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  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    2
  > 
  Whether we want to admit it or not, killing is part of a 
  shadowrunner’s job. Ask any ten posters here on Jackpoint and 
  I’ll bet nine of them have killed someone during a job, whether 
  it was in self-defense or because they were assigned to take 
  out the target. So it’s really fuckin’ annoying to see people who 
  often take wetwork jobs, like Balladeer, getting dumped on by 
  hypocrites here because of what they do in the shadows.
  With that in mind, I present this file for your consideration. 
  The author submitted it a couple of hours ago with a “time 
  sensitive” tag. I read the file’s title, The Assassin’s Primer, and 
  after getting Balladeer’s expert opinion, I decided it was worth 
  posting. The author claims to be a professional assassin, and 
  Balladeer confirmed that he seems to know the ins and outs 
  of that line of work intimately. That doesn’t necessarily mean 
  you’ll agree with everything he says, but the practical advice 
  he offers for those looking to become professional assassins is 
  pretty solid.
  Even those of you who don’t want to make a career out of 
  being an assassin should pay attention to this file. After all, if 
  you’re ever unlucky enough to have a hitman targeting you, it 
  pays to know how he might operate, neh?
  > 
  Bull
  > 
  I’ve also decided to grant this document’s author temporary 
  posting privileges. Given how little time he has left to live, 
  I figure he’s at least got a right to defend and amend his last 
  words.
  > 
  Glitch
  POSTED BY: QUIETUS
  I don’t have much time left, so I’ll cut to the chase. My 
  name’s Quietus, and I’m an assassin for hire. In forty-eight 
  hours, maybe less, I’ll be eliminated by my employer as a 
  loose end.
  I have nowhere left to run, nowhere to go that they 
  won’t find me, nor will they ever stop looking for me. I 
  know too much for them to even consider letting me live. 
  So as a farewell “fuck you” to them, I’m gonna make a final 
  stand. I’ll still die, but I won’t make it easy for them.
  > 
  Oh look, I’m playing the world’s tiniest violin. Fuckin’ hired 
  murderer! Good riddance to bad garbage, I say.
  > 
  Sticks
  > 
  That’s rich, coming from a guy who aids sex traffickers for a 
  living.
  > 
  Netcat
  In the past few days I’ve thought a lot about what I want 
  to leave behind, besides a body count. You guys—that is, 
  the users of ShadowSEA—gave me the answer.
  In my years of lurking on ShadowSEA, I’ve seen a truck-
  load of ignorance spouted about assassins. Some of you 
  see us as nothing more than sociopathic monsters, killing 
  because we enjoy it, with the money being just a bonus. 
  Others think we’re remorseless mercenaries who view 
  our targets as our paychecks and nothing else. Even more 
  disturbing than those misconceptions are those aspiring 
  assassins who buy into them, either out of a misguided be-
  lief that they’re “cool” or “badass,” or because they believe 
  that they must abandon all of their humanity to succeed as 
  an assassin.
  The most depressing things I see, however, are the 
  shadowrunners who set out to do this job without any 
  knowledge of how to start. I’ve heard way too many sto-
  ries about novices getting killed because of ignorance, 
  dead because nobody taught them the basics of survival 
  in this line of work.
  > 
  Sink or swim. That’s the only way you know who’s worth a damn 
  in the shadows. The corps and cops don’t have any mercy on 
  novice runners, so why should we?
  > 
  Clockwork
  > 
  Maybe because we’re supposed to be better than the corps and 
  cops? If more people took the time to actually teach novices, 
  don’t you think the result might be more good shadowrunners? 
  Maybe then we could actually do some lasting damage to the 
  damn megacorps.
  > 
  Aufheben
  So I’ve decided to leave this file as my legacy to the 
  shadow community. I hope I can dispel the illusions and 
  myths about assassins while teaching those who want to 
  become one how to do the job well. More than anything, I 
  want to show that being an assassin and an honorable man 
  is not a contradiction.
  WHO BECOMES  
  AN ASSASSIN?
  As far as historians can tell, the first to be called assassins 
  were the members of Order of Assassins, a band of fanati-
  cal devotees to a man named Hassan-i Sabbah that formed 
  in 1080 ACE. Members of the Nizari Ismaili sect of Islam, 
  they were trained in the ways of disguise and stealth, si-
  lently slaying their targets. They carried out hits for both 
  sides of the Crusades at the direction of their leader.
  > 
  Don’t forget where the word “assassin” comes from—
  hashshashin, from their use of hashish to give them visions of 
  the paradise that awaited them if they killed who their master 
  told them to.
  > 
  Slamm-0!
  > 
  *Sigh* I should have guessed that long-debunked piece of 
  folklore would come up pretty quick. The truth is that the word 
  hashshashin was derived from the word hashishi, which 
  meant “outcast” or “rabble” and was used as an insult against 
  followers of the Nizari Ismaili sect of Islam in the 12th century. 
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    3
  Medieval Western historians a few centuries later painted the 
  Ismailis as fanatical killers, and centuries after that some over-
  imaginative Western historians connected the word hashishi 
  with the drug hashish. Thus, the “drug-addled contract killers” 
  story was born. Hassan-i Sabbah was an Ismaili, true, but other 
  than that it’s just fanciful storytelling.
  > 
  Glitch
  Flash forward about a thousand years, and things hav-
  en’t changed much. The job, at its heart, is the same that 
  it’s always been: killing a target without attracting atten-
  tion, alerting guards, being identified, or leaving any clues 
  that could trace the hit back to you or your employer. This 
  means that deception and stealth are still the cornerstones 
  of the profession. You’re not going to make it as an assas-
  sin by yelling a war cry and spraying the room your target’s 
  in with machine gun fire.
  > 
  Not that some bone-headed sprawl gangers don’t try this 
  method. They call themselves “assassins” despite the fact 
  that the only planning they’ve done for the hit is bringing ten 
  times the bullets they’ll really need. Some of these morons 
  even manage to make a name for themselves in the Barrens, 
  but the second they try to hit a target outside of a Z-zone, they 
  get geeked by the target or killed by the cop responding to the 
  disturbance they caused. When it comes right down to it, being 
  an assassin isn’t just a matter of being able to kill; it’s knowing 
  how to kill without being noticed and how to reach the target in 
  order to make the hit possible.
  > 
  Balladeer
  Of course, not everything is the same as it was back 
  in the Crusades Era. Some assassins still work for large 
  organizations such as Aztechnology’s otonin warriors, 
  the ninja employed by the yakuza, and SEAL Team Six 
  (surprised to see that last one on the list? What do you 
  think they do—bust in and explain to the bad guys the 
  error of their ways?). However, many other assassins are 
  independents working toward their own goals or simply 
  trying to make a living.
  Every assassin has their own reasons for taking up the 
  profession, but from what I’ve seen over the years, they 
  can be divided into a few broad categories:
  THE DESPERATE
  These are the assassins who go into the job because they 
  have no other marketable skills and need to make a liv-
  ing any way they can. This isn’t a criticism of their ability 
  or professionalism. I’ve worked with quite a few highly 
  skilled, professional assassins who started doing the job 
  because they had the bad luck to be born in the Redmond 
  Barrens and knew nothing else besides killing.
  Unfortunately, while these assassins can become pro-
  fessional and experienced, far too many become the “war 
  cry and wild gunfire” types I mentioned above. There isn’t 
  exactly an official mentorship program they can sign up 
  for at the local community center, but that sort of instruc-
  tion is usually what’s needed for aspiring assassins to be-
  come professionals. The lucky ones find a mentor on the 
  streets who can actually teach them something and move 
  on up as a result. The unlucky ones usually end up dead 
  pretty quick.
  > 
  What about the self-taught experts? You know, the ones that 
  worked their way up from the streets all the way to the big time 
  with nothing but a gun and their wits? Shadowrunners do that 
  all the time—just look at me. Why not assassins?
  > 
  /dev/grrl
  > 
  Ignoring for the moment that it’s arguable whether you’ve proven 
  yourself as a shadowrunner, kid … I’d say the big difference is 
  that the learning curve is much steeper as an assassin than it 
  is for a shadowrunner. Sure, professionals come up from the 
  streets in both professions, but I’d say a lot more people die 
  making the climb to becoming a professional assassin than a 
  professional shadowrunner. With shadowrunning the job can 
  be a lot of things; stealing something, extracting someone, 
  sabotage—jobs that corporate guards might not immediately 
  react to with deadly force when guarding against. As an assassin, 
  the job is always going to involve killing someone. This means 
  the target and those guarding him will almost always react with 
  deadly force.
