Tacoma

The first thing you’ll notice is the smell. Brichert’s Paper Mills have been working here since ghost knows when, and the odor will probably stay embedded in the ferrocrete for decades after it finally closes in a post-paper world. That, my friend, is the famous Tacoma Aroma. Get used to it.

The second is the people. Blue-collar predominates here, and there’s not a lot of room for advancement among them. At least the work hours aren’t as bad as other parts of town but you can chalk that up to the unions - which are controlled by the Mobs so it’s not quite the happy ending you were expecting. Happy endings aren’t really Tacoma’s style. Or tragic ones. Or really endings at all. Tacoma just grinds on and on, whether it’s syndicate wars or import/exports (legitimate and otherwise). Of all the neighborhoods in Seattle, Tacoma works for a living and they’ll tell you so.

The third, if you’re canny and have been paying attention, is the crime. It’s not as overt as some other places, and sure, the Ragers and the Spikes keep up appearances but the more sophisticated criminal element has been waging war here for more than thirty years and there’s no sign of stopping. It’s become so entrenched that the local government basically belongs to them, so long as the Corporate Court doesn’t take a hand. So the docks keep flowing and the prison keeps keeping and the money (mostly) runs in the right direction for those who have actual professional armies.

Don’t let this limit your sight, though! Tacoma is diverse as hell, with Little Asia, a few Shiawase enclaves, and the eclectic mix of cultures that come with Yakuza, Mafia, Vory, Triads, Seoulpa, and everyone else who wants a piece of the pie. Seattle’s only passenger train, operating out of Charles Royer Station, runs a bullet line to San Francisco, and the Margaret Bridge Child Health Hospital is working on childhood diseases for all metatypes all the time.

That’s another nice thing about Tacoma: the diversity. It’s not just cultures, but metatypes as well. You’ll see all shapes and sizes here and in fact Tacoma is the home of the Crying Wall, a monument to those lost on the Night of Rage. A few nuyen will get you on a guided tour. A fairly well-guarded tour, too, since it’s not just a popular site for Humanis thugs to start some drek, but is also one of the entrances to the Underground. Mess around here and you’ll pull down ork and dwarf wrath that will land you in Humana Hospital before you’re dragged off to the District Courthouse and, shortly thereafter, Silcox Island Correctional Facility, all without leaving the region. Tacoma takes its Underground connections quite seriously.

Major Neighborhoods

Little Asia

Originally founded in the early 1900's and then defunct by the 1980's thanks to a post-war decline, what was once called Japantown has transformed a few times before Shiawase rolled back in and started making inroads for a few enclaves in Seattle starting in the 2030's.

Their influx of nuyen meant that Japantown was reborn, albeit this time as "Little Asia." It's no longer solely Japanese, only predominantly Japanese. It's not a distinction that matters much to English speakers, as once you head west of Old Tacoma and enter Little Asia, the culture shock sets in and you get a strange mixture of Neo-Tokyo and Old Tacoma blending together - the buildings are always metroplex but the AROs, signages, and most of the people there are Japanese. This even applies to most of the screamsheets and Matrix hosts as the Japanese population has exploded through constant immigration to the Seattle Metroplex.

Little Asia does have a significant Chinese, Indian, and Thai population as well, albeit to a much lesser degree, and Shiawase even revived a Japanese-language public school. It's only through the weedy nature of organized crime that the yakuza, seoulpa, and triad have managed to hold onto the seedier portions albeit to varying degrees of success.

Lakewood

Despite technically hosting the Silcox Correctional Facility at the center of American Lake, Lakewood is a fairly safe neighborhood that is only "brought down" due to its proximity to I-5 and the presence of Puyallup on the other side.

The Tacoma chapter of The Ancients make it their mission to keep their stretch of turf free from The Spikes and any other fledgeling go-gangs and Lone Star is more than happy to let them do it as they have bigger fish to fry.

With the presence of a major shopping mall, hundreds of restaurants, hotels, and other commercial businesses Lakewood remains the pillowy mound where the middle class and most visitors tend to visit, earning it a firm A-level neighborhood rating as the majority of crime here tends to be property related and after dark.

Old Tacoma

What remains of Tacoma's pre-metroplex downtown is known as the Old Tacoma. Old Tacoma is mostly situated along the Tacoma spur of the I-705. It extends from the heart of the Theatre District, Old Town, and Dome District sub-neighborhoods west to the border with Japantown and east just up to Fife.

Its exactly what you'd expect as a neighborhood that is considered a downtown, though. It has the Greater Tacoma Convention Center, Tacoma's primary University of Washington offices, multiple smaller colleges, hospitals, hotels, a bustling nightlife scene, bars, high school, the Tacoma branch of the SeaSource library, a few brothels, the Tacoma Dome, several transit centers, and countless eateries and individual shops scattered amongst thousands of residents.

Needless to say, Old Tacoma is as busy as it ever was. Its a far cry from how busy any neighborhood in the Downtown district of Seattle could ever be but Old Tacoma is the busiest sleepiest home of the lower class that you'd never expect to hold as much charm as it does.

Port of Tacoma

Known most prominently for the "aroma of Tacoma" or the "Tacoma aroma," the Port of Tacoma includes the entire physical expanse of industrial and commercial shipping south of suburban sprawl of Northeast Tacoma, north of lower-class Fife, and east of Japantown.

A major transportation hub, the district is the third most important economic center for the Seattle metroplex after Downtown and Bellevue.

Its also the location of the district's single largest employer: the Federated-Boeing Metalworks.

The port itself boasts countless businesses relating to shipping but also small stretches of urbanization which mostly exist to support the port's dockworker population, including Memorial Way and Tacoma's old downtown district. Most who live here are lower class and can't afford to live anywhere else that smells better or is further from the cacophonous noise of a busy port and industrial factories surrounded by freight trains, commercial air traffic, the F-B metalworks, and the constant flow of commercial trucking.

Ruston

Originally a company town named for the "smelter district" of the Pacific Northwest, Ruston evolved into a residential neighborhood after the 1980's and since then has largely become a wealthy residential bedroom for the majority of Tacoma's upper crust and as the location of the internationally famous Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium.

It is an extremely well-protected peninsula with a AAA-security rating due in no small part because this is where the Mayor's house is a well as most of Tacoma's movers and shakers, including a significant portion of Shiawase executives and a few sports stars.

Places of Interest

Hotels

Lakewood Comfy Cubicle

Type: Hotel

Rating: ★★

Price: ¥50

Location: 6125 Motor Avenue Southwest, Lakewood

Description: Clean, low-priced accommodations for visitors on a tight budget, the Comfy Cubicle is an upper-end coffin hotel.

