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Message no. 1
From: anakin <anakin@**.NET.AU>
Subject: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 22:54:25 +1000
Greetings,

Does anyone have any information on Australia in
shadowrun?, or know where I can get some?. From what I have read in
the official material there seems to be very little about what has
actually happened in australia.

Anakin
Message no. 2
From: Lehlan Decker <DeckerL@******.COM>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 09:05:46 -0400
>Does anyone have any information on Australia in
>shadowrun?, or know where I can get some?. From what I have
>read in the official material there seems to be very little about
>what has actually happened in australia.

Lady Jestyr had quite a bit on her web page at one point. That's
a good starting place. (I don't have the URL handy, but it should
be easy to find via the WebRing). Australia was also mentioned
in the original secrets of power trilogy with Sam Verner.
Current rumor is that FASA is planning a Target:Awakened Lands
book, which will contain info on Amazonia, Australia and
quite a few other places.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lehlan Decker, Unix Admin (704)331-1149
deckerl@******.com Fax 378-1939
Moore & Van Allen, PLLC Pager 1-888-608-9633
Message no. 3
From: Tim Burke <ranger@********.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 00:24:42 +1000
At 10:54 PM 10/21/98 +1000, you wrote:
>Greetings,
>
> Does anyone have any information on Australia in
>shadowrun?, or know where I can get some?. From what I have read in
>the official material there seems to be very little about what has
>actually happened in australia.
>
> Anakin
>

Lady Jestyr had heaps of Shadowrun relevant Australian stuff
on her website but recently pulled it without explanation. Methinks
she is writing a sourcebook for FASA (I hope).

Tim Burke
Brisbane, Australia
#950 of 1000
ranger@********.com.au
Message no. 4
From: Oliver McDonald <oliver@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 07:54:19 -0700
On Wed, 21 Oct 1998 09:05:46 -0400, Lehlan Decker wrote:

>Lady Jestyr had quite a bit on her web page at one point. That's
>a good starting place. (I don't have the URL handy, but it should
>be easy to find via the WebRing). Australia was also mentioned
>in the original secrets of power trilogy with Sam Verner.
>Current rumor is that FASA is planning a Target:Awakened Lands
>book, which will contain info on Amazonia, Australia and
>quite a few other places.

From what I have heard her page is temporarily down...

-----------------------------------------------------------
Oliver McDonald - oliver@*********.com
http://web2.spydernet.com

Space. The Final Frontier. Let's not close it down.

Brought to you via CyberSpace, the recursive frontier.

"that is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may
die."
-H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu."
Message no. 5
From: Lady Jestyr <jestyr@*******.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 08:04:53 +1000
>> Does anyone have any information on Australia in
>>shadowrun?, or know where I can get some?. From what I have read in
>>the official material there seems to be very little about what has
>>actually happened in australia.
>
>Lady Jestyr had heaps of Shadowrun relevant Australian stuff
>on her website but recently pulled it without explanation. Methinks
>she is writing a sourcebook for FASA (I hope).

Heh. I _wish_.

Apparently FASA already have a fully-written Australian sourcebook from way
back in the Tom Dowd era, they've just never published it. I guess they'll
try and make that fit into a more modern format if they want to publish
Australian material, before going outside for new stuff.

In any case, yes the Australian Netbook is down for the moment for major
renovations. We've written another 10,000 words for it in the last few
weeks; it'll be back up eventually in some form or other...


Lady Jestyr

- In the force if Yoda's so strong, then construct a sentence -
- with words in the proper order why can't he? -
- jestyr@*******.com.au URL: http://www.geocities.com/~jestyr -
Message no. 6
From: Sean Matheis <sean@****.NET>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 15:16:30 -0700
On 22 Oct 98, at 8:04, Ryo-ohki observed Lady Jestyr saying:
> Apparently FASA already have a fully-written Australian sourcebook from
> way back in the Tom Dowd era, they've just never published it. I guess
> they'll try and make that fit into a more modern format if they want to
> publish Australian material, before going outside for new stuff.

That's too bad; I've always felt it best to go to the __SOURCE__ for
a location book. Let the locals with talent write the book about
their land, as they're more familiar, and can give a better feel to
the book.