  As for running away and living to fight another day, you 
  can do that if an assassination job goes wrong, but it might be 
  a while before you live that down. Assassination jobs outside 
  of places like the Barrens require a certain level of skill, and a 
  failure of that magnitude doesn’t reflect well on one’s aptitude. 
  Shadowrunners can come back from a botched run easier 
  because they usually work in teams. If a runner with a bad job 
  on his record runs with a more experienced team that can cover 
  for his weaknesses, he can usually recover his rep as long as 
  he doesn’t majorly screw up. Assassins usually don’t have that 
  option, since they typically work alone.
  > 
  Balladeer
  THE PSYCHOS
  Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room. There are 
  psycho assassins who get into the job because they love 
  to kill. Everything else they get out of it, whether it’s the 
  money or the street cred, is secondary to the power trip 
  they get from ending another person’s life. I’m sure as 
  hell not going to provide an in-depth psychoanalysis of 
  these guys—I don’t want that particular Abyss staring 
  back into me in my final hours. However, I will share what 
  I know of them in case you find one of them on your ass.
  With these guys, it’s all about the thrill of being a death 
  dealer. Holding the power of life and death in their hands 
  is an addiction stronger than any BTL can offer, and who 
  doesn’t want to make a living doing what they love? De-
  pending on what specifically is going wrong in their brain 
  case, it might be the quick kill that gives them the most 
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    4
  pleasure, or they might get a kick out of toying with their 
  prey before moving in. On the other hand, they might whet 
  their sick appetites by killing the target’s family, friends, 
  business associates, casual acquaintances, and former 
  roommates before moving on to the actual mark.
  Really, there are a lot of forms that these guys’ dam-
  age might take, but it’s extremely important not to dis-
  count these assassins’ habits. Knowing what gives these 
  wackjobs an adrenaline rush can give you an advantage. 
  For example, knowing that the person trying to kill you 
  picks off his targets’ friends and family first can give you 
  the forewarning you need to get your loved ones out of 
  harm’s way, or it might help you predict where he’ll strike 
  next. And if you get the chance to take the psycho out, 
  show no mercy. Because he sure won’t.
  > 
  If you have one of these guys on your tail, it really pays to know 
  somebody who works with human behavior. I don’t just mean 
  a psychologist either; the UCAS FBI and other law-enforcement 
  agencies and corps have entire departments of analysts that do 
  nothing but analyze criminals’ behavior based on the clues they 
  leave behind and the actions they take. Having an in with them 
  and their knowledge of psychology can give you the edge you 
  need to save your life or those of your friends.
  > 
  The Smiling Bandit
  THE IDEALIST
  Finally, we come to the idealists—those who truly believe 
  in a cause, and believe that killing is the only way to bring 
  about that cause’s success. Of course, that description 
  covers just about everything from religious fanatics kill-
  ing unbelievers to legitimate soldiers killing their nation’s 
  enemies.
  With these assassins, the biggest thing to keep in mind 
  is that the cause is all that matters to them, and they will 
  often stop at nothing to complete the job. Trying to bribe 
  them won’t work, nor will using other team members as hu-
  man shields. Especially using teammates as human shields. 
  Do that, and you’ll have both an assassin targeting you and 
  pissed off teammates ready to throw you under the bus.
  Don’t go thinking that all idealist assassins are fighters 
  for justice like some comic book superhero. Yeah, there 
  are some of those, but there are others who have no limits 
  to the lengths they’ll go for their cause. Ever looked into 
  the eyes of a man who thinks killing you is a sacred mis-
  sion from God? I have, and it’s not an experience I care to 
  repeat. Nor is it an experience you want to have.
  > 
  Okay hitman, cards on the table here. Which of these categories 
  do you fall into?
  > 
  Kane
  > 
  I had a feeling someone was going to ask that question. I would 
  call myself an idealist of the non-psychotic variety. To understand 
  why, you need to understand my life.
  I was born to a poor family in Greece, living the sort of life 
  that most of the SINless people are probably familiar with; 
  unemployed parents, stealing food to feed my family, piss-poor 
  education at best, everything. Life got even worse in my teenage 
  years when the Alliance for Allah swept into the country in 2034. 
  My entire family was among the quarter of Greece’s population 
  killed by the invading fanatics.
  Alone, poor, and pissed off at the world for making my life 
  suck even worse than it had before, I survived by doing the 
  same thieving I’d done all my life. A few years later, however, 
  I saw a news story about Mullah Sayid Jazrir’s assassination. 
  Jazrir was the head of the Alliance for Allah, and with his death 
  that coalition of religious wackjobs flew apart at the seams. The 
  bastards that killed my family had been completely undone by 
  the death of a single man.
  That was when I realized the power of individuals to 
  change the world. By killing one man, whoever assassinated 
  Mullah Jazrir saved many lives that could have been lost had 
  the Second Ottoman Jihad continued. It was the first bit of 
  hope I’d had since my family died, and I seized it with both 
  hands. I was determined to make a difference in the world by 
  doing what that man did; eliminating the sort of people who 
  started senseless wars like the Second Ottoman Jihad, and 
  ensuring that there would be fewer people who suffered like I 
  did as a result.
  Since then, I’ve made a career out of hunting those who 
  lead others to kill their fellow man, like religious fanatics and 
  corporate war profiteers, or people who otherwise simply need 
  to die because of the heinous natures of their crimes.
  > 
  Quietus
  > 
  Geez, lay it on a bit thicker, Melodrama Man. And talk about 
  delusions of grandeur!
  > 
  /dev/grrl
  > 
  Give the guy a break, kid. The superhero-esque “saving the 
  world” crap and the bleeding-heart viewpoint annoy the shit out 
  of me too, but he’s got the right idea at the core: get out there 
  and make the world, or at least a little part of it, into something 
  more to your liking through sheer force of will. How do you 
  think I got to where I am today?
  > 
  Kane
  > 
  By pillaging, thieving, and murdering?
  > 
  Aufheben
  > 
  Exactly. That’s my method of exercising my will on the world, 
  just as Quietus’ was becoming an assassin. We have different 
  methods and different outcomes we’re working towards, but the 
  same goal at the core.
  > 
  Kane
  > 
  So how did you get your start in the assassin business, Quietus? 
  School of hard knocks or formal mentorship?
  > 
  Hard Exit
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    5
  > 
  Mentorship. I was lucky enough to make contact with a 
  professional assassin in Athens that was serious about teaching 
  an apprentice how to make a living in this line of work. He was 
  also quite the idealist himself. He was a little wacky, claiming 
  to be descended from the Spartan King Leonidas and saying 
  that fighting for justice as an assassin was his “blood destiny” 
  as a result, but the advice he gave has kept me alive for several 
  decades now, and I never would have made it this far without 
  the knowledge he gave me.
  > 
  Quietus
  > 
  Don’t we have enough people in the world making judgment 
  calls of who lives and dies based on their personal morality? As 
  a matter of fact, aren’t those exactly the sort of people that killed 
  Quietus’ parents and led him to where he is today?
  > 
  Kay St. Irregular
  > 
  Believe me, Irregular, the irony of that is not lost on me.
  > 
  Quietus
  THE HONORABLE 
  KILLER
  Among the ranks of the idealist archetype that I men-
  tioned above, there are assassins who dedicate them-
  selves to their causes and beliefs to even greater de-
  grees. They are driven by the same motivations as other 
  idealists, but they also adopt a strict code that governs 
  how they live their lives and conduct themselves on the 
  job. For lack of a more neutral term, I refer to them as 
  “honorable killers.”
  I proudly count myself among these assassins. In my 
  opinion, it’s only these codes of honor that separate as-
  sassins from the cold-blooded murderers who prey on 
  the weak and defenseless every day in sprawls across the 
  world. In a job that involves dealing death on a regular 
  basis, it’s far too easy to cross the line from “professional 
  assassin” to “soulless monster,” and that’s not a transition 
  I ever want to make.
  > 
  Oh, gag me with a fucking vibroblade. 
  > 
  Clockwork
  > 
  Here’s where I have to part opinions with our author. I’m 
  not saying that you have to make a habit of shooting 
  children in order to be a successful assassin, but thinking 
  you can adhere to a strict “code of honor” while being an 
  effective assassin is hopelessly naïve. When you’re in this 
  line of work, you have to do whatever it takes to survive 
  and get the job done, and “whatever it takes” is not always 
  going to be pleasant. Sooner or later, strictly adhering to a 
  code of honor is going to get you stuck in a position where 
  you’ll have to make a choice between violating that code or 
  dying. While you’re busy agonizing over which way to go, 
  you’ll catch a bullet through the head that makes the choice 
  for you.
