(An explanation of the items in each book review can be found here.)
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Source: White Wolf Magazine issue 35, March/April 1993
Authors: C.R. Shaver & Jason Rush
Page: 6
Edition: First
Plot: A houngan (voodoo shaman) in New Orleans hires the PCs to find her missing sister. It turns out she was murdered by a vampire possessed by a loa (voodoo god/spirit), who is not too difficult to find. He does prove very difficult to kill, however, and then disappears. The runners can use various ways to find him again, but all lead to a townhouse and an old plantation. The latter is where they will eventually end up, just in time for a large fight with 15 zombies and the vampire.
Thoughts: This looks to be an uncomplicated adventure with one trouble area: the vampire should not be killed, as he is "someone to haunt the characters for years to come." This will probably lead to some forced situations unless the gamemaster is very careful. The adventure recommends that the player characters have at least 60 Karma, but as I haven't run it I don'tknow if this is strictly necessary.
Notes: This adventure ties in with articles published in earlier issues of White Wolf Magazine concerning voodoo and New Orleans in Shadowrun. As such it does not fit particularly well with the voudoun rules from Awakenings or Magic in the Shadows.
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Source: Shadowland Volume #3, April 1996
Author: Stephen Kenson
Page: 40
Edition: any
Plot: This isn't really an adventure, but more an excuse to get the runners to go up against some sharks, including a rather nasty "CyberShark"—a shark with regeneration power and cyberware... Basically, someone hires the PCs to smuggle some stuff from a yacht (which is in the ocean) to another boat, but when they get at the drop-off site there's only wreckage there. Enter the sharks...
Thoughts: Probably best used in a Cyberpirates! campaign, although it can also be a job for regular shadowrunners, this adventure is not much more than a forced encounter with sharks. That's cool, but don't expect anything in-depth here.
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Source: Shadowland Volume #1, October/November/December 1995
Author: Chris Hussey
Page: 38
Edition: any
Plot: Only a short adventure, in Headache (it doesn't appear to have any other title) the runners are asked a favor by one of their contacts: he or she needs the PCs to retrieve an item from a monorail station, which a hit team is after. It's up to the players to fight off this hit team and deliver the item to their contact.
Thoughts: The intention is that this adventure can be played in a single session, or be fitted into a larger run, and for this it's quite suitable. It could be built into a true adventure (for instance by having the contact turn up dead and leaving the PCs with the unidentified item while everybody is after them), but as written it's not much more than a diversion from more serious shadowruns. Still, it's good as an in-between adventure.
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Source: Shadowland Volume #5, December 1996
Author: Chris Hussey
Page: 40
Edition: any
Plot: A 10-year-old boy wants the runners to find his family. Assuming they agree (there may be a reward; the boy's father is a VP with Federated-Boeing). The family has been kidnapped by shadowrunners working for one of the VP's underlings, who wants to rise in the company by "finding back" his superior, and thereby showing other execs how well he can handle stressful situations. The VP's son escaped, however, and the runners willnow have to go into the Salish-Shidhe Council to liberate the boy's family from the cabin where they are held. A firefight with the kidnappers will most likely be the result.
Thoughts: As this adventure is partly intended to be used when the PCs are on the run from something, it's probably going to end up inside another adventure. This means you'd better plan this well before running it, and know what you're getting into when mixing two adventures—the players are likely to lose track of what's going on in each of them.
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Source: Adventures Unlimited issue 4, Winter 1995
Author: Lisa Smedman
Page: 36
Edition: any
Plot: First of all, it needs to be said that this is an adventure for Cyberpunk 2020 with adaptations for Shadowrun included at the end.
The adventure consists of the PCs being hired to provide security for a transport carrying toxic waste—which the PCs do not know—, a job that will take several days, and which requires them to co-operate with both law enforcement and with a gang/tribe which was also hired for protection of the convoy. During the adventure the characters will have to deal with law enforcement as well as attacks by another gang. This gang wants the chemicals in one of the trucks to take revenge on someone. Naturally, this will become a hazard to the team eventually, and it's mainly up to the players to prevent the gang from getting the toxins and poisoning thousands of people with them.
Thoughts: The adventure is very linear, in that it consists mainly of a long chase and confrontations between the convoy on one side and the attacking gang on the other. It would nonetheless make for a good in-between adventure, or perhaps one to start a toxic shaman campaign off with.
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Source: Games Master International issue 13, August 1991
Author: Steve Longley
Page: 40
Edition: First
Plot: This is an adventure that blends Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu, though it's set in the Shadowrun universe. It's about a cult who worship Cthulhu and want to wake him from where he sleeps under the sea. To achieve this, they send some of their creatures to threaten an executive of an undersea mining corporation, so they can use one of their mining rigs to investigate the site where they believe Cthulhu's resting place is. The Atlantean Foundation have discovered the corp's activities, and believe they might have found Atlantis; the PCs are hired by the Atlantean Foundation to find out what the mining corp knows.
