Extra Companies:
Shinra
A japanese magical research company. AA-rated. They work to discover mundane means for detecting and dealing with magical and spiritual threats. They are responsible for the PKE meter, the proton beam, slime sprayer, and several other techniques.
While not strictly evil (no company really is), they are profit-motivated, and will sometimes have "ghostbusting" branches set up to combat spirits (usually free spirits) who cause trouble for property owners.
While they do research the coporeal paranormals (critters, HMVV, etc), that takes a backseat to the spiritual. President Rufus (the half japanese half UCAS son of the company founder) has made spirits a great concern. They are also interested in means for combating magic, either through dispelling, or even removing magic ability from mages (or granting it to non-mages), though this research is still in its infancy.
Working For Shinra
Shinra tends to pay well for its missions, and such missions generally involve going after troublesome paranormals, or (more illicitly) "helping" their magical research by "negotiating" with a rival.
Working Against Shinra
As a company that battles spirits, spiritual defenses are usually high. This means astrally projecting and percieving characters may have trouble, and many facilites have very effective ways of detecting magical auras. While mages can be useful against Shinra (they employ magic), the non-magical characters have an advantage: they don't set off any special alarms!
Buy N Large
A quiet company specalizing in conveinence items, gas stations, quick stop stores, and the like. Almost every 7-11, kwik-e-mart, and gas station has been bought out by Buy N Large giving them great recognition, as well as discount shops like Sam's Club and Costco. They are AA rated.
They rarely act as johnsons or targets, as they are rarely doing any top-end research, instead soaking up the profits a penny or two at a time.
Evil Co
Owned by Scott Evil, the great-grandson of insane genius Dr. Evil, this company was intended to be a cover for his evil schemes and plots for world domination. The company proved to be more successful than the schemes, and when his son took over he abandoned world domination and went all-in with the business.
Despite it's name, Evil Co primarily deals with cheap housing, loan modifications, credit counseling, green energy, and other "good" subjects. If there's a "good" company out there, it's EvilCo. They do employ shadowrunnerers, and have been known to set people out to "aquire" great technolgy that's being improperly used to put it to better use. When a machine that allowed local weather manipulation caused constant rain in downtown Seattle, EvilCo was behind the reprogramming and rezoning of the sattelite, moving it to south america to improve food production, increasing their own profits while lowering the cost of food to the consumer.
EvilCo competes with Buy N Large for grocery outlets, and is AA rated.
The Fellowship of the Sun
Not so much a company- they are a religious offshoot of Christianity feuled by hatred of the HMVV virus, who teaches people to shun vampires and other such abominations. While not the church's offical stance, it tends to be popualted by human supremicists who are especially wary of critters and "ugly" races (dwarf, ork, troll) in addition to HMVV.
Underground, they train soldiers to hunt vampires, supplying them with anti HMVV bullets and grenades, and providing combat training. They have even been known to kidnap vampires or vampire supporters, viewing HMVV as divine punishment for sins. As such they may hire shadowrunners for special missions.
Though not a for profit company, they are a notable A-rated church.
Skeet's Not Fake Business
A non-rated seattle based "business", this consists of several warehouses amidst seattle. Sometimes work gets done here, often it's used for long term storage. It's owned and operated by a local gang known as Skeet's Shooters, run by a man named (of all things) Skeet. The gang was very powerful in Seattle at one point, but bad business decisions and horrible other decisions have made it back into a small gang.
The "business" is frequently used as a front for illegal activities- to a point where it barely fools anyone. They are often raided by Lone Star, though they do perform basic storage needs. They often employ shadowrunners for street-level missions.
Avalon
A recent company which started as a non-profit organization which tried to grant equal rights to intelligent critters and free spirits and petitioned for the feeing of allied spirits from abusive masters, this company really began to grow when they developed a metamagic technique which allowed people to freely share karma with mages for magical tests. Since then, their research has developed techniques for restoring lost essense and even magical methods for awakeneing the non-awakened and burned-out magicians. Their magical research brought them directly to an A rating.
Despite their extremely advanced magical research, their market sector is very small, represented only by the awakened, and a great deal of Avalon's for profit business goes into donations to their original Non-profit business (Both of which retained the name Avalon for marketing purposes). They've been known to (illegally) employ critters and SINless mages, which has cost them millions in fines over the years, though they consider it a cost of doing business and have continued the practice. Thanks to their dual-nature of profit and not-for profit, much of their expenses are difficult to trace (as is their income), and they are suspected to fund terrorists (shadowrunners) in missions to steal (liberate) wealthy individuals' property (critters).
Avalon has been known to help finance a series of hermetic circles and lodges, and is known for having efficient talismongers. They also have been buying up various areas of undeveloped land for reasons unknown (thuogh some suspect that natural resources are being discovered and they are buying it up to monopolize it- though it could just be to protect the resource, or to provide a habitat for the critters it kidnaps).
Working for Avalon: Avalon does hire shadowrunners from time to time, and the shadowrunners are at times confounded by the mission. They are more often hired to destroy research than to steal it, or to capture rogue spirits or critters rather than kill them. Still, the pay is good and they always settle their debts, though very few are able to approach Avalon for work- when (and if) they want you, they'll find you.