  > 
  Balladeer
  > 
  Speak for yourself. I’m not an assassin, but I am a soldier, a 
  profession that also involves taking the lives of others. When 
  you’re in a line of work like that, you need something to hold onto 
  so that you don’t cross that invisible line Quietus mentioned. 
  I was fortunate enough to be mentored by Matador, God rest 
  his soul, who taught me the value of honor in a soldier’s life. 
  Adhering to the code he taught me has saved me from doing 
  things in the heat of the moment that, once my anger subsided, 
  would have either tortured me with guilt for the rest of my life or 
  driven me to suicide.
  I’ve seen soldiers who don’t have a code of honor to restrain 
  them. They become little more than monsters, the sort of people 
  that use civilians for target practice or worse. Personally, I cut 
  out the middleman and use my sidearm to handle such soldiers 
  on the rare occasions they show up in my unit.
  > 
  Picador
  I’d like to be able to give aspiring assassins a step-by-
  step guide on how to develop your own code of honor, 
  but I can’t really give much advice on this because it’s such 
  a personal decision. Everybody has different lines they 
  won’t cross and different things they value, and it’s things 
  like that which usually shape an assassin’s code.
  Since I can’t give any general advice, I’ll share my own 
  code here to give an example of what I’m talking about.
  NEVER KILL AN INNOCENT
  The first and most important tenet of my code is never 
  to kill an innocent. In this case, “innocent” means anyone 
  who is not my target or directly defending the target.
  There are many reasons I have this tenet as part of my 
  code. For one thing, it’s the innocents that I’m doing this 
  job to help. I’m fighting for those who can’t fight for them-
  selves, and killing them is a betrayal of that goal. Plus, it’s 
  just plain wrong. I believe these people have a right to live 
  a full life and to take that opportunity from them is unfor-
  giveable. I’ve never killed an innocent in the course of my 
  job, and that’s a record I’m very proud of.
  I have, on occasion, been required to use some sort of 
  force on people I consider innocents, either for their own 
  safety (like getting them out of the way of a firefight) or 
  because they were guarding a target but didn’t meet my 
  definition of “directly defending my target” as described 
  above. Whenever I’m forced to do this, I use non-lethal 
  means like gel rounds or shock ammunition to render 
  them unconscious until I eliminate the target. After that 
  business is concluded, I quickly make sure that the uncon-
  scious innocents are alive and not suffering any adverse 
  effects before making my escape.
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    6
  > 
  “Adverse effects?” Like what? And how can you check everyone 
  you’ve shot?
  > 
  /dev/grrl
  > 
  The big two things I look out for are trouble breathing or signs of 
  a heart attack. The former can be caused by a gel round impacting 
  in the wrong spot, knocking the wind out of the target, and 
  the latter can be caused by shock ammunition. Despite being 
  marketed as a non-lethal type of ammunition, shock ammo can 
  cause heart attacks in unhealthy people. As for how I can check 
  everyone, it takes five seconds per person, for someone who 
  knows exactly what to look for. Plus, they’re unconscious from 
  the effects of the rounds, so they’re not likely to get up and alert 
  the authorities or shoot me.
  > 
  Quietus
  > 
  How the hell can somebody be guarding the target but not 
  “directly defending the target?”
  > 
  Netcat
  > 
  By that, I usually mean people like rent-a-cops and similarly 
  low-paid security guards. In my mind, they’re not necessarily 
  trying to defend an evil person because they’re evil themselves; 
  usually it’s just a paying job like any other, and they’re just trying 
  to feed their families. That doesn’t warrant death in my opinion.
  > 
  Quietus
  ONLY TAKE JOBS THAT  
  SERVE A GOOD CAUSE
  I will only take jobs that involve taking out targets whose 
  demise will help people. Serial rapists, ganger scum, cor-
  rupt suits, and psychopaths of all types are just a few 
  examples of the types of targets I’ve taken out over the 
  years. If eliminating a man means that dozens of women 
  around the sprawl can walk the streets feeling a little bit 
  safer, or that the people don’t have to worry about being 
  shot because they’re wearing the “wrong” colors in the 
  “wrong” part of the city, I’ll take the job. 
  I don’t kill purely for other people’s, or corporations’, 
  profits. I’ve turned down plenty of lucrative jobs to erase 
  crusading environmentalists or neo-anarchists when those 
  people were guilty of nothing more than being inconve-
  nient to a corporation’s plans. Turning that money down 
  has kept me on the razor’s edge of poverty at times, but 
  frankly, I don’t give a shit. I do this job to make the world 
  a better place, not to make it easier for fat cats to line their 
  pockets.
  > 
  There are more than a few shadowrunners who take this 
  approach. The most well known are the ones who take 
  “hooding,” as in Robin Hood, jobs. Sometimes they do it for no 
  compensation except the satisfaction of doing the right thing. 
  Personally, I think it’s an admirable path. It’s not an easy one, by 
  any means, but one to applaud.
  > 
  Aufheben
  TAKE NO PLEASURE IN THE KILL
  Being an assassin is a job, not a hobby. I hold peoples’ 
  lives in my hands every day, and I have to treat that as the 
  grave responsibility it is rather than as something to be 
  enjoyed. I don’t enjoy what I do but I believe it’s a neces-
  sary evil. Believe me, I’d love to be able to retire because 
  all the assholes in the world have disappeared and left 
  me with no jobs. Until then the world needs people like 
  me to tip the scales towards the good side just a little bit.
  Besides all that, enjoying this job like one does a hob-
  by is a quick way to become the “psycho” assassin I men-
  tioned above.
  > 
  This applies to the mercenary business as well. One surefire 
  sign of an amateur is somebody who treats their job like a 
  game of paintball instead of like a firefight where they and 
  their teammates stand a real chance of dying. No mercenary 
  commander in their right mind wants someone like that in 
  their unit. First of all, their lack of seriousness means they 
  often don’t listen to orders, and failure to follow orders on the 
  battlefield can get someone killed. Secondly, it’s really fucking 
  annoying to everybody around you when someone’s treating 
  a real brushfire war like a game while everyone else is focused 
  on trying to survive. Extra annoyance means additional, 
  unnecessary stress on everyone in an already-tense situation. 
  And like Quietus said, the jokers like this who survive for long 
  in the mercenary profession usually become psychopaths who 
  enjoy killing way too much. Sooner or later they’ll resort to 
  killing civilians to get their jollies. Besides being heinously 
  evil, that sort of thing makes your unit persona non grata 
  in the merc community. You’ll be effectively blacklisted by 
  any halfway respectable employer. Usually the only way to 
  restore the unit’s reputation is to shoot said psychopath, and 
  sometimes even that doesn’t work.
  > 
  Picador
  DON’T BETRAY YOUR EMPLOYER
  There’s obviously a big risk in hiring an assassin; if some-
  one is caught doing it, they can be charged with accesso-
  ry to murder, which usually carries penalties just as severe 
  as the murder itself. That means that anyone who hires an 
  assassin is taking a major leap of faith in assuming that 
  the assassin won’t sell him out. If you build a reputation 
  as a reliable assassin who absolutely will not betray the 
  person who hired you, that gives you a major advantage 
  when hiring time comes along. If you do betray an em-
  ployer, you can count on being blacklisted at best and 
  targeted by an assassin yourself at worst.
  That sort of thing isn’t conducive to a long career, and 
  if I’m blacklisted or dead, a few more bastards might live 
  to make normal folks’ lives hell. Hence, this is a tenet of 
  my code.
  > 
  This advice applies just as much to shadowrunners as it does to 
  assassins. The corporations may all know that the other corps 
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    7
  hire as many shadowrunners as they do, but that doesn’t mean 
  they’re going to just lie back and let a run go down without 
  retaliation if they know who the culprit is. It would make them 
  look weak, and they know they can’t afford to show weakness. 
  So as crazy as it sounds, the fact that they’re hiring you for a 
  job means that they trust you to one degree or another. Don’t 
  take that trust lightly if you want to have a long shadowrunning 
  career. Or a long life.
  > 
  Fianchetto
  DON’T BE A GLORYHOUND
  By this, I mean I won’t talk about jobs on Matrix sites in a 
  way that can be traced back to me or my employer. This 
  is partly for my own safety, but it’s also an extension of 
  not betraying my employer. Whenever I talk about a job, I 
  leave out the identifying details. If the job was sufficiently 
  unique that any details could possibly tip someone off, I 
  just don’t talk about it at all.
  > 
  Ghost knows some people here on JackPoint could do well to 
  take that advice.