Bruce Meyrick, the manager, is a small-time mage who has been there for years.

His main hobby is breeding eyekillers at his place in south Tacoma and he often has one with him when’s he’s on-duty at the hotel, so if you don’t find paranormal cockfights morally reprehensible, check him out for some sweet side bets at the Snohomish Coliseum.

Sheraton Tacoma

Type: Hotel

Rating: ★★★

Price: ¥175

Location: South 13th Street & Broadway Plaza, Little Asia

Description: Once you get past the opulence and charm of early 2000's decor and a friendly, attentive staff, there’s a history of metahuman alliance stretching back to the Night of Rage, when employees supplied shelter to over three hundred metahumans against an angry mob. The lobby boasts a bronze statue and plaque commemorating the event, as well as a small museum with photos, videos, and the award winning documentary Night of the Three Hundred.

The Underground has had a secret entrance here for a long time but over time it’s become a part of the hotel, with a small expansion downward converted for further tourism and commerce. It’s considered bad form to use it as an exit through the hotel unless you do at least a little business on its behalf.

Mothers of Metahumans meet here all the time and changelings have held OtherCon for years, while Humanis and other hate groups often target the hotel and its staff, which has earned them a great deal of respect and friendship for their continued support.

Tacoma Dome Hotel

Type: Hotel

Rating: ★★★

Price: ¥200

Location: East 26th Street & East Street, Old Tacoma

Description: Although it is showing its age a bit the Tacoma Dome Hotel remains one of the best in the district.

With spacious, well-appointed rooms, a dine-in restaurant featuring complimentary breakfast, decent security, and easy access to public transportation, you could do a lot worse than the Dome.

Restaurants

Cap'n Beef

Type: Fast Food Restaurant

Cost: ¥

Location: 20th Street East & 51st Avenue East, Fife

Description: Cap'n Beef is a cheap, greasy, nautically themed burger joint that sells prepocessed soy and only preprocessed soy with beef flavorings. All of the "vegetable" add-ons are stamped soy as well, not unlike McHugh's.

Unlike McHugh's, they don't really flavor them as well and don't bother to work on the texture.

Instead you are fed your food in wrappers that are already disintegrating by the time you open the bag and are expected to consume it not because you enjoy it but because its cheaper than anything else around and its so filled with flavor additives that they're hoping you never recognize that you might as well be eating flavored soybean paste.

Gianelli's Restaurant

Type: Italian Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥

Location: 15th Avenue Northeast & 42nd Street Northeast, Northeast Tacoma

Description: Gianelli’s serves a variety of family-style Italian dishes, specializing in pastas with their famous marinara or bolognese sauces. Dishes are always enough to serve two or more, so order with plans to share and don’t miss out on their great dessert menu, particularly the handmade cannolis and the tiramisu.

The head chef is former Gianelli crime family leg breaker and current war consiglieri Tony Gianelli.

Members of the family visit here regularly. Tony likes to play the role of an old man enjoying his retirement job and handing out balloons to the kids, but don’t buy it for a minute: he was one of old Don Bigio’s most vicious leg-breakers back in the day, and he would kill to protect his family and their interests again in a heartbeat.

Matador

Type: Southwestern Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥¥

Location: 721 Pacific Avenue, Old Tacoma

Description: Old Tacoma's premier Aztlan restaurant, the Matador is known for its friendly service and fantastic food - the location helps, though, since the building and atmosphere is gorgeous but a lot of the working lunches and dinners are more keen on the food and open bar than anything else.

Their tequila and orange-habanero salsa are top notch and can run out quickly on weekends, so strike while the iron is hot if you're going when its busy.

Memorial Way Ramen Bar

Type: Izakaya

Cost: ¥

Location: 436 East 11th Place, Port of Tacoma

Description: This small, simple izakaya and ramen bar is run by a bull of a Japanese-Filipino troll woman named "Mako" who - judging from the tattoos she doesn't care to hide - has some yakuza or go-gang connections.

Her English isn't the best, most of the menu isn't translated into English, and the other woman who cooks with her who speaks English is only there half the time but the food is good enough to give the izakaya of Little Asia a run for their money.

Seating can be a little dodgy due to a small group that don't interact with non-Japanese and spend most of their time playing cards, drinking, and smoking. They clear out when Mako asks them but they have the tell-tale look of yakuza.

Lakewood Shezan

Type: Tanzanian Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥

Location: Gravelly Lake Drive, Lakewood

Description: The Umballa family has been running this restaurant in Tacoma for over 30 years, specializing in Tanzanian-Indian cuisine. They are renowned for their soy dishes, which could almost make you forget about being a meat-eater altogether.

Fred Umballa still manages Lakewood Shezan and most of the staff are members of his family: kids, cousins, or in-laws.

Peaceable Kingdom

Type: Chinese-American Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥

Location: South 37th Avenue & Tacoma Avenue South, South Tacoma

Description: A charming American-Chinese style restaurant with traditional decorations and soft, atmospheric Asian woodwind and string music adding to the ambience. The menu offers a wide range of Chinese, Japanese, and Thai dishes, moderately priced, and varying in heat from mild to spicy. Private dining rooms and bookings for large parties are available.

For the more discerning (and wealthy) clientele, the opulent backrooms offer more exotic fare, from paraflora and fauna which can prove lethal without proper cooking techniques to critters on the endangered list all the way to sapient samplings for the jaded or Infected. Another product of Octagon Triad commerce, it’s not unusual to see their higher-ups holding meetings there.

Especially popular are the exotic and deadly cuts like cockatrice and devilfish, both of which take great skill to prepare without killing the diners.

Sam's Cafe

Type: Diner

Cost: ¥

Location: 602 East 11th Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: A Port of Tacoma staple, Sam's Cafe has been feeding the workers at the metalworks, docks, and shipyard for over 80 years with a mixed fare of American and Japanese-American cuisine.

The prices are reasonable and the soykaf is a lifesaver, especially on a cold morning or an overnight shift at the docks. Apparently they even get real coffee every now and again but the people who frequent Sam's are nowhere near the price bracket to afford that kind of purchase.

Street Pizza

Type: Pizzeria

Cost: ¥

Location: McMurray Road Northeast, Northeast Tacoma

Description: Street Pizza sells cheap, greasy pizza by the slice and by the pie. Customizations are allowed but the pizza is generally no-frills and nothing fancy, offering no more to go with it than Coca-Cola products and a few bread-related additions or the odd packet of Parmesan SoyCheese. It's been like that since it was opened up on the mean streets of Detroit forty years ago and it'll likely remain that way until the end of time.

