Shadowrun: Blake Island School of Magic
Community Rating
Description
It's a high tech, low life.
It's the Seattle Metroplex in 2074. It rises like a steel and concrete cancer out of the earth. Poverty is rampant, corruption is everywhere, crime is out of control, corporations basically control everything, the old United States is fractured, magic has come back and now it turns out that humanity has been joined by elves, dwarves, orks and trolls.
The old world ended but the rent is still due. Life goes on. You'd be surprised what people can adapt to, especially if they don't have a choice.
One of the places where life goes on is just west of Seattle. Surrounded by the waters of the Puget Sound is an island. On that island is the Blake Island School of Magic. A decade ago it was known for producing some of the most talented awakened in the world. That reputation was hijacked by the wealthy corporate elite who now park their teenage children there. And since it's a boarding school, their parents mostly forget about them.
Three young people, who are certainly not wealthy or elite, are chosen this year to attend this school of magic in hopes of revitalizing their reputation for talent. One from the ash drifts of the Puyallup Barrens, one from the most densely populated slum hive in the world and one from prison.
This is their story.
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This story is set in the Shadowrun universe. If you're not familiar with Shadowrun, it mostly tells the stories of deniable mercenaries called shadowrunners in a cyberpunk dystopia.
Instead of telling another story solely about shadowrunners, this story will tell the tale of young people navigating a world that is indifferent to them at best and actively hostile at worst. Shadowrunners will be in the story and we'll see them operate, but they won't be its main focus.
This story originally began in 2017 as a passion project and continues to this day on the Somethingawful.com forums. The unedited version is over a million words strong. There are currently seven books in this series and I am currently in the process of editing them. If you read this story then you won't lack for content.
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The Topps Company, Inc. has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. The Topps Company, Inc. has granted permission to the Blake Island on Royal Road to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with Blake Island on Royal Road in any official capacity whatsoever.
Information
- Status
- Hiatus
- Year
- 2022
- Author
- Ice Writes
Tags
Royal Road Stats
- Rating
- 4.8/ 5.0
- Followers
- 75
- Views
- 31,717
Chapters(42 total)
Reviews
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Community Reviews(4)
- ButlerianHereticRoyal Road★★★★★ 5.024 chapters in, interesting characters that pop off the page and feel alive and at least lightly humorous are a big strength of this story. While we have an entertaining protagonist from the beginning, she has a strong supporting cast who have their own lives. And the conflicts keep the story moving without being over the top.
Another strength is that it does a great job of making Shadowrun's "D&D-meets-Cyberpunk" dystopian urban fantasy setting come alive. It really plays into the realistic portrayal of gang, extremist group, and megacorp cultures that have traditionally been a big strength of the source material.
A bit early to comment on the overall plot, but the Shadowrun setting has a ton of depth to explore. On one end is low fantasy content ranging from street gangs and minor corprate hijinks, to minor troubles with fantasy creatures. On the other are world changing or in some cases potentially world-ending threats - magical, terrorist, and corporate alike. So whatever course the story might take, I'm not worried it will be boring, and we are off to a solid start. - ArcanaVitaeRoyal Road★★★★★ 4.5I love the worldbuilding for this fix. Every charecter has a understandable reason for acting the way they do based off their backstory and past. How the setting works is shown in a way that feels natural but also very informative. It really feels like it is a part of the setting, fitting in well with the themes of Shadowrun.
- WarbucksRoyal Road★★★★★ 4.5Am reviewing early, and have not read the unedited version, so the story focus might shift a lot by the time you read this.
Placed in the main setting and backstory of Shadowrun - drawing on much of the lore. The three main characters are portrayed well, and have their own troubled backgrounds unique to Shadowrun. I think that is sufficiently explained that Shadowrun knowledge is not required, but I am not the best judge of that :-).
Though magic details are still developing, we appear to have an Ork mage, a street shaman, and a social adept who have been recruited to be students at a boarding school for magical teens. They are scholarship students - apparently to bring up the average strength of the school.
Each of the MCs have their challenges fitting in with people who are definitely not of the same background.
Thus far, we are on the lower end of the Shadowrun power scale. At magical school for corp kids (and others), full mages are seen as incredibly rare. Hunting a devil rat is seen as very daring. Fighting dragons and overthrowing a corporation is not at all likely in the near future.
A well written story.
Not an immediate must read for me, but am interested to see how it develops. - mchermRoyal Road★★★★★ 4.5Shadowrun is an existing universe, one in which most stories are heavily action-packed with more than their share of death and horrors. This story manages to turn all of that around.
The author creates a main character who is an excellent foil for exploring the world. She is a 14 or 15 year-old girl from one of the few spots so isolated that she doesn't really understand anything about the world (outside of her own area of the ash barrens). So the audience has lots of opportunity to discover the world of Shadowrun through her eyes.
And the story does a great job of bringing out what is so interesting about this world. It is a study in contrasts, from the privileged scions of corporate executives to the downtrodden inhabitants of a massive prison for the underprivileged, to the school for training teenage magicians, to the racist underclass gangs.
The characters are interesting and none of them are simple or one dimensional, not even the minor supporting characters. We come to care for the main character and her friends. But ultimately, the real heart of the story is the world.