#mammae

The Harlequin mini-adventures are not meant to be run back to back, so it’s only fitting that I break up my posts about them with some other material, so...

What have I not talked about?

I read the Shadowrun 1st Edition Core book like I am a Benedictine monk reading the King James Bible, and that’s why I’ve been able to write so much about Archetypes, Totems, Spells, Weapons, and the Eight-Titted Devil Dog. 

Mammae.

Like a monk, I’ve been in a period of intense contemplation and study to determine what I haven’t talked about yet. And I found a couple things.

Ritual Sorcery. Will have to take on that.

And boats.

The metroplex of Seattle exists in the midst of the Salish-Shidhe Council as an enclave of another sovereign nation. This gives it a status similar to that of Berlin during the Cold War, except that as a major port, it receives goods from all over the Pacific basin.

Right? We all know Seattle is on/near/connected to the Pacific Ocean, and while I’ve still never been there personally, I hear Puget Sound is kind of cool looking. The present-day city of Seattle is 41% water by area, so it’s not ludicrous to think nautical travel might play a role in a Shadowrun campaign.

Except, as those who have played Shadowrun, we know it’s ludicrous. ABSOLUTELY ludicrous.

Why? Because this isn’t Venice. You don’t have go-gangs on jet-skis, after all. Seattle might be 41% water but that means its 59% land which is where they have things like people and buildings and stuffers and everything else. And your runners can’t rely upon their Aztech Nightrunner to get to their meet in the Redmond Barrens, no matter how many canals, inlets, or fjords they search for.

“In this house we do not speak ill of Knightboat!”

But that might be the old, grumpy, landlubber in me. I didn’t use boats much in Shadowrun because I don’t use boats much in real life. You could, of course, just to spite me, make a campaign entirely centered on the water. The Earth, you say, is 70% by surface area, so there is lots of space out there. Finally get a chance to use the kraken!

To which I say, good like finding support for that kind of game…

“I didn’t know pirates were still a thing…”

Fragdammit…

Cyberpirates is a 2nd Edition sourcebook, so I’m bending my own rules talking about it here. I can’t say this is the most absurd Shadowrun supplement there is – that shall ever be allotted to Shadowbeat. And it’s not that bad: it’s mostly a location sourcebook covering such areas as:

Caribbean (and the Carib League – remember from the maps that south Florida is not part of the CAS!)

Philippines – relevant given its tumultuous history with Japan and what used to be the United States

West Africa – the only, ONLY, coverage of Africa in Shadowrun (as of 3rd Edition). Shadows of Asia covers the Middle East but stops at the Red Sea.

So there’s this, if that’s your thing. You can even get a Hook Hand (0.1 Essence, costs 30¥), Peg Leg (0.2 Essence, 50¥; get both to piss away 5% of your precious Essence at less than the cost of a Medkit), and, I dunno, an Awakened Parrot or something to complete your Treasure Island-style cosplay. Or make a version of Captain Jack Sparrow with Wired Reflexes and an even more annoying personality. Or make this guy:

Like many other monsters across all fantasy role-playing games, this one has a basis in Greek mythology: the half-woman, half-bird harpy.

(The classical harpy, with two mammae, drawn moments after discovery that you had tickets to Queensrÿche but didn’t invite her)

As noted earlier, Shadowrun tried to ground their critters in a modern zoological context, so the harpy became...

...a long-legged bat. Heck, they even do a good job of keeping the wings as homologous arms and hands (notice the finger-bones?), so it’s not even unreasonable to think of this as a heretofore undiscovered chiropteran species. You don’t get a pass just because you say:

“All specimens of harpy encountered to date have been female, with two mammae.”

Still, better than some other renderings of the harpy:

Okay, I’ll admit it, as a scientist, I like the nod toward trying to incorporate what are clearly classical fantasy archetypes into modern zoology. Classification is the first step towards understanding, so it’s not just a “dragon” – it’s a Draco orientalis, one of three named species in the genus Draco. 

Hold on there, Feathered Serpent, because even though you are included in the “Dracoforms” section, you do not belong to the genus Draco. There must be a criterion based upon the number of total limbs, not wings, since the Western Dragon has six (two wings and four legs), the Eastern dragon has two (four legs), while the Feathered Serpent has two (the wings). I hear you -- you belong in a much more well-defined clade.

If you’re going to drop a vampire (sorry, Sanguisuga europa) into modern times, expect that scientists are going to want to study the drek out of them. Each metatype had its own unique expression of the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus (HMHVV drek yeah they named it).

(”It’s just a virus,” *cough*, “it’ll pass,” *bites you*)

Maybe they took it too far in some places – do we really need to know how many teeth the typical troll has (34) or how many mammae the female barghest has (8)?

Mammae are tits, by the way. They tell you how many tits the devil dog (Canis inferni) has.

Also, I want this article to come up whenever someone searches for “barghest mammae”.