  > 
  Pistons
  > 
  Eh, it’s in our nature to talk about this stuff. Not only do some 
  of us bask in the glory it brings us, but sharing stories helps 
  out others in the shadow community. Its common sense among 
  shadowrunners to leave out the identifying details, but to not 
  talk about it at all almost feels like it goes against the way we’re 
  supposed to be wired.
  > 
  Kay St. Irregular
  > 
  One of the first things my mentor told me was: “If you’re 
  looking for glory and want everybody to know your name, this 
  is the wrong line of work for you”. That’s true to a certain extent 
  among shadowrunners but it’s even truer for assassins. Unlike 
  shadowrunners, we do nothing but kill people. That means a lot 
  more discretion is needed to avoid a premature death, whether 
  it’s at the hands of cops “serving the public good” or at the 
  hands of employers “tying up a loose end.”
  > 
  Quietus
  ONLY WORK WITH THOSE  
  WHO RESPECT MY CODE
  I will not break my code for any reason. That’s the bot-
  tom line. It’s something I make perfectly clear to both my 
  employers and those I work with, on the rare occasions I 
  work with anyone. To avoid any complications, I ensure 
  that I only work with people who, if they don’t share my 
  code, will at least not ask me to break it and will not put 
  me in a situation where I have to stand by and watch it be 
  broken. On a couple occasions, I’ve been forced to work 
  with people I haven’t been able to vet properly. One of 
  those times, I had to violently intervene to prevent an 
  innocent from being harmed by another team member. 
  The psycho just wouldn’t listen to reason when I tried 
  to warn him that a heavily armed combat drone wasn’t 
  appropriate for the type of job we were doing. It wasn’t 
  something I enjoyed, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
  > 
  Sounds like an interesting story behind that summary. C’mon, 
  spill some details on a job or two, man. You’re gonna die 
  anyways. What harm is it going to do?
  > 
  Kane
  > 
  I intend to die as I lived, Kane: as a professional. So no.
  > 
  Quietus
  KNOWLEDGE  
  IS POWER
  Assassins tend to be different from shadowrunners in one 
  very important respect: we don’t work as part of teams 
  very often. Overall, we’re a rather self-reliant bunch, and 
  we assassins with a code of honor have trouble finding a 
  group of individuals who see eye-to-eye with us on ev-
  ery point of our code. This means that assassins usually 
  don’t have anyone to cover their weaknesses in terms of 
  knowledge and skills. As a result, we have to know much 
  more than the average shadowrunner, having at least a 
  little bit of knowledge of nearly everything just to survive.
  I can’t honestly claim to meet this high standard myself. 
  I don’t know jack about magical theory, for example, and 
  I couldn’t make sense of a commlink’s inner workings to 
  save my life. I’ve survived several decades in this line of 
  work despite not meeting that ideal, however, and there 
  are a couple reasons for that. First, I have a lot of friends 
  and contacts that can fill me in on what I need to know. 
  Secondly, I only take jobs that play to my strengths or that I 
  know I can accomplish with the skills I have. This has limit-
  ed my job choices, but it also means I haven’t found myself 
  in over my head.
  > 
  If you’re an expert in a very specialized area of knowledge, 
  you could do worse than make friends with an assassin or 
  another lone wolf-type shadowrunner. If they’re smart, they’ll 
  pay pretty well for mission-critical information. If they’re not, 
  they’ll be dead soon from their own idiocy anyway, so no skin 
  off your nose. There’s nothing quite like having a reliable repeat 
  customer.
  > 
  Lyran
  > 
  Why not just use skillsofts to fill the gaps in your knowledge?
  > 
  /dev/grrl
  > 
  For academic topics and other things like that, skillsofts might 
  work. However, you really don’t want to rely on those for any 
  skills you intend to use in combat. On their own they’re far too 
  “linear” to be used in quickly changing situations like that. For 
  instance, if you slot a chip with a program teaching you how to 
  use a pistol and you don’t know how to use a gun without the 
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    8
  chip, you’re going to fire the gun the same way every single 
  time, without fail. Not ideal for situations where you have to 
  react on the fly.
  > 
  Balladeer
  Here’s a brief rundown of the sorts of skills the average 
  assassin needs, starting with the most critical.
  STEALTH AND DECEPTION
  As I said before, these are the cornerstones of the assas-
  sin profession. Stealth involves more than just sneaking 
  around in the shadows. It involves looking convincing-
  ly like someone you’re not, like a normal person on the 
  street rather than someone who’s out to kill somebody. 
  Speaking of which, disguises also fall under this umbrella, 
  though don’t expect to take too many jobs where you 
  have to disguise yourself as a specific person. Normally, 
  you’ll just be disguised as a person of a particular pro-
  fession, like a generic security guard from a specific cor-
  poration. Uniforms and equipment consistent with the 
  disguise are helpful, but knowing the mannerisms of the 
  average person in that line of work can make that dis-
  guise go even farther.
  The “lurking in shadows” type of stealth is still an ef-
  fective tactic, particularly in cities where there are lots of 
  high-rise buildings to cast shadows. Alleys are your best 
  friend: they’re shadowy and convenient places to dispatch 
  a target without people noticing. If a bum happens to be 
  using that alley and sees you, just pay him off. Usually a 
  hundred nuyen or so is all you need to buy their silence.
  Honestly, I could give enough advice on this sort of 
  stealth to fill a book, but the general advice boils down to 
  this: stay quiet, block line of sight to your body, and always 
  be ready to strike in case you’re discovered. Also, I cannot 
  recommend chameleon suits highly enough, though you 
  shouldn’t rely on them entirely. Get good at hiding, then 
  use a chameleon suit. Nobody will be able to spot you.
  > 
  This sort of ties in with my skillsoft comment above. Your 
  equipment should supplement your learned skills, not replace 
  or substitute for them. You can lose equipment, but you’ll 
  always have your experience and skills available in your head.
  > 
  Balladeer
  WEAPON TRAINING
  Familiarize yourself with a wide variety of weapons if you 
  plan to become an assassin. All assassins have their favor-
  ite tools for the job but you won’t always have access to 
  those favorites, so it pays to know how different versions 
  of similar weapons work. With guns, you won’t have too 
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    9
  much of a problem because they tend to operate pretty 
  similarly within their classes, but each model of gun does 
  have its unique quirks that it pays to be familiar with.
  With melee weapons, things can get a lot more com-
  plicated simply because of all the variations available. All 
  of them will feel different. For instance, don’t think that 
  knowing how to use a certain type of sword means you’ll 
  be good with all of them. Being able to use a katana well 
  doesn’t mean you’ll get the same results with a claymore. 
  They simply don’t handle the same way. There are far too 
  many different melee weapons out there for anyone to be 
  an expert with all of them, but practice with as wide a va-
  riety as you can. 
  While I’m on the subject of melee combat, don’t under-
  estimate the value of improvised weapons. A soybeer bot-
  tle, a bar stool, and a brick can all be very effective weap-
  ons if used properly, and they may be your only available 
  weapons one day. Learn how to use your environment as 
  a weapon, and you’ll always be ready to fight.
  PHYSIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY
  Which parts of the metahuman body can you shoot that 
  will cause a target to bleed out in seconds? What meth-
  od of assassination will leave the fewest and most easily 
  explainable marks on the body? Will one drug dart full 
  of poison be enough to take out that troll, or does his 
  sheer weight mean he needs three? Those are the sorts 
  of questions that make all the difference to an assassin, 
  and they’re questions that knowledge of the metahuman 
  body can answer.
  Similarly, knowing the metahuman mind can aid in 
  completing missions. For example, does the target have 
  a phobia of something? Then study the possible reactions 
  to phobia stimuli, and then use them to your advantage 
  when you set up your hit. There are an infinite number of 
  weak spots that the metahuman psyche can provide you, 
  and if you have a general idea of how a target is going to 
  react to a given situation, you can stay one or two steps 
  ahead of him and cut off his escape.
  > 
  Just remember—specific knowledge beats general knowledge 
  every time. If you know your target’s mental makeup in detail, 
  including his habits and general proclivities, you don’t need to 
  know about psychology in general. You’ll have what you need to 
  find the right time to strike.
  > 
  Thorn
  PLANNING
  Every hit should be planned out, and the ability to draw 
  up those plans is part of what makes great assassins. The 
  knowledge of physiology and psychology greatly aids in 
  that, but other factors need to be taken into consideration 
  as well: What are the target’s favorite hangouts? What are 
  the layouts of those places? Which of those places has the 
  best security, and will the target have any additional se-
  curity with him? What’s his daily routine? Those are just a 
  few of the questions you need to ask yourself when plan-
  ning a hit, and once you’ve gathered the information to 
  answer them, you can start planning how the hit will go 
  down. Depending on the circumstances, a standard break-
  ing-and-entering approach might be called for, or it might 
  be better to take the target out on the streets. Or some 
  other approach altogether might be called for.
