Christopher

Black Crusade : The Ace of Discordia
In which the PCs, in Lord-Captain Daniels' ship the Obsidian Resolve, are heading towards the Fringe War. The war in question is complicated by the three-dimensional nature of interplanetary warfare, the use of warp routes to bypass the enemy, and fact that it's a three-way meatgrinder between human separatists, Orks, and an Imperium that won't commit sufficient forces to the front because it's a useful excuse to divert massive amounts of troops to the secret Jericho Reach front on the far side of the Galaxy. Naturally, Dark Eldar raiders and Chaos cultists can't help dipping their wick in either. In the case of the PCs, they want to start bringing Imperial regiments back to Sinophia, on furlough, AND start smuggling materiel to the separatists. But I do get them to come up with a few regiments from the Only War 40K RPG system first.

GM: The reason I want you to make a regiment or two is because I want you to be emotionally invested in what happens next.

Eniek's Player: This regiment you want us to make – is it going to be on our side?
GM: I'm not saying. *evil grin*
Eniek's Player: F**k! Now it can't be too OP.
Digna's Player: Yes, I remember my reaction when you said the Millennial Warden Space Marines were operating in the area – because I remember how good I'd made them
GM: You can be quite certain you'll be running into Millennial Wardens in this campaign too.
Digna's Player: F*******k.

They will be encountering the 1st Temisian Mechanised Infantry, a regiment Weldun created for the Deathwatch RPG game.

Digna's Player: We do not want to run up against these guys. “What's that coming over the hill? It looks like a land raider....... f**k, run!”

The others look like they'll be amusing as allies or antagonists too - they include the Tallarn 288th Rapid Recon – a buggy mounted scout unit; the 8th Longshot Artillery – very long-range precision artillery unit with forward observers with tracked bomb drones; a Guerrilla warfare regiment who like nothing better than sneaking in close for assassinations; a troop of Feral World skirmishers; and specialist Electrovox troopers who tap enemy comms, cut of lines of command, and pick off the units they just isolated. They already had the regiment they'd made for the Only War game they're already playing in - a unit of suspiciously well-equipped Dragoons riding giant alien cats that are faster than Dark Eldar jetbikes. Their habit of keeping the cats in barracks does not endear them to the other regiments.

Most amusing of all, a unit of Ogryn Drop Troops. Not very many of them, but mostly because of their tendency to wander off after a battle.

Digna: The biggest problem is trying to round them all up again afterwards XD
GM: That and the claustrophobia. Trying to get them onto the planes in the first place - Ogryns don't like confined spaces. 'It's dark in dere!'
Eniek: They don't much like falling through the sky much either XD

The nearest staging planet for the war is Cauldron, in an unusual system with two pair of Double Worlds - large rocky worlds with huge moons, and all four with biospheres. All of them are almost uninhabitably hot, however, thanks to their proximity to their red giant sun, and only one is verdant - Cauldron itself. Cauldron has additional problems - repeated attempts to settle the world over the millennia have been foiled by the effect the planet has on higher technology.

Digna: Wait, the planet is anathema to technology and they're using it as a staging post for the Fringe War? What complete IDIOT... wait..... what BRILLIANT cultist set that up?

What reason will Digna give her superiors for leaving Sinophia and heading the front?

GM: Tell them you heard reports the Sinophian tech-priests were planning to fit the governor with volitor circuits?

Eniek: Will we shortly be acquired a number of people that won't be missed. But fret not - I won't be taking them from the crew
Digna: How very considerate. And we will be shipping wounded soldiers around soon enough.
GM: 'I'm sorry Major, this patient just died - I'll have him taken down to the morgue.' 'What's that screaming?' 'Air released from the corpse - happens all the time'
Daniels: 'And that one?' 'Vox-ghost'

Maintaining morale on the Obsidian Resolve.

GM: And the Melodium plays 'Everything Is Awesome' on perpetual loop?

The Sinophia nobility are invited to contribute to the war effort, and more to the point, open trade with the war economy. Their response is to deliver thousands of Sinophian Highland sheep to the spaceport. This raises all sorts of problems for the cultists, who are really not planning on shipping livestock.

GM: Live Sheep Exports.

GM: No, LIVE Sheep, not LOVE sheep.
Digna: I dunno, you hear things about soldiers...

Eniek: I can see it now. 'Sir, the Gellar Field has weakened!''Where?' 'In the vicinity of the main cargo hold' ' .... great.'
GM: And the deranged daemon-possessed sheep go berserk, attacking the crew and biting through chain-halberds...

Eniek: The Imperium is surprising liberal about some things.
GM: Unless you're screwing xenos. So as long as they're not ALIEN sheep...

Rather than try and keep the sheep alive, they instead just opt to open the airlocks.

GM: Freeze-dried mutton.

Skerrit reads the cards and gets a puzzling glimpse of the future - apparently the Imperial forces on Cauldron are near to crumbling, the PCs most important weapon will be money, their plot will be complicated by aliens, and, apparently, 'The Lord Of Blood Will Do Your Bidding'.

And of course the Imperial authorities, such as the Navy ships patrolling the Cauldron system, will react badly to rogue psykers like Skerrit. He hides, while the others give the naval officers a tour of the ship.

Skerrit: I'm in a different part of the ship.
Daniels: And this is the lavatory... which is currently occupied.

Sheep slaughtering traditions.

Daniels: We had to point the ship towards Mecca as we did it.
Digna: Mars.
Eniek: Mecca, Mars, Terra...
GM: It's all the same direction from this far out

It's not safe to keep the Obsidian Resolve in a low orbit - the giant moon makes orbits unstable. Of course, given Digna is from the Lathes, three forge worlds orbiting each other, she's not much concerned.

Digna: Ah, a normal system, gravitationally.

What isn't normal is being shot down as their lander is overflying a large expanse of supposedly unoccupied jungle. At least the missile didn't actually explode, but it still cripples their vehicle. The lander goes down hard, in what turns out to be deep swamp, but only the pilot and Skerrit are casualties.

GM: You shouldn't be able to see the back of your own knee.
Skerrit: I'm glad I'm in too much shock to feel this.
Daniels: There's going to be nothing left of him after all the patching up you have to do.
Digna: Skeleton next.
Eniek: He's going to be my first test subject for fleshgrafting.
Daniels: Willing, too.
Eniek: On the other hand, if you're NOT willing I get a bonus to the rolls.

Skerrit: How are you going to replace my skeleton?
Digna: We freeze each section, liquify the bones, and replace them with metal.
Skerrit: 😧

Digna OoC: If I can get a grav-plate from the Lathe Worlds and Stasis Field with a timer from Belacane, i can make a doomsday weapon. Up, down, up, down, up, down.
GM: An what will you call it - Mjölnir?
Digna OoC: Yup.

Digna: Our pilot is becoming one with the local ecosystem.

Digna: This is what happens when we don't sacrifice to the Lord of Fate before a mission.

Digna tests the depths of the swamp while Eniek prepares a raft - Cauldron's gravity is too high for either of them to just hover the others to shore.

GM: Something pulls hard on your mechadendrite.
Digna: Apparently I can go fishing with this.

A few shots scare off the giant armour-plated salamanders, and the wreck sinks into the morass with appropriate blooping noises.

Digna: Well, you've lost a lander, Daniels.
Daniels: And a pilot.
Digna: You've lost a lander. Pilots are easier to come by than Aquila Landers.

They now face a march of at least one hundred miles to the Imperial base on Cauldron, with no idea of what is lurking between them and safety. This should be fun... for me at least.

Teens Busted For Stealing Goat To Ask Girl To Prom
 

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Sandii (NPC): a fixer who put the team in touch with Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the ubiquitous alias used by/for people hiring shadowrunners
Young Elven Technologists (YET): An elven policlub that tried to refute common stereotypes about elves.
Lancelot Windtree (NPC): An elven mage who tried to embody every stereotype of elves ... particularly the negative ones.
 
YET Another Party
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
According to Sandii, Mr. Johnson wanted to meet at a Young Elven Technologists party. One drawback of being an ork/troll team ... it's hard to pass for elves.
 
A little research led to the discovery that YET's party was intended to allow them to meet and recruit elven deckers. Due to recent threats, however, they had hired additional, heavily-armed security.
 
Byte Force: (laughing) "You won't believe who YET hired for security." (pause) "Troll street samurai."
 
Astral reconnaissance showed one elven mage at the party. He didn't appear to be magickal security, since he was doing nothing to actually make the building more secure. On the other hand, he didn't appear to be a guest, because he looked like he would rather be anywhere else....
 
Lancelot Windtree: (to street samurai Jack) "Get out of my way, you oaf!"
street samurai Jack: (looking confused) "No .... I troll. You elf."
Lancelot Windtree: "I said oaf, not elf."
street samurai Jack: (looking more confused) "What is elf-not-elf?"
 
Surprisingly, Mr. Johnson was able to recognize Happy Jack, despite his disguise.
 
Mr. Johnson: (quietly to street samurai Jack) "Hello. I'm Mr. Johnson."
street samuria Jack: (quietly) "Let's go somewhere more private."
Jack grabbed Mr. Johnson by the shoulder and walked him out the back door.
street samuria Jack: (loudly) "I think you had too much to drink. You need to go outside and sober up."
 
Outside....
 
Mr. Johnson: "The Young Elven Technologists have committed a number of atrocities that have gone unpunished. It is up to you to correct this."
street samurai Jack: "Are you asking us to punish them proportional to their crimes, or are you asking us to commit atrocities on them that are greater than the ones they've committed on others?"
Mr. Johnson: (sounding genuinely curious) "Does the latter bother you?"
street samurai Jack: "Balanced justice is a very tricky and subjective thing. Excess is far easier to manage." (long pause) "And since we intend to go unpunished for whatever activities we commit on your behalf, we'd prefer to avoid having you hire a team to 'correct' that later."
 
YET did computer programming for other companies, and had used that privileged position to install backdoors into a number of computer systems. It then used those backdoors to siphon funds from its ex-clients.
 
Audacity Jane (ooc): That's his idea of an atrocity?
 
Mr. Johnson had a very specific idea of how to get justice.
Hack into YET's network and steal the backdoors.
Leave a copy of the backdoor passcodes, and another document, in the suite of Ehran the Scribe ... located inside YET's building.
Use another copy of the backdoor passcodes to enter the system of Dassurn Securities, one of YET's clients.
Unleash a piece of software inside Dassurn's network.
 
The kicker ... the run had to be completed by the following night, because that would leave YET no time to fix things before Dassurn audited its books the following morning.
 
The bigger kicker ... all of the hacking had to be done from inside YET's building.
 
Mr. Johnson: "All paths must lead directly to the Young Elven Technologists' doorstep ... especially if things go sour."
street samurai Jack: "If you want paths leading to their door, we'll make a point to blaze a few."
 
Since the party was being held in the same building where the run would occur, Jack decided to return and do some scouting. That plan was revised when the team noticed a disturbance by the front door.
 
elf who looked exactly like Mr. Johnson: "But I tell you, I am Lee Corbin!"
Happy Jack: (over the radio link as he walked away) "It looks like Mr. Johnson pulled one of our tricks. He came looking like someone else."
No-Step: "I assensed him. His aura was mundane, and there were no spells on him. Did he do that with makeup?"
Happy Jack: "It would be extremely difficult. Maybe impossible. He was a very distinctive looking elf."
Dent: "I think we just got hired by an initiate. They can mask their auras. But why would an initiate that powerful need us for a run?"
Byte Force: "He needs a decker." (pause) "Some problems can't be solved by magic."
Dent: "They can if you use enough of it."
 
The envelope that the team was going to leave in Ehran's suite was of particular interest.
 
Byte Force: "The last time we left an envelope behind, it was a page of Ehran's book in the lap of a dead elf-poser. This can't be a coincidence."
No-Step: "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."
 
The envelope was sealed with wax.
 
No-Step: "This is an old-school way to know if someone was reading your mail. If the wax seal is broken, you know that someone read the mail."
Eye Spy: "So we can't look at it without someone noticing?"
No-Step: "There's an old school ways to bypass it. Use an extremely thin, heated wire to separate the wax from the paper. When you're done, reheat the back of the wax seal until it starts to melt and stick it back on the paper. Monomolecular wire should be perfect."
Byte Force: "I didn't realize monomolecular wire was 'old school'."
 
No-Step: "Wear gloves when you handle the letter."
Audacity Jane: "Fingerprints."
No-Step: "That too. But mostly because contact poison is another 'old school' technique."
 
Byte Force: "There's no poison on the page in the envelope, but I've seen it before." (pause) "It's from that book we stole from the troll Baron in Germany."
Audacity Jane: "We left a metal attache case there."
Dent: "Three times. That's enemy action."
Happy Jack: "@#$%! We didn't try to conceal our appearance for that German mission. And we were under heavy surveillance.  Someone could tie all these jobs to us."
Eye Spy: "Great. Mr. Johnson is going to get us killed." (pause) "I suppose there's a bright side. We have a repeat customer."

So one of my players creates a new superhero called Doctor Enigma, with a long and storied history and an archenemy called The Black Scarab. On his character sheet, it says "Hunted by the Black Scarab." This means pretty much, the guy is bound to show up every so often and make the hero's life completely miserable.
 The relationship between the characters was meant to be adversarial but cordial, in a sort of "I really do apologize for throwing you into that pit of snakes."
 "And I am sorry for crushing your leg with that log," etc.
 Also integral to the story is the fact that Doctor Enigma and the Black Scarab were in love with the same woman, and Esmerelda chose Doctor Enigma. Doctor Enigma didn't age. Esmerelda did.
 So he's young and handsome, and she's elderly and on her deathbed. Not so great.
 But wait. There's more. So the heroes encounter The Black Scarab, and he tells Doctor Enigma that he's dying. The player flips out. He's like "how?"
 The villain says "The ring makes me immortal. It doesn't make me immune to neurological disorders or, unfortunately, Lou Gerihg's disease. So I am looking for a successor."
 They talk for a bit, exchange cordialities, and the villain leaves. An occult plot happens, during which time the Black Scarab is not present.
 So Doctor Enigma gets back to his mansion to discover this heap of ash in his easy chair, along with this note.
 "Dear Doctor Enigma,'
       I must apologize for the unfortunate state in which you find me, but if you are reading this, I am dead. There could truly only be one worthy successor for the power of the Black Scarab, and so I have given it's power to our Esmerelda. I am certain that this gift will be looked upon in the manner in which it was intended.
 Farewell, old enemy,

 The Black Scarab."
 Player: THAT (Censored)! Not only did he restore my wife to health, which I have been unable to do, not only did he turn my own wife against me, and make me incapable of harming my greatest enemy in any way, but now he's DEAD, and I can't do anything about it! And on top of it, the son of a (consored) died in my favorite easy chair!
  So now she's young and attractive, but irredeemably evil! Ooops. Fortunately, the players ALL love this twist, regardless of how mean it is. (And it is pretty mean.)

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Urlan Manes (NPC): President/CEO of Global Technologies; hired the team to recover stolen goods
Roxanne Wunter (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's liaison to the team
Thomas Martelli (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's rival
 
Dreamchipper - Fixing the Meeting
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had recovered all three chips about 30 hours before the deadline. A decision was made to wait another 12 hours before giving Urlan Manes and Roxanne Wunter the good news.
 
Dent: "Why are we waiting? Is this going to give us some negotiating leverage?"
No-Step: "No. We're going to have to run some kind of op to ensure that Martelli wins. I'd prefer to get a full eight hours of sleep before that happens."
 
Once rested, the team met to brainstorm a way to turn the tables on Urlan and Roxanne.
 
No-Step: "We'll need to come up with something exceptionally subtle. Otherwise Urlan and Roxanne will suspect that we were behind it."
Audacity Jane: "Why would we have to be subtle? After Roxanne leaves her meeting with Jack, we grab her and hold her until after the meeting. Urlan will be missing his chips again, and he'll be missing one of his VPs."
No-Step: "And who besides us will know about the meeting?"
Happy Jack: "Martelli found out about the other meeting. He's the person who will benefit most. He'll be the main suspect. He'll have plausible deniability, but they will suspect that he is behind it. And to a certain extent, they will be right."
Eye Spy: "But everyone knows that Jonathan Bridges works with a bunch of orks."
Byte Force: "Urlan and Roxanne might not. They've never met any of us."
Happy Jack: "Jonathan Bridges' team is made of orks and trolls. Guess who works with a team of just orks? Martelli."
 
