Intro to The Sixth World

If I was to give you all a full introduction to the world of Shadowrun, it would take forever. Besides, theres plenty of other places you can get detail from: The books (obviously), the Shadowrun Wiki (if it ever gets fixed) and the timeline on wikipedia (link below) are all good places to peruse.

However, I know that not everyone wants to study endless reams of text before playing a game, so here are the basics. This is the stuff that *everyone* in the world of Shadowrun knows about, and your character not knowing will at best make them seem a bit dim. At worst, it could kill ya. So, in no particular order:

Awakening

This is on of the first major events that splits the Shadowrun timeline from the real world one. Technically, its said that this happened on 24/12/2011. However, thats just the focus point, really. The awakening started a little while before that, and is arguably still going on.

So what is it? Basically, its magic coming back. I say "coming back" because the commonly held theory in Shadowrun is that the "background levels" of magic get stronger and weaker in waves. At certain critical points the world fundamentally changes: On the upswing this point is when magic starts working, on the downswing magic goes away again. Each of these sections of time, either with or without magic, are referred to as "worlds". For complicated reasons, magic coming back signalled the start of the Sixth World. The world before, that we are living in in reality, is referred to as the fifth world. Before that was, obviously, the Fourth world, and thats where modern day legends of magic and mythical creatures is said to have come from.

So what did this Awakening cause? In short: Magic works, orcs turned up, as did trolls, elves and dwarves, also dragons and other mythical creatures. There's far to many things caused by magic in Shadowrun to list here, but its fair to say that it really changed the face of the world.

Dragons

Okay, so people with pointy ears and/or tusks turning up is quite impressive, but the really dramatic arrival was the Dragons. There's two basic categories of dragons, not counting mere physical appearance: regular Dragons and Great Dragons. Normal Dragons are just big, scary, powerful lizards who fly and breath fire. Great Dragons appear similar to their lesser cousins, but are larger and much more intelligent. They are also intensely magical: they can do tricks like changing shape to appear human, and can take a hell of a battering (in short, don't get in a fight with a great dragon. You *will* loose).

They don't tend to go around flexing their muscles an awful lot though. Thankfully. They prefer to mess around with stuff from behind the scenes. They are nearly all famous, for one reason or another. Here's a few that your characters would most likely have heard of:

Dunkelzhan: Probably the most famous Dragon of them all, this guy was well liked and friendly (for a dragon). He ran for President, and won, only to be assassinated on the night of his inauguration. Possibly. There's a lot of story there, so I wont go into detail here. Uniquely for a Dragon, he left a Will, which is still affecting the world today, for various reasons. Its all bloody cryptic, but worth checking out.

Lowfwyr: Great Western Dragon, popped up in Germany and was probably the first Dragon to realise that in the modern age, sitting on a big pile of gold is a bit daft. He figured he would get the modern equivalent, and brought Saeder-Krupp, a largely German Megacorp. Yes folks, the boss of one of the biggest companies in the world is a huge lizard that breathes fire.

Ryumyo: Great Eastern Dragon, and the first Dragon to be seen after the Awakening.

Hestaby: Female Great Dragon, and once on the ruling council of Tir Tairngir.

The last thing I should say about Dragons is the most well known phrase in Shadowrun: "Watch your back, conserve ammo, and never cut a deal with a Dragon".

Links

• [1] You can find a more detailed history of Shadowrun here.