Canon

From Shadowrun: Awakened

Shadowrun Canon refers to the body of established fiction surrounding the Shadowrun universe. This includes sourcebooks, novels, and stories licensed by FASA or FanPro over the decade Shadowrun has been in existence. Shadowrun: Awakened aims to honor this canon by maintaining our presentation of the Shadowrun universe as an extension of this canon. Many game mechanics are driven by our attempt to adapt Shadowrun Canon.

What is Canon?

Probably the greatest example of a large body of fiction that attempts to honor a singular set of facts and continuity is the Star Wars universe. Every book, video game, or other piece of media published under license from Lucas is obligated to follow Star Wars canon. For instance, when Chewbacca was killed in the first of the New Jedi Order books, it was not just written down, it was measured and approved then accepted into Star Wars canon. Any future work that attempts to portray Chewbacca as never having died will be automatically non-canon.

The key to understanding why such care is put into supporting Canon material, such as in Star Wars or Shadowrun, is because the habitual consumer of that universe is not just buying a book, they are investing in that universe. That universe needs to be consistent and constrained so all events happening within make sense in the context presented so far. Basically, Canon is a means of tracking the rules and facts of a universe so you keep out contradictions or non-sequitors to your universe that take the consumer out of their experience.

What are we doing to maintain Canon in Shadowrun: Awakened?

Shadowrun: Awakened aims to be true to the canon Shadowrun universe presented in the Shadowrun 4th Edition manual. This means that our setting will be in 2070 with the characters, rules, and entities presented therein. This places the Shadowrun 4th Edition base manual as our core piece of canon. Previous works in the Shadowrun Universe, such as old sourcebooks and novels, are acknowledged as happening; however, any point of contradiction must side with the 4th edition presentation.

For example, under Shadowrun 3rd edition spirits functioned very differently along the lines of the mage vs. shaman dichotomy. Suddenly, in the years that passed between 2064 (end of 3rd edition) and 2070 (start of 4th edition) spirits suddenly started acting different because of the rules change. What does this mean for us? It means we will support the 4th edition version as Canon and gloss over the, now, non-canon 3rd edition descriptions in any back referenced material.

Need to knows with 4th edition Canon

• In previous edition "Drones" were a class of vehicle that were designed to be remotely controlled. In SR4, a "drone" is any vehicle being remotely controlled (including passenger vehicles)
• In SR4, "riggers" & "deckers" have been combined into the "Hacker" archetype. This is an explicit change in technology and does not require any retroactive continuity.
• In SR4, the dichotomy between hermetics and shamans has been vastly changed. As the magic system was a large re-tool of the 4th edition, we must support in fiction previous to 2070 that magic has always worked the way it does in 2070.