Byte Force: "Martelli could be the weak link. He's met you before. If you negotiate with him, he could put two and two together."
Happy Jack: "I won't be negotiating with him. While I'm meeting with Roxanne, one of you will contact Martelli." (pause) "No-Step has the skills to pull it off. And if Martelli refuses to take his call, No-Step can just project astrally."
Audacity Jane: "No-Step doesn't lie nearly as well as you do."
Happy Jack: "But he likes to sell win-win solutions. And that's exactly what we're doing with Martelli."
No-Step: "What should I do if Martelli flat-out refuses to reach a deal?"
Happy Jack: "Then he loses to Urlan. Stupidity is its own reward."
 
Surprisingly, Urlan and Roxanne wanted to wait until early Friday morning, hours before the shareholders' meeting, to collect the dreamchips. As before, they both attended and they both arrived early. They also brought an extra attendee.
 
Dent: "Their guest looks like a techie, but he has two bodyguards that look like retired military."
Eye Spy: "And there's a military vehicle parked a block away, with 8 more people in it. I think it's a trap."
Happy Jack: "I think it's their buyer. The army is supposed to be buying these things. Those bodyguards are probably active soldiers at Fort Lewis. The techie is probably an officer or a specialist."
Audacity Jane: "So, do we have to take on a squad of soldiers to get the chips back?"
No-Step: "Why would we? If we abduct Urlan and Roxanne, they can't announce to the shareholders that they saved their pet project."
 
Just before Jonathan Bridges went into the meeting...
 
Jonathan Bridges: "No-Step, I have one piece of advice for your negotiation."
No-Step: "And what might that be?"
Jonathan Bridges: "You like to beat around the bush when you negotiate. Martelli is blunt."
No-Step: "So what course of action would you advise?"
Jonathan Bridges: "At the beginning, be blunt enough to get his attention. Then you can beat around the bush all you want."
 
No-Step: "And I have one piece of advice for your meeting."
Jonathan Bridges: "What's that?"
No-Step: "You're going in without back-up this time. Try not to get killed."
 
As Jonathan Bridges entered the back bar...
 
Roxanne's bodyguard: "I see that you're still traveling with invisible bodyguards."
Jonathan Bridges: "There are two generally accepted strategies for bodyguards. One is to have obvious bodyguards. The better strategy is to have obvious bodyguards for show, and inconspicuous bodyguards to provide the real protection."
Roxanne's bodyguard: "And you think it's even better to do without the obvious bodyguards entirely?"
Jonathan Bridges: "No. I am my obvious bodyguard."
 
And No-Step made his call to Martelli's private phone number....
 
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Who are you and what do you want?"
No-Step: "You are about to lose control of your daddy's company ... again."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "WHAT !!"
Audacity Jane: (under her breath to Dent) "Yep. That was blunt enough."
No-Step: "Do I have your undivided attention? Splendid. Mr. Urlan Manes has recovered his stolen property. I'm sure he is looking forward to announcing that to the shareholders in a few hours."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm in a position to make Mr. Manes and Ms. Wunter late to the meeting. Very late. Days late. And I can also ensure Tee Hee gets delivered to you, rather than them. Does that interest you?"
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "And what's in it for you?"
No-Step: "Coincidentally, that was going to be my question to you. What is in it for me?"
 
The team planned to capture Urlan and Roxanne when they reached their helicopter. The first step, while they were still in the meeting, was to capture the helicopter pilot.
 
No-Step: "This is going to be complicated. That helicopter is heavily armored. In this neighborhood, the pilot is sure to keep the doors locked. And if he sees trouble, all he has to do is get on the radio before we're able to stop him."
Dent: "I bet you 5,000 nuyen that I can get the pilot out the helicopter without him warning the others. I don't even need any help from any of you."
Audacity Jane: "I'm not going to let you blow this mission just so you can flex your ego."
Dent: (whispering his plan to Jane) "I'll cast silence so he can't say anything over the radio. Then I'll have my city spirit materialize inside the helicopter and use its Fear power."
Audacity Jane: (to No-Step) "I'll bet you 10,000 nuyen that Dent can do it."
Unsurprisingly, No-Step declined to take the bet.
 
No-Step disguised Eye Spy as the pilot, so Urlan and Roxanne's bodyguards wouldn't realize anything was wrong when they returned to the helicopter.
 
Dent: "Where is the best place for us to hide for the ambush?"
Audacity Jane: "I'm going to hide inside the helicopter. It's the one place in this neighborhood that the bodyguards will consider 'safe', so they won't be prepared to defend against an attack from that direction."
 
No-Step used his city spirit's Concealment power to hide Jane inside the helicopter. Nobody realized she was there until Roxanne and Urlan had boarded the helicopter ... and Jane had shot them with narcojet darts.
 
Audacity Jane: (to the bodyguards) "Hi there. I'm using your boss as a human shield."
 
Eye Spy forced the bodyguards' hand by taking the helicopter up into a hover 5 meters over the tarmac. The bodyguards had to jump and climb to try to get into the 'escaping' helicopter.
 
Audacity Jane: (seeing a bodyguard struggling to hold his gun, climb into the helicopter, and shoot simultaneously) "Let me guess ... your training didn't cover this?"
 
Dent wanted to steal the helicopter, which led to a disagreement.
 
Dent: "We could sell it for at least another 100,000 nuyen."
Eye Spy: "It's too easy to track, especially in a city."
Audacity Jane: "And we don't steal from our current employer."
Dent: "Urlan is our ex-employer. He's fair game."
Audacity Jane: "The helicopter belongs to Global, not Urlan. Martelli is our current employer, and in a few hours, he should control Global."
 
Eye Spy programmed the autopilot to fly the helicopter (and the unconscious pilot and bodyguards) back to Global.
 
No-Step: "They're going to have an interesting afternoon of debriefings."
Eye Spy: "It could be worse. They could be dead."
Happy Jack: "Spoken like someone who has never experienced a corporate 'debriefing'."
 
No-Step met with Martelli at the docks to hand over Tee Hee and get paid.
 
No-Step: (manifesting out of the Astral to where he could be seen and heard) "Good evening, Mr. Martelli. Congratulations on your coup at the shareholders meeting."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Cut the drek. Where is my decker?"
Audacity Jane stepped out of the shadows and opened the doors of one of the containers, revealing Tee Hee.
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Nice ... but I'm thinking we should renegotiate our deal."
No-Step: "We completed our portion in full."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "You're going to turn Urlan and Roxanne over directly to me. For that, you get half of the remaining fee. Otherwise, there's nothing stopping me from killing your razor and taking what I want."
No-Step: "Actually, there are several things preventing you from doing that."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "Like what?"
No-Step: "First, Tee Hee's belt is made of detcord. If you try to avoid paying, you will no longer be playing with a full decker."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "..."
No-Step: "Second, there are three heavy weapons aimed at you and your compatriots."
Audacity Jane: "I'm sure you're bullet-proof, but we don't particularly care."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: "..."
Audacity Jane: "And third, I'm wearing a heart monitor that's linked to a dead-man switch. If I die, you boys get to find out where I hid the fuel-air explosive."
No-Step: "The rest of our precautions will remain a surprise."
Audacity Jane: "A girl's got to have her secrets."
Thomas Martelli Jr.: (bursting out laughing) "I like you. We have to do business again sometime."

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Griffin  (NPC): a street samurai; using the Jack the Ripper dreamchip
 
Dreamchipper - Hooker, Line & Sinker
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
In order to find Griffin (and the Jack the Ripper dreamchip), the team searched through the information provided by the Lone Star records clerk....
 
Six joygirls and joyboys had been murdered in one small Redmond neighborhood. One the first night; two the second; three the third.
Byte Force: "So he's either going to kill four or five tonight."
Eye Spy: "Five?"
Byte Force: "It might be a Fibonacci sequence."
Eye Spy: "I have no idea what you just said."
 
The murders had all taken place in the same small neighborhood in the Redmond Barrens. The victims had been primarily human, but also one ork and one dwarf.
 
Dent: "No elves or trolls?"
Happy Jack: "Other than the dwarf, it matches the racial and economic demographics of Redmond." (pause) "It seems that Griffin is just hitting targets of opportunity."
Eye Spy: "So we finally found someone in Redmond who isn't racially biased ... a serial killer."
 
The murder weapon was always cybernetic hand razors. First the throat was cut, then the bodies were swiftly dissected.
 
Audacity Jane: "Messy."
No-Step: "You don't approve."
Audacity Jane: (shrugging) "I don't particularly care. I'm not the one cleaning up after him."
 
Eye Spy: "We don't even know what Griffin looks like."
Dent: "Yes we do. I used Mind Probe on Tee Hee, Cooperman and Val."
No-Step: "That's wonderful. So what does he look like?"
Dent: "Human, average sized or maybe a little smaller, brown hair, black cybereyes, normal looking otherwise."
Audacity Jane: "That's reeeally helpful."
Dent: "I'll recognize him when I see him."
No-Step: "That doesn't help much if one of us sees him."
 
This challenge was solved with concealed microcams which would feed pictures to Dent, allowing him to confirm Griffin's identity. There were, however, other problems to be solved.
 
Audacity Jane: "There are a lot of other joygirls and joyboys in the area. We could put out bait for a week before we catch him."
No-Step: "What if we warn them to stay off the street? Tell them it's too dangerous?"
Happy Jack: "Many of them will need to eat or feed an addiction. They will be out anyway, hoping for the best."
No-Step: "We could offer to protect them for free. Get them all in one place. That would make it safer."
Happy Jack: "That's a good idea ... except they would be too suspicious of 'free' protection. I'll charge them 10 nuyen a trick for protection."
Dent: "Jack's going to be a pimp."
Happy Jack: "Yep. I'll blend right in."
 
As one of the best hand-to-hand combatants, Jane was the obvious bait. No-Step would use his Physical Mask spell to conceal the amount of armor she was wearing.
 
No-Step: "I can make her the best-looking joygirl in the neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "Make her one of the ugliest. Griffin doesn't seem to care about looks, but potential customers will."
No-Step: "Right." (suggestively to Jane) "What are you going to do with actual customers?"
Dent: "Service with a smile!"
Audacity Jane: "No. I'm going to give them the Sprawl Special."
Dent: "As I said, service with a smile."
Audacity Jane: (ignoring Dent) "That's where I knock them out, tie them up, rob them, then dump them in the alley behind me." (grinning evily Dent) "And after doing that, I will be smiling."
Eye Spy: "Hey Dent, do you want to be her first customer?"
 
Dent would wander the neighborhood invisibly, using the city sprit's Search power to look for Griffin.
 
Eye Spy: "What if Griffin sees him?"
Dent: "Nobody is going to see me."
Byte Force: "Griffin is going after joygirls and joyboys. Dent looks homeless."
Dent: "I do not look homeless."
Happy Jack: "Well, you smell homeless ... and it will just take a quick wardrobe change to make you look that way too."
 
Eye Spy and Byte Force would cruise the neighborhood, letting the real joyboys and joygirls know where Jack was providing protection.
 
Eye Spy: "What should we do if we spot Griffin?"
Audacity Jane: "Vehicular homicide."
 
It was a dark and foggy night.
 
Dent: "Why can't we get this kind of weather when we're pulling a B&E job?"
 
Life as a working girl....
 
well dressed pedestrian: "Hate to bother you, but are you going my way?"
Audacity Jane: "Honey, I may be a streetwalker, but I don't actually go for walks with people." (pause) "Are there any other services you're interested in?"
 
Life as a pimp....
 
potential customer: (as Jack peered at him so the microcam could take a picture) "Why are you looking at me that way?"
Happy Jack: "I memorize your face. If you damage joyboy, I know who to collect damages from."
potential customer: "Collect damages? Like in court?"
Happy Jack: "Like ripperdoc bill, lost wages."
potential customer: (giggling nervously) "I don't carry that kind of money with me."
Happy Jack: "That okay. You have headware. I just sell used headware."
potential customer: (scoffing) "It would take a skilled surgeon and a clinic to remove my headware."
Happy Jack: "Nah. I take your head to techie. He remove headware and clean it off. No damage to headware."
potential customer: (aghast) "That would kill me!"
Happy Jack: "Well ... don't damage joyboy ... unless you can afford damages."
 
The team members patrolling the neighborhood had sent a number of joygirls/joyboys over to Happy Jack's block. They had also run across the cooling corpses of two girls who hadn't accepted the offer of protection.
 
man with glowing cybereyes: "Nasty night. I hate this weather. Don't know why I put up with it."
Audacity Jane: "Because you live here." (pause) "But I'm sure you didn't come out here just to talk about the weather."
man with glowing cybereyes / Griffin: (popping out hand razors and slashing at Jane) "Die. Die, Tramp. Die!"
Audacity Jane: (punching Griffin with her shock glove) "Not a tramp.... Not going to die."
 
After Dent had arrived at the scene...
 
Audacity Jane: (pointing at Griffin's glowing cybereyes) "You said his cybereyes were black. Do those look black to you?"
Dent: (looking at the shiners appearing under Griffin's cybereyes) "Yes. Yes they do."
 
After Griffin had been subdued and the dreamchip removed....
 
Eye Spy: "I'm not entirely certain, but I think Griffin's going to be permanently catatonic."
Happy Jack: "This leaves us with an ethical dilemma."
Audacity Jane: "What ethical dilemma? We sell him to the organ leggers."
Happy Jack: "Alternatively, we could recruit more informants by delivering him to the joygirls and joyboys. I'm sure they want to celebrate his capture ... and every good party needs a piñata."

Having neatly bypassed the vast bulk of the last adventure, Astronauta Peligroso and his gringo allies wait for the other boot to drop. If whatever is on the disk is worthy of multiple shadowrunning teams, death threats, and multilevel encryption, it seems certain that there will be ramifications. Especially since Oracle copied everything on the disk so he can decrypt it later. On the other hand, the pay for the job, and the bonus selling backdoor entry to Nabo's phone, is enough to tide us all over for another month (the other big difference between this campaign and the 2050 one is the GM isn't making the same mistake with huge paychecks – we really will be living hand-to-mouth). But we do check how that other team react when they learn how they were duped – they've left town in a hurry. This is somewhat worrying – evidently our actions have annoyed somebody dangerous. But hey, at least we have good music to listen to while we wait. The Carrion reference on the disc might refer to a major recording studio in Seattle. They were very big in the 40s. And the artist Jet Black and Loomis' dad were in one of the top ten bands ever to come out of the city (Weldun suggested The Butterfly Effect – Begins Here as the kind of thing on the disc, and the GM agreed).

Supper at the Ork with the Gold Tooth Tavern, named after a particularly recalcitrant poster in the front window. They do a good egg-and-spam flavoured soy.

Ripper K: *sings* Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam, SPAAAAM wonderful spam

Ocelot gets a call – we've got another job lined up! An urgent rescue of another team who are under siege a few blocks away.

GM: It's six minutes away
Oracle: F**ck it, I'm driving.
Ripper K: This is Seattle 2070 traffic, it's probably six minutes on foot too.
Oracle: You're assuming I'm staying on the roads.

GM: You roll up to the co-ordinates.
Ripper K: nooo, we roll up to the corner of the block and cautiously look around.

But the abandoned residential area is deserted. There WAS a battle here, judging by the totalled vehicles and storefront. Perhaps not surprising – any competent shadowrun team could trash a neighbourhood in 60 seconds. Or, as Boots observes, 6. But weirdly – the inside of the vehicle and the actual store are pristine. Not a drop of blood to be seen.

Ripper K: This is weird
Astronauta: I want out.

But before we leave the obviously unnatural scene, the luchadore gets a hissed message from a ghostly figure asking us to wait. The ghost soon realises that it's dead and freaks out.

Ghost: I'm sorry, this is my first time being dead.

Apparently the ghost wants us to finish the job his team just got killed doing. Find a missing woman. Although most of the information they've found so far is still inside their late decker's head.

Ripper K: I'm not feeling a very great motivation here.

The ghost has about 6 hours before he disperses.

Ocelot: Time enough for revenge.
Astronauta: 'Let's see how many spirits I can summon in 6 hours' ' I really hated that guy – time to f**k him up'

Astronauta: Of course we have to help him! He asked for help!
Ripper K: Ah, of course. The Luchadore Code.

