I. Introduction:
Shadows of North America (hence referred to as SONA) is the latest entry in the Shadowrun Universe from Wizkids/Fanpro. It covers the balkanized North America of the setting and provides a badly needed update on the continents affairs from previous works such as Neo-Anarchists Guide to North America (NAGNA), Native American Nations (NAN) 1 & 2, California Free State (CalFree), and Tir Tairngire (TT).
II. Cartography:
It’s unusual to praise a book’s water resistant qualities, however, we’ve had something of a wet spell where I live and the book has survived multiple storms rather well. Aside from that, there hasn’t been any real change in the nature or layout of Shadowrun books since Wizkids took over development so if you’ve seen prior 3rd ed. Books you know what you’re getting.
Art is overall good, similar to Threats 2 (which I reviewed ealier) with many of the same artists providing works here as well. The maps leave something to be desired, as all are rather bland, and any featuring the UCAS-CAS border have a rather glaring error in them. (Apparently the CAS has taken North Virginia from the UCAS. Who knew? ;) The flags however are almost universally excellent, and have each has a great deal to say about the character of the nation it represents. (Full color versions of these are available on the Shadowrun Website, here
III. Traveling Papers:
The material inside SONA is presented in 15 chapters. One of introductive information, providing an explanation of the break up of the US and Canada and the rise of NAN, this chapter covers mainly the formative events of the NAN and it’s structure as the Great Ghost War has been covered else where. This chapter does interpret events differently than NAN, and comes up with much stronger explanations, and resolves a few puzzling questions about their formation. The final chapter provides all the Game information, taking each country in turn and revealing some secrets and offering advice, primarily of a GM related nature. The remaining 13 chapters profile the nations themselves. Noticeably missing from this line up is Aztlan and the Trans Polar Aleut, the latter of which is will be covered in the upcoming Target: Wastelands, but there has been no official word on when we might expect an update on Aztlan.
Each profile follows the same basic outline: First, there is a quick introduction to establish a feel for the nation. Most of these are good, a few are bland, but none stand out as bad or poorly written. Following this is a current events section. The focus here is on the nation as a whole and material introducing new plot lines, or continuing the old ones is presented in this section. Additionally, this section contains a Historical Highlights box, whose usefulness is depends on how linked current events are to the nations history. Finally, major regions, cities, and figures are examined, usually with notes on what form a shadowrun involving these might take.
The Shadowland’s peanut gallery is present as well to provide commentary on the postings. The shadowtalk is on the whole good, much better than some previous books and more the atmosphere of shadowrun comes through here than it has in previous 3rd ed. works.
IV. Lay of the Land:
Overall, SONA is a strong product and a good addition for the more adventurous GM. Its writers have included a great deal of plot hooks for the GM to plot a run or even an entire campaign around. This is supported by the inclusion of several metaplot elements introduced in previous products such as Year of the Comet and Threats 2. I can’t truly speak about whether plotlines pre-3rd ed. are continued, however a GM working with the recent metaplot elements will appreciate their inclusion and development here (for instance, the American Reunification issue is dealt with most strongly in the CAS section, but bits and pieces will appear in other sections such as the UCAS). SONA walks the delicate line between update and full source book. It largely succeeds in covering ground that will be familiar to those with older books without repetition, but still is comprehensive enough for us new bloods. Those with older books such as NAGNA can still find a use for this book, as can gamers without access to the older, out of print works.
SONA is only slightly larger than the Aztlan source book, meaning that it has to cover 13 nations in the space that used to be devoted to one. Something had to go. Usually, this meant culture. The Athabaskan Council and CAS are good exceptions to this, but for many of the nations profiled I have very little sense of what it means to be from say, Ute, and this is a feeling which nagged me through out the course of reading SONA. As such, SONA is more useful in a GM hands, planning to take you into a country, and in a player's hands, coming up with a character from that country. Also, there's a great deal of plot hooks worked into SONA many writeups feature multiple and competing events (such as CalFree) some of these might have been better sacrificed to provide more detail on others.
V. Conclusion:
SONA is an excellent product for someone planning to set up a game in one of the covered nations. Regardless of whether one owns previous products that detail the North American nations, there's enough updated information to justify it's purchase, but it stands alone well enough that the rest of us won't need to scour Ebay to find copies. However, it is more useful in plotting out a run or campaign than in character generation, making this a better purchase for the aspiring GM. Right now I’m doing more GMing than playing so this doesn’t represent a problem; however I would feel slightly annoyed if I were buying it to help find out more about what my Amerind wolf shaman’s Salish background might be like.
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