The year is 2019. You are Frederick Smith, but everyone who knows you calls you Redd. You've been many things in your life: a philosophy PhD, a published parabotanical scholar, a middle manager at the world's largest toy company, and a quester into unknown arcane lore. It was in this final capacity that you ended up being mind-raped into a cultist of a dark entity from beyond the stars, which was only cured when a group of shadowrunners dropped a bomb on you. After several weeks of high-end medical treatment at the hands of Saeder-Krupp Heavy Industries, the second-largest corporation in the world, you've been installed with the very Shadowrunners who bombed you back to autonomy in exchange for amnesty for your many crimes, both before and during the whole flesh-puppet thing. You're now living in Charlotte, NC, home to Saeder-Krupp's North America HQ and the heart of the most densely-populated region in the Confederation of American States: The "Seven Arcs".