At least we have a few clues, including the clean-up team that so rapidly cleansed the site of evidence and bodies – the shadow company Discrete Disposal. Hopefully we can find the body of the dead team's hacker, and get the pay data they had stolen out of her cranial circuits, before the bodies get sold to the organleggers or something. The front for the 'waste disposal' company is a nearly featureless concrete cube out in one of the industrial parks. That complicates things, as does the horrible psychic atmosphere of the place.

Ripper K: So, do they have anything set up for corpse disposal on the premises? A pig pen, or giant woodchipper?

Van's character Giant Dad has been replaced by a more rounded Boots, a son of Labrat, who used to be the face for the Ork Underground to keep the underground safe and the inhabitants from killing each other.

Oracle OoC: By 2070 the Ork Underground is part of the Seattle tourist scene.
Ocelot: So, good job!
Astronauta: And then you got bored and took up shadowrunning.

Boots, Ocelot and Ripper head in to have a polite chat with a building full of 'clean-up guys', while the other get ready to hotwire one of their disposal trucks and ram the door. Their director of operations - Mr Black -seems a bit suspicious that we're there for an inspection. Perhaps because of the late hour, but probably because he's already paid off everybody involved. Oracle's empathy software, monitoring the camera feeds from our gear, notes that the director isn't sweating. Or breathing. He doesn't have a pulse, either.

Oracle: Percentage chance Zombie, percentage chance Xombie, percentage chance Shadim …
Ocelot : Percentage chance F**k If I Know

Back we do talk our into an inspection tour, while Astronauta and Oracle pour over the feeds looking for holes in their security. Which is rather formidable, at least on the physical plane. The door to the basement incinerators, for example, is massively over-engineered, and guarded. And the guard alarmingly is happy about letting us in to look around....

Ripper K: I brace myself for the sudden and inevitable betrayal.

Ripper K: Bit dark in here, isn't it?
Mr Black: I'm afraid my biomass-processing employees have issues with bright lighting
Ripper K: And that doesn't sound ominous at ALL.

What Mr Black doesn't know is that we can see the piles of body parts and feasting ghouls perfectly well. And our associates outside are poised to strike the moment the door gets slammed behind us.

Ripper K OoC: Have you finished hotwiring the truck?
Astronauta OoC: Why? I'm just going to walk in.
Boots OoC: That's probably equivalent to driving a truck through the wall.

And if Astronauta Peligroso IS the star of this luchadore flick, then waiting until his allies are in trouble and then bursting in through the door is entirely in character. Just wait until he starts bursting in through skylights!

Mr Black is immune to bullets, but happily is not immune to being punched in the throat by Ripper.

GM: He was standing there laughing off the gunfire, and then gets sucker-punched by the orca. If he was a mundane, you probably would have punched his head clean off.

Ripper is reluctant to punch the ghouls however – it's common knowledge ghoul bites spread HMHV virus.

Ripper K: I don't want to punch one in the face and then have to pick his teeth out of my knuckles.

Oracle sends in his drones, running the Thunderrun script – i.e. Shoot everything that isn't a friendly, then escort the friendlies out again. Boots and Oracle back up and shoot as many ghouls as they can, until Oracle's drones can get here to open the door.

Oracle: *facepalm* It's now painfully obvious where most of my data comes from – one of the bodies in your Heads Up Display lights up with a Miracle Shooter objective marker.

Oracle throws up inside his own helmet when he gets a RL look at the pile of half-eaten human remains. The rest of us are pretty green too. But at least we can find the bodies we're after. Or the heads at least. The amulet we're after is in here too, but searching for it is a exercise in horror. Sadly, Seattle is one of the few cities that DOESN'T have a standing bounty on ghouls. And Mr Black ghosted out while we were preoccupied. Boots walks up to the reception desk, stinking of blood and death, where the receptionist is cowering. She was just lucky the drones when in through the hole Astronauta made, and thus she didn't fall victim to the Thunderrun script.

Boots: I find this establishment unacceptable. You might want to start sending your resume around.

Oracle is rather alarmed to learn that the data in the cranial circuitry pertains to Project Icarus, a medical program with a 30% success rate – and 70% fatality rate. He debates whether or not to tell the others.

Oracle: If there were any secondary files I'd be burning them right now!

Oracle: How well do I know you guys? Do any of you play Miracle Shooter? Because I got banned for bringing Tac-net ware to matches.

Oracle is most concerned because he was a designer baby that came from the same line of research – hence all his gibbering as he went through the files. If somebody figures out he's involved in this job, they might come after HIM. The invoice for over a thousand body bags, and two genetic stabilisers, is also worthy of incoherent comment. Especially since the address attached is a high school closed in the 40s. It's also suggestive that the woman we're tracking down is pregnant, and both she and her husband, the original client, are magically active. Magical Mr. Johnsons?

Boots: They have magical johnsons.

The old school doesn't have any of the power supply a secret lab might need. Oracle's drones search for heat plumes – and there's a big one coming out from one of the roof vents.

Oracle: If you don't mind I'll stay in the van.
Boots: Just send in your drones Betty and Veronica
Oracle: What?
Boots: Your drones, Minnie and May
Oracle: I've told you before – Tweedledee and Tweedledum
Boots: Yeah, that's right – Dick and Tracey.

We kick in the door and a promptly overwhelmed by a sensation of Imminent Doom. The scent of unpleasant chemicals, IV fluids, and discarded mediware doesn't help.

Boots: Hey Oracle... just thought I should give you the heads up – I'm on the edge of losing my shit here.
Oracle: Yeah, I can tell from your biomonitors.

We turn to find a young elf girl with long black hair hanging over her face.

Boots: WeHaveALuchadoreYourArgumentIsInvalid!!!!!! Nacho boy, punch her through a wall!

Now most of us are overwhelmed by a desire to protect her. This is probably a Very Bad Sign. Ocelot sprays the room with shotgun taser pellets.

Ripper K: The f**k??
Boots: Ocelot, Jesus!
Oracle: Jesus Chr- wait... what was I thinking about?

Oracle, now the girl is well and truly unconscious, is now rather alarmed that the girl is some kind of force-aged clone of the foetus, or something, is relieved to see no resemblance to the parents.

Ocelot: That WOULD have been difficult to explain...

Boots wants to drop the young girl off at Greenlight's home - 'Aunty Sam's place'. The roomful of drugged expectant mothers is considerably more distressing, especially with the evidence of experimental surgery, and wouldn't fit in Aunty Sam's flat, either. Oracle refills his helmet.

Oracle: I didn't think I had any more to give! *dry-heaving noises over the TacNet.*
Ripper K: So, do we tell the police about this????

Even more fucked up, the set-up is designed to turn magically inclined children into Toxic Shamans, of the kind patronised by toxic spirits like Mr Black. Shamans like the invisible one in the ward, who hits us with a Panic spell, steps on a test tube, and gets a positive hail of bullets for his pains. A pity he's just a kid too, but since he's invisible, how could we tell? Dozens of women pregnant with toxic mages, and possessed children, is WAY beyond our pay grade. Boots calls a relative at the Draco Foundation.

Boots: Hi Uncle Inkubus, it's your favourite nephew.
Inkubus: Be more specific.

Oracle calls his own fixer, the one that called in the rescue.

Oracle: We found her. She's hooked up to a Valkyrie unit.
Ulysses: What the fuck did they do to her?
Oracle: I know, you don't want to know, and the Johnson needs to know.

Oracle warms up one of his custom drones – a Knight Errant high speed pursuit drone that he's turned into a one-man ambulance. That still has a tire-damage strip ejector. Knight Errant, who recently took over the Seattle Police contract from Lone Star, will be quite pleased to clear up all these missing persons cases, and hopefully forward any other rewards our way. The reward is substantial – and well-deserved. For one thing if we hadn't been very lucky in which party members were where, half of us could have been killed at four different places in the mission. For example, Oracle and Boots wouldn't have got out alive from the ghoul room, if Ripper hadn't been a Physical Adept. But what if Black comes back?

Boots: If he keeps starting shit I'll call Uncle Inkubus and we'll summon the ultimate Spirit of Man – Captain Planet.
Ocelot: But we'd need to summon five lesser spirits first.
Boots: Wind! Water! Chrome!

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
 
Dreamchipper - Interlude (information gathering)
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Happy Jack: "I'm going to go talk to the Lone Star records clerk that Byte Force and I recruited."
Byte Force: "Well ... he doesn't know that he's been recruited."
No-Step: "How do you recruit someone without him noticing?"
Happy Jack: "We bribed him."
Byte Force: "... but he doesn't know that he's been bribed yet."
No-Step: "Why is he going to do something for a bribe that he doesn't know about?"
Happy Jack: "Because I'm going to use that bribe to blackmail him."
 
Chester, the records clerk: (answering his apartment door) "How may I help you, patrolman."
Happy Jack: (disguised as a Lone Star patrolman) "Are you the owner of a gold 2046 Ford Americar in the parking garage?"
Chester: (alarmed) "Why? What happened to it?"
Happy Jack: "There was a minor collision. Would you mind coming and looking at the damage?"
They took the elevator to the parking garage.
Chester: (looking at his car) "Where's the damage?"
Happy Jack: (handing Chester a piece of paper) "Actually, I wanted you to look at this bank statement of yours."
Chester: (barely glancing at it) "This isn't my bank."
Happy Jack: "True ... but it's your daughter's account. It has your daughter's money in it. That money has been used to pay your daughter's medical bills. And since your daughter is too young to work, that looks rather suspicious."
Chester: "Wait! What?" (slowly dawning realization) "Are you saying that I'm a dirty cop?"
Happy Jack: "No. I'm saying that you're being framed."
Chester: "Oh..."
Happy Jack: "Because I'm the one who is framing you."
Chester: "WHAT?!?"
Happy Jack: "So you can either give me the information that I want, and continue to pay your daughter's bills, or you can explain to your superiors why you accepted my bribes for three months before mentioning anything to them."
Chester pulled his gun and shot Jack. The armor jacket stopped the bullet.
Happy Jack: (smacking the gun out of Chester's hand) "Attempted murder. That's very illegal. More illegal than bribery. Good thing we caught that on tape."
Eye Spy: (over the radio link) "We didn't catch that on tape."
Audacity Jane: (to Eye Spy) "Chester doesn't know that."
 
Chester: "What do you want from me?"
Happy Jack: (handing Chester a burner phone) "I want to know about every joygirl, joyboy, escort or other sex trade worker murdered since Saturday."
Chester: "Why?"
Happy Jack: "I've been hired to catch the person committing the murders."
Chester: "You're blackmailing me into helping you stop a murderer? But that's something I don't mind doing."
Happy Jack: "See. It's your lucky day. You're getting paid to do a good deed."
 
The gunshot had attracted the attention of the building security.
 
security guard: (running up with a drawn gun) "What's going on here?"
Chester: "Uh ..."
Happy Jack: "Chester dropped his gun and had an accidental discharge."
Chester: "..."
security guard: "..."
Happy Jack: "I wrote him a citation for that." (pause) "Better be careful with your gun, or I'll be writing a second citation."
security guard: "..."
 
Later...
 
Happy Jack: "That went perfectly."
Dent: "Perfectly? You paid Chester for that information, and you probably could have gotten it for free."
Happy Jack: "I didn't want to get it for free. I wanted him to take the nuyen."
Dent: "WHAT?!?"
Happy Jack: "This morning, it only looked like Chester was taking bribes. Now, he is knowingly taking bribes. That means we're making progress in our relationship."

Finishing off Songs of Summoning (for real this time)
 
Maker is outside, worried about taking on the creature.
 
Shadowboxer:  (points to a series of arced lines on the map)  Just hide under one of these balconies.
Malarky:  Those aren't balconies.  They're curved walls.  (turns his PC around to show a satellite overhead view of the back side of the club and smiles at the GM.)  Don't you just love Google Maps?  (proceeds to get the street view from that alleyway)  Here, Maker, this is what you see back there...
 
Circe goes outside and tries mind-blasting the creature, exposing her to its Insane Thoughts (a mental damage shield that drains her EGO and PRE).
 
Circe:  Ewwww!  You would not believe what is going on in that thing's mind!  I am not doing that again!
 
The creature grabs Maker and Circe with its tentacles, but before it can try to eat either one, Pops teleports them back into the club.  Maker begins flying back outside to confront the creature.
 
Pops:  Remember, just one save per person!  Go back out there at your own risk.
 
Back inside, Screech had put up a force barrier around the stage, with himself, Ted, and Heavy Metal inside, protected from the heroes' attacks.
 
Nexus:  We need to get past that barrier.
Honey Badger:  Easy.  (Makes rude gestures and disparaging comments at Ted, who proceeds to smash a hole through the barrier to take on the hero brick.)  See?  Problem solved.
 
Once most of Road Kill was down, the heroes were trying to figure out what do to against the creature.  Most of their attacks were bouncing off.
 
GM:  (to Nexus)  Aren't you going to try attacking it?
Nexus:  If Honey Badger throwing a dumpster at it didn't hurt it, my puny elemental magic blast isn't going to do much.
GM:  (looks down at creature's character sheet, where the Damage Reduction has the limitation "Doesn't work vs. Magic" and shrugs)  Your choice.
 
Nexus finally blasts it, causing it to scream in agony.
 
Nexus:  Hey, guys!  It's vulnerable to cold!  Should I try fire next?
Several other heroes:  NO!!  Freeze the #$&@!&@#!
 
The heroes figure out that someone gave the "lyrics" (summoning incantations) to Heavy Metal, and they try to figure out how to keep Road Kill from unintentionally summoning more other-worldly creatures in the future.
 
Malarky:  Could Circe mind-control them not to play those songs ever again?
GM:  Maybe.  She does have a Mind Control with Cumulative on it.  But they're contrary enough that dropping those songs might not be something they're inclined to do, so the control may break at some point.
Malarky:  Any way I can alter the magic so the summoning just wouldn't work?
GM:  I suppose Circe could mind control Heavy Metal to "fix" some of the lyrics...
Malarky:  (smiles)  Yeah.  "Those new songs are good and all, Heavy Metal -- but couldn't you come up with better lyrics on your own?"

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Cast of characters: 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Urlan Manes (NPC): President/CEO of Global Technologies; hired the team to recover stolen goods
Roxanne Wunter (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's liaison to the team
Thomas Martelli Jr. (NPC): Senior VP at Global; Urlan's rival
Tee Hee (NPC): a decker, a thief, and a former Global employee
BTL chips: "better-than-life" chips; stick one in your datajack and get an illegal high; addictive; repeated use causes brain damage; the 2050 equivalent of hardcore drugs
 
Dreamchipper - What do you do with a captured decker?
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to recover several chips stolen from Global Technologies. Tee Hee (one of the thieves) had been captured by the team ... but he didn't have the data chips.
 
Dent took the usual shortcut of using Mind Probe on Tee Hee, who turned out to be a treasure trove of information.
 
Dent: "A fixer named Cooperman made the arrangements for the theft. But Thomas Martelli was the person who bribed Tee Hee and told him to follow Cooperman's instructions."
Happy Jack: "How much was the bribe?"
Dent: "A Fairlight Excalibur cyberdeck."
Byte Force: "Most deckers would betray anyone for a Fairlight Excalibur."
No-Step: "Does that mean we need to start worrying about your loyalty?"
Byte Force: "I can't be bought that easily."
Dent: "Because we already stole one for you."
 
Dent: "Tee Hee calls these things Dreamchips. They're a skillchip that uses experimental BTL technology."
Byte Force: "Why on earth would they do that?"
Dent: "They're using it to bypass the normal limitations on a skillchip. The Dreamchip contains a false personality which overrides the user's normal personality. Somehow that allows the chip to transfer more skills to the user."
No-Step: "And the false personality controls the user's actions?"
Dent: "Yes. They're planning to sell these to the military. They could create instant soldiers, officers, spies and assassins."
No-Step: "That's unethical. There ought to be a law against that."
Dent: "There is. The use of BTL technology makes it illegal. They're counting on the military not caring."
Happy Jack: "That's probably why they want to keep this job particularly quiet."
Audacity Jane: "Do we get a bonus if we 'silence' the thieves?"
 
When Tee Hee trashed the R&D files, he left an uncorrupted copy on Thomas Martelli's datastore. It was time for the decker to earn his dues.
 
Byte Force: (to Dent) "Fish around in Tee Hee's brain for a map to Global's computer network."
Dent: "They probably changed the security codes since he left."
Byte Force: "That's true, but they probably didn't change the system architecture."
 
