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hc_bingo prompt: dystopiaTranslating Teen Wolf into the Shadowrun universe starts with a major hitch: While Shadowrun can accommodate a lot of things, it does not have werewolves.
Shadowrun started as a table-top role playing game in the 1980s and is an impossible hybrid of fantasy and cyberpunk. The game world is set in the, then, nearish future of 2042, a generation after the fall of the United States (and most of the world) due to the return of magic. Corporations are the new nations, while the old nations are fractured and splintered and exist mostly as sock-puppets for the Corps. Humans have been joined by Orcs, Trolls, Elves, and Dwarves. A small percentage of the population can wield magical powers of a variety of different types. Many more people have cybernetic enhancements of some sort that let them access the Matrix (a conceptualization of the Internet before there was one), interface with their vehicles, or increase their bodies well beyond natural limits. A few people are both magically enhanced and cyber-enhanced, though tech is bad for magic. There’re also dragons, wendigos, vampires, and ghosts in the machine … but no werewolves.
A number of solutions exist to this problem, starting with ignoring it by simply introducing werewolves into Shadowrun. Another solution is the equivalent of an all-human!AU (give or take the occasional Elf). A third, and the one I’ve chosen to go with, is to try to “translate” each character into a best fit match, while keeping as true to their canon function in the narrative as possible.
The canon narrative centers on Scott McCall, an average teen who is bitten by a werewolf and gains all the supernatural positives and negatives that go along with that. Again, no werewolves in Shadowrun, but I think it’s important to maintain the sudden change in ability level and in his ability to control his world. His narrative is, in great part, about getting the power to achieve all his dreams with the corollary cost of also achieving all his nightmares. With this in mind, I’ve decided to make him a magic user, one who comes into his power suddenly and strongly as a teenager. As mentioned, Shadowrun provides a lot of variety in magic, so I’ve also decided to put him on the Shamanistic path because of the kinds of magic available to him, because of the fact that the magic needs to be kept in balance (it has costs), and because one of the Totems is Dog, and Dog’s personality traits align very closely with Scott’s (namely perseverance, loyalty, and stubbornness).
While Scott won’t start the narrative as a shadowrunner, he will find that his path leads to him becoming one. The McCalls will represent the people who are on the edge; they have System Identification Numbers (SINs) are legal jobs (Melissa works for DocWagon), but they lack the protections that the Corps provide and have no illusions about the darker sides of their reality. Once Scott comes into his magical abilities, he’ll be pulled toward the shadows and the people there who need his help.
Scott’s best friend is Stiles Stilinski, a human who is known both for his loyalty to Scott and for his possessiveness of Scott, to the point of not allowing Scott to seek out werewolf training from anyone but him. These roles are easy to keep as is, with the obvious difference that Stiles would now be trying to train Scott in his magic use. Additionally, Stiles’s father is the Sheriff of Beacon Hills in canon, and thus could become a member of the Lone Star police force in what is now the Northern California Freestate. Stiles will be able to use his connections with the law enforcers as cachet when he begins to dip his toes into the shadows.
Next we’ll do a trio, treating them as a unit: Jackson Whittemore, Lydia Martin, and Danny Mahealani. The eponymous shadowrunners are people who are waging a guerilla war against the corps, the nations, and sometimes each other. They’re often people who have slipped through the cracks, people who’ve been evicted from “proper” society, or people who never belonged to it. Sometimes, though, shadowrunning is merely a hobby for the bored and privileged. The group of Jackson, Lydia, and Danny is such a trio. Jackson is the rigger (cybernetically enhanced to interface with vehicles), Danny is the decker (cybernetically enhanced to interface with the Matrix), and Lydia is the mastermind (with cyber enhancements to improve her already incredibly intelligence and memory). Together, they indulge in petty—or not so much, depending on their mood that day—crimes against the corporation they call home.
Then we come to the Argents. In canon, this is a family of werewolf hunters. One way to translate them would be to make them metahuman hunters, as this would allow the carryover of the fantastic racism that they perform on the show. However, while metahumans are definitely a maligned group in Shadowrun, they’re not a secret. Making the Argents metahuman hunters would make them too much the equivalent of the modern day KKK, as the only reasons to hunt metahumans would be for racial cleansing and equivalent genocidal purposes. While it’s not out of the question that someone somewhere in the Shadowrun universe is behaving with these motivations, this role would not be a good fit for the Argents (except … but we’ll get to that). A more fitting parallel is to make them the direct opposition to the shadowrunners. Placing the Argents as high ups within a powerful corporation allows for the same power disparities Teen Wolf plays on with this family.
Besides being a Corp, Chris Argent will also play the role of Mr. Johnson. In the Shadowrun world, when the Corps need something done that they can’t accomplish through legal means, they’ll often turn to the shadows. The person who sets up the run, hires the runners, pays the runners, etc. is always Mr. (or Ms.) Johnson. So we put Chris in the position of needing him to ally with a group of shadowrunners for less than above-board purposes, and maybe everyone learns a thing or two. What kind of purpose might push him to this? What about Allison’s defection into the shadows. Maybe he thinks it’s a kidnapping (and maybe it started as one), maybe he suspects of her running away and wants to get her back before Bad Things Happen, maybe she’s being used as a pawn in some Corp territory war. So, who he does hire?
The Hales are a shadow family. They’ve always lived in the shadows, and have done quite well for themselves there. If you want the big guns in NCFS, you call on Alpha. Like Mr. Johnson, Alpha may or may not be the same person s/he was last time, but it doesn’t matter because you know you’re working with the best. Currently in the Hale “pack” are Peter (TBD), Derek (a physical adept – a type of magic user whose magical abilities are channeled into physical enhancements), and Laura (a mage). Other Hales could be added as necessary, as it’s been implied on the show that the Hale family was large. The fire that decimated the family is easy enough to retain as a revenge move, the consequence of a run gone wrong, or an accident. It could also be ignored or saved as a plot point for later. Finally, if one wished, the new wolves—Isaac, Erica, and Boyd—could be included as new runners, additional members of the “pack,” or henchpeople.
Once the issue of the werewolves is dealt with, Teen Wolf maps well onto the Shadowrun-verse, allowing for the retention of existing narratives, characterizations, and motivations, and/or the adaptation or deletion of them if necessary without harming the larger picture.
