I’d like fellow Dopers’ opinions on a Shadowrun campaign that I’m working on for a tabletop setting. As most of us know, the core rules have this “Awakening” happening at some point in the future, causing many people to suddenly change race and develop powerful magical abilities, which also caused a massive shift in the geopolitical climate. So here’s my scenario.
A few weeks before D-Day, German operatives (as the Indiana Jones movies taught us, Hitler was obsessed with the occult) are discovered in Britain attempting to uncover the tomb of Merlin. During the ensuing firefight, a grenade goes off inside a magical vortex, triggering the Awakening all over Europe. Suddenly, people find themselves manifesting incredibly powerful mystical abilities. The war is thrown into chaos.
In my campaign, the players will be operatives working for Allied interests, traveling all over this new campaign world. So of course, it’s necessary to think of what this new world would look like. Here’s some of what I’ve thought of so far.
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D-Day is no longer the turning point of the war. Allied troops are able to liberate Paris but cannot push any farther south.
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Britain finds itself dealing with Irish nationals who begin using newly discovered magical abilities to fight for independence.
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Some SS officers suddenly find themselves able to read minds, and the Nazi party must also deal with how new races (trolls, orcs, elves) and abilities fit into the German ideology.
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Roosevelt scraps the Manhattan Project in favor of developing combat drugs and more powerful conventional weapons and armor to offset the overwhelming advantage magic gives the Axis.
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Concentration camps all over Europe are magically decimated as magically active Jews lead escapes. A mass exodus from Germany ensues as millions of prisoners travel south towards British-controlled Palestine. As Europe itself reels from the Awakening, a cadre of powerful Jews expel Britain from Palestine and claim massive chunks of territory for the newly formed “Kingdom of Israel.” The non-Awakened middle east falls quickly. An especially powerful Polish man claims to be the Jewish Messiah and is anointed King. The United States is reluctant to take action against the powerful (and staunchly anti-German) new nation.
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The Vatican schisms when it becomes evident that certain members of the church suddenly have the power to heal at will, but others (including the Pope) do not. The Western Reconstructionist Church is established in Mexico.
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The war itself stablizes. Russia, though not affected by the Awakening, takes advantage of the chaos to step up its industrial production, creating a formidable western front.
As y’all can see, there’s a lot of neat stuff here to think about. Any thoughts would be appreciated, but I won’t be able to answer questions too quickly since my computer access is quite limited at the moment. So just, y’know, freeform it.
Fellow Shardorun person checking in:
First, generally, your ideas sound really interesting. I would probably enjoy playing in that world. One caution that I will raise is the question of game balance. At first viewing, it sounds to me as if the magically active would have a huge advantage in this world. I am going on the assumption that (being lower tech) you will not have cyberware or bioware. This could prove to be an issue, as I have found that the initiative bonuses gained by wired reflexes are very important balancers when it comes to dealing with magic.
I may have a thought or two later (are you going to allow awakened races, for example, and if so (as the phenomenon is very new) how will that effect the game).
Mostly, though, it looks very interesting.
Binarydrone took the main point I was going to make. In the face of magic, technology was a big balancing agent in the actual SR world.
That being said, there is a conclusion you can also take from this to paralell what really happened. In real life, many great scientists came over to the US to do secret work. Since in your version, the Manhattan Project has been cancelled, you can exchange some of the scientists for Awakened European folks, such as Mages who can assist this side of the Atlantic - perhaps in making psudo-science weapons, magically powered, to help battle the newly-powerful Nazis.
Just as thought.
The magic vs. technology angle is a very important one. Like I said above, “Roosevelt scraps the Manhattan Project in favor of developing combat drugs and more powerful conventional weapons and armor to offset the overwhelming advantage magic gives the Axis.”
What this means in game terms is that the players are going to have access to combat drugs that mimic certain cyberware advantages at the cost of temporary essence loss.
are you located in/near Nashville?
If so, I’d like to play.
Afraid not, Bosda. I live in Gainesville, Florida.
Thanks for the interest, though.
I would kill to play in this. Just name the target, chummer.
Sounds like a blast. You could always keep the cyberware but make it all hydraulic, piston, diesel and vacuum tube powered and clunky as all heck.
Mmm…Rebel Without A Cause and Orks…
Yeah, I don’t see the Allies not using magic as well, even if the Awakening was somewhat limited. Probably have teams of commandos capturing magically active people and items for research. You could also have something going on in the US Army similar to the Wind Talkers in our timeline, only the Native Americans would be providing magical support instead of encoded communication, since in the standard Shadowrun timeline the Native Americans sorta set off the Awakening.
Consider the possibility that the USA might fracture if we suddenly got our noses bloodied in WWII by magical enemies - the war was not universally supported, perhaps portions of the US would revolt if things went poorly and try to make a separate peace. Pick a city you know well and make up some reason for why it’s one of the neutral cities, that way you can mix everything up in a sorta Casablanca-ish noir setting.