Byte Force found everything he was looking for, and a lot more.
 
Thomas Martelli had instigated the plot. He had contacted Booker Pengrave, an executive at Hollywood Simsense Entertainment, a rival simsense company. By stealing the Dreachip prototypes and R&D, Global's value would crash. HSE and Pengrave would be able to acquire Global cheaply. Then HSE could manufacture and sell the Dreamchips. For his role, Thomas Martelli would become an executive at HSE.
 
Eye Spy: "I think Urlan made the understatement of the year when he called Junior 'an annoyance'."
Dent: "When are you going to pass this information on to Roxanne?"
Happy Jack: "For now, I'm not."
Eye Spy: "Why not?"
Happy Jack: "Urlan is paying us to recover the stolen merchandise, not for information related to the thieves. He was quite specific about that. I'm willing to sell him the information we've discovered, but he hasn't paid us for it yet."
 
Byte Force: "I found some notes about the team that did the run on Global. They say that 'Val' the rigger is running 'Cleo'. They also say that 'Griffin' the street samurai is 'messed up with Jack the Ripper'." (pause) "What personalities are on those Dreamchips?"
Dent used Mind Probe on Tee Hee again.
Dent: "Jack the Ripper, Cleopatra and Genghis Khan."
Eye Spy: "What kind of lunatic would think those personalities were a great idea?"
Audacity Jane: "People who watch the history channel for fun."
 
Dent: "Apparently the Jack-the-Ripper chip started out as a spy, but it turned out to be too homicidal ... so they turned it into an assassin."
Byte Force: "I know that strategy of product design. It's not a bug. It's a feature."
 
Dent: "The Genghis Khan chip is supposed to have all of the skills to be a great military leader."
No-Step: "So it turns the user into a megalomaniac, then gives him the skills to carry those ambitions to fruition."
Dent: "Without an army, that's not too dangerous."
Audacity Jane: "And if he goes up to Fort Lewis and recruits an army...?"
Eye Spy: "Oh @#$%! We're going to have to fight an entire army to get just one chip?"
Audacity Jane: "No. At worst, that just means we'll need to get the chip out of a Fort Lewis morgue."
Eye Spy: "The morgue?"
Audacity Jane: "There's a long-standing tradition of snipers shooting military leaders."
 
Dent: "The Cleopatra chip is designed for extended espionage assignments."
Eye Spy: "And it's based entirely on powerful men's habit of doing all of their thinking below the waist."
No-Step: "We should brainstorm who she might seduce. That might narrow down where we should investigate."
Happy Jack: (ticking off on his fingers) "Governor Schultz, any general or admiral based in Seattle, any top executive at a Tier 1 or Tier 2 megacorp, any mafioso capo or yakuza oyabun..." (pause) "Have we narrowed our investigation down sufficiently?"
No-Step: "..."
 
Byte Force: "I discovered why Martelli and Urlan hate each other." (pause) "Martelli's father, Thomas Martelli, Sr., changed his will shortly after his son goblinized. Urlan became the new beneficiary."
Eye Spy: "His father was such a racist that he disinherited his son? That sucks."
No-Step: "Is Urlan a racist?"
Happy Jack: "He and Roxanne clearly dislike Martelli, but I don't know whether that's racial bias or personal animosity."
Dent: "Did either of them seem biased against you?"
Happy Jack: "No, but some people have a bias against orks, but not trolls." (pause) "Urlan is clearly interested in keeping Martelli's inheritance for himself, regardless of racial bias."
No-Step: "I'm not entirely certain we're working for the right side in all of this."
Happy Jack: "I would say we're working for the wrong side. We don't help people oppress orks and trolls." (pause) "So how do we fulfill our agreement with Urlan, get paid, and still ensure that Martelli wins?"
GM: (headdesk)
 
There remained a small problem of what to do with Tee Hee. Jack and Jane solved the problem using a backboard, handcuffs, straps and a magemask.
 
No-Step: "You two seem extremely competent at this. Is there something that you're not telling us?"
Audacity Jane: "Why don't I tie you up the same way, then you can find out for yourself."
 
Happy Jack also plugged Tee Hee into a simsense player.
 
Happy Jack: "It's hard to plan an escape when you're immersed in an action VR."
Dent: "Harder still if you plug him into porn."
Happy Jack: "Given the number of sex scenes in the 'action' simsenses, there's not much difference."
 
In order to give Tee Hee meals and bathroom breaks, Jack and Jane would turn off all the lights, then untie him (using their thermographic vision to watch him).
 
Tee Hee: (sitting on the toilet in the dark) "It's no use. I can't go when somebody's watching me."
Audacity Jane: "I'm tired of this drek. I'm just going to slit your throat and be done with it."
Tee Hee had the predictable involuntary reaction to overwhelming fear.
Audacity Jane: "It looks like you can go when somebody's watching you."
 
Next ... Kick the Khan.

The only inevitable things are death, taxes, and retroactive continuity.

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Topal (NPC): a raven shaman, and the team's temporary employer
 
Bottled Demon (my least favorite module of all time)
This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
The team had been hired to protect Topal at a meeting taking place at Black's Junk Yard.
 
The team prepared the meeting site by seeding it with radio-activated noisemakers. If necessary, they could distract threats by creating simulated gunfire in nearly any part of the junkyard. Dent and Jane stayed behind (hidden) to keep an eye on the place. Eye Spy also parked two of her drones (lighter-than-air drones in station-keeping mode) over the junkyard. Then the rest of the team headed back to town.
 
Topal met them promptly at 3am ... driving up in his runabout.
 
Eye Spy: "That's his idea of a 'suitable' vehicle for a trip into the Barrens? Jack, I think you outweigh his car. You definitely have more armor."
Happy Jack: (to Topal) "Unless your car is bulletproof, you're riding with us."
Topal: "But..."
Happy Jack: "And if you're not sure whether your runabout is bulletproof, we'll be happy to test that right now."
 
Topal decided he would ride in the team's van, instead of having his runabout turned into swiss cheese.
 
Eye Spy's van had photoelectric paint, so the color/design could be quickly changed to a wide variety of preprogrammed schemes. Eye Spy always tried to use paint schemes that would be left alone.
 
Eye Spy: (accelerating) "We've got a dozen go-gangers chasing us."
Byte Force: (to Eye Spy) "What paint scheme are you using?"
Eye Spy: "HAZMAT !! What kind of idiot goes after HazMat?"
Byte Force: "So we're being attacked by illiterate go-gangers..."
Happy Jack: (with his grenade launcher at the rear gunport) "Stupid ... soon to be blind and stupid."
Jack airburst a flash grenade in front of the go-gangers, then followed it up with a thermal smoke grenade. To add insult to injury, No-Step commanded his city spirit to use its Accident power on the go-gangers.
 
Surprisingly, three of the go-gangers were lucky enough to be able to avoid crashing and continue the pursuit. Eye Spy, not to be outdone, triggered the van's thermal smoke generator and lubricant sprayer, then threw the van into a 90 degree bootlegger skid.
go-gangers: [WHAM, WHAM, WHAM] (into the armored side of the van)
Eye Spy: "You boys aren't the only ones who know how to cause an accident."
No-Step: "We know that you can cause accidents. You do that with your normal driving."
 
Eye Spy hid the van a few blocks from the junkyard. She and Byte Force stayed in the van, while Topal led Jack and No-Step to a secret tunnel leading under the fence.
 
Happy Jack: (stopping Topal from going through the tunnel first) "You don't go first. One bodyguard goes first. One bodyguard goes last. You stay in the middle."
Topal: "Who goes first and who goes last?"
Happy Jack: "If things are going well, you follow me. If shooting starts, you follow him." (pointing at No-Step)
 
The tunnel was almost too small for Happy Jack (and Topal) to fit through.
 
Happy Jack: (to No-Step) "New plan. If things go sideways, we choose another exit."
No-Step: "Any preference?"
Happy Jack: "This place is surrounded by a fence. If I'm in a hurry, I'll make an exit."
 
The meeting with the elves was to take place in a large clear space in the middle of the junkyard.
 
Elf #1: (speaking loud enough to be heard) "Are you ready, Raven-man? I am here for the trade."
Topal: (quietly and clearly frightened) "This is wrong. All wrong. Take this." (trying to hand the briefcase to Jack)
Happy Jack: (interposing himself between Topal and the elf) "What is 'all wrong'?"
Topal: "Stay here with the briefcase. I'll go talk to him."
Happy Jack: (placing his massive hand on Topal's chest) "No. You tell me what is wrong. You stay here. I go talk to the elf."
Topal: "He's not the one I made the deal with."
Elf #1: (suspiciously) "What's going on over there, Raven-man?"
Happy Jack: (to Elf #1) "You're not the one my client here made the deal with."
Elf #1: "You deal with me, Raven-man. I have the oath price. Where is your part of the bargain?"
Happy Jack: (to Topal) "Do you actually care who you close the deal with? I'm flexible if you are."
 
[rant]This is one of my big problems with this module. Topal hired bodyguards. His bodyguards for the evening cost far more than his personal vehicle. And when things looked like they were about to go really wrong, Topal wanted to walk into the killzone alone ... and he wanted his bodyguards to stay back where it was safer.[/rant]
 
And this was the point when everything went sideways.
 
Eye Spy: (over the radio link) "It's a setup. Lone Star is here. Go, go, go!"
 
Everything went sideways ... for everyone ... especially the GM.
 
According to the module, the PCs and the elves are both supposed to assume that the other betrayed them, and a three-way fight is supposed to break out between PCs, elves and Lone Star ... with plenty of opportunities for Topal to take a stray shot and die.
 
Things going sideways (for all parties):
Byte Force triggered the noisemakers around Lone Star, and the ones behind the elves.
Everybody was surprised. The elves were surprised by the arrival of Lone Star. The PCs and elves were surprised that Lone Star managed to sneak some light helicopters overhead without being heard in advance. The helicopters were surprised to discover that some stealth drones were parked even higher overhead. And Lone Star and the elves were suprised to find themselves outflanked. (Mostly outflanked by noisemakers, but that was still pretty surprising.)
Everyone assumed that they were in a trap.
Jack reacted to the warning by grabbing Topal to his chest, shielding him from the elves ... and any other stray shots.
Jane reacted to the warning by shooting Elf #2 and Elf #3 (the mages) with narcojet rounds.
Elf #1 fired a SMG burst into Jack's armored back, but it was too small of a caliber to leave much impression. Elf #2's Power Bolt left even less of an impression on Jack's back.
Further fire from the elves was prevented when Eye Spy's drone dropped a flash grenade and a thermal smoke grenade between the elves and Topal/Jack/No-Step.
Everyone dove for cover ... mostly to avoid being attacked by noisemakers or unseen opponents.
Lone Star and the elves started returning fire ... mostly at the noisemakers.
With everyone distracted by the chaos, the team ignored the other combatants, headed for the quietest corner of the junkyard and slipped out.
And finally ... despite having avoided all overt threats, Topal slipped into a delerium as the team drove away.
 
No-Step knocked himself out (literally) trying to heal/cure whatever was wrong with Topal. Since he was unsuccessful, it was up to Eye Spy, the team paramedic, to try to save his life.
 
Eye Spy: "Other than basic life support, I don't know what to try. I don't know what's wrong with him."
Byte Force: "Does he have any medical conditions that could be causing this?"
Eye Spy: "How am I supposed to know that?"
Byte Force: "You're not. Dent, does he have any medical conditions that could be causing this?"
Dent: "I'm not a healer. How am I supposed to know that?"
Byte Force: "You're a mind reader. Remember?"
Dent cast Mind Probe on Topal.
Dent: "There's some kind of idol in the briefcase. Topal thinks it's killing him. That's why he was trying to get rid of it ... by selling it." (long pause) "WOW !! It's a really powerful focus."
Audacity Jane: "Sounds more like a trap to me."
Dent: "I wonder if it's possible to uncurse it?"
Eye Spy: "It's more likely that you'd end up like Topal."
Dent: "But it's a really powerful focus."
Audacity Jane: (skeptically) "Really? How powerful?"
Dent: "I don't know."
Happy Jack: "Did Topal use it? If so, how much did it amplify his magick?"
Dent: "He tried a simple conjuration ... which failed ... so he doesn't know exactly how powerful it is."
Audacity Jane: (rolling her eyes) "Is there anyone here who can explain the concept of 'It's a trap' better than I can?"
 
In the meantime Topal was fading fast.
 
Happy Jack: "Does he have a DocWagon account? KrashKart account? Any other kind of insurance?"
Dent: "No."
Happy Jack: "Any friends who would be willing to pay for his medical care?"
 
Topal had a friend named Caw Caw, another raven shaman.
 
Happy Jack: "I'll call Caw Caw using Topal's phone. If he's willing to answer the phone at 4:30 a.m., we'll know they're good friends."
 
Caw Caw insisted that the team bring Topal to him, so Caw Caw (and his friends) could save Topal. By the time the team got there, Eye Spy was basically performing CPR on a lifeless body.
 
Byte Force: "It's going to be hard to collect the second half of our pay from Topal."
Dent: "Nope. Super-easy. I went through his pockets for loose change."

Yes. It's amazing what a game turns into when you have a great GM and a team of great roleplayers.
 
Definitely a flexible GM. He didn't even blink when the ubersaur got two-shotted.
 
----------------------
 
The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.   Dent: ork, rat shaman No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems Jonathan Bridges / Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator Topal (NPC): a raven shaman, and the team's temporary employer   Bottled Demon (my least favorite module of all time) This module was previously described by Drhoz (here).   While out maintaining ties with fixers and potential employers, Jonathan was approached by an obese, unhealthy looking man with a metal briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.   Topal: "Thank the stars! We must talk at once! You can't know what I've had to do to find you!" Jonathan Bridges: "Most people call a fixer, then pay some money. The fixer puts them in touch with me." The Penguin: "Let us retire to a restaurant and enjoy our midday repast. Time is of the essence, and there's business to discuss." Jonathan Bridges: "Your offer of lunch is appreciated, but if this is time-critical, we can skip lunch and discuss business first."   They sat down in the restaurant to discuss business, while Topal crunched jawbreakrs non-stop...   Topal: "I require the services of several bodyguards to accompany me to a business meeting tomorrow morning. I have sought you out because of your reputation." Jonathan Bridges: "It must be an unusual bodyguard job, if you were directed to us." Topal: "The location must, of course, remain a secret, but I can tell you it will take no more than three hours of your time, start to finish." Jonathan Bridges: "We specialize in secrecy. That's probably why you were referred to us."   The two negotiated a price for the services, with half paid immediately, and the other half paid upon completion.   Topal: "I knew I could count on you. Meet me here at 3am. Don't be late. Bring your own transportation. I will be travelling in a separate vehicle." Jonathan Bridges: "If you have a suitable vehicle, we'll just put one or two guards with you. The rest will be in my team's vehicle. If your vehicle isn't suitable, you'll ride with them." Topal: "Yes. Yes. My vehicle is perfectly suitable." Topal stood up to leave. Jonathan Bridges: "Aren't you forgetting something?" Topal: "What's that? I paid you half up front already." Jonathan Bridges: "What's the location of the meeting? My team needs to check it out in advance." Topal: "Its. A. Secret." Jonathan handed the credsticks back to Topal. Topal: "What's this?" Jonathan Bridges: "I'm returning your advance. We're refusing the job. My team isn't going to allow you to get killed by walking into an ambush. If you want to get killed that way, hire someone less competent." Topal: "I can't have you scaring off the people I'm meeting with." Jonathan Bridges: "Several members of the team specialize in being unseen. Furthermore, anyone who works in the shadows expects that sort of precaution."   Topal argued, but Jonathan absolutely refused to budge on the issue. Eventually, Topal caved.   Topal: (clearly unhappy) "The meeting is at Black's Junk Yard, in the Puyallup Barrens." Eye Spy: (eavesdropping over Jack's radio link) "Tough neighborhood. We'll have to dress 'appropriately'."   The team spent the evening scouting the junkyard, which turned out to be a security nightmare (even with Eye Spy's drones providing overwatch).   Audacity Jane: "Too many ways in. Too many places to hide. No clear lines of sight. If I wanted to pick off a heavily guarded target, I'd tell him to meet me here." Byte Force: "So how would you guard him?" Audacity Jane: "Anyone want to volunteer to be a body double for Topal?" No-Step: "That probably won't work. Topal is awakened; probably a shaman. His business probably involves magick. They may not be able to see through a Physical Mask spell, but if they have the ability to assence the astral, they have a good chance of recognizing the spell." Happy Jack: "And Topal is a really difficult client. He'll probably refuse to have a body double." (long pause, followed by an evil grin) "I have an idea, but it will only work if they have someone assence him." No-Step: "You're going to use a physical disguise?" Happy Jack: "Nope." (pause) "Dent and No-Step, I need a professional opinion. If we were after a target, and you spotted him, but then realized that there was a Mask spell on him, what would you tell us?" Dent: "It's a trick; a distraction. That's not the real target." No-Step: "Yes" (pause, dawning realization) "Damn you ... you're ..." Audacity Jane: (interrupting) "You're a sick man, Jack. You want to use Topal as his own body double." Happy Jack: "If you really want to lie to someone, tell them the truth in a completely unconvincing manner. They'll be sure they've caught you in a lie ... and they'll believe anything except the truth."   Bodyguarding a difficult client in the middle of an ambush. What could possibly go wrong...?