Working Against Avalon: Their magical research departments and extensive "collection" of critters and awakened plants makes them a common target for bigger boys wanting something they aren't willing to sell (for some reason). Thefts and research copying is common when working against Avalon. Expect strong magical and spritual resistance (including critters), because Avalon's employees seem to be more vigiliant and loyal than most other companies, leading some to believe they're tricking their critters into being willing slaves rather than obvious ones.
NOVA Robotics
A seattle based company, NOVA has perfected the artifically intelligence system used in robots, and the command interface used in drones. They are one of the biggest designers of vehicles, robots, and drones, and also have a big weapons manufacturing department. A rated. They would be higher rated, except that during one of their biggest experiments, a group of shadowrunners broke into the facility, stole a prototype robot, and implanted a virus causing many robot AIs to malfunction and assume lifelike characteristics, including a self-preservation mechanism.
While many of the robots were destroyed, some still exist as best they can. NOVA has since disavowed interest in pursuing such robots, worried that any effort to reclaim them would infer responsibility for any damage done by the robots. Since they were prototypes it would be difficult to prove they were NOVA robots and not made by one of the other various companies working on the same projects (and truth be told, there are Ares and Aztechnology and Cross robots out on the streets too, based on stolen designs).
NOVA has been known to be very ballsy, and may send security outside their own borders to continue to track criminals and robots. They prefer to deal with most issues in-house rather than relying on local athorities.
Working for NOVA: Like any other company, NOVA has its secrets and competition. Their missions usually involve corporate espionage, though they have been known to want a troublesome robot recaptured so they can analyze its new memories. NOVA's CEO- Newton Crosby, has shown himself to be forward thinking, and has sometimes employed shapeshifters and shamanists to help track down rogue robots.
Working against NOVA: Perhaps no different than most other companies- but expect a lot of drones and robots acting as security moreso than living beings (though they're there too). NOVA has strong decker and rigger support, so a decker or rigger may be very useful on any such missions. Mages can be useful too, but mind control and non-physical illusions may be of limited use in such facilities.
Kamino Corp
An AA rated company- the first to create "workable" human clones- though this has been met with various levels of approval, especially since the first clone was essentially a twin of one of their lead scientists, which led to huge debate over people's ownership of their own image, and whether or not they might be replaced with cloned duplicates.
Of course, this didn't stop some women from selling their DNA and creating "escort clones". This sparked contraversy as to whether or not clones should be afforded full citizen rights, with difficulty arising when it comes to telling the original from the duplicate- a process which is possible using advanced testing, but can easily fool a police computer.
Their bioware department is on scale with the big boys, and while legislation is still in the air in the UCAS concerning clones, they are happy to create custom clones in countries which haven't outlawed such things. They have a bit of a negative image, since they may just be creating custom slaves, though officially they take no interest in the intended purpose of the clone and they "screen applicants" to make sure this doesn't happen.
Working for Kamino: Like any other company, Kamino is interested in protecting itself and increasing profits. This may involve stealing new data or "convincing" a politician to vote towards the legalization of clones without full citizenship. Kamino is known to pay very well, though some shadowrunners are known to avoid working for Kamino, for fear they might leave some hair or something at the meet which ends up being put to ill purpose. How justified those fears are remains to be seen.
Working against Kamino: Expect soldiers with the latest in bioware and cyberware when dealing with Kamino. Their top facilities are usually located outside the UCAS, especially where they do their actual cloning. (Extraterritoriality would allow this in the UCAS, though transport could be a problem). Shadowrunners who get captured might find themselves in a fate worse than death, and just as when working for, the same fears about DNA being left behind on scene exist when working against Kamino.
Twin Star
A division of Lone Star, Twin Star is almost like Lone Star FBI- specalizing in ShadowRiders, groups of people who specifically hunt and capture shadowrunners. Whether it's setting up fake missions or learning where runners are going, they make their money on the bounty they get for returning the shadowrunners to the orginizations they've wronged, often Dead or Alive.
While Twin Star has various agents and departments of various levels of competance and funding, one thing is for sure: once they have your identity, it almost never goes "cold". While they are fairly new, and thus, not the most trusted source in counter-shadowrunning tools (it's sometimes hard for a company to admit why it needs their services), some companies (like Ares) have attempted to use this group exclusively for their "hunting" needs.
The EarthFirst Commune
EarthFirst is a group of individuals devoted to "healing" mother earth, emphasizing a loving relationship with nature as opposed to a leeching behavior manking has been known for over the years. Off the coast of Seattle on a small island is a commune owned and operated entirely by members of EarthFirst, and includes some small solar and wind power plants, and even human powered cycles for electrical power, organically grown produce and even farms for animals in "humane" conditions- without chemical treatment or butchering, but animals grown for milk and eggs (and wool).
They have no love for the corps (or outsiders in general) but have been been known to come up with income to hire shadowrunners for animal liberation or earth protecting (terrorist) actions. Some claim that the essence scores of people born and raised here are higher than normal (this is true, they tend to have base essences of 7 rather than 6, and avoid bioware and cyberware implants).
