"The Antumbra Saga" is a trilogy of fan-made campaigns for the video game Shadowrun Returns, created by Steam user Cirion. The three campaigns revolve around a multi-layered conflict about foreign powers attempting to take control of the fledgling California Free State.
In The Antumbra Saga, you take control of a lowly Shadowrunner who, after a package delivery gone very wrong, finds themselves tangled in a war between the elven nation of Tir Tairngire and the CFS, with darker powers tugging at the strings...
The Caldecott Caper puts you in the shoes of a runner working as a rent-a-cop in Japanese-occupied San Francisco. After a patrol gone wrong leaves you nearly dead and with a colossal medical bill, you decide to rob a Mitsuhama cargo train to pay for it.
In CalFree In Chains, the California Free State has fallen and General Saito, the Japanese governor of the area, rules with an iron fist and the backing of his corporate allies, leaving only a few fighting back, among them you as a contracted runner working for the People's University.
Tropes appearing in "The Antumbra Saga".
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The "titles" given to each of your characters after finishing one part of the scenarios, respectively Runner of Redding, Hero of Halferville and Conqueror of Camelot.
- Affably Evil: Dorbi is very blatantly self-serving and power-hungry, but she is also generally open about her ambitions, upbeat and cheerful.
- All Genes Are Codominant: Nope. Gavan Morgan, a high-ranking member of human-supremacist group Human Nation discovers that it is perfectly possible for two humans, both of whom come from human-only families, to have a troll son.
- Bad Boss: Slagharm, the leader of the Metahuman People's Army, is a devotee of Shavarus (a troll supremacist mad shaman) and has a "with us or against us" mentality that earn people who don't follow her a bullet to the head.
- Big Bad: There are several candidates:
- Saito and Lofwyr had a heavy hand in the whole affair, the former due to his occupation of California, the latter because he wants to remove Hestaby from the picture and carve a piece of the Californian market for Saeder-Krupp.
- Gavan Morgan
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Sable leans into this, being an intellectual who sees reality as a puzzle to solve. When you run into him he is running cybersecurity for a street gang, but turns on them immediately because he feels he has a pretty good handle on the "gang" thing now, and a law enforcement perspective would be more useful to gain a complete understanding of street crime.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: In CalFree In Chains, the final assault of the Protectorate Army against the People's University ends up like this. You can however change things if you took the time to build alliances and perform various tasks, as well as some help from your team, causing Saito's forces to be on the receiving end of the curbstomp.
- Defector from Decadence: Masato defected from Colonel Saito when the latter went rogue. Make no mistake, he is still a loyal Imperial Marine, though, and the way he sees it, Saito defected from him and not the other way around.
- Dirty Cop: Rafik takes money on the side as he's walking the beat. Justified as he's a shadowrunner doing beat cop work, not an official police officer or a member of Lone Star or Knight Errant, so he's under much less scrutiny. And he has a sick wife.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Averted. At the end of each scenario, the runner is a celebrity in California whose names are known to everybody:
- The Antumbra Saga: The runner becomes the mayor of Redding and, later, the governor of Northern California, as well as a popular musician and actor.
- The Caldecott Caper: The runner is a legend of the shadows who gave a black eye to one (or two if you choose to do so) AAA corps, destroyed a anti-metahuman bioweapon and is hailed as a champion of metahuman rights.
- CalFree In Chains: The runner gets the People's University node renamed after them and gets the respect of Hestaby for saving her life at the cost of their own, ensuring the Great Dragon will keep fighting in her stead, as well as stopping Human Nation's plans in California and giving a crippling blow to Saito's protectorate.
- Fantastic Racism: Lots of "humans VS metahumans". First there's Saito's rule who tries to actively lock metahumans in ghettos, before starting an industrialized purge. There's also the Native Californians and Humanis, who behave like hooligans and harass metahumans. Both are pawns to Human Nation, who want to turn California into a humans-only nation by any means necessary. On the other side, the Metahuman People's Army don't hide their trog supremacist views, even if they admit that it will be long before trogs will be at the top of the food chain.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Well, Lofwyr was never a nobody, but his involvement in the main game campaigns was largely that of a somewhat amused third party. This time, however, you have no such luck, and you will understand exactly how Lofwyr earned his reputation.
- Gambit Pileup: Everybody has a stake in the future of California, but the biggest players who clash among themselves are Tir Tairngire (motivated by land expansion), Lofwyr (motivated by removing another Great Dragon from the picture and get a foothold in California for Saeder-Krupp) and Human Nation (motivated by the possibility of turning California into a human ethnostate).
- Genius Bruiser: Sable and Arelia are respectively a skilled decker and a powerful mage. They're also trolls that favor slashing away with a cutlass.
- Masato is one of the best riggers of the Imperial Japanese Marines and get into the fray with a monofilament whip.
- Gentle Giant: Arelia is a troll (meaning she towers even above orcs) and a total softie bordering on White Magician Girl.