-Sean



-Fieran, "Dances with Bears" Follower of the Invisible Path
**sean<at>slip.net**http://www.amurgsval.org/shadowrun**
Message no. 7
From: Tim Burke <ranger@********.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:27:32 +1000
>That's too bad; I've always felt it best to go to the __SOURCE__ for
>a location book. Let the locals with talent write the book about
>their land, as they're more familiar, and can give a better feel to
>the book.
>

FASA did go to the source for the Australian sourcebook that
they are sitting on. It was written by a guy from Perth called
Cory....something (I think). I'll look it up as it was listed as an upcoming
release years ago in Shadowlands magazine and included the
author credit. I know from contacts of mine that he is
a) Australian and b) from Perth.

Cheers,
Tim Burke
Brisbane, Australia
#950 of 1000
ranger@********.com.au
Message no. 8
From: Steadfast <laughingman@*******.DE>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 02:25:13 +0200
And so it came to happen that Sean Matheis wrote:

----------
> On 22 Oct 98, at 8:04, Ryo-ohki observed Lady Jestyr saying:
> > Apparently FASA already have a fully-written Australian sourcebook from
> > way back in the Tom Dowd era, they've just never published it. I guess
> > they'll try and make that fit into a more modern format if they want to
> > publish Australian material, before going outside for new stuff.
>
> That's too bad; I've always felt it best to go to the __SOURCE__ for
> a location book. Let the locals with talent write the book about
> their land, as they're more familiar, and can give a better feel to
> the book.

Har, Har, Har! I do not wan't to offend anyone who is working on a project
to implement their Homeland, but I don't take this. I have the germany
sourcebook, the original one, the one that is in german, and... ah, I do
not wan't to waste your time in rambling about that book. Anyway, everyone
who knows me, knows (gotta love english gramar;o)) that I realy do not like
the german sourcebook. Heck, in every Campaign I do as a GM I forbid that
sourcebook for material or background and these are the facts so far:
a) dreams for munchkins (Equipement, Spells you name it)
b) bad research over the material presented (Having read those sections a
few times I decided that no human can possibly withstand that kind of
pressure that germany and europe seems to have endured, let alone having a
Megacorp like Saeder-Krupp in the middle of their playing turf while having
those funny wars and dissections. But thats IMO)
c)The writing style (yes, that DOES count IMO)
d)The artwork (but thats not that important realy, it just gives some
finishing touches to my overall opinion)

Allright, now after those personal words (duh, I have wasted time, ne?) to
the original post.
I dunno wether locals can do a job better than someone who has some
distance to it. I doubt it as most of the time patriotism and a bit of that
'we are different' attitude does come through. I think proper research and
a bit of knowledge of the country you are writing about gives you a better
and more rounded view of the whole affair. If you are profesional and state
that, than you have to prove it and don't let some wannabe SR'ler do the
job (that was a sidekick at FanPro, but not a realy hard one as they seem
to have learned a bit by now. Heck, everyone makes mistakes.). If someone
is able to do a job proper, than let him, but ask some locals about the
product, round it here, round it there, don't let every 'but here, see, we
are better than that' or 'we do need something real special here, something
that is more drastic than anything else published' get into your work. Make
some small specialities, don't make it too big, just some subtle ones and
maybe one big, but not like the hell they produced in THAT book (germany
source that is).
Uhm, seems I've got a little bit of Topic, but than, don't take it granted
that locals can do the job better. You have to work it out regardles wether
you are local or not. Locals have to work harder IMO as they should know
how it is and how to prevent personal interests to get into the way.

--->Steadfast
to be "human" is not a state of living
I want to achieve.
Message no. 9
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 10:46:13 +1000
Tim Burke writes:
> >That's too bad; I've always felt it best to go to the __SOURCE__ for
> >a location book. Let the locals with talent write the book about
> >their land, as they're more familiar, and can give a better feel to
> >the book.
> >
>
> FASA did go to the source for the Australian sourcebook that
> they are sitting on. It was written by a guy from Perth called
> Cory....something (I think). I'll look it up as it was listed as
> an upcoming
> release years ago in Shadowlands magazine and included the
> author credit. I know from contacts of mine that he is
> a) Australian and b) from Perth.

I thought they'd canned that one... I've read snippets of it in the
"Australian Realms" gaming mag, and it seemed, well, a little ocker. I'd
thought they'd decided to go with another group of players based in Sydney.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 10
From: Chris Maxfield <cmaxfiel@****.ORG.AU>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:12:44 +1000
At 02:25 22/10/98 +0200, Steadfast wrote:
>And so it came to happen that Sean Matheis wrote:
>> That's too bad; I've always felt it best to go to the __SOURCE__ for
>> a location book. Let the locals with talent write the book about
>> their land, as they're more familiar, and can give a better feel to
>> the book.
>
>Uhm, seems I've got a little bit of Topic, but than, don't take it granted
>that locals can do the job better. You have to work it out regardles wether
>you are local or not. Locals have to work harder IMO as they should know
>how it is and how to prevent personal interests to get into the way.