  Also remember the old proverb “no battle plan survives 
  contact with the enemy.” Have a couple of contingency 
  plans in mind in case something goes wrong.
  BREAKING AND ENTERING
  Maybe once in your career, if that, you’ll have a target that 
  kindly, and stupidly, leaves the door unlocked for you to 
  just walk into his house and take him out. For the rest you’ll 
  need to learn how to break into secure areas. Learning 
  how to bypass maglocks and the like is obviously the most 
  relevant, but it also pays to learn how to pick standard key 
  and combination locks because some targets use them to 
  thwart thieves who haven’t bothered learning how to pick 
  them. It’s also important to learn how your target’s alarm 
  system works. For instance, if it’s rigged to go off as soon 
  as a window is cracked, the last thing you want to do is cut 
  a hole in the glass.
  > 
  What kind of idiot leaves his door unlocked, ever, in this day 
  and age?
  > 
  Slamm-0!
  > 
  You’d be surprised how cocky some of the rich and powerful get 
  when they live in their ultra-secure gated communities or high-
  class corporate housing. They have so much faith in the security 
  their money can buy that they lose their common sense and get 
  lax about the measures they can take on their own, like locking 
  their doors. I pity their bodyguards.
  > 
  Fianchetto
  REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE
  Self-reliance is one of the best traits an assassin can culti-
  vate. That’s why one should know as many of these skills 
  as possible, so he can rely on himself if that’s all he has. So 
  it just makes sense that repair and maintenance of your 
  equipment is a helpful skill to learn. This goes beyond know-
  ing how to clean your guns (a skill any good shadowrunner 
  should know). This is about knowing how to recognize when 
  a critical part is about to give out and how to fix it yourself 
  if you possibly can. Knowing how to make a replacement 
  part yourself using a machine can free you from reliance on 
  an armorer, though I still highly recommend them for major 
  work. Besides, there are only so many hours in a day, and 
  you might not want to use too many fixing a gun.
  > 
  Much as I hate to reduce the amount of business I might get, I 
  have to say that the same concept applies to your vehicles as 
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    10
  well. Unless you’re planning to take a bus to get to your target, 
  which I don’t recommend, you’ll probably need your own 
  vehicle in this line of work. Knowing how to fix minor problems 
  can really save your ass. Of course, for major work and tricking 
  out your ride, you’ll still need to come to pros like yours truly.
  > 
  Turbo Bunny
  MAGIC
  I confess that I’m no expert on this field. I’m a mundane, 
  and most of what I know about magic comes from what 
  I’ve seen others do. But from what I’ve seen, adepts can 
  have some powers that any assassin would kill for. I’ve 
  seen adepts walk across fresh snow without leaving a 
  footprint; talk their way past a dozen guys with guns; kill 
  with a single punch; and too many other things to name. 
  I have to confess, I’m a bit jealous. I’ve been in plenty of 
  situations where powers like that would have been useful.
  > 
  There’s no question that adept powers can be incredibly useful. 
  As with everything else, though, you can’t let yourself grow 
  dependent on them. Like Balladeer said earlier about skillsofts, 
  your powers should supplement your natural skills rather than 
  replacing them entirely.
  > 
  Ma’Fan
  It pays to be aware of what a magic-user can do, just in 
  case a target is Awakened, even if you don’t understand 
  how it works. For example, it helps to know the difference 
  between an adept and a mage, because knowing which 
  one can sling spells and which one can kick your ass in an 
  eyeblink can help you plan your attack. Of course, there 
  are many possible variations within those basic categories 
  of magic-users, like mystic adepts that can both kick your 
  ass and sling spells, so gathering intelligence on what your 
  specific target can do magically is doubly important. Fail-
  ing that, just assume that a magic-user can do just about 
  anything and prepare accordingly.
  > 
  Remember what they can do isn’t limited to flashy fireballs 
  either. The sorts of mages that can get into your mind can be 
  far more dangerous than the ones who can create a special 
  effects show.
  > 
  Haze
  > 
  Ah, Haze. I was wondering when you might show up.
  > 
  Quietus
  > 
  Do I know you?
  > 
  Haze
  > 
  No, but I’ve seen your name on plenty of contracts that have 
  crossed my path. I saw Pistons’ write-up on you in the Street 
  Legends file, and I’ll tell you this right now: The only reason I’ve 
  never taken one of those contracts on you is because there was 
  always someone worse that needed to be taken down at the 
  time. You’ve pissed a lot of people off over the years, rapist, and 
  you’re in a lot of crosshairs as a result. No one can dodge that 
  many bullets.
  > 
  Quietus
  > 
  PISTONS, YOU BITCH! You put out one of those hits on me, 
  didn’t you?!
  > 
  Haze
  > 
  You’re barking up the wrong tree, asshole. I might hate you for 
  the pig that you are, but I know JackPoint’s rules. Believe me, I’ve 
  been sorely tempted to break them in the past when it comes 
  to you. Good thing I never did, because from what Quietus is 
  saying, it sounds like I didn’t need to. You reap what you sow.
  > 
  Pistons
  TOOLS OF  
  THE TRADE
  To be an effective assassin, you’re going to need the right 
  tools for the job. Even the most skilled assassin needs 
  some sort of weapon, but you’ll usually need other tools 
  in order to get into a position to use that weapon. Of 
  course, every assassin is going to have different prefer-
  ences for gear, so what follows are just general guidelines 
  and observations based on my decades of experience.
  WEAPONS
  Plenty of people believe that the sniper rifle is an assas-
  sin’s best friend. This can be true, depending on the mis-
  sion, but ultimately you need to pick the specific weapon 
  that’s best for the job at hand. You ever tried using a snip-
  er rifle on a SWAT-style door-kicker raid? Of course not, 
  only idiots would do that. Sniper rifles are so ill suited to 
  that sort of job that it’s like trying to chop a tree down 
  with a wet herring.
  My point is, don’t get attached to a certain type of 
  weapon, whether it’s a heavy pistol, SMG, or a sniper rifle. 
  Get yourself a variety of weapon types and find out which 
  guns work best for you. Every model has their little quirks, 
  and finding out that those quirks are major hindrances for 
  you in the middle of a firefight can be a very bad thing. Do 
  your homework. It’ll save your life.
  > 
  Seconded. Firing ranges exist for a reason, to test weapons 
  in an environment where nobody’s shooting back at you. Take 
  advantage of ranges in your area. They’re a dime a dozen in 
  Seattle and most other cities. Most of them require a SIN to use, 
  but most are also willing to accept a “gift” of some extra nuyen 
  for “facility upkeep” to let us SINless use them, just as long as 
  you don’t make any trouble.
  > 
  Hard Exit
  Personally, I refuse to use any weapons with fully au-
  tomatic capability because of their potential to harm in-
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    11
  nocents. Every bullet fired is something that might injure 
  or kill an innocent if it doesn’t hit the target. Just having 
  a weapon with fully automatic capability on hand is too 
  much of a temptation to switch to full auto mode and hold 
  down the trigger while pointing the gun at my target. Not 
  worth the risk, in my opinion.
  > 
  Oh c’mon! You’re telling me a trained assassin can’t hold back 
  from using actual discipline in the heat of battle? That’s a bit hard 
  to swallow.
  > 
  /dev/grrl
  > 
  Never underestimate your ability to panic in the face of the 
  enemy. Even the most hardened fighter can panic given a 
  strong enough fear stimulus. Even experienced soldiers have 
  been known to hold down the trigger and go buck wild when 
  something like that happens. Given that fact and Quietus’ strict 
  adherence to his code, I’m not surprised he avoids those sorts 
  of weapons.
  > 
  The Smiling Bandit
  > 
  How in the name of crap do you manage to survive in intense 
  combat situations without a full auto weapon?
  > 
  Kane
  > 
  Standard sporting rifles and heavy pistols provide as much, if 
  not more, punch than assault rifles and SMGs, and sporting 
  rifles have longer ranges than their automatic counterparts. 
  Plus, a well-aimed shot can do a lot more than a dozen randomly 
  sprayed ones.
  > 
  Quietus
  As far as gun accessories, silencers are a must if you’re 
  trying to remain silent, and any good assassin should be. 
  I prefer smartlinks over laser sights. If somebody sees the 
  red dot from a laser sight on the target’s head, that can 
  be a dead giveaway for your position, and it only takes 
  a half-second for the target to duck and ruin your shot. 
  Concealable holsters and arm slides can be excellent for 
  concealing a pistol under a shirt or coat sleeve. If you ab-
  solutely must use automatic weapons, for Ghost’s sake get 
  recoil compensation fitted into the weapon.
