Home Ground
Cost: 10 Karma
If a character knows her neighborhood better than anyone— the shortcuts, the hiding places, and the people she can trust—then she probably has the Home Ground quality. She knows the families who live there, their stories, and what the kids who moved out are doing; she knows the streets better than GridGuide, knows things that aren’t on GridGuide, and knows when GridGuide is wrong. She knows the politics of the gangs, who’s running for whom and who’s running from whom. But it’s not just the physical streets. Depending on the character, her Home Ground quality can manifest in ways specific to who and what she is. When choosing this quality, select one of the bonuses below:
Astral Acclimation: The character has become acclimated to the background count of her Home Ground. Through a lifetime of familiarity she’s learned to work around it, enabling her to ignore up to two points of background count. For example, if the background count on her Home Ground is 3, she sees only a reduction of 1 to her Magic tests; if the background count is 5, for her it is only a 3, and so on. This quality works only on her Home Ground and has no benefit anywhere else.
You Know a Guy: The character has built up long-lasting relationships with people from her neighborhood. These people are not contacts, but they know her as one of their own and are more likely to do favors for or talk to her. NPCs from the character’s Home Ground neighborhood are considered friendly toward her wherever she encounters them (unless she has done something to change that).The character receives +2 Street Cred for any Negotiation with people from her Home Ground.
Digital Turf: This is for a decker or technomancer who has a specific host that she calls her own. She may actually own the spot, or it can be a place she frequents enough to consider home. The character receives a +2 bonus to Matrix Tests while in her Home Ground host. Bonuses from other Qualities may stack with Home Ground. If the character has not frequented this host for more than six months, she loses the Home Ground quality because she is no longer as familiar as she should be.
The Transporter: This character knows the layout of streets, back alleys, service tunnels, etc., like the back of her hand. She knows when GridGuide is wrong and when GridGuide is out of date. When the transporter is on her Home Ground, she has a +2 dice pool modifier for Evasion Tests.
On the Lam: Hiding out and lying low are part of a shadowrunner’s daily life. On the Lam means a character has an encyclopedic knowledge of safehouses, bolt holes, abandoned buildings, just about any out-of-the-way place not claimed by gangs or squatters. When she needs to find a safe location in a hurry, this character receives a +2 dice pool bonus to her Intuition + appropriate street knowledge skill to find a suitable place to hole up fast.
Street Politics: This character knows the street gangs, the criminal operations, and the beneath- the-surface affiliations that are the social and political fabric of her Home Ground. She receives a +2 dice pool modifier for Knowledge Tests relating to gangs or their operations.
This quality can be taken multiple times, selecting one of the categories above each time.
CRB 74-75