These images were used for my Shadowrun roleplaying campaign. Cyberpunk, magepunk, scifi, and futuristic concept art. Every image I've put here I've tried to source. If my source is wrong, or the image is yours and you want it removed, simply visit my askbox and I'll fix it.
Shadowrun, “Trapped Technomancer” for the core Matrix rulebook Hack and Slash!
I am SO excited about this! My first professional work in the gaming industry. I used to spend so much time as a kid poring over the artwork in the D&D 3rd edition core rulebooks, and to flip open a TTRPG gaming sourcebook as an adult, and see my artwork in there, was just amazing. And as icing on the cake, Catalyst Game Labs was a dream to work with.
Art Direction: Ian King
I used some of @fredaugis‘s amazing concept art from “Prey” to create a profile on one of the NPCs in my Shadowrun game. The Johnson gave the team some info to try and hunt down a missing research scientist. They successfully retrieved the doctor and “returned” him to his employer.
Me, the Shadowrun GM looking for night club images to use in my campaign: Ugh, what is it about advanced technology that says we have to dangle women from cages in all of the clubs of the future?
Player: Honestly, considering what usually happens in cyberpunk night clubs, it’s probably the safest place to put them.
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The team agrees to use the services of the mysterious “Eddie” to help them on their job. Eddie is a rigger who provides all manner of vehicles to those that can pay, or even to a few that can’t. Headache says that some of his patients get to or from the clinic using Eddie’s services, and has a set payment schedule for runners needing a lift while on the job.
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After the team had found out what they could, they reconvened at a bodega in Dale. Psy, Atticus, & JD discussed what they had learned about the Vory, the EVO facility, and the fact that Psy had a pre-paid room at the hotel and had recently flown in from NYC. They reached out to Trinity who claimed to be running late. Once Trinity joined them, they agreed that it was probably safest to continue with the job Mr. Johnson sent them on, even though he was dead. They decide that, since he was a member of the Vory, there may be others that come looking for them if they don’t finish the job they were paid to do. The EVO lab also gives them access to the medical equipment Headache requested.
They agree to use the transportation services of Eddie to help get the job done, a rigger they haven’t met and have no connections to other than Sadie & Headache’s recommendation. While traveling to the EVO facility later that night for another round of recon, JD notices a drone that had been at the hotel earlier in the day. Trinity is able to engage the drone and deactivate it. The group reclaim it once it has landed, and Trinity reformats it and claims it as his own.
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The team splits up to do some legwork. Psy & JD return to the hotel where the explosion occurred and find a hotel room under the same name as his SIN - “Hank Bishop.” They find little in the way of clues, but JD attempts to befriend the amnesiac. The pair then travel to the EVO facility Mr. Johnson wanted bombed [pictured above, sans damage]. They noted the external cameras and lobby, as well as visiting area.
While they conducted reconnaissance on the locations, Atticus reached out to several contacts. He discovered that someone within the Vory organization had recently arrived to NoWA and had been looking for a team to conduct some missions for him. He had recently arrived from New York City and had not done much to ingratiate himself with the local Vory.
Gameart model I've made for Get Even. Head is based on scan. Rendered in v-ray. Concepted by collab with Tomasz Górnicki.
The Street Doc “Headache” is an associate of Sadie Moonflower, and her recommendation for any Runners in need. While his facilities are definitely not SOTA (State of the Art), he’s discrete, capable, and specializes in traumatic head injury.
Hearing that the runners recently lost their first Johnson, and in need of some specialized medical assistance, he decides to hire them to “acquire” some equipment he can use in his “practice.”
After escaping with their lives (and with a new unconscious “friend”), the adventurers head to a local Street Doc to see if the explosion’s survivor is seriously injured. While there are no noticeable injuries, his cyberware appears seriously damaged. The doctor is able to revive the unconscious character, who introduces himself as “Psy.” Unfortunately, he has no memory of who he is, or how he got here.
Dystopian near future, by concept artist Christian Alberto Vasquez
After accepting the job from Mr. Johnson, the runners are instructed to pick up a fourth man, an associate of Mr. Johnson, who will help them in their first job. Mr. Johnson gave them a parking pass to the classic Southgate Hotel, instructing them to meet the last man of their teem by the skywalk between the hotel and parking deck. Unfortunately, when they arrive a loud explosion goes off in the parking deck and they watch in disappointment as Mr. Johnson (and their paycheck) go up in flames. The fourth man is also caught in the blast and left unconscious, and team must escape with him to figure out their next move.
Mr. Johnson walks into the conference room and looks at the three people in front of him. He speaks with a thick russian accent as he addresses the group. “I have a job. There is a lab at EVO that is doing research that is very much not to my liking. I need this lab destroyed sometime between Friday night, after the workers go home, and Monday morning, before the workers get back. I don’t care about the rest of the building, but that particular lab must be destroyed.”