  Don’t underestimate the value in having several differ-
  ent types of ammo available. Besides the gel and shock 
  rounds I mentioned earlier, subsonic rounds are excellent 
  when used in a gun fitted with a silencer. Don’t count on us-
  ing them in your sniper rifle, though, since the gun’s effec-
  tive range will be reduced too much to be useful. Frangible 
  ammo is great where innocent civilians might be harmed 
  by over-penetration. My advice is to always have at least 
  a magazine of rounds loaded with some sort of tracking 
  agent, just in case you lose your target. They might not 
  think anything of one more gunshot hitting them in the 
  back if you’ve been shooting at them already. The uses of 
  capsule rounds are limited only by your imagination and 
  the chemicals you have on hand.
  > 
  Acid can be used to break down all sorts of metallic objects, 
  like inconvenient padlocks you don’t have a key for, and lots of 
  bughunters use KE IV-loaded capsule rounds on their runs. If 
  you’re friends with a chemist, he can probably whip up a batch 
  of just about any chemical you might need for a mission.
  > 
  The Smiling Bandit
  Finally, always have a melee weapon handy, even if it’s 
  just a simple knife. The advantage of having a weapon that 
  never runs out of ammunition is impossible to overstate.
  ARMOR
  From what I can tell, a lot of shadowrunners go for the heavi-
  est armor available if they’re expecting combat. I can see why 
  this is the case, but depending on the mission an assassin 
  may not be able to do that. Bulky, heavy armor doesn’t allow 
  for much freedom of movement, nor does it really lend it-
  self to disguise. Armor-lined trenchcoats are favored by quite 
  a few assassins because they provide a decent amount of 
  protection while looking like a piece of normal clothing. For 
  sneaking missions, you can’t beat a chameleon suit.
  > 
  If you absolutely have to have heavy armor protection during 
  a black-tie dinner or other such engagement, there are options 
  available. Zoe and Mortimer of London both make some 
  stylish clothing that provides the bulletproof protection of 
  standard body armor. It can be useful when the shit hits the 
  fan in a corporate environment.
  > 
  Fianchetto
  SVD (SNIPER RIFLE)
  The SVD is an old design originally manufactured by the 
  Soviets. Chambered for an even older round, the rifle is still 
  capable of limited service in the current era. The SVD was 
  used as the squad marksman’s weapon more than as a 
  dedicated specialist’s tool, although the release of a nano-
  forge blueprint has lead to its resurgence with those who 
  need a reasonably accurate weapon on short notice. It has 
  a standard laser sight, though most models come with a sight 
  manufactured outside Soviet territory.
  ACC
  DAM
  AP
  MODE
  RC
  AMMO
  AVAIL
  COST
  5 (6)
  10P
  –2
  SA
  —
  10(c)
  6R
  800¥
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    12
  AUGMENTATIONS
  Cyberware and bioware are fairly common among assas-
  sins. I suppose this only makes sense, because every assas-
  sin needs an edge. Not everyone is Awakened or a virtuaki-
  netic, but almost anybody can get cyberware implants.
  Contrary to the movie images of assassins as mon-
  strous cybernetic killing machines, most assassins go for 
  straightforward, functional, and most importantly, subtle 
  implants. Obvious cyberlimbs are extremely rare in this 
  line of work. It makes a lot of people assume that you’re 
  up to no good at first glance, especially if you’re bulked 
  up or tricked out with the sorts of add-ons some shadow-
  runners love to get. By the same token, don’t even think 
  about getting weird-looking cybereyes. I don’t care how 
  cool you think entirely black cybereyes look, it will get you 
  noticed, which is bad in our line of work.
  Implanted weapons are pretty common among assas-
  sins, though they tend to stay concealed. Cyberguns are an 
  excellent last-ditch firearm to have available, and of course 
  spurs and razors never run out of ammo. Remember what I 
  said above about always having a melee weapon handy? If 
  you have an implanted spur, it’s always handy.
  Most bioware is pretty subtle, but there are some pretty 
  outlandish things out there, not the least of which are skin 
  alterations like dragonhide. Avoid these like the plague.
  Given the limited time I have left to live, I suppose it 
  wouldn’t hurt to say what work I’ve had done over the years, 
  just to give a real-life example to the prospective newbies. 
  I’ve had magnetic systems implanted in each limb to make 
  climbing buildings as easy as breathing; cybernetic eyes 
  with all the trimmings; retractable spurs in each arm; muscle 
  replacement to make myself stronger and faster; wired re-
  flexes; shock implants in each hand; and an internal air tank 
  for those times when oxygen is in short supply.
  > 
  Wait a minute … magnetic implants, spurs, insufferable 
  moral code … YOU GOAT-FUCKING SON OF A BITCH, YOU 
  STILL OWE ME!
  > 
  Clockwork
  > 
  What in the nine hells are you talking about?
  > 
  Ma’Fan
  > 
  I’ve worked with this bastard before, and his fucking moral code 
  cost me hundreds of hours of work and thousands of nuyen in 
  materials! And Kane, pay attention, because this is the story you 
  wanted to hear earlier.
  Here’s the sitch: Quietus was temporarily attached to my 
  team for a job, though he wasn’t using that name. On behalf of 
  some Yakuza or another, we were supposed to assassinate this 
  Triad mucky-muck who was running a slaving operation. The 
  yak wasn’t interested in the merchandise’s condition, he was 
  just pissed that the Triad guy had beaten him to the punch on 
  that particular market. He didn’t care how we did the job, just as 
  long as the Triad guy was dead.
  So we track the guy to a dock warehouse, where he’s 
  receiving his latest shipment. I figure this is the best chance 
  to strike and I say I’ve got a new drone that can do the job. I 
  had this custom job that I hadn’t even come up with a name 
  for yet. It was a heavily armored drone that looked like a 
  miniature tank, with tons of weapons. It was beautiful. I 
  spent a lot of time making this thing. I had just finished it and 
  wanted to test it out.
  Mister Softy here refuses to consider such a plan of action 
  because it would “put innocents at risk.” Like I give a fuck about 
  some no-name whores. He wants to go the quiet route and 
  take a sniper shot at the guy. We get into an argument, and 
  I’m about to start up my new custom drone when he knocks 
  me unconscious to make sure that I can’t do it! Well, the Triad 
  douchebag is long gone by the time our argument is resolved, 
  so we miss our shot. We still know where the guy bases his 
  operations from, so he’s not entirely lost to us, but trying to go 
  through a bunch of Triad soldiers to reach him isn’t my idea of a 
  good time. Still, Quietus thinks we can do it, and in fact believes 
  it’s the best choice since the only ones who will be hurt are “evil.” 
  He suggests that my new combat drone is the best choice to aid 
  the rest of my team in a diversionary assault while he takes the 
  kill shot. I’m a bit pissed, but the money is good for taking this 
  guy out, so I go along with it.
  Well, the drone works really damn nicely in its first test run. 
  It cuts down some Triad guards like it was barely a challenge, 
  and the rest of my team easily picks off the other guards while 
  they’re panicking and trying to take out the mechanical beast 
  that’s killing their friends. Quietus gets the kill shot on the 
  target, but as we’re retreating one of the guards brings out an 
  anti-vehicle rocket launcher and shoots it at my drone. BOOM! 
  Six months of work and 500,000 nuyen in materials, down the 
  fucking drain just like that! All so he could save some goddamn 
  whores nobody gives a shit about! He never even paid me back 
  a single nuyen for the damage either!
  > 
  Clockwork
  > 
  So was that you, Quietus? Does Clockwork have it right? Did 
  you really go to all that trouble to save the lives of a few people 
  you didn’t know and who certain assholes seem to think are 
  expendable?
  > 
  Kat o’ Nine Tales
  > 
  I can neither confirm nor deny any of the little bastard’s story.
  > 
  Quietus
  ELECTRONICS
  Commlinks are as essential to an assassin as they are to 
  anyone today. The most important thing an assassin can 
  do as far as they go is to keep them secure. Spare no ex-
  pense on firewalls, anti-virus, and encryption software—
  the commlink is the nerve center of your PAN, and if it 
  can’t be hacked, your cyberware and weapons can’t be 
  either. Always keep your commlink on your person so that 
  you can be as sure as possible it isn’t being tampered with.
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    13
  > 
  “Can’t be hacked?” There’s nothing that somebody out there 
  can’t hack.
  > 
  Slamm-0!
  > 
  Nobody here is naïve enough to believe otherwise. But any 
  shadowrunner worth a drek doesn’t let that stop him from 
  trying their damnedest.