That's something that fans of Street Pizza like to say, if for no other reason than the pizza from there doesn't seem to ever rot or mold, it just stays in a room temperature semi-soft state until an environmental factor does something to it. The oldest piece of Street Pizza that has been safely consumed was 22 days old.

The current managing director has been looking to alter the image of Street Pizza as something "cheap" despite not wanting to raise the prices or go anywhere near the pizza quality. Dan "Pizza Tsar" Illitch managed to survive the events that rocked Detroit during the UCAS Blackout at the Street Pizza headquarters and a few images are floating around of him at the Street Pizza World Headquarters eating a piece of pizza in one hand while holding the UCAS flag over the rubble of a chunk of building.

Tacoma Purple Haze

Type: Southwestern Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥¥¥

Location: South 25th Street & Jefferson Avenue, Old Tacoma

Description: A first-class restaurant serving a mix of Texan, Aztlan, and Pueblo dishes. The tostadas are arguably the best in the metroplex and the adobo is simply amazing.

Don’t forget the food comes on the spicy side, so if you need it mild you’re going to have to say so.

The local Lone Star love this place - not for any nefarious purposes but rather just because the food is that damn good.

Tacoma Style

Type: Salish Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥¥

Location: Grandview Drive & Sunset Beach Road

Description: With its view of Puget Sound, patio dining in good weather, and an excellent Salish menu, Tacoma Style attracts many young singles out for dinner and then downstairs to the Style nightclub to dance the night away to the latest music and entertainment.

The Style used to be a place catering to people who had some, but now tends to attract people who wish they had some instead. It’s strictly poseurville these days.

Yamato

Type: Japanese Restaurant

Cost: ¥¥

Location: North 16th Street & North Adams Street, Little Asia

Description: A relative newcomer to Seattle, Yamato is a Japanese restaurant focused on serving the average fare that a Japanese person in the Imperial States might eat when they choose to go out.

In addition to soy-based foods and meat products, Yamato offers cloned meat from various marine animals, which is given via the Shiawase Seven Seas Oceanic Farming company in large aquaculture farms.

Yamato restaurants are a popular place for Shiawase corporate citizens to eat, with many of their housing complexes often having a Yamato built into them and Shiawase personnel often treat their contractors and free agents to meals at Yamato for a job well done or as a means of meeting in a safe location.

In 2074, Hurricane Donald made landfall in Borinquen, devastating the region. The great dragon Sirrug then attacked the NatVat facility there, crippling food production in the Caribbean League. Shiawase seized the proverbial gap via its Yamato restaurants, expanding into North America and the Caribbean League in force. By 2080, Yamato restaurants were present in Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City, Borinquen, Miami, Manhattan, and DeeCee.

Bars & Clubs

Anderson Lounge

Type: Lounge

Location: 601 East 11th Avenue, Port of Tacoma

Description: This Jazz Lounge opened up roughly 20 years ago and it was mostly just a glorified bar until the owner, Gavriíl Kairis, sold it for pennies to ex-shadowrunner Samuel Earling in the late 2070's.

It hasn't changed all that much since other than increasing in quality. It has a pair of private rooms, some cozy booths, a stylish art deco bar and the remaining seating is placed for maximum acoustic enjoyment in front of the stage.

They do offer food but its strictly during dinner service from Thursday to Sunday and from the crowd its pretty apparent that they make most of their money on a late-night weekend crowd that might be a little wary of law enforcement just across the bridge in Old Tacoma.

Still, the Anderson Lounge is a bad fit for the dockworkers of Tacoma so its a miracle its managed to survive for almost 25 years. Thanks to a focus on live performances and emphasis on metroplex jazz talent its curated a loyal cadre of musical enthusiasts who just might help keep its doors open indefinitely.

Basil's Faulty Bar

Type: Bar

Location: Westgate Boulevard & Pearl Street, West End

Description: This ain’t a place that stands out to the average Joe, and that’s just how the patrons and the owner, Abe Heep, prefer it.

Abe Heep, better known in the shadows as Tangent, ran for thirty years and then retired to open up this establishment. Those in the know reach out to him for his extraordinary talents as an infobroker and matchmaker for shadowtalent.

Abe’s been talking about retirement for so long no one buys it anymore but then Tangent was canny enough to make it this far meaning it could finally be true as he reaches real old age. Still, the old fox is said to have so much blackmail info on a deadman’s switch that no one will touch him. He’s proof that knowledge is power and discretion is the secret to a long life.

Cao Cao's Kitchen

Type: Chinese Restaurant

Location: 755 Broadway, Old Tacoma

Description: A traditional Chinese eatery that prides itself on its lunch buffets and evening table service.

Renown for its take-out orders which run 24/7, even when the storefront is closed.

Medium priced (the prices jump for the dinner rush) and easily available, Cao Cao's Kitchen has the #1 best-rated Henan cuisine outside of the Chinese continent.

Rumors persist of Triad ties but the ownership appears to be a retired Wuxing executive following a dream of bringing her childhood food to North America.

DeClerry's

Type: Bar

Location: 15th Avenue Northeast & 38th Street Northeast, Northeast Tacoma

Description: This working-class neighborhood bar is a good place to grab a drink after work, before dinner, or to round out the night.

The Finnigan crime family has controlled DeClerry’s ever since Vince “Bonecrusher” DeClerry started the place more than 40 years ago. Vince is long-since retired but his son VJ (Vince Junior) runs the place. Chances are if you’re going to deal with the mafia in Tacoma, you’ll be invited to a get-together at DeClerry’s.

Unlike his dad, VJ was never a made man so he is a little less thrilled with the “family business.” He keeps turning a blind eye, if only because he hasn’t a clue how to do it with his skin and this place intact.

Fenris Nacht

Type: Bar

Location: 1807 49th Avenue Court Northeast, Northeast Tacoma

Description: At the end of a dark little alley, past a lone bouncer who needs a password that changes on the weekly, you’ll find a building that’s all danger.

The inside of the club is sort of a combination rustic hunting lodge and primeval cave, with low lighting and plenty of dark corners for private conversations.

The clientele are mostly shifters, and most of them are wolves, with a nice smattering of shamans, changelings, and adepts who tend to the feral side. It’s not a place to go looking for work or talent, but it’s plenty safe for those who belong and know to keep the peace. For those who earn their place, you can find shifter guides across borders, unlikely backup, and one hell of a spot for meeting Mr. Johnson.

In spite of the fearsome reputation, Fenris Nacht has a vested interest in remaining neutral territory, so they discourage brawls and open displays of violence or power.

