I didn’t write Portfolio of a Dragon, but when the call went out to contribute, I stepped up as best I could. The idea of the book was to shake up the world of Shadowrun as much as possible, and Mike Mulvihill (the line developer) and Steve Kenson (the primary author) did quite a job.
The charismatic great dragon Dunkelzahn, who had just recently been elected President, was assassinated by an unknown weapon on the night of his inauguration. But more traumatic than losing a President was the reading of his will. The old wyrm had a hoard: magical items, rare books, stashes of money, and enough stock shares to exert control over many huge, publicly traded companies. And in his will, he gifted the goods with the intent of changing the world for the better. Small companies got a boost to foster competitiveness and innovation. His foundation awarded millions to the winners of scientific and magical competitions, fostering competition among players of all sizes. And a few megacorporate heads found themselves outfoxed when suddenly the #2 shareholder in the corporation received a gift of stock that made him #1, or an enemy suddenly got 25% so that the two corporations had to come to some kind of accord.
The net effect of all this was to provide plot ideas so that gamemasters could springboard off them and the shadowrunners wouldn’t lack for work. The book is filled with employers, targets, motivations, and a general sense that Shadowrun was a living, breathing world that didn’t stand still.
To do that, the team needed fodder for the will. My writing partner and I kicked in a long list. We combed through supplements (and Shadowrun’s many novels) looking for characters. Dunkelzahn would of course leave something for all the other dragons important enough to be named, as well as the magical beings like the elven Princes of Tir Tairngire and the free spirit that sat on the board of the Yamatetsu corporation. Add to that all the other presidential candidates and the organizations that backed them, and finally round it out with some some random bequests that revealed Dunk’s personality. For example, he left a bequest to anyone born the day John Lennon was shot, who would be 77 or so at the time in the game universe. And lastly, there were the obscure references to Shadowrun’s many, many supplements and adventures, creating the vibe that Dunkelzahn really knew everyone in the Sixth World.
We sent our list to the Shadowrun dev staff, who got it to Steve Kenson. Not too many entries made it through unscathed — they were mostly inspiration fodder. From what I recall, we had a hand in these:
- Phoenix Biotechnologies: We hadn’t seen the Native American Nations mentioned again since the supplements covering them came out about six years back. So we invented a biotech firm based in the Pueblo Corporate Council to bring back the nations as major players.
- Tan Tien, Inc: The game was balanced heavily towards Japanese megacorps with little mention of Chinese corps, so we added this one. (Turns out Steve Kenson had a similar idea and created Wuxing at about the same time.) We hinted at their security setup here and fulfilled it in the Predator and Prey adventure “Wild Kingdom.” They don’t hire magicians because they train their paranimals to kill magical intruders, and they don’t want any chance of friendly fire.
- The entry offering money to whomever cured “Dragon Flu” was originally about creating a cure for cryptosporidiosis. It’s a presently incurable disease that kills reptiles. Of course, “Dragon Flu” is a much more readily comprehensible name, and is more obviously beyond the power of the dragons to easily cure.
- The Weeping Stone of Ta’Bel was either us or Zach Bush (we may have initially submitted it, or possibly he submitted it and we elaborated on its function). It is awarded to Robert “Morphine” Khamdeng who appeared later in the adventure supplement Missions. It’s a magical item we intended to reveal in Earthdawn, but the item got cut from Arcane Mysteries of Barsaive. What Bob does with the item is up to your DocWagon campaign.
- David Lloyd Ford, founder of Fordianism.
- Gaeatronics’ bequest of a treatise on the relationship between mana and nuclear energy.
- Helena Rossum, founder of KSAF.
- First ghoul community to be recognized by the U.N..
- I think we did the bequests to Amanda Lockheart (Euphoria’s daughter) and Mealla del Marco (Aithne Oakforest’s ex-wife) simply due to the level of nerdity required and the contemptuous attitude towards Glasgian Oakforest. On the other hand, it’s been twenty years and I can’t swear to it.
We wrote the entries pretty fast, so I don’t mind that they got further refined by the writers and dev staff. I’m just glad the supplement seems to have entertained some fans. From what I can find on the internet, it remained influential on the game line for a long time.
Portfolio of a Dragon is available here.