A mysterious Speed King is Speed Kong, an intelligence superpowered gorilla capable of swinging and climbing faster than most supers can run. Kong keeps how he got his powers and intelligence close to his vest, but hears a hint: if you calculate a mutant detector on the gorilla setting...

Quotes from Owlcon #5
 
Adventure! (Pulp Fiction)
The Deadly Danger of Dinosaur Island
 
Where did a Hollywood producer get a dinosaur? Why did someone try to kill him for the secret? It's up to the Aeon Society to uncover the truth and set things right.
 
Cast of characters:
"Cactus" Carolina Vasquez: cowgirl and trick shooter
Lavonne White, "The Silent Spectre": female homage to The Shadow
The "Unbreakable" Dr. Samuel Glass: Doc Savage homage with a mechanical hand
Kent Woolsley, star of the silver screen: action star and ladies' man
Cicero de Valentine (NPC): legendary Hollywood producer
 
Cicero de Valentine is hosting one of his legendary parties. He gets the crowd's attention, and unveils a large dinosaur (an Allosaur) in a cage.
 
Cicero de Valentine: "We are going to make this magnificent beast into a movie star."
Carolina Vasquez: "Does he memorize his lines or use cue cards?"
 
The dinosaur bursts out of the cage.
 
Carolina Vasquez: (excited) "I ain't never seen a critter like this before, and I shore ain't never ridden one!"
 
As Carolina and Dr. Glass engage the dinosaur, The Silent Spectre dives under a tablecloth in order to change into her costume.
 
Silent Spectre: I quietly curse the need for a secret identity.
 
The dinosaur looks confused.
 
Carolina Vasquez: (to the dinosaur) "Honey, It's only goin' to get weirder from here."
 
Dr. Glass' exploding fire extinguisher impairs the dinosaur, but fails to freeze it in place.
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: "Obviously I need a bigger bomb ... or a bigger stick."
 
Carolina lassoed the dinosaur's muzzle.
 
GM: Your plan goes awry when the dinosaur lifts his head, leaving you swinging from the end of the rope.
Carolina Vasquez (ooc): Actually, that's still well within my plan.
 
The trio gets the dinosaur back into his cage, but the perceptive Dr. Glass notices flashes coming from Valentine's office during the chaos ... and a man in a black leather trench coat and hat fleeing the scene.
 
Kent Woolsley: (arriving late to the party) "I seem to have missed the party. What happened?"
Dr. Samuel Glass: "Sabotage, murder, an escaped villain ..."
Kent Woolsley: "So it's Tuesday?"
 
Kent and Dr. Glass enter Valentine's office, and find Valentine slumped against the wall, bleeding out from multiple bullet wounds.
 
Kent Woolsley: "Valentine, old chap, this is not a good look on you."
 
The German villain failed to get what he was after, a scrap of paper with the coordinates to Dinosaur Island on it.
 
The Aeon Society members hire a seaplane to take them out to the coordinates on the paper. To no-one's surprise, they find an uncharted tropical island at the coordinates. Minutes after making this discovery, the plane is riddled by bullets. The plane is being chased by members of the German Expeditionary Force, who are riding enormous pterodactyls and firing machine guns.
 
Carolina Vasquez: (eyes lighting up) "I want to ride one of those!"
 
One engine is struck by bullets and bursts into flame.
 
Pilot: "This flight is about to get rough!"
The Silent Spectre: "Take this plane down and land it."
Pilot: "Land it where?"
The Silent Spectre: "See the big blue parking lot below us?"
 
While The Silent Spectre, Carolina and Dr. Glass take their toll on the pursuing Germans, Kent gathers the packs and parachutes in preparation for a rapid evacuation.
 
Kent Woolsley: (handing a parachute to the pilot) "Here you go."
Pilot: (pulling the parachute on) "Thanks!" (bails out of the plane, leaving the Aeon Society members behind)
 
Kent Woolsley raids the wet bar, bails out of the plane, and lands on the last pterodactyl, right behind the German soldier. Immediately afterwards, Carolina lands on the pterodactyl right in front of Kent, kicking the German off in the process.
 
Carolina Vasquez: "Kent, you saved me a seat."
Kent Woolsley: (handing her a beer bottle) "And a drink."
 
Carolina guides the pterodactyl to a landing on the beach.
 
Carolina Vasquez: (shooting the pterodactyl in the back of the head) "Whoa."
 
There is a German Expeditionary Force camp on the island, complete with an electrified fence, guard towers, barracks, docks, submarine and a dinosaur stable.
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: (looking through binoculars) "I don't see where the leader's office is."
Carolina Vasquez: "They're German. Doesn't the Commandant's office always have flowers outside?"
 
The plan is simple:
Dr. Glass and Kent will dress up in German uniforms.
They will bluff their way into the camp.
Kent will steal documents from the Commandant's office.
Dr. Glass will sabotage the generator.
Carolina and Silent Spectre will stampede a herd of dinosaurs into the camp.
The team will escape by submarine.
 
Step two could cause some problems. Dr. Glass speaks German, but he's not particularly good at subterfuge.
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: "Do you know any German, Kent?"
Kent Woolsley: "I know a few lines of German. I learned them phonetically for a movie role. I'll be fine."
 
Dr. Glass and Kent, looking battered and bloody, approach the camp gate.
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: (yelling to the soldiers at the gate) "A plane crashed. We were attacked by the survivors. We are all that are left."
The German soldiers stare suspiciously at Dr. Glass.
Kent Woolsley: (emphatically) "Jah. It vas terrible. It vas terrible. Herr Doktor! Where is Herr Doktor?"
German soldiers: (nodding) "Jah, jah. Herr Doktor."
The pair are led to the doctor's office for treatment.
 
The two are left alone with the doctor. Then Kent knocks the doctor out, and the two are alone. It's time for a costume change...
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: "I have a clipboard and a lab coat. I know how to play this role!"
 
The plan goes well. The generator explodes. Seconds later, the herd of dinosaurs stampedes into camp.
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: (excited) "How many times does a scientist get to cut loose and watch a social experiment unfold."
 
Dr. Glass wades into battle with a group of German soldiers.
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: "Sometimes you need to break a few heads for science."
Kent Woolsley: "I thought that was 'eggs'."
Dr. Samuel Glass: "Well ... they're called eggheads."
 
Dr. Samuel Glass: (grabbing a soldier's rifle and punching the soldier in the face) "This is what I call a 'weapon upgrade'."
 
While Dr. Glass confronts some soldiers, Kent squares off with the Commandant. But the Commandant has a surprise up his sleeve...
 
Commandant: "Americans. I should have known. You won't get away with this." (yells loudly) "Release the Ubersaur!"
A massive Tyrannosaur bursts from the dinosaur barn. It is covered in armor plates. It has an anti-tank gun mounted on its back. Five soldiers man the anti-tank gun, while a sixth guides the Ubersaur.
Kent Woolsley: "Ubersaur? Couldn't you come up with an original name? This could be a movie someday."
 
The Ubersaur's anti-tank gun fires, striking the dinosaur Carolina is riding and killing it instantly. Carolina slides off the dinosaur and shoots the soldier holding its reins. He slumps to the side, causing the Ubersaur to start turning around in circles.
The Silent Spectre: (looking around the camp) "I can't possibly add to this chaos. I'm going to secure our escape route." (she heads toward the submarine)
Carolina Vasquez: (cheerfully) "I can definitely add to this chaos."
As the Ubersaur turns so its back is towards Carolina, she fires a bullet at one of the anti-tank rounds in the ammo hopper, striking it in the primer.
GM: There is a massive explosion. The Ubersaur collapses, torn nearly in two. Pieces of metal rain down all over camp ... And the Germans have discovered a design flaw in their Ubersaur.
 
The Commandant twists his cane ... and pulls out a sword. Kent responds by pulling out his umbrella. They fence....
 
Kent: I stab him in the monocle with my umbrella.

Quotes from Owlcon #4
 
Savage Worlds - Fallout Metroplex
Presidential Detail
 
Normally I tolerate the GM's backstory. Other times I suffer through it. On very rare occasions, I enjoy hearing about it.
 
This is the first time the backstory has been funny enough to share.
 
When the nuclear war began, the Chinese launched three nuclear warheads at the Dallas region:
A 20 megaton nuke at Dallas to destroy the city and its inhabitants.
A neutron bomb at Fort Worth to kill the population and the cattle.
A bunker-buster at the super-conducting super-collider in Waco.
 
That was what they intended to fire. There was a mix-up with the serial numbers on the nuclear warheads, so they ended up launching:
An EMP burst at Dallas, which knocked out the technology, but left the population intact.
A bunker-buster at Fort Worth, which shook up the cows a little bit, but had no other effect.
A neutron bomb at Waco, which killed the population, but left the super-collider intact.
 
The President of the tri-state region is going to visit Dallas tomorrow. The Texas Rangers will be out in force to protect him, and the President has complete confidence in them. But the Texas Rangers have started hearing unsubstantiated rumors that someone is going to assassinate the president ... because that's what you do to presidents in Dallas.
 
The Texas Rangers can't investigate, because an official investigation would lend credibility to the rumors. But they can hire someone unofficial to investigate the rumors ... because unofficial people are just crackpots with weird theories.
 
The cast of characters:
J: the bloodthirsty heavy weapons expert; carries a full-automatic
Jimmy: the overweight, balding techie; relies heavily on "liquid courage"
Hector: the spy; a cross between "the most interesting man in the world" and "the truth is out there"
Rodger: the brawn; believes robots are trying to take over everything
 
Jimmy decides to ingratiate himself with one of the local techies ... by repairing a broken logic board for him.
 
techie: "That's great! I can sell this now! Is there anything I can do to help you?"
Jimmy: "Yes. Actually there is something you can help me with."
techie: (dejected) "Oh."
 
Little Tokyo seems to be the haven for the weirdos in town. It caters to the tech crowd ... but not the big, bulky, beautiful, chrome-and-steel American tech. This is small, sleek, weird, "Japanese" tech. It also has a lunch counter specializing in "foreign" food.
 
Just down the counter, five people crowd around a small "Japanese" tech box. J and Rodger are able to overhear part of their conversation.
 
Little Tokyo Patron #1: "... and next we kill the president ..."
Rodger bursts into action, tackling Little Tokyo Patron #1. J turns on his Pipboy's audio recorder, then pulls his automatic and covers the four friends. As everyone stares at those two, Hector slides over the counter to "get away from the violence". Staying out of sight, he reaches over the counter, slips the box out of Patron #2's hands and replaces it with a menu.
Rodger: (ready to pummel Patron #1) "How are you going to kill the President?"
Little Tokyo Patron #1: "I put the nuclear bomb in the briefcase."
Hector glances at the box and sees a the "Kill the President" computer game. The game is at the point where the nuclear bomb can be put in the briefcase.
Hector: (to himself as he tucks the tech box into his coat) "Well, it sounded like a confession to me."
As J starts shooting Patron #1's four friends, Hector grabs his binto box and strolls out of Little Tokyo.
 
The people in the tech area of Little Tokyo seem completely unconcerned with the violence occurring at the lunch counter. Jimmy is over there, making friends with Kenny, a teenaged techie who is showing him the energy cell charger that he built.
 
Jimmy: "Be careful. That will blow your face off."
Kenny: "I know. That's how I got thrown out of my last apartment."
 
Later, the team takes a walk (through wide open places) in order to talk privately.
 
J: "We did it. We stopped the assassins. We killed four of them."
Rodger: "And the fifth is in jail."
Hector: "Did you find the nuclear bomb?"
J and Rodger: "No."
Hector: "Then we're not done yet. There also may be a second group of assassins."
Rodger: "What makes you think there's a second group?"
Hector: (shows them the tech box) "It looks like those five may have been playing a game."
Rodger: "Are you saying that we killed a bunch of innocent people?"
Hector: "That's certainly possible."
J: "We got a confession. I recorded it."
Hector: "Yes, which is why I'm not worried about it."
Jimmy: (freaking out) "The one in jail, he's going to tell the Rangers that it was just a game."
Hector: "He's going to have a hard time proving it without this box."
 
It appears that The Church of 565 Kilocycles doesn't like the President. Someone in City Hall doesn't like him either.
 
The Church of 565 Kilocycles keep their radios tuned to 565 kHz. Acolytes perpetually meditate while listening for the voice of God through the static.
 
Hector: (to Jimmy) "Could you build a transmitter that broadcasts on 565 kilocycles?"
Jimmy: "Yes. Why?"
Hector: "I want to send them a 'message from God.' Tell them to go out into the wasteland and wait for the sign. That should narrow down the number of people we need to watch tomorrow."
Jimmy: "I'll need to visit the church to figure out how to do it convincingly. Do you want to come with me?"
Hector: "No. I want to snoop around City Hall before it closes."
Jimmy: (looking over at Rodger and J, and cringing slightly) "Um ... ah ... I'll take Rodger with me."
Hector: (completely undisturbed) "Perfect. I'll take J with me."
 
As Jimmy subtly pumps the Priest on how God reveals himself through the static, Rodger begins to have a dawning realization.
 
Rodger: (interrupting) "Wait, are you telling me that God is a robot?"
Priest of 565 kHz: (rolling his eyes to the heavens) "Fine. If that's what it takes to reach you. Yes. Sure. God is a robot."
Rodger is stunned by this revelation. As the Priest and Jimmy continue their conversation, he looks at the bible at the front of the church. On the cover it says, "The New Revised Lolcat Bible." Inside he finds a reference to the robot Roomba.
Rodger: "I knew it! God is a robot."
Thanks to the helpful priest, Jimmy learns enough (maybe) to fabricate a convincing transmission.
Rodger: (to Jimmy, after they leave the church) "If God's a robot, then me and him aren't on the same side."
 
Meanwhile, on the way to City Hall...
 
Hector: (to J) "I need you to wait inside the lobby. While you're standing there, I need you to try to peer in the back and glare, then check your Pipboy, then peer in the back and glare. Keep that up until I send a message to your Pipboy, or until they close City Hall."
J: "Why do you want me to do that?"
Hector: "If there is an assassin in City Hall, they're going to be worried about you. I'm going to slip into the back and see who reacts to their presence."
 
With J aggressively stationed in the lobby, Hector slips into the back and takes a seat at an unoccupied terminal.
 
Hector: (typing in the City Hall chat room) "Isn't the guy in the lobby the one who killed the assassins? What is he doing here?"
 
Following the clues, it appears that the mayor is involved in the assassination plot. It also appears that he's tied in with The Church of 565 Kilocycles. Fortunately, the ruse to get the Church out of town appears to be working. Most pack up and leave Dallas around midnight. The few remaining appear to be having a crisis of faith.
 
Hector: "I think the church members are patsies. I can't be the only person who figured out how easy it would be to manipulate them."
 
But there may be more of the plot to uncover. And how much should the Texas Rangers be told?
 
Hector: "... and we should tell them that The Church of 565 Kilocycles may be involved, but we've tricked most of them into leaving town."
Jimmy: "Do you really want to tell them that? One of the Texas Rangers may be tied in with the assassins."
Hector: "True, but there's not much they can do about that. What are they going to do? Broadcast that the previous voice of God was lying?"
 
There appears to be a sniper's nest in the library. Rodger will hide near the sniper's nest, ready to attack the sniper (or patsy) when he shows up. J will wait in the park across the street to watch for other gunmen.
 