I don't think it's a matter of whether locals should or should not do a
location book but rather they should be done by professionals with
familiarity in the area and some training in history. However, after the
book is written it does need to be fact-checked by locals with
anal-retentive tendencies.

I really don't like location books and a lot of other Shadowrun history,
where things just happen for no reason (other than "Gee wiz it's cool!")
especially when it's with minimal, if any impact, on anything else. Nothing
just happens but rather is caused by years, decades, centuries of previous
events and pressures. The chaos of the early 21st century really stirs the
pot but nothing just appears out of nowhere.

I'd love to see an Oz sourcebook which contains all the rich diversity of
this island-continent and its close proximity to the complex Shadowrun
Asia, but a sourcebook where nothing spectacular or special happened - just
to be different. No elven nations. No NAN (Native Aboriginal Nations). No
special resistance to VITAS, UGE, goblinization, or the computer crash. No
special anti-megacorp laws. No city-states, dictatorships or anarchy. Just
an average mid-level western democracy struggling and surviving in the
bizarre Shadowrun future-history. It'd be interesting, useful and colourful
enough without all the "Gee wiz. Let's put that in!" crap.





Chris Maxfield
<cmaxfiel@****.org.au>
------------------------------------------
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a rigged
demonstration.
- Programmer's restatement of Clarke's Law
----------------------------------------
Canberra, Australia
Message no. 11
From: Lady Jestyr <jestyr@*******.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 14:50:22 +1000
>> FASA did go to the source for the Australian sourcebook that
>> they are sitting on. It was written by a guy from Perth called
>> Cory....something (I think). I'll look it up as it was listed as
>> an upcoming
>> release years ago in Shadowlands magazine and included the
>> author credit. I know from contacts of mine that he is
>> a) Australian and b) from Perth.
>
>I thought they'd canned that one... I've read snippets of it in the
>"Australian Realms" gaming mag, and it seemed, well, a little ocker. I'd
>thought they'd decided to go with another group of players based in Sydney.

I too have read the Australian Realms stuff, and laughed my way through it.
The guy who wrote it had _no_ clue. None.

Where did you hear about the Sydney group doing it?

Lady Jestyr

- In the force if Yoda's so strong, then construct a sentence -
- with words in the proper order why can't he? -
- jestyr@*******.com.au URL: http://www.geocities.com/~jestyr -
Message no. 12
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 15:06:12 +1000
Lady J writes:
> I too have read the Australian Realms stuff, and laughed my way
> through it.
> The guy who wrote it had _no_ clue. None.
>
> Where did you hear about the Sydney group doing it?

I saw a post on aus.games.roleplaying about 3 years ago by a group asking
for people to give write ups over their home state. I emailed them asking
what it was about, and they said they were doing research for a sourcebook
for SR on FASA's behalf, in a manner similar to the German sourcebook. But,
that was 3 years ago... if anything was going to happen I think it would
have.

--
Duct tape is like the Force: There's a Light side, a Dark side, and it
binds the Universe together.
Robert Watkins -- robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 13
From: Matthew Dee <Matthew.Dee@***.EDU.AU>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1998 18:43:36 +1000
>At 14:12 22/10/98 +1000, Chris Maxfield (aka. The Darkling :)wrote:
>I don't think it's a matter of whether locals should or should not do a
>location book but rather they should be done by professionals with
>familiarity in the area and some training in history. However, after the
>book is written it does need to be fact-checked by locals with
>anal-retentive tendencies.
>

I don't think that it's necessary that those doing the research and writing
be 'professionals' in the area (professional roleplayers?!), or that they
have 'training' in history (although admittedly that'd help), but they
*should* be talented writers with enough imagination not to come up with
the bloody obvious ockerised rubbish that (some) previous attempts have
delivered.