Olga's Tearoom

Type: Tearoom

Location: Old Military Road, Federal Way

Description: On the ground level of this renovated townhouse, you’ll find a classy Russian-style tearoom with some of the best Eastern European varieties (try the Imperial Black Tea or the Winter Spice Blend) and rich Turkish coffee - that's right, real coffee.

If you know the right passwords and your cred is good, upstairs has a variety of Eastern European delights of the metahuman variety. Mostly girls, although a few choice male and non-binary options, which are all paid fairly and treated well by Olga while plying their trade of making a client's every fantasy a reality, at least for a price.

Olga herself is part madame and part enforcer and all business. She doesn't make many personal appearances down in the tearoom, largely because she is a massive Eastern European troll with a face like a hatchet and the personality of an angry buzzsaw. She's also got a hell of a lot of paydata on Lone Star to cover her operation and while the vory are old contacts for Olga, she largely steers clear of their business.

Be careful rubbernecking in the lobby: the blackmail can be juicy, but Olga prides her establishment on its discretion.

Palace of China

Type: Nightclub

Location: Soundview Drive West & Brookside Way, University Place

Description: One of the trendier night-spots in Tacoma, the Palace of China is a nightclub done in a medieval Chinese theme and features modern music of the sort found in clubs in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

It is also known for putting on regular magical illusion shows to supplement the high-tech lightning and sound system.

The Octagon Triad runs the place, offering vices both legal and illegal, mainly BTLs and prostitution since the last owner tried to double-cross the Octagon's Incense Master.

Palace of China has sat snugly in an Octagon Triad holding company since, with day-to-day run by a series of managers who have no fingers in illegal businesses to ensure that the club is always above board and running smoothly.

The Cathode Glow

Type: Bar

Location: 6th Avenue & North Cedar Street, Little Asia

Description: Most of us tend to take our technology for granted, except when it stops working. If you appreciate technological history, then this watering hole in Tacoma is for you.

The Cathode Glow is paradise for those who appreciate old-school tech. They’ve got working examples of computers and video games going back a hundred years as well as a staff who is happy to talk shop (or you can view informative AR tags attached to the different items if you're not social).

The best part are the video game tournaments, with leagues going head to head for prizes paid by the entrance fees. Great place to find someone in the know if you’ve got some esoteric archaeotech you need worked on, or just scoping fresh talent.

All the tech and the game leagues and such serve another purpose as well. Casey Connors, the owner of the CG, likes to keep an eye out for kids with talent, and helps them learn how to use it. He's a genuine friend to budding tech specialists, deckers, and virtuakinetics, teaching them the ropes without ulterior motive.

He isn’t a VK himself, but he’s got some on staff, and he’s always happy to help a kid build their first deck or code their first program.

Xingfu Chaguan

Type: Tearoom

Location: South 9th Street & South Junett Street, Little Asia

Description: One of the finer Chinese-style tearooms of Little Asia, Xingfu Chaguan is operated as both a place to sit and have tea as well as purchase any of the homemade blends which are bagged, daily, on the second floor.

Xingfu Chaguan buys locally for the most part, other than the few things that just aren't the usual North American flavor fare - for those, they use Ni Ni Xiaolu to import it from Hong Kong or Shanghai directly.

Ni Ni is also known as "The Shark," one of the Octagon triad's most efficient and ruthless “red poles,” keeping their various business interests clear of any complications. With the recent ouster of David Gao from his position as the Dragon’s Head, Chen Kwan-Ti has used his authority as the incense master to give full control of the Octagon to Ni Ni, at least until official word comes back from the Red Dragon Association in Hong Kong.

Attractions

Jack McFinney Community Park

Type: Park

Location: 662 East 11th Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: A fairly small park (and the only one located near the Port of Tacoma docks themselves), the Jack McFinney Community Park was built thanks to the increasing residential presence in Memorial Way.

Its a beautiful sight, although the sounds and smells leave something to be desired. East 11th Street has trucks coming through every hour of the day, the aroma of Tacoma makes itself known with daily regularity, and the sounds of industry from the Federated-Boeing Metalworks and Learson Shipyards (both of which are visible from the park) make it a place where you'll find just enough peace in an ubran sprawl - just not too much.

Museum of Glass

Type: Museum

Location: Dock Street, Old Tacoma

Description: As much a museum as it is a contemporary architectural marvel, the Museum of Glass is exactly what one might expect: a museum about glass.

Specifically, the Museum of Glass is dedicated to the medium of glass in its entirety, not just as as a practical object and as such the museum is part art gallery, part demonstration ground (glass is made on-site by various tradesmen), and part educational space.

Port Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

Type: Zoo

Location: 5400 North Pearl Street, Ruston

Description: Coming in at a little over 30 acres of land, the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium is home to over 10,000 specimens representing over 400 animal species.

Highly popular both in the metroplex and nationally, the zoo alone brings in over a million visitors a year.

The staff there are friendly to certain people on the wrong side of the law, particularly those looking for a safe home for a smuggled or abused beast and they've helped more than one paracritter find its way home using the Point Defiance credentials to silence and nagging legal processes or questions.

Tacoma Dome

Type: Multi-Purpose Arena

Location: 2727 East D Street, Old Tacoma

Description: The home of the Tacoma Timberwolves Combat Biking team and the Tacoma Wings Urban Brawl team.

This large, round-roofed indoor arena in the heart of Old Tacoma is just off of I-5 and has all the fixings for every major sport and form of entertainment you'd need an arena for and is the home of a variety of Tacoma professional sports teams.

While the Dome hosts all sorts of events, its known uniquely for hosting most of the Pacific Northwest's high school sports championships, most notably high school football and basketball.

With the return of Lone Star, the Dome has seen an enhancement of its security package which include all the typical sensors you'd expect and a complete revamp of its Matrix host which aren't quite state-of-the-art but they're still capable of giving

Tacoma Telecommunications Museum

Type: Museum

Location: South 9th Street & South Fawcett Avenue, Old Tacoma

Description: Often referred to as a "hidden gem" of a museum and located in the heart of Old Tacoma, the Tacoma Telecommunications Museum is located on the first three floors of the old AT&T building and is one of few nonprofit museums of its kind, although it sees injection of funds and assistance from a variety of local and megacorporate interests.

The museum itself covers telecommunications from the beginning of telecommunications - meaning when switchboard operators were a thing - up until the first and second Matrix crashes and even today.

It's a great place to visit if you want to see working equipment from across all eras as well as enjoy an easy-going time typically free from too many crowds.

Taoist Temple

Type: Taoist Temple

Location: South Tyler Street, Little Asia

Description: Located in the winding maze of the heart of Chinatown, the Taoist Temple is where much of the Yellow Lotus Triad business goes down.