GM: (to J) You can keep a watch for gunmen from there (gives a knowing look at J), because you know what a crazed gunman looks like.
 
There's also a Texas Ranger standing in the park near J.
 
GM: (to J) Do you want to point out the library window to the Ranger? Every bullet going in the window is a good thing.
Rodger: Not for me!

Quotes from Owlcon #3
 
D&D 5th Edition
Blagarm's Basement
 
150 years ago a clan of dwarves sailed to the continent of Avenrock. 120 years ago, one of the dwarves returned, carrying a dagger capable of cutting through anything. 50 years ago, humans established the colony of Rioc Alair on Avenrock. Today, the adventurers have been hired to travel to Avenrock and find out what happened to the lost clan of dwarves.
 
The trail may be a little cold.
 
Cast of characters:
Brelk: dwarven paladin, a noble
Mari: dwarven fighter
Alek: human wizard
Mikara: wood elf ranger, surprisingly crude and uncultured
Gallidan: wood elf monk
Lisara: half elf bard
Alverten: halfling rogue
Hemrick (NPC): dwarven merchant
 
Of course, the adventure starts in a tavern.
 
Lisara: (picking up her lute) "I play better when I'm drunk."
Alek: "You think you play better when you're drunk. There's a difference. It may be subtle. It may be lost on you, but there is a difference."
 
A group of dwarven merchants at the bar is having a loud debate ... which is easily overheard.
 
dwarven merchant: "We need to find someone capable enough or foolhardy enough to undertake this task."
Alek: (a couple minutes later, to Hemrick, the youngest of the dwarven merchants) "What kind of capabilities do you seek?"
Hemrick: "What?"
Alek: "You're looking for someone capable enough or foolhardy enough to undertake a task. Hopefully we fit the former description more than the latter."
Hemrick: "Just a minute." (he walks back over to his companions at the bar) "Some of you need to learn how to lower your voices."
 
As Hemrick is talking, Mikara stretches, clearly displaying her bushy underarms.
 
GM: Hemrick is starting to get a little turned on by that.
Mikara: Not the reaction I was going for.
 
Mari: (to Hemrick) "Why didn't you send anyone to look for them before now?"
Hemrick: "We've been sending parties of adventurers for the last 40 years. We haven't heard back from any of them."
Allverten: "At least your expectations will be at the right level."
 
As the party's ship arrives at Avenrock, the first visible landmark is the 500' tall lighthouse adjacent to Rioc Alair.
 
Gallidan: "I need to see what I can perceive about the lighthouse."
Lisara: "Someone was compensating for something."
 
Brelk was impressed by the honesty of the first gate guard he met.
 
Brelk: "I never thought I'd meet a human who wouldn't take a bribe. I find it rather refreshing."
Alek: "You may not have. Perhaps you met one who wouldn't take a bribe that small."
 
Discussing ale kegs...
 
Allverten: "I'm surprised dwarves would use kegs like that. Wood is rather impermanent."
Brelk: "We use special wood. It's made of stone."
 
Mikara "borrowed" a dinghy from the port, in order to scout the coastline.
 
GM: As you took the dingy, nobody gave you a second look.
Mikara: They don't know it's not mine.
GM: You're an elf. They can guess.
Mikara: (grumpily) I'm being racially profiled.
 
Lisara woke up to discover a thief breaking into her room, so she cast Charm Person on him.
 
Lisara: And this is why I always sleep in the nude.
GM: The spell lasts one hour.
Lisara: That gives me plenty of time to ask all of my questions and leave him tied up.
GM: As soon as you try to tie him up, the spell will end.
Lisara: Not the way I do it.
 
The trail eventually (and unsurprisingly) led to Blagarm's basement, where the climactic battle occurred.
 
Brelk was struck by a couple crossbow bolts.
 
Lisara: "I see you know how to be penetrated."
 
Mikara took aim at the assassin with her longbow, even though Gallidan and Mari were directly on the other side.
 
Alek: "If you shoot from there, you'll be using the dwarf and monk as a backstop."
Brelk: "That's what I'm there for."
Alek: "It's the other dwarf."
Brelk: "I know. I'm volunteering her."
 
 
Needing no additional context:
 
Brelk: "Being noble is the ultimate skill for opening doors. Being a paladin is the ultimate power for establishing credibility."
 
GM: I regularly GM for 11 people aged 9 to 37. This can't possibly get as chaotic.
Lisara: So, what you're telling us is that we're not trying hard enough.

Quotes from Owlcon #2
 
Manapunk
 
Cast of characters (I didn't get most of the PCs' names, so I'm going to use class names instead):
Bard: she can sing loud enough to make your head explode
Shieldbearer: nobody gets past this immovable barrier ... unless they can hurdle a 4' dwarf
Swashbuckler: the standard charming swashbuckler ... dual-wielding spiked clubs
Gunslinger: a subclass of the mage, this sniper does shoot magic bullets ... with all that implies
Cultist: a psychic capable of instantly recruiting his own cult of personality
Inquisitor: you can try to stonewall him, but even stone walls reveal their secrets to him
Cleric: someone has to sacrifice themselves and fall on the cleric
 
GM: (handing out the cultist's character sheet) I know I'm going to regret this.
 
The city of Brigandis lost communication with the village of Winwood three days ago. A team of adventurers is being assembled to investigate.
 
Head of the Adventurer's Guild: "Adventurers have special skills that make them uniquely suited for situations like these."
Inquisitor: "Like expendability."
 
Arriving at the central square in Winwood, the adventurers discover a wedding, except the wedding party, the attendees, and the rest of the occupants of the village have all been petrified.
 
Cultist: "Isn't it bad form to get stoned at a wedding?"
Inquisitor: "Well, the bride was on board, so it's probably okay."
 
The magical signature indicates that a possessor demon is responsible.
 
Cleric: "This type of demon gains power through the bad deals he makes with people."
Cultist: "Kind of like a payday lender."
 
The cleric follows a trace of magical power to the bank, where a group of bone imps ambushes the party.
 
Cultist: (recruiting the bone imps into his insta-cult)
"I believe in you.
You believe in me.
Follow me.
Help me help you believe in you."
 
Cultist (ooc): (to the GM) You knew you were going to regret this when you gave me the character.
 
(Seriously, the character specializes in recruiting cannon-fodder. All the villagers were petrified. The only cannon fodder that was left was the archvillain's. Of course the cultist was going to recruit them.)
 
The Cultist and the possessor demon ended up in a psychic struggle over the bone imps, so it was safest just to
 send them home.
 
Cultist: (to the bone imps)
"Recognize your independence.
You don't need to be pawns.
You don't need to follow the orders of the possessor demon.
Return to your homes instead of following his orders."
 
(Yes, the Cultist's choice of words was intentionally ironic.)
 
Gunslinger: "You know your self-empowerment speeches are going to give the imps the ability to become greater demons."
Cultist: "Only if a greater demon doesn't squish them for impertinence first."
 
The demon's power is tied to his demonic contract. If all of the elements of the contract are fulfilled, there will be nothing we can do to thwart him. But if the contract is broken before the elements were fulfilled ... well ... that would be bad for the demon.
 
Maybe the demon shouldn't have written the contract on a clay tablet.
 
Maybe the demon should have stayed further away from the Gunslinger ... like on another continent.
 
Inquisitor: (using object reading on on a piece of the shattered clay tablet) "The groom's great-grandfather entered the deal with the demon. He received a large chunk of gold. In return, he had to repay the equivalent of 550,000 gold pieces."
Swashbuckler: "Why did the demon go after the great-grandson?"
Inquisitor: "The great-grandfather put in a clause that the contract wouldn't come due for three generations. He's already dead."
Cleric: "What a dick."

Quotes from Owlcon #1
 
Serenity RPG
 
Miranda is going to be recolonized, but first the wreckage of the Alliance and Reaver fleets needs to be removed from the space lanes. Hundreds of independent salvagers have shown up for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to salvage these wrecks. It's the space equivalent of a wild west land grab.
 
What could possibly go wrong?
 
 
Best without explanation:
 
GM: You tend not to find much intelligence in a library.
 
GM: Just so you know, the name of our regular game group is The TPK Roleplayers.
 
Cast of characters:
Oddo: captain
Carina: first mate
Marcelyn: pilot
Raakel: mechanic
Bertram: hacker
Wayfarer: the PCs' ship
 
The Wayfarer arrives at the staging area a day before the "salvage grab" is scheduled to begin.
 
Space station flight control: "Newly arrived vessel, please state your ship's name."
Marcelyn: "Wayfarer."
Space station flight control: "Please verify that your crew has no communicable diseases."
Marcelyn: "Uh ... verified."
Bertram: (muttering) "Not unless you count the computer viruses and worms I intend to distribute to the other crews."
 
Oddo: "Remember loose lips, something, something."
Marcelyn: "What's that about tacos?"
 
In order to make salvage operations fair, all of the independent salvagers will start the same distance from the cloud and cannot head toward the cloud until the designated moment. While waiting, we see one ship in the distance try to sneak in early ... and get promptly blown to bits by a missile from an Alliance cruiser.
 
Bertram: "I guess we're not getting much salvage off that."
Marcelyn: "Somebody on the cruiser didn't get their coffee this morning."
 
The crew locates the Drake, a Seraphim class cruiser, apparently in remarkably good condition and showing no signs of having been turned into a reaver vessel.
 
GM: The air is breathable, but smells of methane.
Bertram: "Don't light 'em up unless you really want to light 'em up."
 
Oddo and Marcelyn board the Drake (through the airlock) and proceed to engineering. Carina and Betram proceed to the Drake's bridge. Marcelyn remains on the bridge of the Wayfarer.
 
And then Marcelyn hears footsteps outside the bridge, in the direction of the airlock.
 
Marcelyn: (over the commlinks) "Did any of you come back to the ship?"
everyone else: "No." "Negative." "Nope." "No."
Marcelyn: "Shiiiiiit."
 
The Drake isn't a reaver vessel. It's a reaver habitat....
 
Bertram: "They're reavers. They're not right in the head."
 
Things look desperate, until Raakel manages to open the Drake's hold ... rapidly depressurising the ship. Of course, since the Wayfarer is connected to the Drake by an airlock (which has been reopened by the reavers), the Wayfarer is also rapidly depressurizing.
 
The boarding party is wearing pressure suits, and all of them are near chairs which they manage to buckle themselves into. Marcelyn on the other hand, has moved away from her pilot's seat ... and she isn't wearing a pressure suit. She barely manages to grab a handhold at the corner leading to the Wayfarer's airlock, but it seems unlikely that she can hold on for long.
 
So Bertram hacks into the Wayfarer's controls and shuts the airlock.
 
Marcelyn: (cursing in Chinese) "Who thought that was a brilliant idea?"
Bertram: (over the comm) "Well, you still have air to cuss, so it seems to have worked out just fine."
 
As the atmosphere blasts out of the Drake's hold...
 
GM: Is anyone doing anything else?
Bertram: (waves goodbye to the reavers)
Oddo: "And that's why I told everyone to stay in their pressure suits."
 
GM: (to Raakel) It's going to be difficult for you to reach the controls to close the hold without getting sucked out yourself.
Bertram: "If you wait until there's no air left in the ship, it becomes much easier."
 
Carina: "Technically the air is being blown out of the ship, not sucked out of the ship."
Bertram: (suggestively) "Suck ... blow ... it's all the same to me."
 
The ship finishes depressurizing...
 
Raakel: "I can repressurize the Drake now."
Bertram: "Feel free to give it five minutes ... just in case any of the reavers managed to strap themselves in."
 
Bertram: (to the GM) Does the pew pew still work?
GM: Yes. Do you know how to use heavy weapons?
Bertram: I'm thinking that a warning shot would be sufficient for most problems.
 
Marcelyn moves over from the Wayfarer's helm to the Drake's helm.
 
Marcelyn: (excitedly, looking at all the Drake's switches, monitors and controls) "This is awesome! I don't know what any of them do!"
 
In addition to its own firepower, the Seraphim carries six one-man fighters.
 
Oddo: "I think we're going to need a bigger crew."
 
For a number of reasons (particularly to conceal the fact that they had acquired an extremely valuable prize) the crew decides to grab a second, far less valuable, piece of salvage.
 
Bertram: "The next ship we grab, let's empty the atmo first."

Food Fight - The classic intro Shadowrun module.

GM: Seattle. 2070. The Night is Cold. The Rain is wet. And you are HUNGRY.
Ryleigh: I'd be surprised if rain wasn't wet.
Dr. Rubicante: Back in my day, the rain was wetter.
Backup GM: In the manasphere it has been documented to rain fish.
GM: It's the Great Equaliser. It'll stop a troll the size of a car just as easily as the smallest dwarf or thinnest elf. It ain't a weapon, spell, or even a dragon. It's Hunger. When it's time to eat, you just gotta get the stuffers in your stomach before you go berserk. What are stuffers? they used to be called Junk Food or Munchies. They're probably about as good for you as nutrisoy and krill-filler, regardless of the ads from the UCAS nutrition council.
Ripper K: I'm hungry. Wanna go get some protein bars?
GM: When the Pangs hit, there's only one place to go (especially when the sun rises in about an hour) to find that kind of chow. It's the place everyone loves to hate: Stuffer Shack.
Ryleigh: Let's raid the shack.
Dr. Rubicante: Back in my day, 'Stuffer Shack' was the title of porn. It was one of those cross-genre horror/smut pieces.
Anders "Hogfather" Lee: Still is Grandad, get with the times
Dr. Rubicante: I got with the times once. It was awful.
Ryleigh: They'd done porn in a Stuffer Shack
Ripper K: *looks smug* I know

Ripper K heads straight to the energy bars - 150% protein with added caffeine and red food food colouring.

Ripper K: Anybody want some Soya-Bulk? It's on special. Hey, banana flavour!

An elf-woman and her kid come in, a car explodes in the car park, the cashier gets knocked out, and four gangers come in and order everybody onto the floor.

Dr. Rubicante: You spilled my soykaf. Prepare to die, obviously.
Anders "Hogfather" Lee: You should all back the f**k off right now, you're not getting between me and my pie!

Ripper K points at the largest of the raiders

Ripper K: Hey! Hey, you! You allergic to nuts?
Ganger: Yes, what's it to you, blubberhead?
Ripper K: Hope you've got your Epipen. *kicks the ganger's nuts into his throat*

The GM (and temp GM while the GM had a guy thrown at his car at Subway) are still learning how to use roll20 for Shadowrun.

Ripper K's player: It's a learning experience for all of us. Especially for the ganger, who has just learned 'Wear a cup'

Another ganger screams, and unloads his shotgun at Ripper.

Ganger 2: What the f**k ARE you?! DIE!
Ripper K: What am I? Pissed off, chummer. Or should that be 'Chum'? *showing all those pointy pointy orca teeth*
Ganger 2: *starts backing off* Holy shit! I signed up to knock over a stuffer shack, not fight monsters! Frag this!
GM: He f**kin' Books it. There's a little something called Professional Rating. It's the WHAT THE F**K EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG RUN AWAAAAY Stat.

We interrogate the remaining gangers. They claim they were paid to intimidate the elf. Blowing up her car was the chosen method.

Anders "Hogfather" Lee: Ngong Kau, idiot. Explosives on this kind of run? More likely to blow your idiot asses up.

Dr. Rubicante sighs softly, producing a scalpel from his medkit.

Dr. Rubicante: Do you know how much a Mortimer of London Berwick Suit costs? Soykaf stains are so hard to get off... I may need to sell some organs to help pay for it. Unless of course... you have some information interesting enough to keep me from cutting off that pretty little tongue?

But they really don't have much more to share. They don't know who or why they were hired. The elf doesn't want to explain either, at least while her kid is within earshot. Ripper volunteers to keep him distracted.

GM: The kid jumps up on you and gives you a hug, going wooow at your big muscles ans the fact that you look like big willy from the movies
Dr. Rubicante: Free Willy 7
Backup GM : big willy, hurr hurr
GM: (The KIDS MOVIE, not the Porno!)
Anders "Hogfather" Lee: Free Willy 11" more like it....
GM: Anyway - who's going with the mom?
Ripper K: LOL. wow, the accidental innuendo is strong today

Anders "Hogfather" Lee: Cute kid. So whats the situation here? You on the run, abusive husband, dealt with a dragon?

