not be eligible for a prize.

Images reflecting real-world racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted attitudes will be disqualified. This does not apply to depictions of in-universe bigotry, as long as said depictions are tastefully handled. Catalyst reserves the right to determine what’s inappropriate.

Taboo topics, such as violence and sexuality, may be present in your submissions, but we reserve the right to reject any image we view as going too far.

We may approach some artists with an offer to buy the rights to their artwork for future publications. Artists should understand that certain images will not be published in the game line without modifications to make the content compatible with our standard print guidelines. Determination of editorial needs—and execution of such edits—will be made by Catalyst and the Shadowrun Development Team.

By submitting, you grant Catalyst Game Labs permission to display your work in promotional materials relating to current and future art contests or fan-appreciation posts. Promotional materials may include mailing lists, social media, printed fliers, or an online publication featuring contest submissions. This does not transfer full copyright to Catalyst or extend usage rights beyond the aforementioned purposes.

Artists may withdraw their submissions up to 15 days after the contest deadline ends. Withdrawal requests must be submitted in writing to [email protected] and clearly identify the work being removed from consideration.

Judging

After the competition deadline, the Art Director will compile all the submissions and present them to the Development Team for review. 

Final winners will be chosen and announced within 60 days of the contest deadline.

Prizes

Categories will be established based on submissions received, in order to best represent the images and their place in the Sixth World. This means the number of categories and prizes awarded may vary.

Shadowrun is the game where man and machine meet magic, and the new campaign book The Third Parallel (Catalyst store, DriveThruRPG) is about how these different realities run next to each other–and occasionally intersect. Runner teams are familiar with having to watch the meat world, the Matrix, and the manasphere all at the same time, so this isn’t news to them. What will be new is the schemes being hatched about ways to make them overlap more–and how that might affect the manasphere and the world beyond. Here’s a little more info:

All Lined Up

Your eyes have to be everywhere. In front. In back. On the Matrix. On the astral. Threats come from every possible direction and dimension, and runners who don’t keep an eye on every possible danger end up falling to the one they neglected.

The threats are lined up in Denver, a city ruled by a dragon and home to one of the greatest outlaw tech archives in the world. Shadows are aligning and plots are fomenting, and shadowrunners have the chance to learn what’s happening in enough time to make some nuyen and save a few lives—including their own.

WHERE NOBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME…

Things don’t rise to gutters, they fall there. Same with back alleys and dumpsters. Same with graves. Running the shadows comes with ups and downs, but you never know where those rises and falls will take you. What someone else might call rock bottom…you might call Tuesday.

Collected here for the first time, read Russell Zimmerman’s Shadowrun tales of winners, losers, and edge cases constantly somewhere in between. No longer just scattered across sourcebooks and decades, here you can find every short story and intro fiction featuring everyone’s favorite shadow legends rubbing elbows with wannabes and not-shadowrunners-at-all-just-ask-them.

But it’s not all yesterday’s news, chummers. More than just a collection of previously published fiction, between these covers you’ll find a handful of brand-new stories, including a classic, pre-On the Rocks Jimmy Kincaid yarn. Also, each one comes with brand new commentary by the author, written expressly for this volume.

Enjoy short stories about hearts and souls, elves and trolls, and rock and roll? Then join us here, and explore these dark streets…

As many people celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with various shades of green, we have a very special green-tinted book–Emerald City (Catalyst shop, DriveThruRPG), the Seattle location book for Shadowrun, Sixth World! With a profile of each of the city’s districts, including notable people and places, and qualities for characters who might come from those areas, this is a critical resource to see how the newly free city of Seattle is handling itself. Here’s a little more info:

The Shadow Capital

Join spies, smugglers, liars, cheats, killers, thieves, rebels, anarchists, gangers, thugs, hoods, outlaws, low-lifes, hackers, con artists, hustlers, and more as they gather and try to climb to the summit of the shadowrunning world. In Seattle, the gold glitters brighter and the dungeons are darker, meaning the shadows in between are the widest and most intense in the world

As a newly free city, Seattle hovers lightly over a pit of ravening wolves, saved only by the fact that as much as one wolf would love to devour the sprawl whole, they equally don’t want any of their competitors to get it. Maintaining that balance is the core desire of city leaders; undoing it has become the obsession of the city’s enemies. Whether shadowrunners decide to pick a side or just play all sides against each other, there is plenty of work to be done and danger to avoid, all while showing they can run the shadows with the best of them.

Emerald City is a sourcebook for Shadowrun, Sixth World.

Shadow Points