The Universal Brotherhood
# The Universal Brotherhood

The Universal Brotherhood is an adventure published by FASA in 1990 for the dystopic near-future cyberpunk role-playing game Shadowrun.

## Description

The player characters, based in Seattle, are hired to do a "simple trace and recovery job" to retrieve an "expensive trinket back from a weak-kneed suit's vanished mistress". In the course of the heist, the characters become aware of a national self-help organization called the Universal Brotherhood, and their original objective takes a "nightmarish plunge", bringing them face to face with an evil, existential threat.

The adventure comprises two books:

* the actual Shadowrun adventure titled "Missing Blood"
* A novella titled "The Universal Brotherhood", supposedly a reporter's account of his investigation into the Universal Brotherhood. The players discover this during their investigation and must read it to discover clues.

## Publication history

FASA originally published the cyberpunk role-playing game Shadowrun in 1989. Over the next few years, FASA published dozens of supplements and adventures, including The Universal Brotherhood in 1990, a 55-page adventure written Chris Kubasik, with interior art by Earl Geier, Jeff Laubenstein, Jim Nelson, and Joel Biske, and cover art by Biske. The adventure was packaged with an 88-page novella written by Nigel Findley.

In the 2014 book Designers & Dragons: The '90s, game historian Shannon Appelcline noted that following the publication of Shadowrun in 1989, "Over the next few years, Shadowrun was supported by over a dozen supplements each year—some of which were quite well-received, such as Seattle Sourcebook (1990), one of the first extensive RPG descriptions of a modern city, and Nigel Findley’s adventure, The Universal Brotherhood (1990). The line would eventually include a second edition of the rules (1992), which cleaned up some of the game systems and updated the timeline to 2053, following three years of metaplot advances detailed in the various $supplements."^{:74}$

## Reception

Matthew Gabbert examined Universal Brotherhood in Issue 25 of White Wolf Magazine, providing a mixed review, although he did note the adventure was "full of great NPCs, plenty of action, and has the best description of a Matrix run" that he had seen to date. He concluded by giving the adventure an average rating of 3 out of 5.

In the November 1992 edition of Dragon (Issue #187), Allen Varney called the 88-page novella included in the game "brilliantly written", but thought the requirement that the players had to read it was a case of "style overcomes common sense. You’re running the game for your players, their characters find this thing, then you have to stop for a week while everybody reads it." He also noted that the cover of the adventure gave away a large plot twist to the players and recommended that the gamemaster cover it. Varney concluded, "In certain respects, The Universal Brotherhood is the best-presented adventure I’ve ever seen, but it pushes too far beyond the envelope for practical purposes."

## Reviews

* GamesMaster International (Issue 7 - Feb 1991)