Great bronze statues flank massive doors to an imposing, incense-smoky hall.

Heavily aspected toward Taoist magic, this is where the Incense Master Su Cheng leads Yellow Lotus in nocturnal Tai Chi exercises in between cutting deals and running rituals on behalf of his “superiors.”

Cheng is a well-known pillar of local criminal politics but he's just as deadly: he's an extremely powerful sorcerer and no one knows how old he is, only that he's looked roughly 80 years old for the past 20 years.

The Crying Wall

Type: Museum

Location: East 11th Street & St. Paul Avenue, Port of Tacoma

Description: In the basement of the Bicson Building on East 11th Street, near the Foss Waterway, is the Crying Wall, a monument to a dark chapter in Seattle history.

The Wall was built as a memorial to the metahumans who lost their lives during the Night of Rage in various warehouses in this very neighborhood and all along the waterfront. Dwarf and ork sculptors created the powerful 20 meter long tableau depicting the night’s terrible events and aftermath.

The public is invited to view the installation, along with an educational AR download about the Night of Rage and the creation of the Crying Wall. Visitors often leave flowers, candles, and other mementos at the base of the Wall, which are changed out on a regular basis by volunteers who maintain the site.

Security - mostly made up of ork, dwarf, and troll volunteers - keeps watch at the Crying Wall day and night. They tend to give human visitors the hairy eyeball but leave them alone so long as they are respectful. Still, they do not tolerate disrespect and there have been incidents over the years; the Wall makes a pretty big target for hatemongers and Humanis types.

For a few nuyen under the table, a lot of the guys working security at the Crying Wall will let you use the concealed entrance to the Ork Underground there, no questions asked. They’re more likely to help you out if you’re “one of the family” but money talks. Otherwise, they keep a close eye on the Underground entrance.

They don’t need to guard those tunnels too carefully, though. The ghosts of those who died in the Night of Rage still haunt some of them. They are a terrible sight: their spectral flesh charred from the fires that claimed their lives. They hate humans, but tend to leave metahumans alone, although you never can tell with spirits that perished in such pain, fear, and rage. People who wander off in the tunnels around here - or humans who go down there at all sometimes don’t come back.

Government Buildings

Charles Royer Station

Type: Transit Terminal

Location: 1001 Puyallup Avenue, Old Tacoma

Description: If you are a new arrival to the Seattle Metroplex, Charles Royer Station might well be the first thing you see.

Built in the style of the great 1930s railway stations, the building serves as a central transportation hub for the district and Seattle.

It is the terminal for the bullet train from Seattle to California, as well as connecting to light-rail systems for other points in the metroplex and providing landing pads for VTOL and tilt-rotor aircraft servicing the greater Seattle area.

Ground transportation - particularly GridCab™ and KeyCar™ - are also available at the station without any additional upcharge.

Port of Tacoma Police Station

Type: Police Station

Location: 25th East 18th Street & East D Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: This facility in the heart of Old Tacoma serves as the central station for the western half of the Port of Tacoma, as well as Old Tacoma. It’s currently occupied and run by Lone Star, like all municipal police stations in Seattle.

This structure was one Lone Star left in utter disarray for Knight Errant to inherit when they took the city's policing contracts in the early 2070's. With the Star moving back in, they’ve found KE isn’t given to such malicious mischief, instead favoring the bureaucratic kind.

Paperwork, clearances, internal tech, all need to be gutted in the wake of KE’s parting shots of snags and tangles to be cleared. The lack of local efficiency is, on one hand, a constant headache for the Tacoma Stars, but on the other, makes for a great excuse for slips, missing evidence, and overall corruption.

Tacoma District Courthouse

Type: Courthouse

Location: 1102 A Street, Old Tacoma

Description: The District Courthouse in Tacoma is a long concrete building with arched windows. It is less grand than, say, Downtown, but still sees a lot of activity.

The real business tends to take place in the parking complex across the street, home of many a clandestine meeting between parties before heading over to the courthouse.

Lawyers cut more deals in between the rows of cars here than they do in the maze of offices across the street, and plenty of “private contractors” meet up with their lawyer clients to hand over files, photos, and documents they have acquired.

Tacoma District Hall

Type: District Hall

Location: 747 Market Street, Old Tacoma

Description: This 15 story Art Deco building houses the offices of the District of Tacoma and its various subsidiary agencies. In recent years the building’s windows have all been replaced with bulletproof carbon-aramid fiber, fixed into the structure and with adjustable opacity (for “privacy”).

Physical security has seen a cleaning-up since Knight Errant left and the Matrix is a formidable challenge (nothing compared to a mega, though).

Lone Star uses their cleaner-cut personnel to project an image of competence, spit-shined shoes, and starched collars. So far, their actual mettle hasn’t been tested, but that may be due to a lack of interest in runs on the Hall, at least for the time being.

Tacoma Ferry Terminal

Type: Transit Terminal

Location: Oakes Street & North 32nd Street, Old Tacoma

Description: The ferry terminal links Tacoma with downtown Seattle and Everett as well as the outlying islands. The trip costs ¥5 for a round-trip ticket or ¥3 for a one-way.

Security is tight enough to make sailing close for an on-the-water transfer of goods or personnel risky since the ferries have proximity sensors due to both terrorist threats and the occasional hazards of awakened sea life. Handoffs on the ferry are pretty easy and a lot of packages and personnel are transferred with a simple exchange of keys to vehicles.

While stories about ferries being pulled down by krakens are largely apocryphal, they aren’t entirely without a grain of truth.

Businesses

16bit Cybercafe

Type: Cafe

Location: 428 East 11th Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: The 16bit Cybercafe was started by an ex-Renraku Computer Systems programmer named 8bit in the 2060's. He retired only a few years ago but he's put daily operation into the hands of an ex-EVO Chinese immigrant named Ming "Stim" Tsou.

It offers your usual fare when it comes to food and drink as well as a whole host of classic gaming cabinets, cutting edge rentable dataterms, tridscreens, and gaming consoles. The cafe's bread and butter is the working poor of the Port of Tacoma who often come in for basic technical support as well as to buy cheap commlinks that Ming herself enhances the capabilities of.

A Whole New You, Inc.

Type: Cyberclinic

Location: South 3rd Street & M.L.K Jr. Way, Old Tacoma

Description: A Whole New You, Inc. is a body shop chain that is a subsidiary of the Horizon corporation.

The "A Whole New You" shops themselves are a mix of doctor's office/day clinic which offer cosmetic biomodification, smaller cyberware procedures, tattoos, Simsense psychotherapy, sexual healthcare, and a fully-functional pharmacy.