Apparently the kid's dad is an exec at one of the AA corps, and she was being paid a small remittance to never bother him again. She has no idea why the money has been replaced with explosives.

Ripper K is giving the kid piggyback rides around the store.

GM: Before you can plow deeper into this dilemma, however, You hear sirens in the distance. Knight Errant patrol this area, and they're on their way. Unless you want to have a nice chat with a nice officer who wants to know your SIN, I suggest you hightail it out of there, chummers.
Anders "Hogfather" Lee: Look, lady, do you and the kids want a lift home or something? I don't know what else we can do, I'll talk to the others...But uh, for obvious reasons we needs to make like a tree and fuck off

Dr. Rubicante OoC: I still don't know how to cast magic. XD Can I have some practice casts? Like, OOC targetting dummies. XD
Anders "Hogfather" Lee: Just use the ganger Ripper stuffed in the fridge.
Dr. Rubicante: Let's take the gangers with us! 8D Make them dump all their equipment in your trunk first. If they really just want to scare the lady, they've done their job and they're gonna get paid- but if they were paid to kill a woman and her child, well, sympathy is a privilege they do not have.
Anders "Hogfather" Lee: Fair enough, besides, they owe you for that free medical treatment
Dr. Rubicante: These medkits don't refill themselves, after all!

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Euphoria (NPC): an A-list simsense star
Robert Carrone (NPC): Euphoria's manager; hired the team to find/retrieve Euphoria
Craft (NPC): an insane magick user; Euphoria's captor
simsense: a virtual reality entertainment where the viewer experiences the sensations the actor/actress experiences
 
Euphoria, part 5 - Buggered
This was the same module previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Robert Carrone demanded an update on the team's search for, so a summary was provided (carefully edited to sound believable):
Euphoria was abducted by a man named Craft.
Craft was Vincent Burroughs' business partner, and the source of Amber Gel.
Craft was an awakened magick user, but followed a tradition that the team had never encountered before.
Craft could summon spirits of a type the team had never encountered before.
Craft had killed Vincent Burroughs, using a summoned spirit to do the deed.
Euphoria was probably being held at Craft's production facility; the team had the address.
The facility was guarded by spirits and paranormal awakened creatures; the type, numbers and capabilities were unknown.
Craft was insane and obsessed with Euphoria.
 
Surprisingly, Robert Carrone was satisfied with the report. Even more surprising, he considered that the team had fulfilled the agreement to "locate Euphoria". Best of all, he was prepared to offer an even larger sum of money to break into the facility and retrieve her.
 
MegaMedia also loaned the team mil-spec heavy weapons and armor for the mission.
 
Byte Force: "I guess they expect us to charge in there, guns-blazing."
Dent: "They don't know us very well."
Audacity Jane: "I'm glad it's available. I want heavy firepower in reserve when, not 'if', we lose the element of surprise."
Eye Spy: "This really has you worried. Don't you think you can drop the guards before they spot you?"
Audacity Jane: "They're a bunch of ants. Ants. Hive mind. I'm expecting to lose surprise when I drop them."
Happy Jack: "Check all the loaner gear for booby-traps. Shaped charges inside the armor, tasers in the electronics ... I don't want to be surprised when MegaMedia tries to kill us."
Dent: "When?"
Happy Jack: "Ellery arranged the meeting between Carrone and me, as they demanded, then they killed him anyway. I'm expecting them to do the same to us, regardless of whether we succeed or fail."
 
Thanks to Craft's spirits, sneaking in was more complicated than usual.
 
Audacity Jane: "I don't like spirits as guards. It's hard to sneak past a guard that you can't even see."
Dent: "We can summon city spirits to conceal you while you sneak in. If you are spotted, they can also defend you."
Audacity Jane: "If we're spotted, have them attack the bug spirits instead."
No-Step: "You don't want them protecting you?"
Audacity Jane: "I would rather have them drawing attention away from me."
Dent: "We can also send in swarms of Watcher spirits."
No-Step: "No. Watchers aren't very bright. They can only follow extremely simple instructions."
Dent: "Simple instructions like, 'On my command, go into that building and kill bug spirits.'"
No-Step stared at Dent.
Dent (ooc): I program computers for a living. I'm accustomed to giving simple instructions to really stupid machines.
No-Step: "Our spirits are going to be outnumbered. They won't last long."
Dent: "They can kill all they want. We'll summon more."
 
What does a decker do when there's no network?
 
Byte Force: "Craft has no computer network in his lair. There's not much for me to do."
Happy Jack: "We need you to keep an eye on MegaMedia. They're going to betray us."
Byte Force: "You want to know when the inevitable betrayal happens."
Happy Jack: "I want you to make sure it fails. No pressure."
 
The infiltration worked better than expected. The city spirits prevented the bug spirits from detecting Audacity Jane and Happy Jack.
 
Audacity Jane: (peering through her spy scope into the next room) "I think we found our target. There's dozens of pods in here. Euphoria's probably in the big one in the corner, but there's no way to be sure."
Happy Jack: "Let me guess ... lots of bugs?"
Audacity Jane: "Lots ... but I see one thing that's not connected to the bugs' hive mind."
Happy Jack: "What's that?"
Audacity Jane pulled out her silenced narcojet pistol, eased the door open a couple inches, and fired several darts in rapid succession.
Audacity Jane: "Craft."
 
With Craft down, the spirits and drones were able create a diversion ... by launching a full frontal assault. Down in the basement Audacity Jane's targeted bursts dropped the possessed/mutated ant-human hybrids one after another. Happy Jack's insecticide-coated naginata carved through hybrids and materialized ant-spirits with equal ease.
 
Which meant it was time for the other shoe to drop....
 
Byte Force: "A full company of Knight Errant troopers just rolled up. They're supposed to go in and complete the mission if we fail."
Eye Spy: "What will they do if we succeed?"
Byte Force: "I am desperately trying to find the answer to that question."
 
A couple minutes later, Byte Force had his answer....
 
Byte Force: "The good news is, killing us is not part of their primary or secondary mission parameters." (pause) "The bad news is, their contract contains an optional clause to kill us if Robert Carrone requests it."
Eye Spy: "He's going to exercise the option."
Byte Force: "That's the really bad news. That option costs MegaMedia less than paying us."
 
It was time to call the Knight Errant captain on a private line and make a deal.
 
Happy Jack: (cutting in on the captain's private line) "Good evening, Captain. I would like to offer you some assistance with your contract with MegaMedia."
Knight Errant captain: "Who are you, and how did you get on this line?"
Happy Jack: "I'm part of the team that's rescuing Euphoria."
Knight Errant captain: "I'll pretend I know what you're talking about. What do you want? And why would I need your help?"
Happy Jack: "At this point you can fulfill all of your mission parameters and get paid with absolutely no effort and no casualties. All you have to do is convince Robert Carrone to pay us and let us leave unharmed."
Knight Errant captain: "And if he isn't easily convinced?"
Happy Jack: "You have lost strategic and tactical surprise. We haven't. I'm sure you can guess what kind of unpleasant surprises we have put in place just in case we're betrayed."
Knight Errant captain: "Like what?"
Happy Jack: "You seem unclear on the concept of a 'surprise'. Surprises are the things you don't get told about."
Knight Errant captain: "..."
Happy Jack: "So ... would you prefer to work with us and collect an easy paycheck, or work against us and lose most of your profit?"
 
And then it was time for final details. While the team generally preferred non-lethal solutions, for some opponents they made exceptions....
 
Happy Jack: (looking at the darts sticking out of Craft's chest) "Three narcojet rounds. That's a lethal dose, right?"
Audacity Jane: "I certainly intended it to be."
Happy Jack: "We should probably check to be sure he's dead."
Audacity Jane reached down, slashed Craft's throat nearly to the spine, then looked at the result clinically.
Audacity Jane: "I'm not seeing any arterial spray."
Happy Jack: "Me either. Definitely dead."

Reminds me of a DnD session back when 3e first came out.
 
I was playing a half-orc barbarian and we got attacked in the middle of the night. My barbarian had spent some of his loot drinking and whoring with two half-elves and a human lady of the night (I was in highschool) and failed my Listen check to wake up.
 
Our Elven Sorcerer had just hit 6th level and got Lightning Bolt. He was just getting ready for bed and rolled a Nat20 on his Listen check. His door was at the end of the hall and he opened it up and saw a half-dozen men in full-plate armor wearing the colors of the baron we'd just pissed off. He then proceeded to use his surprise round and ambush the attackers with a Lightning Bolt. Then initiative happened and and he rolled another Nat20 on that.
 
So he Bolted them again.
 
That woke my Barbarian up.
 
Me: "I toss the girls off of me and rip the door off of its hinges. "What in Gruumsh's missing testicle is going on out here!?" Brandishing my greataxe and making an intimidation check.
 
DM: "They are all dead."
 
Me: I glare at the elf. "Next time use the Silent Spell feat!"
 
Of course, that started a 40-minute argument on Meta-magic feats. Nevermind that I was making a joke.

The shadowrunners were an ork/troll group. Against stereotype, they specialized in stealth, subtlety, bluff, illusion, deception and misdirection.
 
Dent: ork, rat shaman
No-Step: ork, snake shaman, healer
Byte Force: ork, decker, chemist
Eye Spy: ork, rigger, drones, paramedic
Audacity Jane: ork, combat, stealth, security systems
Happy Jack: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Euphoria (NPC): an A-list simsense star
Robert Carrone (NPC): Euphoria's manager
simsense: a virtual reality entertainment where the viewer experiences the sensations the actor/actress experiences
 
Euphoria, part 4 - The disappearing-reappearing-disappearing simsense star
This was the same module previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Robert Carrone, Euphoria's manager, needed the team's help finding Euphoria ... who had been abducted from her apartment again. This time far more violently than the team's abduction.
 
A search of the apartment turned up some clues. Euphoria's security guards had been killed by something that ripped, clawed and tore them apart. The attackers had gained access to the penthouse either by air or by scaling the exterior of the building. The paydirt was a partial simsense recording of the attack.
 
Most of the attackers couldn't be clearly seen. They were definitely not humans/metahumans of any sort, however. The two abductors who could be clearly seen were two smelly and unkempt humans. The talkative one said he'd been sent by Burroughs.
 
Two days earlier, Robert Carrone of MegaMedia had a falling out with Vincent Burroughs of Strice Foods. Coincidence?
 
Watcher spirits were unable to find Euphoria. Dent's ritual magick didn't work either (which strongly suggested she was already dead). Therefore, Burroughs was the most promising lead.
 
Audacity Jane: "I can grab Burroughs while he's heading home from work."
Happy Jack: "I don't want to wait that long. I'll disguise myself as that troll detective we met before. I'm going to take Burroughs into custody as an accomplice to a multiple homicide."
Audacity Jane: "You won't be able to maintain that ruse for long."
Happy Jack: "I just need to make it last until we're out of the building."
 
Happy Jack (disguised as a Lone Star detective), No-Step and Audacity Jane (disguised as uniformed Lone Star officers ... it makes sense; automatic good cop/bad cop) went to see Vincent Burroughs.
 
Secretary: "As much as we'd like to assist Lone Star, I'm afraid Mr. Burroughs is too busy to see you today. Perhaps you would like to call back later and make an appointment?"
Audacity Jane: "Perhaps you would like to buzz us into his office before I arrest you for obstructing a homicide investigation?"
The three gained entered into Burroughs' office, interrupting Mr. Burroughs.
Happy Jack: "Watch this simsense clip. It's a few seconds long. Afterwards, you're going to answer my questions about it."
Vincent Burroughs watched the clip -- Euphoria's abductor monologuing ... and implicating Burroughs as his boss.
Vincent Burroughs: (pale, shaken and blustering) "I'm not answering any questions. I want my lawyer."
Happy Jack: "Your lawyer can meet us at the precinct."
A man-sized ant suddenly materialized and attacked Burroughs. The three team members destroyed it, but not before it killed Burroughs.
No-Step: "That was some kind of spirit ... somewhat similar to an elemental or nature spirit."
Audacity Jane: "You've never mentioned bug spirits before."
No-Step: "Until ... oh ... 20 seconds ago I didn't know they existed."
 
The shell-shocked secretary became much more helpful. The man on the simsense was named Craft. He was Burroughs' partner. He manufactured the Amber Gel. She had the address of the production facility ... and the address listed for Craft's pay to be sent to.
 
Happy Jack: (to the security guards who just arrived) "The crime scene investigators are on their way. Keep this door closed and everybody out until they arrive. If anyone enters that room, I am going to charge everyone involved with tampering with evidence."
Security Guard: "But ... isn't it their job" (gesturing at the uniformed No-Step and Audacity Jane) "to secure the crime scene?"
Happy Jack: (yelling at the security guard) "DO I LOOK LIKE A 'BY THE BOOK' KIND OF DETECTIVE TO YOU?"
 
Craft's home address was a magic shop. The front door was guarded by Craft's human accomplice who we had previously seen in the simsense recording.
 
No-Step: "He's not human. Well ... he is, but there's a man-sized ant spirit superimposed over him in the astral."
Dent: "Yeah." (pause) "Maybe he's possessed by the ant spirit."
Happy Jack: "So what happens if you send a couple city spirits to kill the bug and leave the person alive?"
Dent: (snickering) "He'll be dispossessed."
Eye Spy: "Will he be back to normal?"
No-Step: "Um ... we'll tell you in a couple minutes."
 
If spirits could squish, then the ant spirit would have been thoroughly squashed. The person appeared catatonic though.
 
Dent: (doing a Mind Probe) "The lights are on, but noooobody's home."
No-Step: "That makes two of you."
Eye Spy: "Maybe he started out brain-dead."
No-Step: "Dent certainly did."
 
The possessee may have started out human, but he was not entirely human any longer. He had compound eyes, and patches of his skin had turned into chitin.
 
Dent: "So the possession turns them into those paracritters that you were talking about."
No-Step: "That's like a combination of The Pod People and The Fly."
Eye Spy: "I just want everybody to know that I am officially creeped out now."
 
The magic shop looked like it hadn't been open for a while. The living quarters downstairs, however....
 
Byte Force: "This is even worse than the rathole apartment we were supposed to hold Euphoria in. What is that smell?"
Audacity Jane: "Dried blood. Lots of it."
Happy Jack: "I like how you know that without even having to pause and think about it."
 
The dried blood was in the bedroom. Hundreds of posters and pictures of Euphoria covered the walls. Many had spatters of dried blood on them. Most of the dried blood was on the bed and the floor.
 
Dent: "So she's already dead?"
Audacity Jane: "This blood isn't hers. It's dry. If she'd lost all this blood, a lot of it would still be wet." (pause) "I think this blood belongs to more than one victim. That kind of mattress can soak up a lot of blood."
Byte Force: "And how do you know that?"
Audacity Jane: "Professional necessity. It's a dead giveaway when the dead guy's blood start's leaking into the apartment below."
 
Craft's closet also held replicas of every costume Euphoria had ever worn in her simsense roles. There was also a rack of women's wigs. Many of the outfits and wigs had blood stains on them.
 
No-Step: "Craft must be a serial killer. I suspect he brings women here, probably prostitutes, dresses them up like Euphoria, then kills them on the bed."
Eye Spy: "Okay, that's even creepier than getting possessed by bug spirits and turning into a bug-creature."
Happy Jack: "I noticed something that's going to creep you out even more."
Eye Spy: "Please don't tell me."
Dent: "What's even creepier than that?"
Happy Jack: "There's only one bed in here. There's no sofa, no futon, no easy-chair, no mat on the floor. Just the bloodstained bed." (long pause) "Guess where Craft sleeps."
Eye Spy: (plugging her ears) "Lalalalalalala."

On the difference between our runs and the rumours we've heard about a certain other team - ( Houston GM's - )
 
Felix: Our team gets by on Inkubus' libido and boats, their team gets by on subtlety and professionalism.
Inkubus: F**k you! Besides, my libido and boats has worked so far.

Felix: Why is there a hose attachment on the table?
Inkubus: Because there's a hose attachment on the table. Do you have a problem with this?
Warhammer: Do you want it somewhere else?
Greenlight: Does it offend you?
Inkubus: Are you hosist?

Back to Scotland, where we need to use that Astral Gate near Loch Ness. Just as well part of our deal with Celadyr retroactively fixed any visa problems with us mysteriously leaving Scotland and coming home via Germany. Dragons generally don't have transponders. But there's never any guarantee where an Astral Gate will take you.