  > 
  Bull
  If you’re no good at using your commlink to hack, you 
  should definitely make friends with a hacker you can call in 
  as a consultant on jobs. There are plenty of occasions where 
  sabotaging your target remotely can be incredibly helpful.
  As far as other electronics, RFID tags are useful for 
  tracking targets that get away, or even for aiding in surveil-
  lance. Jammers are excellent at preventing a target from 
  calling for help. Maglock passkeys and sequencers, cellu-
  lar glove molders, and keycard copiers can help you defeat 
  most common locks, and autopickers can assist in picking 
  old-style key locks.
  A note on those last items: you shouldn’t completely 
  rely on B&E tools to do the job. Try to understand as much 
  as possible how they do what they do and what exactly 
  they’re doing. That understanding can help you gain the 
  knowledge you need to do such things yourself, so that 
  you’re not automatically up Shit Creek if you’re ever stuck 
  without the tool.
  ADVICE FOR THE 
  ASPIRING ASSASSIN
  There’s more advice I could give, but it’s impossible to 
  write all of it down in the short time I have left. Still, I’d 
  like to try to impart some of the more valuable lessons 
  I’ve learned over the years in this last section.
  BE AWARE OF THE 
  CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS
  Everything that everyone does in this world has a ripple 
  effect. Because of the nature of our work, we assassins 
  leave major ripples with every job we take. Everybody in 
  this world, including the target, is somebody’s sibling, 
  parent, or significant other, and those people will hate 
  you for ending your target’s life. This doesn’t mean all of 
  them will seek revenge on you, but be prepared for it to 
  happen if they discover your identity. If it does happen, 
  don’t take it personally.
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    14
  > 
  I take people trying to kill me very personally.
  > 
  Black Mamba
  This applies to more than just vengeful family mem-
  bers. For some historical examples of major ripple effects 
  caused by one person’s death, just look at the assassina-
  tion of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, which sparked 
  World War I. More recently, United States President Jesse 
  Garrety’s death got William “Genocide” Jarman into office. 
  His attempted Holocaust of the Native Americans drove 
  Daniel Howling Coyote to implement the Great Ghost 
  Dance, which in turn led to the Treaty of Denver. Only 
  a dragon could possibly think of all the ways a person’s 
  death could affect the world, but it still pays to be mindful 
  of the wider consequences of a job.
  > 
  Which brings into question a lot of the underlying assumptions 
  of Quietus’ code, and I was going to bring it up earlier, but in the 
  end we’re all compromised, so I didn’t figure I needed to single 
  out Quietus, especially if he truly is on his way out.
  > 
  Winterhawk
  DON’T SCREW UP
  Not that I think any assassin worth a damn would try to 
  screw up, but this is worth saying for one simple reason: 
  When you screw up a job, you immediately become the 
  first target of your employer. Dead men don’t tell tales, 
  after all. The best way to avoid this fate is to build yourself 
  a reputation for not talking about your jobs.
  Unfortunately, having a perfect job record and a rep-
  utation for staying silent won’t necessarily save you. An 
  employer might decide to eliminate you even after a suc-
  cessful job. So in addition to building up that reputation, 
  keep your guard up at all times, and always prepare for 
  betrayal. If and when it happens, show no mercy in de-
  fending yourself.
  > 
  You know, it occurs to me that it might help to know why you’re 
  being targeted by your current employer. After all, if it’s because 
  you screwed up, that sort of calls your advice into question, 
  doesn’t it?
  > 
  Snopes
  > 
  Since that would involve talking about a job, I must say “no 
  comment.”
  > 
  Quietus
  > 
  Okay, do the math here, Snopes. He said that he was a teenager 
  when the Alliance for Allah came along in 2034. That was forty 
  years ago, which makes him at least fifty-three years old today, 
  every adult year of that spent doing this job, and he’s still alive, 
  at least for the moment. I’d say that record speaks for itself.
  > 
  Stone
  KEEP MOVING
  Don’t stay in one place too long. Move around, even if 
  it’s just to another district in the same city. Switch up the 
  districts you stay in too. If you only move to safehouses in 
  the Redmond Barrens, that’s not much better than staying 
  in the same Barrens safehouse for years on end. Getting 
  a ritzy place in Renton once in a while might be the last 
  thing someone tracking you would expect.
  Somewhat related to this: Make friends with a reliable 
  plastic surgeon and forger in case you need to change 
  your appearance and get a corresponding fake SIN. That 
  might be the only option if a job goes really bad.
  > 
  Augmentations can change your appearance at least as 
  efficiently as plastic surgery, and can be more cost effective too.
  > 
  Kat o’ Nine Tales
  KNOW YOUR LIMITS
  If you need a special skill set that you don’t possess or if 
  the target is someone you need special expertise to take 
  down, contract a specialist for help or turn the job down. 
  If your target’s a vampire and you know absolutely noth-
  ing about the Infected, get a vampire hunter to assist you 
  if you decide to take the job. Don’t be afraid to say “no” 
  because a job is beyond your skillset. It marks you as a 
  smart man and a professional, not a coward.
  > 
  I’ve lost count of the number of runners I’ve seen over the years 
  that ended up in over their heads because they were too afraid 
  for their reputations to say “no” to a job they couldn’t do. Not 
  all of those runners made it out of those jobs alive, and even 
  those that did took a major blow to their reps because they 
  were exposed as misrepresenting their abilities. It is far more of 
  a hit than their reps would have taken by turning the job down. 
  Be honest with yourself and your potential employer. Hell, 
  sometimes the employer will give you access to a specialist as 
  part of the job if you say up front that it’s beyond your abilities.
  > 
  Fianchetto
  CENTER YOURSELF
  What I mean by this is that you need to find something 
  to center your mind and soul between jobs so that you 
  can hold onto your humanity. Personally, I’m a fan of get-
  ting a hobby, specifically something that doesn’t involve 
  violence, whether simulated or real. The whole point is 
  to take a break from violence, after all. This means that 
  things like urban brawl or Matrix shooters are right out. 
  My hobbies of choice are cooking and karaoke. I’m pretty 
  good at the former, especially with Italian stuff. The latter, 
  not so much, but belting out a hard rock or rap song can 
  be a really nice way to let off some steam without involv-
  ing simulated violence.
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    15
  > 
  When did this guy get taken over by an Overprotective Soccer 
  Mom personafix? He can handle killing people for a living, but 
  he can’t handle shooting zombies in Paranormal Crisis?
  > 
  Slamm-0!
  > 
  He didn’t say he couldn’t handle it. It sounds more like he wants 
  to compartmentalize his life to some extent. I imagine that it’s 
  sort of like a “wall” in his mind, and he keeps all the violence 
  on one side and the rest of his life on the other, so that the two 
  never meet. I can understand keeping them separate. When 
  your job is as violent as his, the attraction of blowing stuff up in 
  VR games or seeing Urban Brawl gunfights on trid is probably 
  significantly reduced. That’s not true for every shadowrunner, 
  there’s plenty of Urban Brawl fans here on JackPoint, but some 
  people need that greater degree of separation.
  > 
  Nephrine
  > 
  Well, that’s the brief sum total of my decades of experience, 
  there for the next few generations of assassins to see. Make 
  it count.
  I heard the sound of cars pulling up outside my flat a few 
  seconds ago. Looking out the window, I can see several heavily 
  armed guys who look like they mean business approaching 
  the entrance. I guess this is it. One last hurrah before I go on to 
  whatever lies beyond.
  Safety and peace, everyone.
  > 
  Quietus
  > 
  USER QUIETUS HAS LOGGED OFF
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    16
  GAME INFORMATION
  THE LONE WOLF 
  AS A TEAM MEMBER
  As Quietus noted in the in-game document, assassins 
  tend to work alone for a variety of reasons, but in most 
  Shadowrun games, working completely alone isn’t an op-
  tion. So how do you fit this sort of “lone wolf” personality 
  into a typical shadowrunning group?
  There are a couple of ways to go about this.
  CONSULTANTS
  As Quietus mentioned, assassins sometimes call in con-
  sultants or specialists to help out with jobs, usually to fill 
  a particular skill niche like magic or hacking. The other 
  members of the team could be those consultants, a group 
  of assistants that the assassin regularly calls in to help 
  him. Alternately, the assassin character himself could be 
  the consultant, called in to lend his special skillset to the 
  team for a particular job.
  Figuring out how to work these arrangements into a 
  regular game might seem like a tall order, but there are 
  a few ways to make them work. With the former arrange-
  ment, it might be best to simply suspend disbelief a bit. It 
  might seem unusual for such an arrangement to happen 
  so often, but it’s not much more unusual than different 
  Johnsons regularly hiring the same group of runners. With 
  the latter arrangement, it might be a good idea to have 
  the assassin’s player play two characters, a regular PC and 
  the assassin, with the assassin only coming out when his 
  expertise is needed.