Implants that are found in-store are usually generic brand chrome if they aren't produced by a Horizon subsidiary themself and their Simsense therapies cover addiction, marriage, and crisis counseling services in addition to VR recreation packages aimed towards those whose only free time is their 15-minute lunch break. They also offer a reasonable payment plan model for the more expensive procedures.

Dr. Alvarez from the Tacoma branch specifically has been awarded several consecutive awards as a best-in-the-company physician and cybersurgeon and she's been known to occasionally "forget" to check a SIN or overcharge in regards to a lot of basic necessities.

Other A Whole New You shops can be found everywhere in North America and Europe, usually in shopping centers and malls where they slam the local AR space with invasive, bright, and loud ads.

Amphitrite's Gown

Type: Clothing Shop

Location: 646 East 11st Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: Listed as an office space on the Matrix, Amphitrite's Gown is the personal workshop of Greek-born fashion designed known professionally as Athena. It is in this shop where she creates her haute couture pieces year-round for use on the New York, Paris, and Milan shows.

While the majority of her work harkens back to antiquity, she also happens to enjoy a lucrative side business in modifying and tailoring clothing of any kind - including armor - seemingly just to keep her skills sharp.

Blazing Dawn Gym

Type: Gym

Location: 672 East 11th Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: Founded by former Olympic powerlifter Mathis Mercer and middleweight boxer Herbert "Rocky" Novak, the Blazing Dawn Gym was founded with the key principle of always training to become the best you can be, particularly for boxers and powerlifters.

In recent years its turned into a hotspot for dockworkers letting off steam due to the fact that most of the clientele come here from their day jobs on the docks.

Brichert Paper Mills

Type: Paper Mill

Location: 31st Street Northeast & 53rd Avenue Northeast, Northeast Tacoma

Description: The Brichert Paper Mills have a long history in Tacoma, dating back over a century.

Tours are offered daily, including the various paper processing and manufacturing areas and the Mills’ small museum of company history and the Pacific Northwest paper industry.

Brichert Mills scored quite a comeback in the 2050s with their willingness to both innovate new products and shamelessly pander to the needs of an increasingly disposable society.

Now in addition to more traditional paper and cardboard products, they also produce flats, temporary cardboard plastic resin housing and furniture, paper-and carbon fiber structural frameworks and bicycles, and feed stocks for fabricators of the same in other parts of the metroplex and all up and down the west coast.

De Rohan Magical Emporium

Type: Lore Shop

Location: 646 East 11th Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: Darkly decorated and with the lights always slightly dimmed, the De Rohan Magical Emporium is a hole-in-the-wall lore store which has a multitude of hermetic and shamanic resources at its disposal as well as a substantial library of occultist texts ranging from the practical to the theoretical.

There's rumors that the owner is tied somehow to the French nobility but her refusal to engage in small-talk has actively created more than one conspiracy theory about her origins, due in no small part to the fact that she seems equally capable of learning, using, and teaching from any materials regardless of tradition and nobody knows when she actually opened up the shop or arrived in Seattle.

Federated-Boeing Metalworks

Type: Industrial Park

Location: Port of Tacoma Road & Marshall Avenue, Port of Tacoma

Description: The Federated-Boeing Metalworks is the single biggest employer in Tacoma. As part of Federated-Boeing’s vertical integration in the Seattle Metroplex, the Metalworks in Tacoma provide most of the special alloys and materials used by their manufacturing facilities. Raw materials are shipped in from the nearby docks to the foundries here, where smelting, alloying, and casting takes place before the finished materials are sent to the factories.

A fair amount of research takes place here as well, particularly development of new lighter and stronger materials for use in Boeing aircraft. They also have a struggling contingent that focuses on orichalcum. It was formed during the Halley’s Comet appearance of raw orichalcum veins to better process the ore, but they’ve had a hard time securing additional funding, given that F-B isn’t terribly interested in magical refinement techniques.

Security at the Metalworks is tight, although concentrated around the research labs. There are checkpoints with maglocks and security personnel on duty 24 hours a day.

At night they also have trained hellhounds as watchdogs, since they thrive in the environment of the metal foundries.

GridCab

Type: Taxi Company

Location: 1001 Puyallup Avenue, Old Tacoma

Description: As one of several taxi services in Seattle and one of the cheapest, GridCab is characterized above all by its early and extensive trust in autonomous taxis that navigate remotely via GridGuide and autonomous GPS.

GridCab is strongly present at the Charles Royer Station in Tacoma in Seattle, having a near-monopoly at the terminal by sheer volume of GridCab vehicles present after moving their head offices a block down.

GridCab offers reasonably safe rides at a steal and they can be called by commlink or via their Matrix site. They're available 24/7 and are popular with late-night clubbers and bargoers who are too drunk to legally get behind the wheel of a vehicle.

The GridCab fleet itself is filled with knobby little boxes without a driver's seat, purposefully designed to look inviting and cute. The insides themselves are often dank and greasy, sometimes filled with trash. The GridCab autopilot programs communicate in a friendly, chirpy voice to communicate with passengers. It also goes without saying that these rides have fairly regular issues with hackers.

GridCab also offers a premium service with drivers. Many of these drivers are (underpaid) orcs from the Seattle Underground and GridCab itself acted as a major supporter of the Proposition 23 campaign in 2074.

Learson Shipyards

Type: Shipyard

Location: East 11th Street & Main View Drive, Port of Tacoma

Description: The Learson Shipyards in Tacoma have been building commercial ships from small vessels to supertankers for over 60 years. They have a substantial customer list all across the Pacific Rim and a long list of corporate clients worldwide. They made major cred on some of their high-speed designs, but lately they’ve fallen back on some of the more tried-and-true (but slower) ship hulls and propulsion systems.

Learson has become a target for eco-terrorist groups because of the faulty design of one of their single-hulled tankers, at least 2 of which have torn open and dumped millions of gallons of petrochemicals into the oceans in the past 10 years. At least one aborted attempt to set off a bomb in the shipyard was averted by Learson security, which led them to diverting even more funding into gearing them.

Learson’s security is good to begin with because the shipyards have frequently been the target of industrial espionage initiated by rivals who would like to get their hands on some of the company’s design specs and other data.

Lochlann Investments

Type: Investment Firm

Location: North 30th Street & North Starr Street, Old Tacoma

Description: Once a fairly boring real estate and investment firm thats done nothing but blend into the background of Old Tacoma, Lochlann Investments was catapulted into the news after a terrorist attack in 2083 which saw the deaths of 150 employees and the disappearance of Lochlann's CEO, a young Western Dragon by the name of Geyswain.