Titus: The Place of Endless Groin-punches
Inkubus: The Elemental Plane of BEEEES

But who will look after our bodies while we're in the Astral Planes? We decide that that Scottish professor owes us a favour. And her students can watch over us and hopefully learn something.

Warhammer: How about your uncle Maximillian, Bubbles?
Inkubus: You need to have your brain examined. You literally just proposed leaving our unconscious bodies in the care of somebody that has climbed to high position in AZTECHNOLOGY. And corporate high position is bad enough, but Aztech?!

Felix: All part of the alien's masterplan
Inkubus: I for one welcome our new alien overlords! Because they've chosen me to be AWESOME.

Greenlight: Titus, what does your warhammer look like?
Felix: Short and Beardy.

Greenlight gets a bit unhappy when we prep our weapons for Astral use - Titus' Pimp Cane, for example.

Greenlight: It's just so boring - there's no legend to the weapons anymore. We just go out and buy a Sword +2. It's sad, really.
Titus: It's an age on consumerism. Get used to it.

Inkubus: I never want to see Weapon Focus : Caber
GM: 'Where are the Shadowrunners'
Inkubus: Ask the guy carrying the tree.

Titus: I know what to get you for Christmas now - a spellcasting focus Scrubbing Brush.
Inkubus: This is an aspect of the Way of Metal you don't see often - the clean-up afterwards. Actually, it is an aspect! The Roadie.

At least being out of town will give the renovators time to do up Inkubus and Felix' loft apartment, now luxury standard - and above luxury food.

Felix: Movie Nights are going to be AWESOME. Take-away from the best restaurants in Seattle

And of course, there's the interrogation of Doctor What. Inkubus hits him with an Orgasm, and sustains it. And sustains it.

Inkubus: Tell us why the book we stole is so important, if you ever want to enjoy the touch of a woman again. Or a man.
Felix: Or Sheep.

Apparently What was hired by Ehran the Scribe, who is pissed off that we've inconvenienced him repeatedly. We point out we have no idea who hired us to do those jobs.

Greenlight: Although if Mr Ehran wants us to run a counter-run, we are available for a reasonable fee.
Titus: We are professionals after all.
Greenlight: Now there's a change of clothes in the next room, and you can clean up.
Felix: I buy Wetwipes in Economy boxes.

This is going to be dangerous, but we can be careful.

Titus: We don't want to become cautionary tales.
Inkubus: *looks confused* Become?

On the Astral Threshold, Greenlight is greeted with an astral image of his little brother.

Lil' Bro: Thank you for rescuing me.
Lil' Clone: But why didn't you rescue me?
Lil' Clone 2: Or me?
Lil' Clone 3, 4, 5, 6 etc: Or Me?
Inkubus: 'Are you my Mummy?'

Inkubus gets ravished a metal dragon, but protests he's straight.

GM: Tough. That or challenge it to a rock battle.
Greenlight : 'Play the best song in the world, or I'll eat your soul!'
Warhammer: Summon Ozzy Osbourne!
Titus: To bite its head off!
Ozzy: Sharron, what the fuck am I doing here again?
Sharon: you're judging a rock contest Ozzy!
Ozzy: I what?
Sharon: A rock concert! You're judging it between two rock icons!
Ozzy: Oh right. Well, going by tradition, I'll have to bite one of your heads off.
Inkubus and the dragon:*wince and clutch their junk*
Ozzy: Only your top 'eads you twats!

Felix meets his grandfather, at an Aztech corporate function atop the Great Pyramid in Tenochtitlan. A function that's becoming increasingly ... traditional.

Max Bethke: I do this for you, Grandson.

And then the Aztec priest next to him guts him like a fish and cuts out his heart.

Felix: F**k!!!!

Actually, this is probably the first hint Felix has had as to just what his grandfather had to do to stop Felix being killed after whatever mysterious incident got Felix put on 'permanent administrative leave'.

Inkubus: The next time I need to summon a fire spirit, I can always summon Indestructible (from every Disturbed album cover)
Titus: I'm sure he's friendly. Look, he's smiling!

The metaplane on the other side is swarming with fairies.

Inkubus: This is not metal.

We also have a fairy guide - Felix's bound air spirit.

Greenlight: F**k off, Navi.

There's also a town, at the base of a World Tree.

Inkubus: Bet you we have to climb that.

Warhammer: Tavern!
Greenlight: Tavern!
Felix: Inkubus is the one that's supposed to be tempted by this sort of thing!
Greenlight: We're in a medieval town.
Inkubus: Tavern! But I don't carouse.

Inkubus: Did Neil the Ork Barbarian just walk past us?
Greenlight: What? Where? *runs off after him for autograph*
Inkubus: You are such a fangirl.
Greenlight: Stop raining on my parade. Do I pooh-pooh you when you seduce women?
Inkubus: Yes.
Greenlight: True, fair enough.

Warhammer's totally lack of etiquette is likely to cause us problems.

Inkubus: Maybe that's how you left the military - you kept mouthing off to officers.
Greenlight: He's really good at shooting off his gun. And his mouth

The Queen of the fairies has been kidnapped!

Greenlight: Is the Queen of Fairies actually female?
GM: Yes. In this instance.

Inkubus: We need to buy some chains and manacles. For me. I get the strange impression that banging the Queen of the Fairies is not going to end well for us.

And, as Inkubus predicted, we have to climb the tree, facing hundreds of armoured insect-soldiers-fairies.

Inkubus: I'm about to make it rain. You'll probably want to shower afterwards.
Titus: Don't worry, our bodies aren't here - it'll only get on our souls.

Put it like that, Inkubus decides NOT to cast Mass Orgasm. Felix' bound spirit changes into a army, but the battle remains fraught.

Titus: The entirety of Bavaria has a grudge against you.
Inkubus: I only set a SMALL section of the Black Forest on fire.

And Felix then comes very close to killing himself with a miscast - back in reality he's bleeding from every orifice. Titus grabs the bleeding mage as he falls, fling back up again. Meanwhile, Greenlight blows into the main group. On her turn, she hits them for massive damage. On their turn, they attack her... and get hit for massive damage.

Greenlight: Disarm by way of breaking your opponent's wrist, it's a hell of a trick.
Titus: Parry, thrust, punch, counterpunch, DICK PUNCH

Likewise, Warhammer wildly fires grenades into the main group of insect-fairy-soldiers. Once ever other turn the dice betray him.

Warhammer: Wait... everything is fantasy here isn't it? I can't have grenades.
Titus: Sure you can, they're just jars carrying the spirits of bees from the elemental plane of fire. PHOSPHORUS BEEEEES!

The battle is not going well and we're already down a Mage. After telling off the semi-conscious Bubbles, Inkubus opts to summon up a massive earth spirit (force 12). He succeeds.

Inkbus: Oh crap... I just summoned the Yggdrasil squirrel.
GM: A troll-sized squirrel crawls to you, watching the battle commence. It sneers in bloodlust... AND DRAWS A ZWEIHANDER!
Titus: He doesn't like crabs either.

Greenlight: (after a particularly bad roll) I'm running out of Edge here!
GM: (Agast) You're running out of bad guys, too!

Titus: I fly up, rising like a Valkyrie
Greenlight: Carrying a rainbow Aztec

Squirrel: If you guys don't clear out, I'll do what we squirrels do best and COLLECT YOUR NUTS
Crab: (GM rolls, rolls a 1) Hah! We don't have any nuts.
Other crab: (Turns out the 1 was for the Crab's willcheck) Actually fred, we have twelve.
GM: They friggin' scatter.
Greenlight: Ratatosk uses Intimidate! It's super effective!

Finally, the party gets through to the top of the tree. There is a massive door.

Greenlight: Titus?
Titus: (hefts hammer)
Inkbus: (knocks on the door)
GM: The door opens
Inkbus: (turns to greenlight) You taught me that.
GM: And guess who the queen is.

The queen is the same air spirit who's True Name we were here to steal. Greenlight finds the situation to be particularly amusing, and therefore acts as Inkubus' wingman - as he attempting to seduce the air spirit that was out to kill us.

(Long story short, Inkubus adds his dice together. It's going rather well... then he adds his street cred.)

Inkubus: 26 dice.
GM: Holy shit.
Whole party: Holy shit.
Inkubus: (nodding) Will of the D.

Needless to say, the queen of the fairies decides to accompany him, and later, agrees to the mutually satisfying binding ritual.

Inkubus: Well, uh, be busy.
Greenlight: Sure, and the squirrel will be watching the nuts
Inkubus: 5 hits on Erotic Arts.
GM: And they say that Yggdrasil grew three sizes that day

Inkubus: And they thank Rattatosco
Greenlight: He's in the top percentile of Rattata. He knows sword dance.

And thus, the partying commenced. After half a day, we reawaken in the real world.

Greenlight: Bwah! Giant squirrel!
Inkubus: (looks down at Bubbles) Urgh, can someone please clean up Bubbles
Greenlight: (looks at Inkubus' pants) And yourself.

This will no doubt add to our public notice - as would the way Inkubus body started enthusiastically humping thin air - but the students watching over us will hopefully only refer to us as Subjects 1, 2, etc, in their research papers.

Felix: But the dragons will take one look...
Inkubus: ... see a Metal Mage in the company of a Hermetic and a bunch of Adepts...
Felix: ...and go 'Ah, it's them'
Inkubus: 'Those arseholes'.

Greenlight: How to ID German infiltrators. Get them to sing the national anthem.
Inkubus: If they get it right, shoot them. No-one knows all the words of their own anthem.

Our new Starfort, now somewhat carnivorous, has come to rest on the outskirts of the Screaming Vortex muttering and eating anybody who wanders alone through the corridors. And there's the surviving Severian and Imperial troops to be hunted down and sold into into slavery. But at the moment there's also the Thirteenth Station, and the blockade fleet that preys on anybody trying to enter or leave the Vortex. A meeting in the Starfort's command center, which is now disturbingly biological.

Jrska: And that servitor is playing Gallaga.
Cog: Yes, there's always one. We've never been able to to stop it.

Blockade Negotiator: You speak of Crusade. And where do you intend to take the Word of the Gods?
Cassius: To a world that has no use for them, for it is infested by the Necrontyr. *stepping out of the shadows and causing the negotiators to collectively shit their pants*

We come to an agreement - they will blockade the Thirteenth Station in Cassius' name, preventing any ships from leaving the Vortex without his warrant, and inform us of any ships that try to enter, and contribute their ships to Cassius' Crusade when it's time to attack. In return, they want the Imperial trade world of Sinophia. This is fine with us. Aladar writes up the contract.

GM: Bear in mind that while Aladar WAS a Rogue Trader -
Cassius: - He wasn't a very good one.
GM: You found him planetbound, minus a ship.

Cassius: One of the most powerful unifying forces in the galaxy is mutual enlightened self-interest.
Jrska: And Mutually Assured Destruction.
Cog: Same thing.

The mercenary Gray's Grand Cruiser 'Unfettered Judgement' warps into the area.

Jrska: All batteries stand down - Gray is an ally.
Cassius: Jrska - Gray is better described as 'someone we have had dealings with'
Jrska: I know, my lord. But if Gray thinks our batteries are actually in working order...
Cassius: Good point. Carry on.

The 'Unfettered Judgement' is a truly fearsome ancient vessel, and fully equipped the pound the crap out of practically anything and then invade whatever survives.

Jrska: We need a new ship, don't we my lord?
Cassius: ....
Aladar: How long would it take you to seduce the ship out from under him?

Cassius is looking forward to the meeting - he recalls clearly our original agreement with Gray - Bring the Starfort to the Vortex. There wasn't anything about handing it over when we got there.

Gray: And where is your master Cassius?
Cassius: Oh, I'm around *steps out the shadows*
Gray's ceremonial guard: *shit themselves, but maintain position*
Cassius: Well done.

Gray: You will require a flagship, a place of command - and this paltry frigate, while fast and well-designed, is not sufficient.
Jrska: It no longer suits the magnificence of my lord Cassius.
Cassius: It is a good ship for reconnaissance - but your point is well made

Rumours have already circulated in the Vortex that Warmaster Abbadon, heir to Horus, is pleased with Cassius's activities.

Cassius: Abbadon approves.
Cog: 'Go forth, my homey'

Gray: It has been many, many years since any individual has tried to unify the Screaming Vortex.
Jrska: Such is the nature of chaos. But as you say - to unify the mortal forces of the Vortex towards one common goal - to destroy the Soulless and strike a blow against the hated Imperium of the Corpse-Emperor... THAT will take a great individual indeed.
Gray: Or group of individuals.

Gray certainly seems eager to ally with us - even as a lieutenant in the Crusade, he'll have many opportunities for advancement in the eyes of the Ruinous Powers.

Cassius: I am in need of capable lieutenants.
Jrska: And intelligent ones, as you have remarked on a number of occasions.
Cassius: Indeed.
Jrska: And did we all glance towards Aladar?
Cassius: He was in that general direction.

But what to do with the station? Perhaps dedicate it to the four Ruinous Powers, with each arm dedicated to the various gods?

Cassius: I don't like the idea of two docking arms dedicated to Slaneesh. I can HEAR the radio chatter during docking procedures already.

He's also reluctant to dedicate any part of the ship to Nurgle - not only because of his Tzeentch alignment, but most because rampant rust, ruin, and decay is not very conducive to space operations. Instead, Cassius decides to divide the station into five sections - one to each of the Four Chaos Gods - and one to the Fifth. The destroyed docking arm will be dedicated to Malal - the Chaos God dedicated to the destruction of the other gods, and symbol of the tendency of Chaos to turn against itself - and the station will make ongoing efforts to KEEP that arm destroyed. Symbolically unifying the disparate followers of the four powers, hopefully for the duration of the Crusade. The station does start to grow appropriate attachments in response to the rituals of dedication - Aethyr Harpoons to drag enemy ships closer, out-of-control vegetative growths that expand to repair damage to the hull, and whispers promising pleasure and corruption to any enemies that DO get too close. The command structure, dedicated to Tzeentch, grows crystal towers to assist with astropathic communication, or blink the entire station out of existence if something truly dangerous faces us.

Jrska suggests a name for the Starfort too - 'The Promise of War' And that all sorted, the first planet we'll have to pass is Hindrance, a nasty little dessicated shithole mostly inhabited by Nurglites. But it does have hereteks - admittedly Nurglite hereteks.

Cog: We need holy ammunition.
Cassius: Get them away from me.
Cog: Hmm?
Cassius: I don't react well to unexpected holy munitions. Things get broken.
Aladar: Starting with Cog.

The hereteks on one of Hindrance's moons are famous for being good repairmen and scrapcode writers. As dangerous as it is to go anywhere near the Hindrance moon that apparently has the mass of a neutron star, is IS a good idea to impress the local yokels by parking the 'Promise of War' in orbit around the other heretek-infested moon, Alactia.

Local Yokels: Ooooh. I Want.

We do have to find some gift to impress the local cult leaders.

Jrska: The WHO Handbook of Infectious Diseases. 'Jane's Book of Plagues'

Alactia is so encrusted with wreckage and scrap that most of the local topography is built from piles of rust. This sort of environment is probably not conducive to the proper operation of our devices and bionics. Especially not with all those computer-virus writers and wild scrap-code infesting the local WiFi. The local Magos is suspicious, given the obvious allegiance of Cassius to the rival power Tzeentch, but he does give us permission to attempt recruitment. But the opportunity to study and dissect Necrontyr technology - and loot an Imperial Forgeworld en route - is tempting.

Cassius: This grows tiresome. Everywhere I go people ask 'what's in it for me?' when the benefit is right there in front of them. Assist, or do not - the choice is yours. *glares at Magos*
Jrska: Shall I be good cop then?
Cassius: If you can do it without laughing.

The next planet along will be Xurunt.

Jrska: Xurunt? Ugh. It's all 'RRR, look how big tough and fur covered me am. Me am cut your head off'. *raspberries*

On the other hand, there's a legend that if any warrior can hold the Throne of Baphtar for a year will earn the loyalty of entire Xur armies. That Baphtar is an aspect of Khorne and Cassius is Tzeenchian AND a psyker is likely to rouse considerable ire - from the Xur AND Khorne.

Jrska: The legend speaks of one who can take the throne, my lord. That doesn't mean you can tear it out of the ground and walk off with it.

Cog: Now we know why nobody has held the throne for a year.
Jrska: Haemorrhoids! It's a cold planet after all.