>I really don't like location books and a lot of other Shadowrun history,
>where things just happen for no reason (other than "Gee wiz it's cool!")
>especially when it's with minimal, if any impact, on anything else. Nothing
>just happens but rather is caused by years, decades, centuries of previous
>events and pressures. The chaos of the early 21st century really stirs the
>pot but nothing just appears out of nowhere.
>

I agree. However, if you're writing a sourcebook for FASA you've only got
about 128 pages to play with; *not* enough room to detail the complete
(years, decades, centuries, etc. of) background to every significant event
that has happened in any country over a period of 60 years. Some details
have to left out, but this does leave room for individual groups and GMs to
some customization for their campaigns.

>I'd love to see an Oz sourcebook which contains all the rich diversity of
>this island-continent and its close proximity to the complex Shadowrun
>Asia, but a sourcebook where nothing spectacular or special happened - just
>to be different. No elven nations. No NAN (Native Aboriginal Nations). No
>special resistance to VITAS, UGE, goblinization, or the computer crash. No
>special anti-megacorp laws. No city-states, dictatorships or anarchy. Just
>an average mid-level western democracy struggling and surviving in the
>bizarre Shadowrun future-history. It'd be interesting, useful and colourful
>enough without all the "Gee wiz. Let's put that in!" crap.
>

Yes! An Australian nation like that in the Shadowrun era would be unique;
the tensions and undercurrents that would be caused by the Awakening, the
Megacorps and the rest of the sixth world in general should be enough to
create an interesting and believable (in SR terms) culture and nation.

Mind you: Oz has to survive another three years of John Howard as PM first! :)

Matt Dee
Australian National University, Canberra
Wanna-be Archaeologist ("Bring out yer dead!")
Message no. 14
From: Chris Maxfield <cmaxfiel@****.ORG.AU>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 12:55:35 +1000
At 18:43 22/10/98 +1000, Matthew Dee wrote:
>I don't think that it's necessary that those doing the research and writing
>be 'professionals' in the area (professional roleplayers?!), or that they
>have 'training' in history (although admittedly that'd help), but they
>*should* be talented writers with enough imagination not to come up with
>the bloody obvious ockerised rubbish that (some) previous attempts have
>delivered.

Absolutely. I just used the word "professional" as short-hand for someone
who knows what they're doing in writing - some talent and some skill.
Unfortunately, the only way to determine this with objective confidence is
via their previously published works. I really do believe, however, that
such an author does need some understanding of how history works, not just
had read it. Too many things in Shadowrun future history "Just Happen".

I think Lady Jestyr and we have the same opinion of the stuff published in
Australian Realms.

>I agree. However, if you're writing a sourcebook for FASA you've only got
>about 128 pages to play with; *not* enough room to detail the complete
>(years, decades, centuries, etc. of) background to every significant event
>that has happened in any country over a period of 60 years. Some details
>have to left out, but this does leave room for individual groups and GMs to
>some customization for their campaigns.

Oh yes. I did not mean publish all those details but at least have worked
them out - justify the future history events and produce some broad brushed
words outlining the historic currents leading to why things happened the
way they did (do?). It is said that some of the best SF and fantasy authors
create a great deal of background detail about their imagined worlds but
only directly use about 5-10% in their story. This creates an internally
consistent background and it shows in the quality of the work.

>
>Mind you: Oz has to survive another three years of John Howard as PM
first! :)

Maybe less. :-)


Chris Maxfield We are restless because of incessant
<cmaxfiel@****.org.au> change, but we would be frightened if
Canberra, Australia change were stopped.
Message no. 15
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: The land of OZ?? (Australia)
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 11:31:03 +0200
According to Lady Jestyr, at 8:04 on 22 Oct 98, the word on the street was...

> Heh. I _wish_.
>
> Apparently FASA already have a fully-written Australian sourcebook from way
> back in the Tom Dowd era, they've just never published it. I guess they'll
> try and make that fit into a more modern format if they want to publish
> Australian material, before going outside for new stuff.

Oh yeah, forgot about that in my other post. Mike was (again) talking
about doing a sourcebook about either the Far East or "Awakened lands" (I
made an off-hand remark that a book including info about Japan is high on
the wishlist of many people on ShadowRN, BTW), and if it's going to be a
"Target: Awakened Lands" then Australia would most likely be in it. So,
Lady J, I suggest you contact FASA about this -- you never know, even if
they do have a mostly finished book from years ago, they might apreciate
your ideas as well.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Een beetje van jezelf en een beetje van magie.
-> NERPS Project Leader * ShadowRN GridSec * Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
-> The New Character Mortuary: http://www.electricferret.com/mortuary/ <-

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