Lochlann still hasn't fully recovered after the loss of their CEO, who the board voted out of the position due to his disappearance, and most people who work in the building are pretty confident that something "weird" has happened there thanks to the unexplained magical phenomena that keep happening, most of which fall in line with the usual stories about ghosts.

Despite that, Lochlann Center is still decorated to the hilt and has hired several Wuxing feng shui experts to offset those bad vibes. Glass, marble, and real plants are everywhere. The lobby has a main waterfall that cascades from the third floor atrium into a small pond on the ground floor.

PacRim Communications Unlimited

Type: Telecommunication Company

Location: 6th Avenue & South Union Avenue, Little Asia

Description: PacRim Communications (or PRC) began operating in the Pacific Northwest in 2048, and has been a major provider of telecommunications services in the Seattle Metroplex and the Salish-Shidhe Council ever since. Their main business is in Asia, particularly Hong Kong and areas along the Chinese coast.

The Tacoma office complex handles the administrative needs of the PRC Seattle branch and answers to PRC North America in San Francisco.

Physical security is traditionally non-lethal and relies heavily on electronics like maglocks backed up by alarms and sensors often rigged from within the building. PRC has its own security personnel and arms them with tasers and stun-batons, breaking out the heavy ordinance for major threats. Their Matrix security is first-rate and just shy of bleeding edge.

Salvatore Detective Agency

Type: Private Investigator

Location: North Steele Street & North 14th Street, Little Asia

Description:The offices of the Salvatore Detective Agency are located in the basement apartment of a local kimono maker who has rented out the apartment to one Quin Di Rinaldi. The one-room agency-apartment hybrid is musty, uneven, and during the warmer weather it seems to somehow rise well above exterior ambient temperatures but that is, seemingly, all Di Rinaldi needs.

Di Rinaldi herself seems like a strung-out drunk on the edges of going burnout or toxic at any given day. She was known at her former agency in Downtown where she spent most of her time womanizing, wooing married women, philandering with unmarried women, tracking down and trapping the odd paracritter or two, and asking ghouls to politely leave places that she was hired to clear out. She still does that last part, although more often than not she seems to be engaging in the age-old trade of stalking people for money and tracking down the odd missing person who inevitably is found in a drug den on a bender.

The rates are the cheapest in the metroplex and when she's sober she's great at her job.

Silcox Island Correctional Facility

Type: Correctional Facility

Location: Silcox Island, American Lake

Description: In the midst of Silcox Island on American Lake sits a 30 story block structure once used as a municipal prison for the District of Tacoma and the Seattle Metroplex.

It's since gone completely extraterritorial, servicing the Seattle Metroplex through contracts rather than being owned by the district of Tacoma like it was a decade ago.

Its partially owned by Shiawase and a handful of other corporations and as such is basically a blacksite in all but name with no meaningful oversight from the district or metroplex government.

The island is small and heavily forested, visible from the shoreline of the lake, although heavy fog is fairly common. Even before it went fully private, Silcox had a reputation as a real hellhole and its only gotten worse. Every guard is a stone bastard and they have a tendency to shoot to kill.

Personnel are all Shiawase security and they take advantage of the island setting by having paranormal guard animals active in the woods around the prison grounds. You can hear barghests and other things howling late at night and prisoner legends abound about escapees hunted down in the woods and never seen again.

Sunflower Sails Scenic Sound Tours

Type: Aquatic Tours

Location: East D Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: The small office of Sunflower Sails Scenic Sound Tours is mostly just a building to attach an address to because the proprietor, Sunflower, only does business on the dock itself where her trawler is or via the Matrix.

She's a cheap and easy option for those seeking transport around Commencement Bay and the Puget Sound and she is mostly hired out for regular tours of the prettier Outremer and Salish-Shidhe Council islands, the coastline, and for whale watching.

Those in the know who are willing to pay in Salish bills can hire Sunflower for more "personal" tours, which effectively amounts to using her for the sake of smuggling. Since she has the NAN cred and knowledge of customs it really isn't a problem to her as long as it isn't too big, too hot, or too dangerous.

Tacoma Mall

Type: Shopping Mall

Location: 47th Street & Pine Street, South Tacoma

Description: At over a century in operation this is the oldest mall in the metroplex, with a pointed focus on middle-class customers.

It features four floors of shops, including some fine antique stores.

Some of those antique stores have been known to turn up some oddities of interest to magicians, some of whom haunt the aisles on evenings and weekends or have contacts to inform them about new acquisitions.

For the more technically inclined, the Body+Tech facility is a great place for no-questions-asked upgrade and repair service for cybernetics.

Tacoma Nybbles & Bytes

Type: Lore/Computer Shop

Location: 4020 South Steele Street, South Tacoma

Description: This quirky Seattle shop features both the latest in online equipment alongside a selection of talismans, hermetic supplies, and lore books, particularly in ebook format, but also in hardcopy from their print-on-demand station.

Educational classes and workshops are held on weekends for all ages, but are particularly popular with youngsters.

Owner Cassandra Van Vieck (AKA "Aunt Cassie") runs the place like a kooky old cat lady, all the while being one of the keenest minds available to street-level kids. Aunt Cassie has been around, seen everything, knows everyone, and could almost certainly kick the ass of anyone who messes with her kids. She’s a friend worth having.

The Fusebox

Type: Automotive Repair Shop

Location: 1015 East F Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: A drone repair shop run by a friendly, CAS-born ex-shadowrunner named Fuse and a Chinese-born drone repair savant known on the street as Axel.

Together they provide some of the best small-scale automotive and drone repair or construction services in Tacoma and they're known for servicing a lot of personal vehicles found in the Port of Tacoma.

The majority of Fuse's piecemeal stock comes from a junk removal specialist named Tackle who gives Fuse a significant discount for free maintenance on his vehicles.

The Sea-Tac Mall

Type: Shopping Mall

Location: South 320th Street & Pacific Highway, Federal Way

Description: With five levels of shopping and dining the Sea-Tac Mall is the largest shopping complex in the district. The mall specializes in local Seattle-made goods as well as imports from the Salish-Shidhe Council, making it ideal for visitors looking for a little piece of the metroplex to take home with them.

Don’t overlook the reasonably priced food court or restaurants when it comes to grabbing a quick bite in between shopping excursions.

Hits by supposedly patriotic wannabe terrorists and thrill gangs over the years have led to ever escalating security. Ironically, this makes it a decent spot for meeting Johnsons.