- He Who Fights Monsters: The Halferville Protection Front started as a genuine policlub wishing to protect the dwarf-made settlement from outside threats, but slowly derived into dwarf supremacists who actively try to banish or kill non-dwarf residents of Halferville and dwarves who are "race traitors" and are willing to throw their lot with Mitsuhama, testing their bioweapons in order to rid Halferville of trogs.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Rafik (an ork) and Kora (a dwarf).
- I Gave My Word: Oddly enough, the megacorps believe in this in CalFree In Chains. Should you choose to help Ares or Novatech in the potential missions where they appear, they make good on their promises, respectively deploy troops at the California border to simulate an imminent attack, causing Saito to redirect some of his troops in order to stop them and sending a corpsec team to help you save a former Fuchi scientist about to be forcibly extracted by Renraku along with some freebies, and later sending more of their troops to help the defenders of the People's University.
- It's All About Me: Dorbi cares about Dorbi and nothing else; everything she does is to gain more power for herself, making her double-crossing alliance with Saito rather obvious.
- Liberty Over Prosperity: Persi is considering leaving the shadows and starting up a drone dealership and repair shop, which would let her stop living from hand to mouth, but also keep her tied down. You can push her either way, or Take a Third Option and point out that being a business owner is nothing like being a wageslave. Yes, you still have to sit in meetings, but YOU get to decide who gets to be there, and that's also a kind of freedom.
- Logical Weakness: Masato is an absolute wizard when it comes to rigging, but can't do drone repairs that riggers who run the shadows consider elementary. He never had to learn because he spent most of his rigging career having the IJS logistical chain to lean on.
- Mage Marksman: Rafik is a skilled pistol user and a Bear Shaman.
- Mysterious Waif: Tabitha, the human avatar of the Great Dragon Hestaby.
- Never Learned to Read: Isao, quite unsurprisingly, since he is an oni growing up in the intensely racist IJS, and because he was raised in a concentration camp.
- Opposing Combat Philosophies: Just like in Shadowrun Hong Kong, the skill trees of your characters go in two different paths:
- Rafik can focus on either supporting his team with his shaman powers or his pistol skill.
- Kora and Sable can improve their decking capabilities or favor meatspace combat with their maching gun /cutlass.
- Masato and Persi can improve their battle skills with the shotgun / monofilament whip or their drones.
- Dorbi can either hamper her ennemies with debuffs or focus on purely destructive magic.
- Isao can protect his allies at range with various buffs and support abilities or become a full-blown street samurai focused on attack.
- Arelia can improve her healing magic to become more potent in it or become more offensive with attack spells and sword skills.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Racists of varying stripes make up a varied and colorful palette of villains, Human racists like the Native Californians, Humanis and the Imperial Marines, Elven Supremacists from Tir Tairngire, separatist dwarves and even the odd-bird troll-magic-user-supremacist Shavarus all show up.
- Pyromaniac: Dorbi is a fire mage who loves playing with fire for its own sake. She is also positively giddy at the thought of creating an earthquake.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Justin Brett, the head of operations for Novatech California, is polite and respectful towards shadowrunners and upholds his bargains, even if he admits that he does it mostly because it's beneficial for Novatech. Just don't talk shit about paper records in front of him.
- Fishfingers, the new MPA boss should you kill Slagharm, is more open towards racial equality and discussion compared to his troll supremacist predecessor. And he knows that it's thanks to you that he got his current job.
- Sacrificial Lion: Desorn and Valiri are killed during Tassender's rescue mission.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: An elf Player Character can mention several times during dialog that being an elf lets them "bend the rules" imposed by the Japanese occupiers. Persi will even mention that, if things go south, the PC always has the option to just go to Tir Tairngire and become virtually untouchable as even AAA-rated mega corps are reluctant to mess with the elven nation.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Metahuman Peoples' Army are technically on the same side as the good guys, but like overwhelming force and don't care much about little things like collateral damage, meaning that they are almost more loathed by the people they claim to fight for than among their enemies.
- Straight Gay: It's a blink-and-you-miss-it thing, but Masato mentions a husband back in Japan, who is taking care of their son.
- Twofer Token Minority: Persi, being an ork in human-dominated CalFree and a woman in the male-dominated California Rangers.
- Elorn and Tassender as well, being black elves (as in, black men who happens to be elves).
- Villain Decay: Shavarus went from a powerful troll shaman who made a pact with a powerful fire spirit and one of the main villains of The Antumbra Saga to a crazed undead high on magic who's finally put down for good in CalFree In Chains.
- Warrior Poet: Sable enjoys writing his memories in the form of a novel.
- We ARE Struggling Together: There are a multitude of groups opposing Saito's occupation and ethnic cleansing efforts, but they range from the pacifist and fiercely egalitarian Peoples' University to the Ares MegaCorp to several metahuman-supremacist groups. All of them agree that Saito's stranglehold on San Fransisco must be broken, and none of them agree about anything else.
- You No Take Candle: How Isao speaks English, due to his lack of education.
