Chicago: Apocalypse

Chapter One — 2073: No Borders, No Limits

In April 2073, a loose network of professional shadowrunners begins accepting assignments from an international collection of fixers, including Antoine Duprés, Jenny White, and Li Hu. Their first assignment takes them to Barcelona, where a seemingly straightforward theft from La Sagrada Familia Cathedral becomes a bloody confrontation involving corporate security, magic, and a mysterious shapeshifting ork. Subsequent jobs send the runners to upstate New York, where a routine delivery of a dairy tanker ends in a deadly firefight with Ares FireWatch, and to Amsterdam, where an attempt to recover Van Gogh’s Starry Night embroils them in a conspiracy involving art thieves, stolen plutonium, and Saeder-Krupp.

In India, the team finds itself competing against another group of shadowrunners, Catalyst, to recover stolen corporate documents at the Taj Mahal. The confrontation ends in an uneasy compromise, establishing a rivalry that will resurface throughout the campaign. A hostage rescue in Sarajevo proves considerably less successful, with the team eliminating the terrorists but failing to save any of their captives.

The runners’ increasingly dangerous assignments take them to South America, where an extraction from Chile goes disastrously wrong. After their aircraft is shot down, the survivors trek through the Peruvian jungle toward Machu Picchu. There they encounter the same mysterious ork first seen in Barcelona, now conducting a powerful magical ritual. The ork seeks the power to ignite the world’s volcanoes, and an ancient spirit apparently grants his wish.

Meanwhile, another team is hired to expose a corrupt UCAS senator during a political fundraiser in Washington, D.C. The operation takes an unexpected turn when the President of the UCAS is assassinated during the event. Sweet Cassie, who had accepted a separate contract to create a distraction, finds herself unwittingly implicated in the assassination.

By the summer of 2073, the runners have accumulated considerable wealth, dangerous enemies, and a growing reputation for taking on impossible assignments.

Then the world begins to fall apart.

Chapter Two — The World Burns

In June 2073, a team is dispatched to Yellowstone National Park to rescue another group of operatives caught in an extraordinary magical disturbance. Their search leads them through dangerous wilderness, hostile security forces, and an increasingly violent mana storm. At the heart of the disturbance, the runners confront a powerful dragon and its accompanying spirits. They barely survive the encounter, escaping as the earth begins to tremble beneath them.

On June 23, Yellowstone erupts.

The destruction is almost unimaginable. Massive volcanic eruptions strike several locations around the world, burying entire regions beneath ash and debris. Within days, the estimated death toll exceeds 1.5 billion, and enormous clouds of ash threaten to plunge the planet into a prolonged volcanic winter. Governments struggle to respond, transportation networks collapse, and food shortages begin spreading across the globe.

Amid the catastrophe, a radical environmental organization calling itself TerraFirst! celebrates the destruction, proclaiming it the beginning of humanity’s punishment for its abuse of the natural world.

Despite the devastation, the shadow business continues.

In Japan, a team infiltrates a secret medical research facility beneath a tattoo parlor, recovering experimental nanotechnology. Another group travels to Siberia to recover nuclear warheads from an abandoned military installation, where they encounter shapeshifters and the remains of an Ares FireWatch team. In Pompeii, an expedition to recover a missing scholar becomes a confrontation with ancient Roman spirits, culminating in a supernatural battle over a magical artifact known as the Brow of Vulcan.

Elsewhere, the runners find themselves caught between competing employers in Amazonia. While one team investigates a corporate agreement involving a revolutionary pharmaceutical, Hiro secretly carries out an assassination for a second client, unbeknownst to his companions.

Their next major expedition takes them to Antarctica, where the runners become involved in a struggle against supernatural entities known as Horrors. The surviving records of these operations are deliberately classified or deleted, although the rewards indicate that the team prevented a catastrophic threat to the world. A subsequent mission involves a prison break and an equally mysterious security asset.

For a group of mercenaries accustomed to stealing corporate secrets and recovering valuable property, saving the world from supernatural annihilation represents a considerable escalation.

Unfortunately, the world they’ve saved is still collapsing around them.

Chapter Three — Shadows of Extinction

As the volcanic winter deepens, the runners continue accepting assignments across a rapidly destabilizing Sixth World.

In Sydney, a kidnapping operation targeting a prominent celebrity becomes a chaotic confrontation when the intended victim disappears before the runners can reach her. Framed for an abduction they haven’t actually committed, the team battles its way through security forces and rival criminals before recovering the target.

Another assignment brings Jack Gold and a heavily armed team to Prague, where they provide security for an exchange involving the mysterious operative Katya. The meeting is ambushed by terrifying supernatural creatures emerging through a magical rift. The runners manage to save Katya and recover the package, eventually delivering an enchanted harp to a powerful elven figure.

In Lagos, a mission to capture a dangerous Awakened creature called a Shambler goes spectacularly wrong. An encounter with ghouls leaves members of the team dead or infected, and their eventual confrontation with the creature ends with the target destroyed rather than captured. The survivors return home empty-handed.

