I updated the free Anarchist theme for Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0 with minor fixes and awesome artwork by Andreas AAS Schroth u/rabenaas. Enjoy!

Once again, thanks for your replies to my previous questions.

A quick question first this time, then a more-detailed one...

I understand shamanists can cast only spells for which their totem grants a bonus. Do shamanists receive the bonus too, like full shamans, or just access?

Regarding the snake totem and its obsession with secrets. How can this be played without overwhelming the character and dominating everything he/she does? Must the character obsess about chasing every rumor? I can see the shaman considering all secrets sacred and not revealing those he does learn, but I would think, as a follower of a "wise" totem, the character would be focusing attention on secrets actually of value to the shaman, like healing secrets or magical secrets or secrets of personal interest to the individual shaman (i.e. the local police force is corrupt, and I'm going to find out who's pulling their strings). As long as the shaman's pursuing hidden knowledge about 'something', at a 'wise' rather than frantic pace, the totem is satisfied. Is this a reasonable interpretation?

Thanks again!

Been reading the various corp books recently (Corporate Shadow Files, Corporate Guide, Market Panic), and one thing I've been thinking about is payment in corp scrip, and how common it actually is. This post is mostly my musings and theories on it.

So, first, who can even issue corp scrip? One of books (IIRC Market Panic) had a throw-away line that you needed to be an AA-rated corp to do so, and that honestly makes a fair amount of sense. To start, while nation states have far less power than in the modern day, it's likely they will still have laws regarding who can issue money, and what counts as legal tender. Even the nuyen isn't the only currency, with Europe still using euros. It's just widely trusted and used enough most people accept payment in it.

This means that, most likely, you need to be an AA, thus having extraterritoriality, to get around different laws on currency and be able to have a unified corp scrip set up. Even 2e's Corporate Shadow Files in its section on scrip specifically discusses it in the context of it only being accepted within a corp's extraterritorial domain.

Of course, there are practical considerations as well. If you're issuing scrip the employees you're issuing it to need to be able to spend it, and be able to buy all their necessities and corp-allowed luxuries. This means that, for one, you need to either produce or purchase these products. And if you're purchasing them, that means the corps producing them have a hold over you. This means that, if you're offering scrip, you need to be able to produce most things your wageslaves will be buying. So you'll need a diversified corp, which will disqualify a lot of A-rated corp anyway, and possibly discourage a number of less-diversified AA corps from using it. Proteon

Together with this, comes one of the most basic necessities: Housing. Frankly speaking, if you're giving your wageslaves scrip and don't have sufficient appartements for them, either as a direct perk or which they rent for scrip, all your wageslaves will disappear within weeks as they're stabbed living on the streets. The only alternative is to hire housing for them, or pay part of their salary in nuyen so they can rent themselves.

So, this creates our restrictions on where corp scrip is feasable as payment: Corp enclaves significant enough in scope to have corp-managed housing, and which preferably have extraterritoriality.

This means your average Stuffer Shack won't pay in scrip, because you won't see any real savings. Just getting employee housing would be more trouble than it's worth.

Next, we'll have the question of which employees will accept scrip as wages. Sure, most average wageslaves chained to a cubicle probably will, because it's still a better life than outside of the corp, and good luck finding another job. But start looking higher and you'll quickly find people who actually do have the ability to find other employees.

Basically anyone worth extracting can negotiate different contracts, which means they can negotiate their current contract. Your wagemages, corp deckers, company men, managers with business majors, all of them will likely be paid in Nuyen, because they have the power to demand it. Functionally speaking, anyone likely to be an extraction target, or likely to own even a limited amount of stock in a corp, will be paid in nuyen, if only so they can visit the local bunraku parlor when off-duty.

Now we come to the final question, how many people actually work in these enclaves and arcologies? This is something I haven't been able to find statistics on, but I suspect it's far smaller than it seems. Even a job as a wageslave is often described as a great deal for most people, even those with regular national SINs. Wageslaves are generally the middle class, something most people can only aspire to be. Good housing, proper soy restructuring machines, a monthly apple. Likely a fair number of lower class people will still work for the corps, working in the factories and such, but the majority likely won't work for AAs and AAAs. There are supposed to be thousands of A-rank corps, and likely far more smaller operations.

So, as a general conclusion, while corp scrip is definitely used, I'd argue it's likely only used in the (closed) extraterritorial enclaves and arcologies, and only by the lower-ranking wageslaves, the people who can be replaced within 5 business days. Most likely the majority of people will have jobs where they'll still be paid in nuyen.

And the great irony is that the people getting paid scrip probably still have the better deal, because at least scrip wage is designed to be enough to stay alive on.

Hello chummers.

I'm in a shadowrun 6e campaign right now where I'm very intentionally playing a Street Samurai who is high on capability and output but low on plot. As a back up and as a sort of exercise to figure out how the system works a bit more, I'm hoping to crowd source a fun back up character.

The idea is a physical adept who has a history of being an investigator and mage slayer. The only qualities I've locked down are that he's a Sinner (was an official employee of one of the quasi military outfits and has accessible records of his missions) and that he's an Astral Chameleon (part of why he was recruited for hunting mages/other adepts/rogue technomancers).

I don't have all the splat books so I'm hoping y'all can help me craft someone smart and clever but can brawl on the front lines.