Corporate Enclaves – behind the scenes
With Corporate Enclaves on the horizon, we thought it might be nice to give you a peek behind the scenes at the guiding concepts and development process of this book. Corporate Enclaves is the second in an ongoing series of themed location books for Shadowrun, Fourth Edition, this one devoted unsurprisingly to various domains of corporate power and influence.
With development helmed initially by Robin King-Nitschke King, and then by myself, Corporate Enclaves had a long and bumpy ride to print; it suffered through everything from hard drive burn-outs and last minute changes of authors, to development limbo during the shift from FanPro to Catalyst. Development of a book, even when you’re working with talented writers, is never easy or simple, and books like Corporate Enclaves never coalesce out of the blue and the process is full of surprises. The end result, however, is definitely worth the wait.
But getting back to the beginning… We received a number of interesting submissions for this book from both established freelancers and newcomers. While we considered several alternatives these opened up — including several of what would become the secondary locations in the book — we ended up deciding to spotlight the Los Angeles and Neo-Tokyo sprawls. These were cities that laid claim to two very different and unique interpretations of a megacorporate enclave. As with Runner Havens, our first core location book, we also decided to briefly visit five alternative sprawls that provide a number of distinct settings under the same basic theme.
Los Angeles was always going to be a controversial pick for this book, but LA is without a doubt one of the most interesting sprawls in North America. After the passing mentions in Shadowrun, Fourth Edition and Street Magic, we wanted to explore it further.
When our original choice, Brian Cross, became unavailable due to other commitments, we were fortunate to have newcomer Jennifer Harding step in to write this section. Jennifer did an amazing job, combining previously published references from California Free State and Shadows of North America, building off of Brian’s original outline for Angeltown, and incorporating her own ideas to transform LA into a vibrant and unique corporate sprawl. One of the true tests to any writer’s creativity and one of the biggest hurdles to many newcomers is taking on board someone else’s concepts and ideas and weaving them into your own rather than simply discarding them — Jennifer more than rose to the challenge.
Devastated by the Twins, drowned by the Fall, riddled by the mysterious Deep Laguna, the troubled City of Angels is still the media capital of the world and a glamorous showcase of corporate power, influence, and lifestyles. Ravaged, demolished, and swamped, Los Angeles is slowly recovering from the troubles of the recent catastrophes, all while being parceled up into corporate enclaves by greedy corporations and desperate bureaucrats. To complicate matters further, the sprawl is also torn by a three-sided shadow struggle between the Pueblo Corporate Council, Aztechnology, and the newest Triple-A, the Horizon Group. And that’s just scratching the surface of biz in Angel Town…
Los Angeles is all about how pervasive corporate culture is in Sixth World society, how the fascination with glitzy media-fueled lifestyles can obscure very real poverty, social issues, and growing desperation, and how ubiquitous the media and influential those who control it are. Los Angeles is a sprawl where corporate power hides in plain sight insidiously afflicting all aspects of daily life. Part of what makes this sprawl unique are the interesting dynamics of LA pressing on through yet another disaster and reconstruction, but part of it comes from tapping the unique atmosphere and energy that so defines Los Angeles and California. More than about the urban geography itself, Los Angeles is just as much about the people and the lifestyles it fosters, the creative dynamo it represents for megacorporations and self-made entrepreneurs alike, and the story potential this explosive combination engenders.
Neo-Tokyo, as the economic capital of the Sixth World and the archetypical corporate enclave, was an obvious choice for the other core location in this book. This was no easy undertaking though, so to bring it to intrigue-riddled life, we opted to assign several talented writers to the task: Jason Levine, Bobby Derie, and Malik Toms (who had previously given us a glimpse of Neo-Tokyo in Shadows of Asia). We also had the benefit of assistance from our friends at Arclight, the Japanese Shadowrun license holder.
The birthplace of megacorporate neo-feudalism and the Seventies’ corporate culture, Tokyo is in many ways the ultimate expression of the Japanacorps’ power and the perfect showcase for many of their idiosyncrasies and intrigues. It is also a complex puzzle of compromises and giri, delicately balanced between tradition and capitalism, cutting-edge technology and history. Neo-Tokyo is brimming with opportunities for shadowrunners, but equally full of unexpected hazards and hoops to jump through. In many senses it is a microcosm of Sixth World corporate monoculture while remaining a multi-faceted corporate enclave in its purest form. The power of the megacorps reigns (almost) unchallenged, political power bows to the almighty nuyen, and even the criminal underworld models itself to corporate ideals and practices.
In keeping with Shadowrun, Fourth Edition’s tone, we tried to complement the overview of the city and the powers-that-be with a look at the vibrant street life and survival in the shadows. To this end, the authors offer up a look at the seedier underside of Tokyo (the Yakuza, the zokus, the foreign syndicates, and independent operators), the youth culture, counterculture cliques, traditional society, and other local peculiarities. In a society so structured and organized, stresses and cracks tend to manifest, and where there are cracks someone is bound to fall through them…
We also wanted to tap into the duality that defines Japanese culture in 2070: on the one hand, the familiarity of the megacorporate monoculture; and on the other, the Japanese cultural heritage manifest in myriad traditions, protocol, and everyday life. The singular interplay of the two contributes to make the Japanese setting unique and provides Shadowrun groups with numerous opportunities to add color and atmosphere to their games and characters.
The penultimate chapter, Company Towns, briefly explores five very distinct settings, each with its own unique atmosphere and claim on the title of corporate enclave: the glittering skyrakers of Dubai, corporate gateway to the Arabian Caliphate; the post-industrial megalopolis that is Europort, the largest transport hub in the world; the glass and concrete canyons of Manhattan, run like clockwork by North America’s most powerful corporations — and where the Corporate Court’s earthbound bureaucracy resides; the troubled districts of Nairobi, the space industry boomtown where the corporations’ power is ensured by Corporate Court mercenaries; and finally, the dangerous streets of Technochtitlán, where Aztechnology reigns supreme and hides its dark secrets. Lars Blumenstein, Jong-Won Kim, Jennifer Harding, and Jason Levine do the honors on this short trip around the Sixth World.
The book is rounded out with a chapter providing guidelines for gamemasters and groups to develop their own corporate enclaves, laying out common traits and characteristics that help define these corporate strongholds and many of the less obvious shapes and forms that corporate power assumes.
Here’s hoping you like it as much as I do.
While we were hoping to have this book out for you before the holidays, the fates have dictated that the official street date is January 8, 2008.
