Dark Angel Review

July 17, 2024 - 11 minutes read - 2245 words

Dark Angel is a Shadowrun adventure for 2nd Edition. The plot revolves around recovering the original recordings from the Legendary Rocker, Dark Angel. Seems he killed himself (though it’s murky that anyone would set himself on fire as a way of going out) and some new kid suddenly showed up with recordings and signed contracts. This of course seems like the HOTTEST of Bull Drek that could be, because Angel swore he would never record them and sell out. It’s up to you and your friends to recover the songs and get the skinny on how this person got their hands on these things.

This adventure kind of has it all, there are plenty of mages in the pages of this adventure. There are systems to hack (this is pre-VR2.0, so we are talking about the old school dungeon crawl systems!). There are also plenty of times where the right bribe and the right word gets it done better than bullets. Also you will have PLENTY of chances to do some 9mm justice in the streets.

How much of each system can you expect? Ratings out of 5!

Magic | 3 | Magic has some background to a lot of the characters, as well some spell slingers are involved in general. The plot doesn’t REQUIRE any of it, so you can do without mages/shamans but as always, they make everything easier.
Matrix | 4 | There are large sections of this adventure that nearly require deckers. You could hand wave some of it if you can just cut out drives and servers, but someone needs to actually get these files. There are multiple systems for deckers to get into. So that’s always awesome. Some very important clues are hidden in systems.
Combat | 4 | There are several times you will need to fight your way out of a bad situation or could use violence to solve a problem. There are times you may be overwhelmed and times you may be fighting multiple magical enemies.
Rigging | 3 | There are at least 2 instances where a combat can break out in a vehicle or having a vehicle ram your vehicle. So it does have some amount of rigging but it is possible to avoid this entirely.
Face | 5 | A few scenes really need some good negotiation or have a chance for talking. There are several key points where talking your way through things can land you some great info. There is also a lot of legwork that can get you ahead of some curveballs. There are also some CRITICAL points where the adventure can be made or broken on good etiquette rolls.

This adventure is honestly solid all the way through. It’s one of the few I wouldn’t change very much of, if at all. This is pretty unusual for me. As always there are SOME things that I think could help or just would make things a bit more interesting. So I’ll give you my notes and opinions on those things. Everything else we need to talk about will wander into spoiler territory. Send your GM this way if you want to experience this punk rock adventure for yourself.

Spoilers Ahead

This adventure does kind of have it all. It contains plenty of spirits, spellslingers, matrix systems and backroom deals. One of the great aspects of this story is the fact that the writer has laid out SO many good spots for everyone to shine. The big problem comes when people aren’t running at least one decker and at least one face. There are two vital points of the adventure that need to be discovered in order for this adventure to have its full effect. So let’s talk about those two points and the dangers to them.

Edward Crull is pulling the Strings

This can be found in two places. Xanadu Studios Servers and the PartyZone. The information on the servers is direct and damning. It’s direct but that server is pretty difficult to get much done for a new decker. The biggest killer is the fact that a failure on the trace tells Edward someone is mucking in the system and this will have an ambush set for the players.

The PartyZone is kind of a hot zone of craziness. A lot of this adventure requires the players to blend in with whatever scene they are at. PartyZone is no exception. If the players end up on the wrong side of the band members things can go down pretty quickly. It doesn’t help that they loathe who the runners are working for. This can make slips of the tongue in some of these scenes a death knell to any good communication that was started.

Kat Akmura is pulling Edward’s Strings

Finding out about Kat comes into the territory of learning that Edward is Yakuza. Once that’s understood, a lot of different places can lead to Kat. This is nice but it’s incredibly dangerous if the players don’t really understand the kind of gun that’s pointed at their respected head. Given a lot of players may be smart about that but if they aren’t, it can end not only the run but the whole campaign.

Changes I would make

This adventure is actually REALLY solid. I absolutely love that this adventure’s wide net for different roles. It really has everything which I think makes needing to make tweaks almost not needed. Still I do have a few nitpicks.

The Money Game is all over the place

One of the strange things about this scenario as well is how little the players are paid and how CRAZY the side nuyen is. There is close to 1,000,000 nuyen that can be hacked out of some of these systems. Given you will need massive storage (an extra 1k storage) for the 700k payday but its on the table. Lilly pays them up to 1.5k each? Some of the bribes cost 5k+ in order to get information from sources. The money game is just all ove rthe place in this. I’d definitely have Lilly offter more up front and maybe tone down the extra cash found in some of these other systems. If your players are going to to geek Kat anyway, stealing the 500k extra feels like a gimmie. The 200k on the Dreadnought atleast is dangerous information that might get them in some hot water if its not sold very carefully. Here is a list of whats found where.

55k in Xanadu Systems
30k in Lone Star local System
200k and 500k in the Dreadnought’s System (requires 1000 storage, 500 each).

How the hell does Angel have a BTL problem without Datajack or Chipjack?!

In the plot synopsis, Akmura disguised her kidnapping of Angel under a BTL-induced suicide. This is COMPLETELY WILD. Angel and his brother are magical and Angel’s whole thing is his attraction to the elves of legend and their magical nature. It is -super- left field that he would violate his body with cyberware then get addicted to BTLs. So what do we do with this?