Not every assignment is quite so grim. In Los Angeles, a security contract for simsense star Sophie LeBlanc turns out to be an elaborate production stunt for her television series. The team endures explosions, gunfights, and a high-speed pursuit before discovering that much of their ordeal has been filmed for entertainment.

A subsequent operation in Ghana brings the runners into conflict with Aztechnology’s efforts to expand its Stuffer Shack franchise. Hired by a local businessman, the team destroys a corporate warehouse, attracting the attention of an Ares Aerospace executive who offers them another opportunity.

That opportunity takes the runners into space.

Traveling through Zurich Orbital, a team is dispatched to investigate the sudden loss of communications with the Olympia lunar research facility. After surviving an apparent assassination attempt and a shuttle explosion, they reach the Moon and discover the installation’s personnel dead. The facility has been devastated by a mysterious plague, and the runners encounter armed survivors who refuse to permit anyone exposed to the infection to leave. Mad Dog suffers a breach in his spacesuit and is subsequently placed in quarantine.

Back on Earth, another team travels to Ireland to recover an ancient book stolen from the University of Dublin. Their investigation leads them to Leap Castle, where malevolent spirits and a powerful rakshasa nearly destroy the entire party. Facing defeat, Sancho negotiates a desperate bargain, trading Achilles’ immortal soul in exchange for the book and the lives of his companions.

By the autumn of 2073, the surviving runners have encountered dragons, ancient spirits, alien horrors, and deadly plagues. Meanwhile, news reports describe a deteriorating global situation, widespread unrest, and evidence that TerraFirst! has acquired plans for nuclear weapons.

The worst is yet to come.

Chapter Four — 2074: Apocalypse

In November 2073, Jack Gold and several other runners are summoned to Paris for an emergency assignment. TerraFirst! has obtained nuclear weapons, and intelligence suggests that a bomb is hidden somewhere beneath the French capital.

The operation is complicated by conflicting intelligence, competing agendas, and apparent attempts to turn the runners against one another. After a series of dangerous confrontations, the team discovers that much of the information they have received is deliberately misleading. With assistance from Katya, they eventually identify the bomb’s location beneath the Louvre.

Fighting their way into the museum’s underground chambers, the runners locate the weapon. Jack, assisted by Tall Boy and Dark Tangent, manages to disable the device with only seconds remaining.

Paris is saved. The rest of the world is not so fortunate.

TerraFirst! detonates nuclear weapons in dozens of major cities, including New York, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Berlin, and Seattle. The attacks devastate an already crippled world, killing hundreds of millions immediately and condemning countless more to radiation sickness, starvation, and disease. Governments collapse, international communications falter, and civilization itself appears to be approaching a breaking point.

The surviving runners continue operating in the aftermath. In December, a team ventures into the radioactive ruins of Washington, D.C., to recover information from a surviving intelligence bunker. Their journey through the devastated capital brings them into contact with mutated creatures, desperate survivors, and enormous subterranean predators.

Meanwhile, Jack Gold and the runners involved in the Paris operation are brought before the Corporate Court at Zurich Orbital. Interrogated about their involvement with TerraFirst!, Jack is offered an opportunity for revenge: assemble a team, infiltrate the terrorist organization, and help bring its leadership down.

Over the following months, Jack recruits several former associates, including Tall Boy, Mad Dog, Joker, and Rajah. The team undergoes extensive preparation, including cybernetic upgrades, training, and the development of new identities. Their mission is to penetrate TerraFirst!’s organization in Amazonia and operate under deep cover.

Their infiltration begins poorly when their aircraft is shot down over South America. After surviving a firefight with local forces, the runners negotiate passage into Amazonia, where their dangerous assignment begins in earnest.

Throughout 2074, the surviving records place the team on a series of missions involving TerraFirst! and the Corporate Court. Their operations take them into the Amazon rainforest, the devastated outskirts of Buenos Aires, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. An assassination assignment in Germany coincides with a deadly terrorist attack on an international natural resources conference, while another mission returns the team to TerraFirst!’s headquarters in Amazonia.

Other groups of runners continue working independently. Assignments take them to Casablanca, where a magical duel between powerful elves leaves hundreds dead, and to Dubai, where the destruction of a massive corporate skyscraper creates another international crisis.

The final recorded adventure takes place in Florence in July 2074. A team is dispatched on an art-related assignment at the Uffizi, where a suicide bombing devastates several galleries, destroying priceless Renaissance artwork and claiming innocent lives.

By this point, the Sixth World bears little resemblance to the one the runners knew when their adventures began. Entire nations have fractured, billions have died, and the survivors struggle to rebuild amid famine, radiation, political upheaval, and the lingering threat of TerraFirst!.

What began as a series of unrelated jobs for an international network of mercenaries became a struggle for survival in a world brought to the brink of extinction.

The shadows remained. But the world around them had changed forever.