The Swinging Meat Shipping Company

Type: Commercial Transport Company

Location: 680 East 11th Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: This employee-owned cooperative of truckers and couriers offers competitive prices and a promise of speed. They mostly rent their services out to small-scale shipments coming in through (or that need to get to) the Port of Tacoma - usually deliveries of fish and other time sensitive foodstuffs to local grocers in and around Old Tacoma.

They're also, unknown to many, the headquarters of a Neo-Anarchist cell of Black Star known as the Tacoma Bastards who partake in various anti-government and anti-corporate shadowruns on a weekly basis, with the company headquarters acting as their safehouse.

The Troubled Times

Type: News Network

Location: 27th Street West & Bridgeport Way, University Place

Description: Locally owned screamsheet publishes the Truth, evades corporate masters! Read all about it!

The TT’s been running since 2050, off and on, and has passed through a few versions depending on who was resurrecting it at the time. Until 2074 it operated as The Tacoma Tribune, but that particular owner sold it to Horizon; they got the legal rights to the organization, but every reporter on staff walked out in protest, forming The Troubled Times a month later and going right back to honest muckraking.

If you want to get the word out about corporate malfeasance, the TT is your megaphone, and they do not give up their sources. Subscriptions are low, so there’s not a lot of money there, but those who work for it (part time, since they have to have real jobs to stay alive) are loyal to the bone.

Villa Plaza

Type: Shopping Mall

Location: Alfaretta Street Southwest & Gravelly Lake Drive Southwest, Lakewood

Description: This two-level indoor outdoor shopping plaza features both local and chain stores, including a Salish International store offering Salish made clothing and home goods. The Plaza features many Salish-style decorating touches, including extensive use of local cedar and pine.

The Plaza’s decoration sometimes makes it a proxy for NAN boosters or haters, with Native-wannabes shopping and hanging there, and the Native baiters committing petty acts of vandalism. It hasn’t gotten too violent, at least not yet, because both sides are mostly made up of poseurs.

Zalensky's Electronics

Type: Electronics Shop

Location: 27th Street West & Bridgeport Way, University Place

Description: Zalensky’s is a front for a backroom (and basement) chop-shop that owes its primary loyalties to the Tacoma Yakuza, which throws most of the work their way.

Keep in mind that anything you get done here can get back to the Yaks.

Medical

Candlelight Clinic

Type: Clinic

Location: 1118 St. Paul Avenue, Port of Tacoma

Description: A medium-sized clinic with a built-in surgical suite, multiple extended stay rooms, and a cybersurgery room, the Candlelight Clinic provides primary care, urgent care, and emergency medical care to those living in the Port of Tacoma.

Owned by Glen "Sawtooth" De Silva and his wife Candice, of whom the clinic is named after, it also employs a skilled cybersurgeon for the sake of offering augmentation consultation and installation at an affordable rate.

Doctors Hospital of Tacoma

Type:

Location: 737 South Fawcett Avenue

Description: This hospital specializes in orthopedics, and is known for its free clinic work in the Tacoma district, particularly with limb replacement and restoration surgery.

Rumors persist that some of the hospital’s charity cases go missing from time to time, mainly the ones no one ever really noticed in the first place. Records of the free clinics are, of course, “strictly confidential,” and often have neither names nor SINs, given the nature of the work.

Haley Laboratories

Type: Clinic

Location: 426 East 11th Street, Port of Tacoma

Description: This small clinic and business office is the sole location where neurosurgeon and cyberneticist Dr. Kendra Haley operates.

Formerly an Aztechnology prodigy, Dr. Haley focuses on neurological conditions often thought untreatable and she has several grants from the city of Seattle to investigate holistic reversal of CFD, although it doesn't appear she's made much progress in that area due to a lack of test subjects.

Humana Hospital

Type: Hospital

Location: South 19th Street & South Lawrence Street, South Tacoma

Description: Operated by the Seattle Health Maintenance Organization, Humana Hospital is a large, well-run facility and one of Tacoma’s newer hospitals. DocWagon™ and all major health-maintenance contracts are accepted here.

Humana is a not quite wholly owned subsidiary of Shiawase, working closely with their cyberware research division. The corporation provides major grant funding and, in return, can expect the hospital administration to jump when they say “frog.”

Margaret Bridge Child Health Hospital

Type: Hospital

Location: 315 South K Street

Description: Established by a private endowment, Bridge Hospital (as it is usually known) has won multiple awards and citations over the years for work in caring for Seattle’s critically ill children, particularly for research into early childhood diseases affecting metahumans.

Bridge Hospital also pioneered some early post-Crash research into conditions like AIPS and, later on, virtuakinetics and technomancers.

They had a head start, since some of the hospital’s staff quietly helped out some otaku in the ‘plex years before Crash 2.0 hit. Interesting to note that their research has not found its way into any accessible database that I know of (and I know of quite a few). I suspect they still have a lot of data certain parties would like to check out.

Tacoma Charity General

Type: Hospital

Location: 315 South K Street

Description: Jointly funded by several of Seattle’s major charitable organizations, this hospital serves the needs of Tacoma’s poor and uninsured.

And it shows. On top of the poor funding, lack of staff, facilities, supplies, and equipment, Tacoma Charity has to deal with infighting and double dealing on the part of their patron charities, illegal chop shops and organlegging on the part of their staff, and rampant drug use and dealing out of their dwindling supplies. Only the truly desperate go here since it is only marginally better than no medical treatment at all.

Corporate Enclaves

Shiawase Towers

Type: Corporate Headquarters

Location: 6th Avenue South & J Street, Little Asia

Description: The skyrakers in the Downtown district are where most corporate HQs are, but Shiawase has theirs in Tacoma. Twin towers of steel and mirrored glass, built shortly after the Night of Rage, hold the offices of the Shiawase corporation’s Seattle branch and oversee the company’s operations and subsidiaries in the Pacific Northwest.

Shiawase has extensive interests in Seattle, from their fusion plant in Redmond to a public-works contract with the metroplex government. Their Seattle headquarters is also home to their Pacific Northwest cyberware research facility, working in cooperation with other facilities in Seattle such as the one at the Humana Hospital in Tacoma.

Tours of the Shiawase buildings, including a fact-filled history of the company’s activities in the Pacific Northwest, are available daily.

The security is predictably tight, with an emphasis on automation, laser grids, and capture-heavy tech and architecture like stun gas, shock rounds, lockdown blast doors, and electrified panels with drone support. Shiawase likes prisoners for interrogation - and experimental subjects.

Recently, The towers are working overtime supporting and overseeing renovation of the Arcology, which is expected to take over as the new HQ once it’s finished. Supply convoys link the dock, the towers, and the Arc in an almost constant stream, night and day, which has spread Shiawase a little thin.

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