Mr. Johnson states that, because the group is so small, he has a fourth man he would like the runners to pick up and help them complete the missions. After a little bit of negotiating for price, the runners take the job. Mr. Johnson has given them a week to finish the job, and two hours to pick up their last teammate.
It’s not a dark street, thanks to the neon and AR that keeps things bathed in a perpetual bluish-green dusk, but the dirty street and drunks curled up in the alleys make this an unusual place for a coffee shop. The stairs leading up to the second-floor conference room is right beside the door to Wired, an honest-to-goodness coffee shop. The smell fills the stairwell and the room above where our Shadowrunners meet their first Mr. Johnson
These aerial photographs of New York City make great cyberpunk background images.
While I am running a Shadowrun campaign, it is definitely my own personal “spin” on Shadowrun. One of the things I’m doing it setting the game in a “homebrew” setting: the sprawl of NoWA. For those of you that don’t know, Northwest Arkansas is home to several Fortune 500 companies, and as Wal-Mart and others have grown over the past few decades, “NoWA” has undergone a suburban sprawl without a central “Urban” area to center it. As a result, this game will be set in the Confederated American States (or CAS, as already defined by Shadowrun lore), in a sprawl called NoWA. These photos are examples of NoWA’s skyline.
Sadie Moonflower’s 6-Step Guide to Running the Shadows
Hello there, and welcome to life as a runner. Whether you're here to earn a quick buck, grind an axe against the megacorps, or because you want to see how the world really works, you've decided to try life as a runner. Every runner needs a fixer, so you've come to me to help you find jobs. Here are the tips I give everyone new to running the shadows.
*Be professional*
As a runner, you are a disposable asset hired by folks who generally don't want to get their own hands dirty. You may or may not know the other people on your team but the assumption is that you will work together to get the job done. I understand if you view others with suspicion & that's probably healthy, but if your team can't get along well enough to do the job then the job won't get done and nobody gets paid.
*Trust your fixer*
There are plenty of fixers out there that I wouldn't trust further than you can throw them. But I like to think that I have a reputation of being more trustworthy than most. If runners can't trust their fixer, then they stop answering their commlink. And if you won't answer your commlink when there's a job offer, then nobody gets paid.
*Don't trust the Johnson*
A fixer's responsibility is to find you a paying job, but it's Mr. Johnson that actually pays you. I don't know any more about the job than you do. Different Johnsons may request different skills and while I may get the high-level "work proposal," I don't know any of the details about the job or the Johnson. Mr. Johnson is only going to give you the details they think are important; but sometimes the details they omit are vital to your survival (or perhaps just indicative that the Johnson is low-balling your fee). Once you get the Johnson's version of events, you should really try to find out everything you can that they didn't tell you. Discretely, of course, otherwise nobody gets paid.
*It's all about the nuyen, baby*
Johnsons usually come to me because they don't have the money to go somewhere else. That doesn't mean you don't have any room to negotiate. Before I agree to put them in contact with any of my runners, I find out the pay range and general overview of the job to make sure I can put together a team that meets their needs. If you're meeting Mr. Johnson it's because he's got money & you've got skills. Depending on your negotiating ability, you might be able to get the fee raised, but again, Johnsons come to me because they know I have green runners & they expect a discount. No amount of haggling will ever get you more than 50% of the Johnson's initial offer, but also consider the possibility of equipment that might make the job easier, or even up-front deposits so you're not as worried about the Johnson disappearing when it comes time to get paid. It doesn't happen frequently, but it does occur sometimes. And if that happens, and you don't have a way to track them down, then it means nobody gets paid.
*Never run blind*
If you have no contacts (or don't check in with the ones you have) you run the risk of being blindsided by a megacorp's security group, a rival team of runners, or a double-cross from a trusted Johnson. Keep your ears to the ground, invest in some reliable contacts, keep them happy, and see if they know something you don't. Also, don't forget to check the Matrix. While many deckers focus on the dark crevices and protected places, you don't have to be a decker to check social network sites. Runners get paid for discretion, but information is what keeps you alive. And if you don't stay alive, then you can't get paid.
*Keep it in the shadows*
As I mentioned before, you're a disposable asset so that Mr. Johnson doesn't have to get his own hands dirty. Many Johnsons have their own security teams and paramilitary organizations to call on but for whatever reason they've decided to use you instead. That means (among other things) they don't need people asking a lot of questions that may come back to them. And one thing that almost always leads to more questions is a pile of dead bodies. Some Johnsons might not care about who gets hurt so long as the job gets done, but most Johnsons aren't going to want to deal with a runner known for public spectacles. Watch your notoriety, because runners are supposed to live in the shadows. If you're no longer in the shadows, then you're not getting paid.