Are you looking for flavour, for information about the underground online scene in Seattle? Stuff that your 'runners may interface with or at least hear about on the grapevine? Then this product may be of interest...

For a start, it's almost completely 'in character' although as it gives comprehensive details about ten notable individuals, the nobility of the shadowrunning community, you may wish to keep it out of players' hands, feeding them information as appropriate. Not that you get their stats, but it does contain the chip truth about them, who they really and what they are really doing, as well as a lot of rumour or gossip about them - some accurate, some wildly off the mark.

The attraction of it is the level of alternate reality, it comes over as if these are real people who do exist - somewhere, sometime - and it will help you make them come to life as patrons, mentors, friends, rivals... and moreover supplies so many little snippets of interactions and activities that spawn ideas for possible plots with even a casual skim never mind settling down to read in detail. Some of the material is how the Corporations view each individual, some is commentary from their peers, all swirled together in a realistic manner that you might well find in some hidden corner of the Internet as it will be come the closing years of this century. Maybe. If this was a glimpse of future history rather than a game.

Game enhancing material, good for flavour, for a few high-powered NPCs, for rumours... and for giving a real feel for how the world ticks. A good read, and perhaps inspiration, if only background for what your 'runners will be doing next session.

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Reviewed: 6 September 2012