Thoughts: Since this is only the first part of the adventure, and I don't own the second part (GMI ceased publication some time after issue 13 came out, so I don't know if part two was ever published), I can't really tell much about this adventure. The part I own only has the short plot and success tables for talking to contacts; what actually happens in the rest of the adventure, I don't know.
Notes: If anyone has part two of this adventure (presumably it's in GMI issue 14), please contact me at Gurth@xs4all.nl.
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Source: Shadowland Volume #2, December 1995
Author: Chris Hussey
Page: 50
Edition: any
Plot: The PCs are hired to be bodyguards for a SkinTech exec, who also wants them to find out who is after her. As the bodyguard job takes place at a fancy party, the runners will have to leave their heavy weapons and armor at home. What's happening is that SkinTech is being taken over by ghouls, who want to eliminate the exec (and some of her colleagues) at the party, which they've infiltrated. It's up to the runners to find this out and put a stop to it.
Thoughts: This is another one of Shadowland's "Headaches," meaning it's a short adventure that should be playable in a single session. As such it's relatively uncomplicated, although the gamemaster can of course make a bigger adventure out of it. It should work well for most teams, at any rate.
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Source: Shadowland Volume #4, August 1996
Author: Chris Hussey
Page: 46
Edition: any
Plot: When a simsense star comes to town for a promotional tour, the runners get hired to be her bodyguards. As someone is attempting to assassinate the star, this is probably a good thing. The runners will get to go to expensive parties, signing sessions, fancy clubs, and more, fending off several attacks aimed against the star they're protecting. In the mean time, they might find out who is actually behind these attacks (a competitor) and who is helping the attackers (the star's manager). If they can keep her alive for two days, everything will be fine; if they can't, they may catch some flak from the media over it.
Thoughts: It's a simple run, but one that can be good fun for the players as they get to rub shoulders with the rich and famous when they're doing their jobs. Unfortunately, only the first day of the adventure is detailed in the magazine, the second day being "left up to the gamemaster" to fill in. Not a big problem, but in my opinion it's a bit of a cheap way out...
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Source: White Wolf Magazine issue 18, December 1989/January 1990
Author: Stephan Wieck
Page: 4
Edition: First
Plot: In this short adventure, the PCs are hired by Mr. Gizetti, a ghoul (which the PCs don't know), to dispose of a body that's currently awaiting autopsy. Gizetti killed him and wants the body to disappear before an autopsy can implicate him. The dead man was a member of the Yakuza, however, and his sister wants revenge by killing Gizetti; mistaking one of the PCs for Gizetti, she tries to kill him instead. What it all comes down to is a relatively simple run against a morgue. At the end, the players may discover Gizetti is a ghoul, and the adventure takes into account that they'll fight him to collect the city's bounty on ghouls.
Thoughts: This is a simple adventure that can be played quickly, even by inexperienced players. It would probably be a good starting adventure to show new players the Shadowrun game system.
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Source: Shadowland Volume #4, August 1996
Author: Andrew Ragland
Page: 40
Edition: any
Plot: A full adventure rather than the short, one-session runs normally published in Shadowland, this takes the runners to Nashville to investigate the disappearance of a wannabe-shadowrunner, Billy Banzai. The investigation leads them through the city to such diverse places as a shadow clinic, a disused rollercoaster, and other locations, before they eventually end up at a corporation that manufactures a drug that the disappeared runner had used. The drug was actually an experiment to test for suitable subjects for the corp's vat-growth program, and Billy Banzai was used for spare parts, and there's no way to bring him back to the land of the living.
Thoughts: I haven't run or played this adventure so I can't say all that much about it, except that it looks like a well-thought-out run that doesn't really need to take place in Nashville (as far as I can see, anyway).
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Source: Shadowland Volume #6, April 1997
Author: Karen Mason-Richardson
Page: 53
Edition: any
Plot: When a man is cheating on his wife, she hires the PCs to find incriminating evidence about this and broadcast it during the show he hosts on a religious channel. The station's manager has hired some shadowrunners for matters totally unrelated to this, though he misunderstands the PCs' actions and tries to stop them.
Thoughts: A very uncomplicated adventure that nonetheless can be quite fun to play, and should work well to introduce new players to the game.
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Source: Shadowland Volume #6, April 1997
Author: Chris Hussey
Page: 39
Edition: any
Plot: While on the road, the PCs stop for the night in a town in the middle of nowhere. The next morning, their car won't start so they're stuck for a while. Then somebody is murdered, and the sheriff assumes the runners did it (them being strangers and all). Then someone else is murdered as well while the runners are nearby, making them look even more suspicious.
Actually, a wraith is active in the area and is behind the murders, something the runners will have to figure out to prove their innocence.
Thoughts: This can work both as an adventure by itself (in which case all you need to do is give the PCs an excuse to be on the road) or in the middle of a bigger adventure, as a diversion. The wraith is by no means an easy opponent (it shouldn't be, anyway) so this adventure can be tough.
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