Since the Awakening and the rise of magic, ecological groups have found a new dimension to the world. Nature spirits and sentient nonhumans lend their support, and shamanic magic gives a new level of insight into the living world. Naturally, the megacorporations take a dim view of anyone getting in the way of profits, and are disinterested in long-term planning for ecological management. The organizations vary from peaceful demonstrators following the footsteps of Thoreau and Gandhi to murderous neo-Luddites determined to put an end to technology as soon as possible. Any of these groups can end up inspiring shadowruns.
Even in the Twentieth Century, ecotage groups like the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society were spraying baby seals with dye to render them valueless to furriers, recording offenses and releasing them to the media, and even attacking rogue whaling ships and drift netters with ramming ships and submarines.
According to the Germany sourcebook, p41, Greenwar International has 3000 activist “commandos” and over 5 million sympathizers. They are responsible for a number of attacks against polluters, including the sinking of the last Japanese whaling fleet in the Pacific. They avoid taking life whenever possible, preferring to damage capital rather than human assets.
Greenwar are not above taking hostages from corporations. If a corp refuses to ransom its hostages, they tell them so, and then sell them off to other corporations, following the usual procedures for speculative extractions. (If they catch anyone who sets policy for polluting corporations, they tend to conjure up a big nature spirit near a large group of potentially dangerous wildlife and ask the spirit to judge.)
There are also brief mentions in Mercurial (p8) and in Native American Nations Volume 2 (p65).
James Froud is an Elven ecotage expert, a Bechtel engineer who ran off with a lot of expensive headware and a serious amount of attitude. With a Math SPU-4, Cerebral Booster-2, Encephalon-4, and Mnemonic Enhancer-6, along with a plethora of technical and scientific skills, he is a walking storehouse of homebrew sabotage techniques. (Read Neal Stephenson’s Mosaic for inspiration.)
Anne Bonny is a human Dolphin shaman of Jamaican descent who took up the name of the eighteenth century pirate for her career on the high seas. She is very familiar with eighteenth century fashion, and uses her Fashion spell to kit herself and her crew out in functional but stylish finery— she is one of those magicians who sees a strong connection between style and power, but she doesn’t talk about it to people. (No sense in spoiling an Edge.) Her Ally spirit’s usual form is a parrot. She has taken several Initiations with the karma derived from her work for Greenwar, and is secretly a member of the initiatory group Gaia’s Revenge.
She chooses her targets based on affiliation with corporations known for polluting, and manages to make it pay well. She delights particularly in embarrassing her opponents, as well as turning a profit. Her crew are all fanatically loyal to her because of the occasional trips to visit the Meistersingers, Awakened humpback whales with long and fascinating songs to sing; they started out as interested in ecotage, and now feel a firm spiritual confidence in the rectitude of their actions. Anne has a number of spells for communicating with wildlife, and has been known to ally herself with Storm Dolphins when performing ecotage.
Characteristics: Dolphin is a creature of pure joy, flowing freely through the ocean. He is a healer, like Bear, and does not fail to aid someone in distress without good cause.
Environment: On or by the sea.
Advantages: +2 dice for Health and Detection Spells; +2 dice for conjuring Sea Spirits.
Disadvantages: Dolphin is to the sea what Eagle is to the land: a fearless defender who takes any risks to stop those who despoil the oceans for profit. He also shares Eagles distrust of technology; double all Power Losses for adding cyberware, due to psychological impact.
See also Nova Gaia for another group.
TerraFirst! is another ecological terrorist group, lacking the scruples of Greenwar. “A group of hard cases that only pay lip service to their ecological goals, TerraFirst! blows things up just to see the shrapnel fly.” (NANv2.) They have no qualms about associating with toxic shamans, and have their own initiatory group and a number of mages and shamans, some toxic. References: CFS p135, NANv2 p10, 27-8, 42, 65.
(TerraFirst!’s name is obviously inspired by Earth First!, but the available material on Earth First! is more applicable to Greenwar.)