Digital cowpokes, bit jockeys, and light riders will all tell you that the Matrix is the last bastion of freedom in the world, the only place where you can go toe to toe with the most powerful people around and have a chance of taking them down. It’s the last frontier, the Wild West, the great wide open.

It may be open, but it’s far from empty. Artificial intelligences, protosapient creatures, hacker groups, technomancer unions, secret data stores, and more are out there. It’s up to intrepid hackers to collect the best tools they can and see what they can discover and what connections they can make. All the while, they should remember that a place of freedom in the Sixth World doesn’t need to be conquered—it needs to be preserved.

Hack & Slash is the core Matrix rulebook for Shadowrun, Sixth World