First, it seems kind of crazy to have people think he had a problem and just accept that somehow he got cyber surgery, then got hooked on chips immediately. I feel like perhaps this should have been some kind of other substance and BTLs were just new at the time of writing this adventure? In either case, I’d replace this with some kind addiction. Given any kind of addiction will ultimately harm your magic, at least with those you run your risk when it becomes an issue vs getting surgery you KNOW will damage your magic and then getting an addiction on top of that. Also there would need to be some kind of precursor behavior that would have made the other people in his life accept that this happened. It is definitely possible to be one of those “well you just never know people” but that feels kind of weak. At least have him show some signs of being open to addiction by having him display issues during some of the party sessions at The PartyZone.

Finally, if you want this story to have that truly tragic cyberpunk feel. Go the extra yard, have Angel get kidnapped and have Akumra force a chipjack on him and get him addicted to BTLs. That would change the story quite a bit, it would be an interesting angle to play if he DID get addicted and now he basically does whatever Akuma asks because she holds the keys to his addiction. To add even more tragedy, chipjack actually ruined him. The chipjack was just enough to turn off his magical connection to the beautiful music he was able to make. All he can do now is mimic what he did before, another light to push against that darkness snuffed by greed and pride.

Lilly Ice’s demeanor

Having a Johnson directly tied to the main plot is great. You can pretty much trust what she says but I think it’s kind of bullshit that Angel’s bandmates are completely sure of Angel and his attitude to things but Lilly believes everything she’s heard. I know she’s hurt and I know she’s upset over the records being recorded, but why is it only her that believes Angel broke his word and went back on his principles? She should have known him the best.

So for me, I would change her to firmly agree that Angel would have never done this and she wants to know how it happened. She should be convinced that it was under duress and maybe that’s an out but she also wants vengeance against whoever forced his hand.

She can still have some serious static with the band. With Lilly not being in the band it definitely would be an “us vs them” mentality. Even worse if she actually learns of Sheera’s obsession with Angel. It may not be possible for Sheera to hide her love for Angel. I’d make this the sticking point for them.

Angel’s Death

This feels like an insane reach for people to believe. The premise of his “suicide” is that his BTL chip malfunctioned and it some how incinerated his body bad enough that it was then possible to hide his identity. I completely understand the need for the body to be hidden or having it somehow mangled in such a way that he wouldn’t be fully identifiable by casual looks. I think there are better or at least more “plausible” ways for this to happen.

My first thought is animal predation. Devil rats or something of the sort would know that chip heads die and become easy pickings. Heck even ones zonked enough would be easy enough to become dangerous. Having some like a devil rat eat your face would keep MOST people from asking questions. This would make the identifying features much easier to come by as well. Mostly down to build and hair color. Hack and Slash being brought in mostly just is a means to connect Edward back to this crime (that someone paid them to do it).

Otherwise I think you could come up with some kind of strangeness of a trode net over Angel or something hacked together in order to make this kind of work. This would also make Angel’s death make a TON more sense in why he would have caught fire. You might even be able to come up with something where they had to rig something crazy for him to get high and he does this because it’s not actually “entering his body”? Then you can just explain that the voltage had to be CRANKED to get those

Final Thoughts

I think this adventure really encapsulates what is possible in Shadowrun. It has all of the major things people will want out of an adventure. Magic, Tech, Servers and Crime. I think when it comes down to it, it’s something for everyone. Even my few changes to it barely adjusts the overarching story. I think it’s worth running for sure. I believe that the stories with underground artists like this are some of the pinnacle of Punk from Cyberpunk.

Angel’s Dead, but Angel Lives in us all. Fight the Power. Stay true to yourself.

If you want to read Dark Angel for yourself or run it for your group, you can find it here:

Bonus Info

As you folks know I am a huge fan of 3rd edition Shadowrun. This is my attempt to recreate the hosts in Dark Angel for 3rd edition.

Dynamo Matrix Host

ACSIF
orange-7/13/11/14/14/13

Step: Event
4: Probe-6
9: Trace-8
13: Trace-8
18: Passive Alert
23: Tar Baby-8
28: Tar Pit-10
33: Blaster-6
36: Active Alert
41: Blaster-8
46: Scout-8
49: Crippler-8
54: Crippler-10
57: Ripper-6
60: Shutdown

Lonestar Matrix Host

ACSIF
red-7/15/14/13/11/12

Scramble-8 protecting Files

Step: Event
3: Tar Pit-5
7: Trace-9
9: Trace-9
11: Passive Alert
13: Blaster-7
17: Blaster-8
20: Killer-9
24: Active Alert
28: Blaster-10
31: Killer-10
34: Shutdown

Dreadnought Matrix Host

red-7/12/12/14/13/12

Scramble-8 protecting Files
Scramble-6 protecting Slave

Step: Event
3: Trace-5
6: Blaster-7
8: Tar Pit-7
10: Tar Pit-7
14: Passive Alert
18: Killer-7
20: Trace-7
24: Tar Pit-7
26: Sparky-7
29: Active Alert
31: Sparky-8
33: Psychotropic Black IC-7
36: Psychotropic Black IC-9
39: Killer-9
41: Killer-5
43: Lethal Black IC-7
45: Lethal Black IC-9
49: Shutdown