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This supplement for Technoir looks to replicate the feel of... let's face it, Shadowrun, in the Technoir Verb-and-tags system. You can find this book on Lester Ward's Itch page.

The high level concept for this is to round out rules for exploring cyberspace and magic. Other Technoir add-ons use a single new Verb, Evoke, to cover all use of magic or cybermancy. This, to paraphrase the creator's opinion, made it a God Stat, able to handle every situation because you could use Evoke to cast a fireball, turn invisible to avoid detection, heal someone, or convince someone to change their mind (so kind of like how Shadowrun does it). The examples they provide though would have a mundane character rolling Shoot, Prowl, Treat, and Coax to get the same results, respectively.

How they handle this dichotomy is listed below.

Dragons Cast A Long Shadow uses the basic Technoir rules. I did a recap of that game over here: 05. Technoir

Alright, time to get into some changes. Since this book is free, I don't feel as bad going into more specifics. First up, is Forms & Venues

Forms & Venues

Venues are the various "realms" your character may experience the world in. Meatspace, cyberspace, the astral plane are the most common forms. The Venues are as follows.

• Meatspace - Real world what where people live.
• The Net - Catch all term for computer systems, whether it be the global net or a local network or system.
• Astral Space - The plane of magic and emotion that overlaps and intersects with meatspace.
• The Spectrum - A realm of electronic signals that overlays on meatspace. The realm of radios, augmented reality, and drone control.
• Zeitgeist - Collective unconscious on a grand scale. The things that drive opinion and moods and tenors of discussions and events.
• Elsewhere - The catchall for any weird space that may represent things like a realm of thought and such.

Book states these are the default the book operates with, but tells you to use ones that work for your game. They even give some example sets, such as a game that uses "Reality and Dreaming, with an occasional trip to a Hell venue" or using multiple Forms in the same Venue to represent some sort of like... transhumanism (bodies you can swap between freely, for example, might have different traits or attributes).

Interestingly, some Venues may have Adjectives of their own, such as Glitchy, or Tainted that may provide universal penalties to everyone acting in there. Or situational ones that only affect certain types of checks. Another thing that I really like about this book so far is that after the introduction of Venues and Forms, there's a page dedicated to each Venue type, giving more background, what Natives/Citizens/Tourists of each Venue are like, how this Venue can intersect with play, and how objects of the space are interacted with. The Zeitgeist Venue might require the most reading, as it is the least intuitive out of the bunch, in my opinion, but still neat.

Forms are the collection of verbs, abilities, equipment, and adjectives to describe how you interact with a specific venue. You may not have a Form for every venue. A non-awakened character won't have a Form relating to the Astral Space for example. Forms in the book are as follows.

• Physical - Interacts with meatspace. For most players, this will be the default.
• Supernal - This form has to deal with things that are magical in nature. Normally this form is overlaid on a Physical form, invisible to most people. Some creatures like ghosts only have Supernal forms.
• Influential - Persona and identities that are capable of affecting the zeitgeist.
• Virtual - The natives of the Net. Not for regular internet use, but for those who move more naturally in it.
• Astral - These are the ones that roam free in Astral Space.
• Rigged - Forms that are able to project into other devices.

At character creation, you start with a Native Form, the one you start play with. In most cases this will be a Physical Form. You can also apply a Variation tag to it to indicate different species and such. Book gives examples of Human, Troll, an Uplifted raccoon (a Raccoon who what gained some smarts), a Golem character, someone who had a Human starting form and a Clone reserved, and a few more. Each Form is trained independently, so if you take a training in your Native Physical Form, that doesn't translate to other Forms, even other Physical ones.

Like Venues, there is a section dedicated to the different Forms. Each one is 2 pages long, one page talking about generation, examples, descriptions, how they play, any special things to keep in mind, and the other is examples of how they use the various Verbs in the game.

The Verbs, your stats, of base Technoir are slightly modified too. They are the same Verbs in every Venue, but your ratings in each Verb in different spaces may be different. Most are the same but there are a few new ones, specifically Alter (replaces Hack) and Target (replaces Shoot). The slightly vaguer versions of the default Verbs allow them to work in more spaces. Additionally, the fixed Training programs from base game Technoir are replaced. Normally, you'd pick a Training that represented a job or training you had, and it would give you a point in 3 specific Verbs. In DCaLS, you still pick the job or training you had, but you instead pick the 3 different Verbs you want to increase. So two Couriers won't have the same Verb ratings.

Character Creation Notes

THIS SECTION KICKS ASS! OK, so when you have a character, you have 7 Slots to fill. The way the book does it's math means either the first thing doesn't count, or there's only supposed to be 3 Free slots, anyways. I'm opting for the first, so here we go.

Slots are how you create your character. They can be filled with various things on top of the basics you start with. You start with...

• A Native Form (0 slots taken [confirmed later in character creation examples])
• 3 Trainings (can only be applied to Forms you have - 3 Slots)
• 10 Kred (0 slots for this).
• Connections (similar to connection web in Technoir)

The remaining 3 slots can be spent on the following.

• An Additional Form
• Additional Training
• Additional connections
• Augmentation (15 Kred for install, so you can end up using the Favor or Loan Shark connection favor for this, don't pay cost of item for creation augments)
• Kreds (gain 10 more Kred)
• Intrinsic Magic (Magic that only affects you, doesn't really require an Astral or Superna Form. This is like your Technomancy, Telepresent (for riggers), Adepts, Shapeshifters, and the like. You get to select some Talent adjectives to indicate how you're changed by this innate trait)

As a quick Aside, I don't like that the game has you Lock an adjective when you get an Augmentation. It does the thing where cyberware takes away a bit of your humanity, which I'd probably just handwave. Some people are probably more deadened and depressed by needing it sure, but others are just as likely to feel empowered and enriched by having an Augment.

Beyond that, character creation is similar to Technoir. For each training pick 3 Verbs to increase by 1 in one of your Forms, use the stuff your GM has to find out who the connections are and everyone's relationship to the NPCs and/or each other, spend Kred on additional non-slot things, so on and so forth.

I do like how the sidebar on Decryption does away with Hollywood hacking, and leans more towards pushing hackers and parties towards leveraging people to get information they need. Decryption is default "impossible" unless you can find a crack in the system, either because you swiped some codes, or because someone gave you a place to look awhile at gunpoint.

I kind of like this system? I really like the Slot as a modular character creation. It adds some complexity on top of Technoir, but I expected that going in. Adjusting to the Venues and Forms systems may take some work, but I believe in us (collectively). Think I'll to make a character here in this collapsed section.

All in all, this seems pretty slick. I like it a lot, but I also like Technoir, even though it looks like it can be kind of clunky in play. Regardless, this is an interesting take on the Cyberpunk + Magic and other weirdness you can find in Shadowrun. Give it a look if that sounds interesting!