  “LET HIM DO HIS THING”
  On the other hand, there’s no law saying an assassin has 
  to completely eschew working as part of a team. Such a 
  character can easily be part of a regular shadowrunning 
  group, but given a freer rein because the group realizes 
  he does his part of the job better on his own. In this way, 
  the assassin is both a part of the team and separate from 
  it. He works with them, but when it comes time to exe-
  cute the battle plan, he goes his own way.
  This isn’t a completely alien idea in Shadowrun. Plen-
  ty of team members can be given a similarly long leash 
  simply because their areas of expertise don’t make it easy 
  for others to accompany them. If the team only has one 
  hacker, for example, it’s not exactly easy for the other 
  teammates to follow and assist him in the Matrix. It’s the 
  same with teams that only have one mage or shaman who 
  needs to do astral work. Simply treat the assassin the same 
  way you’d treat one of those types of characters.
  NEW QUALITIES
  ASSASSIN’S CREEDS
  The Code of Honor: Assassin’s Creed Quality (p. 79, SR5) 
  presents a code of behavior that an assassin can choose 
  to follow. Not every assassin that follows a moral code 
  like the one Quietus laid out above will fit comfortably 
  within that mindset, however. These expanded Code of 
  Honor rules are intended to provide players with more 
  options for an Assassin’s Creed Code of Honor that will 
  fit their characters’ moral code. Some of them are refine-
  ments of the original Assassin’s Creed Code of Honor, 
  while others are intended to reflect entirely different as-
  sassin mindsets.
  Since the various codes discussed here have different 
  effects, they also have different associated Karma bonuses 
  or costs. Note that some of these are Positive Qualities, 
  which cost Karma, while others are Negative Qualities, 
  which provide Karma bonuses. The cost or bonus does 
  not include any part of the Code of Honor bonus, as these 
  qualities are similar only in their intention; selecting that 
  Quality is not a prerequisite to use these Qualities. 
  If you have trouble deciding which Assassin’s Creed 
  Quality to take for your character, ask yourself what part 
  of his moral code matters the most to him. Is it a prohibi-
  tion against harming innocents, serving his country, being 
  a stalwart professional, or something else entirely? Once 
  you figure that out, choose the quality that most closely 
  reflects that answer.
  POSITIVE QUALITIES
  DEUS VULT! (COST: 4 KARMA)
  The words “Deus Vult,” “God wills it” in Latin, were the 
  words that helped launch the First Crusade in 1095. Sim-
  ilarly, the assassin sees himself as on a crusade to elimi-
  nate the enemies of his religion. These enemies might be 
  striking violently at the people or holy sites of his faith, 
  or they might simply be “sinners” in his eyes. Either way, 
  they must be eliminated.
  While the Code of Honor is called “Deus Vult,” it is not 
  limited to any particular religion. A radical pagan can take 
  this Code as justifiably as a fanatical Christian. Note that 
  this Code might require some research on the player’s part 
  to properly roleplay his character’s devotion to his reli-
  gion’s tenets.
  Advantages: The assassin’s faith sustains him even in 
  the face of terrible wounds. Make a Willpower check at the 
  beginning of the character’s Action Phase if he has taken a 
  wound, either Stun or Physical damage, since his last Ac-
  tion Phase, with the threshold being equal to the number 
  
  >> SHADOWRUN <<
  << THE ASSASSIN’S PRIMER    17
  of wounds taken in that time. Success on the roll means 
  that the assassin ignores all wound penalties. The assassin 
  should continue making rolls before each Action Phase, 
  with the threshold for the test growing with each wound; 
  for example, if a character makes a roll after sustaining two 
  wounds, then sustains two more wounds before his next 
  Action Phase, the threshold would be 4 for the next roll. 
  If one of these rolls fails, all wound penalties immediately 
  come into play and this advantage cannot be used until 
  the next combat.
  Disadvantage: Perhaps as overcompensation for vio-
  lating his religion’s tenet against killing, the assassin de-
  mands much more of himself in observance of the other 
  tenets of his faith. The assassin must make a Charisma + 
  Willpower roll to act against his religion’s tenets, with the 
  threshold varying based on the severity of the violation: 
  simple theft would likely call for a threshold of 1, while 
  great blasphemy or renouncing his religion entirely would 
  call for a much higher threshold. If the character fails the 
  roll, they refuse to perform the action and actively seek to 
  stop anyone they see attempting it.
  MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR  
  WRONG (COST: 4 KARMA)
  Patriotism is the core of this assassin’s being. He serves his 
  country by doing his deadly job, and he knows his work 
  is justified because it helps the nation that he calls home. 
  Enemies both foreign and domestic must be dealt with so 
  the nation’s citizens can live in peace and security.
  Advantages: Make a Willpower check at the beginning 
  of the character’s Action Phase if he has taken a wound, 
  either Stun or Physical damage, since his last Action Phase, 
  with the threshold being equal to the number of wounds 
  taken in that time. Success on the roll means that the as-
  sassin ignores all wound penalties. The assassin should 
  continue making rolls before each Action Phase, with 
  the threshold for the test growing with each wound; for 
  example, if a character makes a roll after sustaining two 
  wounds, then sustains two more wounds before his next 
  Action Phase, the threshold would be 4 for the next roll. 
  If one of these rolls fails, all wound penalties immediately 
  come into play and this advantage cannot be used until 
  the next combat.
  Disadvantage: The idea of betraying his country in 
  even the smallest way, even for a greater good some-
  where down the line, is unthinkable to the assassin. He 
  must make a Charisma + Willpower check to act in a way 
  detrimental to his country, with the threshold based on 
  the severity of the offense: breaking into a military base 
  to steal weapons would call for a threshold of 1, while sell-
  ing classified materials to the enemy would call for a much 
  higher threshold. If the character fails the roll, they refuse 
  to perform the action and actively seek to stop anyone 
  they see attempting it.
  OUT FOR MYSELF  
  (COST: 4 KARMA)
  The assassin knows that he can rely only on himself. 
  Perhaps he’s a selfish bastard, or perhaps that’s just the 
  mindset he needed to develop to survive where he grew 
  up. Either way, he looks out for Number One, and to hell 
  with everyone else.
  Advantages: The assassin is always watching his back; 
  after all, nobody else will. He receives a +3 Dice Pool to all 
  Surprise Tests because of this preparedness.
  Disadvantages: This character has proven that he cares 
  only for himself, and his reputation in the shadows will suf-
  fer for it. Double all Notoriety gained by acts of selfishness 
  or betrayal.
  STRIVE FOR PERFECTION  
  (COST: 12 KARMA)
  Excellence in his craft is what this assassin aims for. It is 
  not enough to take out the target; the job must be done 
  efficiently, quickly, and without the slightest misstep. This 
  is what separates the good assassins from the great ones 
  in his mind, and he aims to be one of the greats.
  Advantages: The assassin has honed his skills with fire-
  arms to the point where shots that would be tough for most 
  people are second nature to him. Halve the cost of all Called 
  Shots, meaning they impose only a –2 dice pool penalty in-
  stead of –4. The Called Shot still costs a Free Action.
  Disadvantages: The standard “aiming for center mass” 
  shots that most people take are beneath this sort of assassin. 
  He seeks to make every shot count, regardless of how many 
  bullets are in his magazine. The assassin must make Called 
  Shots unless he is providing covering fire or acting in a similar 
  capacity where Called Shots would not be practical.
  NEGATIVE QUALITY
  CONSUMMATE PROFESSIONAL 
  (BONUS: 3 KARMA)
  The consummate professional knows that the assassin 
  contract involves a great deal of trust between both par-
  ties, and he seeks to honor that trust to the fullest. He 
  will never talk about the jobs he takes, even to boost his 
  own reputation. This makes him somewhat more difficult 
  for employers to track down, but those who do find him 
  know that they can trust him not to sell them out.
  Advantages: The consummate professional has proven 
  he’s worthy of being treated better than a typical assassin. 
  Gain a +2 Dice Pool bonus to social interaction rolls when 
  interacting with employers.
  Disadvantages: The flip side to having as much discre-
  tion as the consummate professional does is that it’s much 
  harder to be known for your work. Divide total Karma by 
  20 (instead of 10 as normal) and round down in order to 
  determine Street Cred.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Shadowrun [multi]/EXTRAS/Character Creation/Shadowrun 5e - Assassins Primer [CAT 26S036].pdf